Vampires have trouble crossing running water. Some of the human students had wondered why the teacher chaperones traveled into Riverton ahead of us, but I’d always known it was because they wanted to cross the bridge in their own time, without revealing how badly the experience unsettled them. Now I realized that Lucas had understood, too, and he was counting on that fact to keep himself alive.
We kept going, until the others stopped in front of me. I didn’t need the lightning to show me the path anymore. Breathing hard, I caught up and kept walking past Professor Iwerebon, past Balthazar, past my parents, and finally up to Mrs. Bethany, who stood only a few feet from the bridge.
“Wait here for us,” she commanded. “We will proceed shortly.” She pressed her lips together, perhaps willing herself to conquer her one weakness.
“He’ll get away.” I walked past her.
“Miss Olivier! Stop this instant!”
My feet touched the bridge. Old wooden planks, waterlogged with rain, were easier to cross than thick mud.
“Bianca!” That was my dad. “Bianca, wait for us. You can’t do this alone.”
“Yes, I can.” I started to run, drops of water pelting my face, my side aching from exertion and the raincoat heavy across my shoulders. All I wanted to do was fall down upon the bridge and cry. My body didn’t have the strength for this.
And yet I ran. I ran even though my legs were as heavy as lead, and my throat was tight with unshed tears, and my parents and my teachers and my friend were all shouting for me to come back. I ran anyway, and with every step I went faster.
Ever since I’d come to Evernight—no, really, throughout my whole life—I’d counted on other people to take care of my problems. Nobody could take care of this for me. I had to face it myself, alone.
I didn’t know if I was chasing Lucas or running with him. I only knew I had to run.
After I’d made it over the river, I didn’t have much trouble tracking Lucas on my own. It was dark, and I didn’t have the extrasensitive sight or hearing of true vampires. However, it was obvious that he was going into Riverton, and at this point, there were only so many routes he could take that weren’t far out of his way. Lucas would know that he didn’t have much time to waste, and he’d want to get away as fast as possible.
I’d spent a while at the bus station with Raquel before she left for Christmas, after Lucas was already gone. Although she’d been eager to get out of Evernight, her family wouldn’t be home until late, so we’d waited for a later bus—one that left for the Boston area at 8:08. It was almost 8 now. I felt certain that Lucas was going to try to be on that next bus. The one after that one probably wasn’t for another couple of hours, and that was too much leeway. Mrs. Bethany and the others would have him for sure by then. The Boston bus was Lucas’s only real chance at escape.
The downtown area was almost entirely deserted. No cars sped down the streets, and the few businesses that had bothered staying open appeared to be empty. Nobody wanted to be out on a night like this. With my hair plastered to my scalp with rain, I couldn’t blame them. I looked in a couple of the open businesses, including the shop where we’d found the brooch. Lucas wasn’t there.
No, I realized. He knows that’s where they’d look first.
I knew then that I had an advantage over Mrs. Bethany and my parents, something that even their centuries of experience and supernatural senses couldn’t give them. I knew Lucas; that meant I knew what he’d do.
They, too, would probably guess that Lucas wouldn’t try to hide in public. They might even make the next inference I made, which was that Lucas would hide as close to the bus station as possible, so he wouldn’t be exposed in town for long before he could jump on the bus and make his getaway. However, the bus station was in the dead center of town. A dozen shops surrounded it, and as far as they knew, Lucas might be in any one of them.
Lucas had gone with me to see an old movie and bought me the brooch at the vintage clothing shop. And he had said that he loved me.
Which meant that maybe, just maybe, he would have chosen the same place to hide that I would have.
I walked toward the antiques store on the southeastern corner of the square, jumping over puddles as I went. Any doubts I might’ve had about my hunch vanished as soon as I reached the store’s back door and saw that it had been left slightly ajar.
Slowly I pushed it open. The hinges didn’t squeak, and I trod carefully upon the wooden floorboards. With the lights out, the darkness was nearly complete inside. I could barely discern the shapes of the strange items that surrounded me. At first I didn’t trust my eyes: a suit of armor, a stuffed fox, a cricket bat. I realized that the jumble wasn’t meaningless. These objects were the antique store’s spare inventory, the things fewer people would want to buy. It felt completely surreal, as if I’d somehow fallen into a bad dream while wide awake.
At first I tried to keep quiet, but as I stepped farther inside, I realized that could be dangerous. Lucas might hurt anyone else who was coming after him, but I still believed that he wouldn’t hurt me.
“Lucas?”
No answer.
“Lucas, I know that you’re here.” Still no reply, but I could tell now that I was being watched. “I’m alone. They aren’t far behind. If you have anything to say to me, you’d better say it now.”
“Bianca.”
Lucas said it as a sigh, like he was too tired to hold it back any longer. I peered through the darkness but couldn’t see him; I knew only that his voice came from someplace ahead.
“Is it true? What they’re saying about you?”
“Depends on what they’re saying.” I heard footsteps now, coming slowly toward me.
I laid one shaking hand on the nearest thing I could use to steady myself, a chair slipcovered in threadbare velvet. “They said that you’re a member of some group called Black Cross. Vampire hunters. That you’ve been lying to m—lying to us all along.”
“All true.” Lucas sounded wearier than I’d ever heard him. “Were you telling the truth when you said you were alone? Won’t blame you if you weren’t.”
“I only ever lied to you once. I’m not doing that again now.”
“Once? I can think of a lot of times you just ‘neglected’ to mention you were a vampire.”
“Like you didn’t say you were a vampire hunter!” I could’ve slapped him.
My fury didn’t seem to move him at all. “I guess so. I guess it’s the same kind of thing, in the end.”
“I told you the whole truth in that e-mail! I didn’t hold anything back!”
“Because you got caught. Doesn’t count, and you know it.”
Why did he keep pretending we were the same? “I didn’t choose to be what I am. You—you people plot to hunt down my family, my friends—”
“I didn’t choose this either, Bianca.” His voice was rough, as if he were choking up, and my anger dissolved into another emotion, one I couldn’t name. Lucas took another couple of steps forward. When I squinted into the dark, I glimpsed his outline several feet away. “Not who or what I am, not even coming to Evernight.”
“You chose to be with me.” Though he’d tried to talk me out of it, hadn’t he? Only now did I understand why.
