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Clarissa smiled at them, then patted Fiona’s shoulder. “We’ll have to get together again sometime.”
“Do you go to Portland High also?”
Clarissa glanced at Tobias as if she expected him to tell her what to say. He studied her but didn’t utter a word.
“I homeschool,” Clarissa said, turning to face Fiona. “Maybe next year I’ll join you at Portland High.”
“I’ll be at college with my brother in Texas.” Fiona finally said what she’d wanted to for the last three months, but no time had seemed appropriate.
“We’ll have to talk about this later,” Great Aunt Regina countered, her voice stern.
Instantly, Fiona went on her guard. Did her great aunt not want her to leave Oregon? It certainly sounded like it to her. But she knew her parents had left them enough money to put both her brother and her through college. Why couldn’t Fiona choose the one she wanted to go to?
Fiona tried to keep her cool and said to Clarissa, “You must be a junior in high school then.”
“No.” Clarissa smiled. “It’s the homeschool curriculum I use. I’m seventeen like you and a senior.”
No one got something like that mixed up. Either she was a graduating senior, or she wasn’t. Though for an instant, Fiona had hoped she’d met another girl who could be her friend. It seemed anyone who was associated with her great aunt was downright odd.
Clarissa crossed the floor and kissed Great Aunt Regina’s cheek. “See you later, Ms. Peckinpah.”
“Yes, dear. See you both soon.”
“Night, Great Aunt Regina,” Fiona said. “Tobias, Clarissa.” No way would she call Tobias her uncle when he wasn’t, and while they were still here, she had every intention of slipping away to the privacy of her bedroom.
“Call me, Regina, dear,” her great aunt said, her voice low and hard. “I’ve told you repeatedly it makes me sound old when you call me your great aunt.” She smiled, but her eyes remained cold.
“Right, Regina.” Ugh, it sounded so disrespectful, and downright weird. Fiona’s mother had taught her better.
When Fiona reached her room, she swore she heard whispers from the living room. Was Tobias telling her great aunt she better put a tighter leash on Fiona? For whatever reason, that’s the way she felt about him. Where Clarissa seemed cheerful and sweet, he was dark and ominous. How could Clarissa like such a person?
It took all kinds, Fiona guessed.
She walked into her dull black and white bedroom and decided she had a new mission. If she had to live here for several more months, she wanted everything in blue like the vivid azure waters of the Caribbean. It was her room for the school year after all, wasn’t it? Surely, her great aunt wouldn’t object if she spent some of her parents' money to make the room more her own.
The front door slammed shut, and Fiona plunked herself down on the queen-sized bed. She shoved off her shoes, but the sound of something brushing against her window caught her ear. She’d heard it last night also and vowed to see if shrubs rested next to it, while the breeze stirred the branches and scraped across the pane. Of course, she only remembered to check when it was as dark as the deepest part of the Marianna Trench out there.
When it was light out this morning, she’d forgotten to check it out.
She pushed her shoes back on and walked out of her room. All the candles had been extinguished. The scent of vanilla and incense still wafted in the air, and the whole house was cloaked in darkness. Her great aunt’s bedroom door was now closed, which meant she had retired to bed.
Fiona was relieved she didn’t have to speak to Regina further tonight as she was always grilling Fiona about her grades, her friends, her life in general, and it was too late in the evening to put up with that nonsense.
She opened the patio door to the backyard and walked outside. Except for one security light in the corner of the wooded acreage and a ghostly white half-moon clinging to the black satin night, everything was immersed in darkness or shadows.
The breeze stirred the trees, inspiring them to sway in an unchoreographed dance, but she swore something crunched on the leaves clustered at their base. Yet, she couldn’t see anything that might have made the sound.
An owl hooted behind her, and she whipped around, seeing no sign of the feathered fowl, but she now faced the house and her bedroom. The only thing that moved beneath her windowpane were wisps of grass that reached only a couple of inches high and caressed the red bricks near the base of the house. No shrubs sat beneath her windowsill, and the branches of a small tree perched at the corner of the house didn’t reach that far.
Gooseflesh erupted down her arms, and she automatically rubbed them. What was the sound she’d heard last night, scraping softly against the glass?
“Fiona,” she heard whispered on the breeze that sent a chill straight into the marrow of her bones.
“Fiona!” Regina snapped. “Get yourself to bed. It’s not safe for you to be wandering outside alone at night.” She stood on the back porch in a black robe, her shimmering hair fanned out across her shoulders. Her shadowed face scowled, but then she lifted a brow and gave her a small smile. “All Hallows Eve, you know.”
5
Arman wanted in the worst way to enter Regina’s house, but he couldn’t. He had to get Fiona outside. But as soon as he finally did, that wicked Regina made her return inside. He wasn’t leaving her though. He had to reach her and get her to listen to him. He would try to communicate with her telepathically. Though it was really rare for hunters to have that ability. They had been shocked to learn that Caitlin had the ability to listen in on others’ conversations. She had never had to speak with anyone using telepathic communication until she’d learned the vampires used it to communicate with each other.
