“I don’t know,” Jessica shrugged, “maybe it’s all the books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched, but it just doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me that there could be vampires in the real world. Seriously, were you that surprised? I guess not, seeing as how you figured out Aaron had been bitten by one all by yourself.”
“I didn’t figure anything out,” Lucy corrected her. “Aaron told me that’s what’d happened to him. In fact, he insisted that’s what’d happened.” Despite how many times, and how many different ways, she’d questioned him over the past few hours, he’d never changed his story. And despite how hard she’d tried, Lucy hadn’t been able to shake the image of those welts on Aaron’s neck, or the stark fear in his eyes as he’d described his attack in the alley behind the Red Palm.
Holes, Lucy thought. Those weren’t welts on his neck, they were holes. Two ragged puncture marks, bled deathly white all around their circumferences.
That girl was a vampire. She bit me.
Lucy shuddered as she remembered Aaron’s rasping words, and his trepidation as he’d clung to her in her apartment, where she’d left him before coming here to talk to Jessica. I wonder how he’s doing? she thought, plucking nervously at her sweater. Hopefully, he hadn’t gotten any sicker. Or...worse. Distracted by her gruesome thoughts, she almost ran right into Jessica, who’d stopped at the end of an aisle with one hand on her hip. Purple velvet Queen Anne chairs and settees circled a coffee table up ahead, forming a reading nook for the Book of Love customers in the largest section of the bookstore. Lucy looked up at the metal flag, shaped like the sickle from the A Prince at Midnight standee, hanging a few feet above their heads.
“Paranormal Romance?” she said, blinking at the words printed on the blade.
Jessica lifted her hands. “This is a romance book store, Luce, not the Library of Congress. PR is the best I’ve got. Anyway, there’s got to be something in here we can use. Something to get us started, anyway.”
“Get us started doing what?”
“Looking for a cure for vampirism. That’s what you need, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but…you think there really is one?”
“There has to be.”
Lucy’s heart sank a few inches. “But what if there isn’t?”
“Think positive, Luce.” Jessica’s hands flew as she plucked books off the nearest shelf and started handing them to her. She started with the Sharpest Kiss series, but there were others in the mix, too. So many others. Soon, Lucy’s shoulders were protesting under the weight of the stack growing in her arms. “And anyway,” Jessica continued, oblivious to Lucy’s increasing discomfort, “even if there is no cure for the bite…maybe things will work out for you and Aaron anyway?”
Lucy was astounded. “How can you say that, Jess? He’ll be undead! As in, not alive anymore.”
“Dating vampires works out for a lot of the people in these stories,” Jessica reminded her, adding another book to the pile. On the lurid cover, a girl in a voluminous wedding gown leaned in to kiss a guy with protruding fangs and a limp ponytail. Bloody Wedding Bells, the title screamed out in raised scarlet foil, Five new love stories, each featuring a bite of immortality...and wedding cake.
Lucy made an incredulous noise. “Reading fun fantasies about vampires is one thing. In real life, we both know these things, if they really exist, are probably pure evil. They suck people’s blood to keep themselves animated, for goodness’ sake!”
“That doesn’t make them necessarily evil.” Jessica sounded oddly defensive. “Not all of them, anyway.”
Lucy gaped at her. “Jess, what are you talking about? From the way Aaron described it, this woman used mind control on him and then physically assaulted him. How could she be anything but a monster?”
Jessica’s lips pursed for a second, like she was trying to decide what to say next, or how exactly to say it. “Look, all I’m saying is, what if—” She didn’t get to finish because the bell above the front door jangled and interrupted her.
Lucy looked at her friend with dismay. “I thought you said you were closing early for this?”
“Crap.” A frown creased Jessica’s forehead. “I forgot to lock the door. Hold up a sec, I’ll be right back.”
“But, Jess—”
“Just lemme go get rid of whoever that is!” She edged past Lucy, inadvertently bumping her up against a bookshelf. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Lucy heard her say. “I just forgot to lock the…Oh. It’s you…” She trailed off, and Lucy felt her chest tighten in intuitive panic. Dumping her armload of paperbacks into a chair, she hurried back up to the front of the shop. Jessica stood there with her hands on her waist, facing off against a woman carrying a gigantic designer purse under her arm. Lucy stopped short when she got a good look at who it was.
“Dara?” she said. “Dara Fuentes?”
The woman swung a light brown gaze toward her. She frowned in puzzlement. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“Lucy,” Lucy smiled and patted her chest. “Lucy Booth! We had that advanced English class together in tenth grade. Well, I guess it was just a regular class for you, since you were a Senior, but I was in tenth grade, so it was advanced for…” Dara’s frown deepened, and Lucy shut up, biting her lip. Sheesh, there she went again, sticking her foot in her mouth. But she couldn’t help it. Much like Aaron, this woman made Lucy feel a little…gaga. Not in a sexual way, though. It was just that Dara Leigh Fuentes had always been popular in school. Super popular. She’d been smart and athletic and beautiful. She still was, too. Beautiful, that was. Her long, curly auburn hair looked just as bouncy and shiny as it had back in high school, and her creamy skin was still perfectly smooth and unlined, making her look hardly older than the day she’d graduated. Her russet-colored eyes were wide, edged with long lashes, but just
