Even in the darkness of the moonless night, I could see Michael smile at me. “I’ve never heard of do-gooder vampires,” he joked, to which I rol ed my eyes. “What would I think?” he continued. “I’l tel you what I do think. I think that I’m lucky that you are sharing this experience with me. And I think that I’l help you. Because, even though I don’t care about Piper and Missy, I care about you.”
I curled into the crook of his arm, and whispered, “Thank you.”
We talked for a moment about a game plan for gathering information and then Michael whispered, “El ie?”
“Yes?” I answered. His tone was so silky and inviting that I figured he was going to kiss me. He usual y did at the end of the night. But I was always careful to stop it there; those first experiences kissing him real y shook me up, and I didn’t want to lose control.
His lips tickled my cheek, and his sweet breath warmed me. I turned my face toward his, ready.
In that same honeyed voice, he said, “You know if we used their blood, we could find out nearly anything.”
“Michael,” I said in frustration. He knew how I felt about the whole blood thing. And anyway, I wanted a kiss, not another argument on this topic.
“Come on, El ie. It’d be a chance to try out its power.”
Other than those first few, unplanned occasions, I hadn’t tried Michael’s blood. Or let him try mine. I remembered the addictive headiness of its taste al too wel , and it scared me. I was afraid that, once I started, I wouldn’t be able to turn back. But I couldn’t tel Michael that.
“No.”
“It would be for a good cause,” he said suggestively, as he traced his finger up and down my arm.
“You’l try anything to persuade me, won’t you?”
He just smiled, unable to deny it.
“Let’s see if we can’t find another way,” I said and kissed his neck very lightly.
“Now who’s being persuasive?” he said, his voice growing thick.
It was my turn to smile.
He said, “Al right, we’l try it your way first. But promise you’l just consider—”
“I promise.”
I kissed him hard. I was so relieved and happy that he was on my side for the Piper thing, I let my guard down. Within seconds, we were wrapped in each other’s arms. I felt his tongue on mine, and I surrendered to the feeling of it. He must have sensed that I wouldn’t fight him, because I soon felt a tiny cut on my tongue and tasted the blood. His and mine. Together.
The sensation was pure pleasure, unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I closed my eyes and let the bliss wash over me. Until a flash—more like a vision than a memory—came. The light was blinding; I squinted in my mind’s eye. As my vision adjusted, I saw Michael and me standing on a pristine beach of white sand, arcs of light at our backs. We looked so beautiful, so serene. And then I noticed something real y peculiar.
Emblazoned across our chests were letters, written in light. I struggled to read them, but the characters were in an unfamiliar language.
I could have lingered in the moment, but I felt Michael’s tongue graze over my teeth again and I knew he was searching for more blood. I awakened from the image, understanding that, if we continued this practice of blood sharing, we would never, ever stop.
I pushed Michael off me and sat up. I struggled to speak. “Do you understand why we can’t do this with anyone else? Why we shouldn’t even do this with each other? Do you see how you can’t stop hunting for blood once you start?”
“I do.” His breath was belabored.
“Promise me, Michael, you’l never taste anyone’s blood but mine.”
He stared into my eyes, his chest stil heaving but his gaze steady. “I promise.”
Chapter Twenty
Michael and I had agreed to divide and conquer Missy’s clique. I took Piper for obvious reasons and Missy out of guilt, since I’d instigated this whole thing. In exchange for my handling of the heavy hitters, Michael took the remaining six group members—Hal ie, Kristen, Elizabeth, Samantha, Jennifer, and Shadley. Soon we unleashed ourselves on the unsuspecting Til inghast Upper High School.
Or so we believed. We had this fantasy of sauntering in, touching them, and gathering up al their secrets. Not so, when we had specific secrets we wanted to gather.
The stars had to be perfectly aligned to learn the tiniest detail. First, we had to actual y make physical contact. Then, the person had to be thinking about the scheme at the exact moment we touched them. Final y, the flash—if we were lucky enough to get the one we sought—had to make sense.
We had learned that people’s thoughts weren’t linear, but often so disjointed and jumbled that we couldn’t understand the image.
But the most difficult part was touching them. How could we brush up against them and make it seem accidental—instead of looking like some kind of a pervert? Plus I faced an additional hurdle. Usual y, I avoided Missy and Piper at al costs. But now I had to place myself in their path in a seemingly natural way—and then find a way to touch one or both of the school’s most unapproachable junior girls. It wasn’t easy, particularly since they seemed to have abandoned their efforts to woo me.
I lingered at my locker, hoping to run into them. To no avail. I memorized their class schedules, and I shifted my route so I could bump into them.
Without success. I forced poor Ruth to have coffee at the Starbucks instead of the Daily Grind because that’s
