Betrayals

silver curtain of rain. I waved at Amelia, who hooked her arm over Corey’s shoulders and hugged him despite his “Awwww, Mom!” wriggling away. Something hot and nameless boiled up in my throat. I swallowed hard twice, tasted pancakes when I burped, and dug in my bag for a piece of gum. I didn’t have any, and when I looked up again we had slid smoothly between two of the buildings and were on the paved drive. The place looked deserted, all the windows dark. I wondered if it was intentional.

Christophe muttered something, the car eased through the rain, and the windshield wipers started.

“I hope they’ll be okay.” I had to fumble with the seat belt. Old seat belts are cranky sometimes.

The defroster was on, and the whole car smelled like engine oil and the healthy dry smell of wulfen.

And a thin thread of apple pies, blowing in my face when Christophe leaned forward to twist the radio knob.

“I’ve done what I can to confuse our trail. And to make certain none of his trackers survived to report in.” His face settled against itself as we threaded down a long single-lane strip of paving starred with unevenly fixed potholes.

“Do you think the vampires will find them?” I twisted to look into the backseat. Dibs sat bolt-upright, blinking owlishly. Shanks had settled back and closed his eyes. Graves stared out his window, his jaw clenched.

“It’s not the vampires I’m worried about,” Christophe said darkly. The radio crackled. “Find me some music, Dru. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

CHAPTER 27

After so long walking it was weird to see the road slipping smoothly away underneath the car. The windshield wipers marked off time, back and forth, and Christophe hummed along with the classic rock station I’d found. He drove the speed limit, too, not a hair over or under. Shanks was breathing softly with his eyes closed, his mouth hanging open a little; Graves stared out the window. Dibs bounced up and down every once in a while, but otherwise kept quiet.

It was, in other words, completely awkward.

Christophe also stuck to the less-traveled roads, not even glancing at a map. If it had been Dad driving, I would’ve been navigating him. Instead, I sat there uselessly, clutching my bag and staring at the wet world outside the window. Naked trees pressed close to the blacktop, their bare arms reaching out to clutch empty air. Water gleamed on the road, the tires made wet shushing sounds, and Christophe kept turning the radio up in tiny increments when music was on, then turning it down when advertising took over.

Lunch was in a small town on the far end of the county, a pizza place that looked like it had seen better days. All three of the boys in the backseat headed straight for the bathroom as soon as we got a table, which meant I could fish the paper out of my bag as Christophe motioned me into the red vinyl booth.

“Unless you need the facilities too, kochana.” He ran a hand back through his hair, shaking random drops of rain out.

“I have to talk to you.” I dropped down, then handed the sheets of paper over. It all came out in a rush while he looked at me, blue eyes narrowing. “Dylan gave me this, right before everything… well, it’s important. When Anna showed me the transcript of the call, she wanted me to think you made it. And it was an edited version.” I felt like I wasn’t making any sense. “She wanted to find out what I knew, too. Dylan said this was the original version of the call. When someone gave my mother’s location.”

Christophe lowered himself down next to me in the booth and scanned the paper. His mouth turned itself upside-down, the corners pulling toward his jaw. “He gave this to you?” For a moment I thought I saw something close to his true age, eerie on his unlined face.

“When he told me to hide the next time the Restriction bell rang.” It was a relief to tell someone, to get at least one secret out of my chest. “It’s a good thing he did, too, or they would have caught me in my room.”

“They?” His aspect slid over him, his hair sleeking down and turning darker. His fangs peeped out. He took a deep breath and they retreated. I stared at his profile, fascinated.

“Well, the bell for first classes rang. Then, a little while later, the Restriction bell. I hid in a closet and heard them running by. They had to have been nosferatu.” The word felt strange in my mouth. Even now I was half-lying, keeping a secret.

“Were you going to class like a good girl?”

No, I was heading for the hills. Why does that even matter? “I was out of my room. It was like a tomb in there.”

The two sheets of paper rustled a bit. His hand was shaking. “Anna.” Slowly, thoughtfully. Like the word had a bad taste. He folded the papers back together and handed them to me. “Hm.”

“She said you…” I swallowed. My throat was dry. “She said you were the one who made that call. I think she wanted me not to trust you.”

Christophe stiffened. His fangs peeped out again, retreated. “I would never—” he began.

I hurried to cut him off. The flush threatened to rise up my neck again, and I didn’t want that. “I already told you I didn’t believe her. She wanted me to, and she wanted to know what I knew. If I suspected something, if I’d seen you.”

The emotion submerged. It was eerie to watch, his face smoothing out and the blond streaking back into his hair. “So. Milady is meddling.”

Dylan said that too. “I want to know what’s going on.”

He opened his mouth, but Dibs appeared at the booth, smoothing his damp hair down. “Can we get pepperoni?”

Christophe dug in his pocket, pulled out three twenty-dollar bills. “Get one meat pizza and one vegetarian, no onions or olives. And five drinks. Off with you.”

Dibs took the money and bounded away. Christophe’s hand turned into a fist, resting on the table, then relaxed with an effort. The difference between his smoothed-out face and the way he had to force his fingers out and loose was jarring. “Keep this secret. We’ll talk later.”

It was hard to look tough when my heart was thundering and I was sweating. I folded my arms and stared at him, uncomfortably wedged in the booth and suddenly aware he was between me and any possible escape. “I want to know now.”

“I don’t know enough myself to tell you anything useful. There is a traitor in the Order. We know that much. Now we know that the traitor is highly placed, and that I wasn’t the target. I haven’t been the target so far, just incidental damage.” He ran his tongue along his teeth, and the aspect retreated even further. His eyes were still cold. I wondered why I’d ever thought they could warm up.

“How do you know?” The edge of warmth I felt from him was the uncomfortable sterile heat of the blue- threaded flames. I shivered.

“This is a vendetta. The sins of the parents visited on the children, though your mother was blameless. You have my word on that, at least.” In one quick, economical movement, he slid out of the booth. He wasn’t looking at my face; he was looking at my chest. At the tiny lump under my sweater. “Put that away. Don’t speak of it where others can hear. And for God’s sake, Dru…”

I waited, but he didn’t finish. Instead he stalked away to the counter, where Dibs was all but hopping with impatience and the bored woman working behind the register was punching buttons too slowly.

The aroma of crust and tomato sauce, baking cheese, and the sticky smell that always fills a pizza parlor closed around me. I slid the transcript back in my bag and found out my hands were shaking too.

Go to the Schola, he’d said. You’ll be safe there.

But I wasn’t safe anywhere, was I? And I didn’t even know why. Because someone in the Order had hated my mother enough to want to kill her? And, years later, kill me?

Jesus. How could you hate someone that much and still be human? Or even just better than a sucker?

Graves dropped into the booth right next to me. “Hey.” He’d slicked his hair back behind his ears and his face