After the incident, Dominique had decided to move her daughter away from the constant excitement of the city and into a dull Massachusetts suburb named Acton. Caryn and her family lived there.
Dominique returned upstairs to sleep, and Caryn caught Sarah’s good arm.
“I should warn you. There are a few vampires in the school.” Upon Sarah’s look, she added sternly, “They’re harmless, and they have every right to be there. If you hurt any of them—”
“If they’re harmless, I’ll just ignore them. I can’t afford to get kicked out of another school, anyway. Okay?” Sarah offered. Caryn nodded.
Sarah’s pride, already ground into the dirt, deflated even more when the door opened again and her sister entered the house.
“Hey, little sis,” Adianna greeted her. Noticing the cast, she added, “Rough night?”
Adianna Vida, one year Sarah’s senior, was almost as perfect as their mother—intelligent and controlled. She had graduated last year, but was taking a semester off before starting college to train harder, and to “look out for” her little sister.
Right then Adianna’s blond hair was tousled, and Sarah saw a smear of blood on her dark blue jeans as if she had wiped a knife clean. She had obviously been fighting, and she had just as obviously won.
Adianna patted her sister’s shoulder as she passed toward the stairs. “Rest up. The world will survive without you for a week or so.”
CHAPTER 3
She forcibly banished such thoughts. She was here now, and it was time to begin this new life.
Her first block was American history, and though she located it easily, the class had already begun when she slipped through the door.
“Sarah Green?” the teacher confirmed as Sarah turned over the folded pink pass from the office. Mr. Smith was a balding, tired-looking man whose crisp suit pants and shirt seemed out of place in the high school. He gestured toward the class. “Take a seat . . . there’s one open right next to Robert—”
“Actually, someone’s sitting there,” one of the boys in the back of the room called. As Sarah’s attention turned to Robert, she realized that he looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place his face in her memory. He had looked up just long enough to see who had come in the door, and was now writing something in a notebook. The desk next to him appeared empty to Sarah; the chair was vacant.
Mr. Smith looked surprised, but he skimmed the class again.
“There’s a seat here,” someone else called, and Sarah glanced to see who had spoken.
Black hair, fair skin,
“Christopher Ravena,” the leech said, introducing himself as she slid into her chair. He nodded across the class. “That’s my sister, Nissa.” The girl he had gestured to waved slightly. Though her hair was a shade lighter, the resemblance between the siblings was marked—including the mild vampiric aura.
“Nice to meet you,” she answered politely, though inside she grimaced.
The aura of the vampire beside her was so faint that her skin wasn’t even tingling. He was either very young or very weak, and she could tell that he did not feed on human prey. Probably Single Earth, harmless as Caryn had said. His sister was almost as weak, and although her aura showed a hint of human blood—probably from one of the plethora of humans at Single Earth willing to bare their throats—it was obvious she did not kill when she hunted. Neither of them would be able to sense Sarah’s aura, so unless they knew her by sight, they would likely assume that she was just another human.
Mr. Smith was talking to her again, and she turned her attention back to him. “Sarah, as you’ll see, I like to begin class with a conversation about current events, to keep us involved in the present as well as the history.” Raising his voice to address all the students, he asked, “Now, who has something to share?”
The number of hands raised—none—was not overly surprising. Most of the students looked like they were still asleep.
“I know it’s early,” Mr. Smith said, encouragingly, “but you are allowed to wake up any time now. Who heard the news last night? What happened in our world?”
Finally a few hands tiredly rose, but most of the students had better things to do. The girl sitting in front of Sarah was reading a book that looked like it was probably an English assignment. Nearby, another student was doing Spanish homework. The teacher was either oblivious, or he just didn’t care. The news story that was being repeated by a girl in the first row wasn’t all that fascinating, anyway.
“Did you just move in?” Christopher asked, his voice quiet to avoid the teacher’s attention. He had a slight accent—not quite a drawl, but smooth and unhurried, with a hint of the South.
Sarah nodded, trying to keep a small portion of her attention focused on the dull classroom conversation, while keeping the rest on the two vampires. “My mother got a new job, teaching in the next town.” It was a plausible lie, which she had come up with earlier.
Mr. Smith moved back in time to the Civil War, and Sarah took notes furiously for an excuse to avoid Christopher’s attempts at conversation. The class was dull, and she already knew most of the information, but if she made a good impression now, Mr. Smith was more likely to cut her some slack later.
Christopher’s silence lasted only until the bell. “How’d you hurt your arm?” he asked as Sarah awkwardly shuffled papers into her backpack after class.
“Thrown off a horse,” Sarah lied effortlessly. “She’s usually a sweet creature, but something spooked her.” As she lifted the heavy backpack, she wondered how in the world humans could possibly carry these things around all day. Her witch blood made Sarah stronger than an average human—her five-foot-four, 130-pound body could bench-press 300 pounds—but she wondered how the humans managed.
“Do you need help with that?” Christopher offered, gesturing to the bag. “What class do you have next?”
“Chemistry,” she answered. “I can handle it.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest you couldn’t,” Christopher responded smoothly. “You just shouldn’t have to bother. I’ve got biology next, anyway, so our classes are near each other.”
She examined his expression, but he appeared sincere. For whatever his reasons, he was honestly trying to play the part of a human teenage boy—an unusually polite one, but human nevertheless.
She didn’t want to make a scene, so she surrendered her backpack, and Christopher carried it without effort, which did not surprise her. If she could lift 300 pounds, as a weak vampire he could probably bench-press a ten-wheeler with about as much effort.
“Thanks,” she forced out, glad the words sounded sincere.
Though her chemistry class was blessedly human, Christopher’s sister was in sculpture with Sarah for the third block of the day.
Sarah’s skills with clay were minimal; she had signed up for this class mainly so she could do something low stress without homework. She’d be lucky if she could make a ball. Nissa, on the other hand, had a great deal of talent, which helped Sarah place her in a way that the girl’s weak aura had not: Kendra’s line.
Kendra was the fourth fledgling of Siete, creator of all the vampires. Though Sarah had never met her, the woman was rumored to be stunning in form and fierce in temper. She was a lover of all the arts, as were almost all of her descendents. Kaleo, with whom Sarah had had her uncomfortable run-in the night before, was Kendra’s first fledgling.
All these thoughts passed through Sarah’s mind quickly as she watched Nissa craft a young man’s figure in
