“But they aren’t the same thing.” I kissed his forehead, his cheek, the side of his mouth. He breathed in sharply, and I knew he wanted this as 108 badly as I did — more, perhaps. “You know now that drinking my blood would hurt you. Maybe destroy you. So that means you won’t lose control and bite me.”
Lucas gripped my hands tightly and met my eyes. “I know that drinking your blood could destroy me,” he said. “And that’s why I’m afraid I’ll bite you.”
Silence fell over us, as heavy and horrible as the new knowledge I had to bear. I’d known that Lucas was struggling, but I hadn’t realized that his desire for self — destruction remained so immediate and strong.
My face must have looked crushed, because Lucas said, “Oh, God, Bianca, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You told me the truth,” I managed to say. ‘That’s the main thing.”
Lucas embraced me as tightly as he could in my semisolid state. “I daydream about being with you all the time,” he whispered into my hair. “All the time. If I couldn’t remember being with you, I don’t know how I would go on. But sometimes I think — if I could end it, just end it, while I was with you, it’s as close as anything like me could ever get to heaven — ”
“Lucas, no.”
“I would never do that to you,” he said. “Never. But. . Bianca, we can’t.”
I nodded, accepting the barrier between us. It wasn’t forever; just until Lucas managed to control his blood hunger and the terrible self — loathing Black Cross had programmed into him. But how long until that day came?
Would it ever come?
As though he could hear my doubts, Lucas said, “Someday.”
“Someday,” I said, a promise to him and to myself.
Later that night, still dazed with disappointment and worry for Lucas, I drifted down into the main area of the school — deserted, this late at night. Even the vampires were asleep.
How many vampires don’t make the transition? I thought. How many give in to suicidal impulses or blood hu11ger, or both? I suspected the number was far larger than my parents had ever let on. Once again I felt a fierce surge of longing for them. Not only did I miss Mom and Dad just as themselves, but if we could talk — really talk, without all the lies between us — maybe I could learn how to help Lucas bear his burdens.
Perhaps ii was the intensity of my concentration as I wondered about this, the way it dragged me so deeply into my own mind rather tl1an the here and now — or maybe it was some trick of where I was at that moment, because Evernight’s traps and guards and passageways created a kind of spiritual architecture within the stone. Whatever it was, in that moment, I suddenly became sharply aware that I was not alone.
I could sense the wraiths.
They were more distinct at that moment than they had ever been. Instead of simply knowing that they were there, I could now tell roughly how many there were — dozens, at least. They seemed to stand out in my awareness, each of them distinct but part of a whole, like stars in the sky, maybe, different points of brightness that formed constellations all around me. It was like suddenly seeing the night sky for the very first time, as though I’d been blind to it my whole life and then been dazzled all at once.
Except that constellations were beautiful, peaceful — and what I sensed around me now was desperation and madness. Instead of being dazzled, I felt the cold grip of fear.
Some that lingered alone, crammed into tiny slivers between stones or at the edge of windowpanes. It was as though they were beating their heads against a wall, cramping and hurting themselves just to remind themselves they continued to exist.
The trapped ones were the worst, because I couldn’t feel anything from them but pure terror. They’ d become nothing but long wordless screams.
And then there were a few others, clustered tightly together, who, when I sensed them, sensed me in return.
Once again, the visions began.
I saw an image of Mrs. Bethany in my mind — not a product of my own imagination, but something projected into my head like a movie on a screen. Something was tearing her apart, literally, graphically, bone and sinew and blood and guts, more disgusting than anything I’d ever seen. My throat tightened, and I gagged, but the image filled my whole mind now, and I couldn ‘ t push it away.
The Plotters — that was what I called them — repeated, Help us.
Or what? Would they attack the people I loved like this? Or would they come after me? What could a ghost do to another ghost? I had no idea, 11o but terrible possibilities unfolded in my mind, becoming part of the gruesome destruction of Mrs. Bethany.
Her mouth was open, her jaw unhinging, but the desperate scream in my mind was my own — Then a shaft of light seemed to penetrate my dream. Mrs. Bethany vanished, and the “constellations” disappeared as though it were dawn.
When I could see again, I realized that Maxie was standing with me in the great hall. Her white nightgown floated slightly on some unseen breeze, so that she seemed to be part of the fog outside. “You saved me,” I said.
“I pushed them back. That’s as much as I can do.” She cocked an eyebrow, like it was weird that she had to save me from anything. “You’re the girl with the superpowers, if you ‘d just realize it already.”
What else could a ghost do to another ghost? That sharp new fear controlled me as powerfully as the Plotters had a moment before. I stabilized myself as best I could, becoming more solid. “Are those Christopher’s. . henchmen? Or henchghosts? Or whatever?”
“Christopher doesn’t have anything to do with them,” Maxie said. “They’d be better off if he did. They’re too tied to the human world to come to terms with the fact that they’re wraiths.”
“They hate Evernight,” I said. “They hate Mrs. Bethany. Why don’t they just leave?”
Maxie folded her arms. “You keep thinking all of us can do the things you can do. We can’t. Most wraiths can’t move around the way you can, or even the way I can. They followed their human anchors here because of the strength of that bond; every instinct they have tells them not to abandon it. And because they’re so screwed up now, they can’t think past instinct. They can’t think, period. They’re just emotions, going in every direction.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“This is how we end, if we’re not careful.”
Cautiously, I said, “You mean, we end up … crazy?”
“Unhinged. Unstable. It comes from being in the human world but not of it.” She gave me a pointed look that suggested I was headed in that direction.
“You’ve spent time with Vic since he was a child,” I said. Vic was her biggest vulnerability; I wasn’t above using that.
She smiled softly when I said his name. “You can watch them. You can even — you can love.” Her voice broke on the last word. “But you can’t live. The damage comes from pretending that you can.”
“I’m not pretending,” I insisted.
“Aren’t you?”
“Bianca, if you would just come talk to Christopher — ” Fear swept through me again, and I shook my head. “Don’t.”
Maxie’s usual sarcastic demeanor had faded into genuine pleading. “Bianca, You’re important to the wraiths. Don’t you see that? The stuff you can do that the rest ·of us can’t — it’s not just so much smoke and fog. It means something. You mean something.” My curiosity began to get the better of my fear, but just when I wanted to ask her more, she grew desperate, almost scarily so, and said, “We need you.”
“You’re not the only ones who need me.” I swept out of the great hall, afraid she was going to chase me. But she let me go.
“You’re sure you want to learn how to do this?” Patrice folded her arms, studying me as severely as Mrs. Bethany had during midterms.
The real answer was that no, I wasn’t sure. This was, in its way, as scary as training with Black Cross had been — it never felt good, learning how to attack creatures like myself.
The only way to make myself free was to give myself power. And that meant learning how to strike back against the wraiths, if necessary.
“Let’s begin,” I said.
