“You don’t have to do that.” I cross through the beaded curtain into my room. “But I appreciate you walking me back. Thanks.”

“Of course. And the tea is no bother.” She smiles sweetly. “Get some rest.”

“I will. Thanks.” I don’t bother to smile.

“Thanks for bringing her back. I appreciate it,” Macy tells her with a grateful smile that gets my back up.

Lia ignores her. “I can bring the tea by now if you want it, Grace.”

“I’m good.” I wave a dismissive hand at her as I flop down on my bed. “I think I’m just going to sleep.”

To prove my point, I lie down on my freshly made bed (again) and turn so I’m facing the wall, my back to the door—and Lia. I know it’s rude, but right now, I don’t actually care. I’m so done with this conversation, and for the moment, I’m done with Lia, too. Not just because of the Jaxon thing but because I really don’t like how she treats Macy. I can’t stand how abrupt she is with her, like my cousin is some annoying puppy nipping at her shoes.

There’s some soft murmuring from the door—my cousin apologizing to Lia for my churlish behavior, I’m sure—and then the door closes softly.

I roll over right away, and as I do, I come face-to-face with the bag of cookies and fresh glass of juice Macy has put on my nightstand.

“You really are the best cousin in the world,” I tell her as I sit up. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” she agrees, settling down on the bed next to me. “How are you feeling?”

“The truth?”

“Always.”

“Awful. I should have listened to you.” But it’s ridiculous. And I hate it. All I did was run down the hall after Jaxon, and my body feels weak, exhausted.

“No shit.” She reaches for the glass of juice and holds it out to me. “Drink up, buttercup.”

For the first time, I can’t help thinking about how much blood I must have actually lost.

It’s that thought that has me taking the glass from her and downing the juice in a couple of swallows. It’s what also has me eating a cookie even though my stomach is roiling and food is the last thing I want.

Macy watches me like a hawk, then smiles her approval when I manage to choke down a second cookie as well as a glass of water. Only then does she ask, “So are you going to tell me how you left here chasing Jaxon and came back with Lia?”

“Not much to tell. Jaxon did what he always does.”

“And what’s that?”

“He disappeared.”

Macy nods. “Yeah.”

I think about the look on Jaxon’s face when I was trying to talk to him at the top of the stairs, then I think about what Lia just let “slip.”

I think about the way Jaxon has managed to help me every time something bad happens to me. And I think about how he finds it so easy to walk away, time and time again.

It’s enough to have my already addled brain begging for mercy.

“We should get some sleep,” Macy says and, for the first time, I realize she’s already in her pajamas. “It’s after two.”

“It’s really that late? How long was I out?”

“Long enough.” She gives me a hug before crawling off my bed. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk more about the ins and outs of Jaxon Vega’s brain tomorrow.”

I nod and try to do as she suggests. But I can’t stop thinking about how late it is. And about how much time I’ve lost. I must have been out a lot longer than I thought if it’s really—I pick up my phone to check the time—2:31 in the morning.

There are a couple of messages from Heather—about how much Calculus sucks and how she wishes she could work up the nerve to talk to Veronica (her current crush). I shoot back a couple of texts of my own. Nothing about my most recent near-death experience, just encouragement about Veronica and Calculus. Plus a little whining of my own over Jaxon.

She doesn’t answer—probably because it’s the middle of the night. So I spend a few minutes scrolling through my Insta feed. As I stare blankly at the pics, I can’t help thinking about this afternoon. Can’t help wondering what happened in the time I was so out of it.

Was it exactly as Marise said? That Jaxon rushed me to her office and she drugged me so she could repair the “nick” in my artery? Or is there something more to the story, something that accounts for why my uncle was so nervous and Jaxon so determined to put distance between us?

It’s these thoughts that have me staring at the ceiling until nearly three in the morning.

These thoughts that finally have me heading to the bathroom and closing the door between Macy and me.

And it’s these thoughts that have me peeling back the bandage I promised I wouldn’t lift for at least a few days and staring at the cut on my neck.

Or, more precisely, at the two perfectly round, perfectly spaced puncture marks about an inch below a jagged cut.

38

Nothing Says

“I Like You”

Like a Fang to the Throat

Needless to say, there’s no going to sleep after that.

There’s no doing anything except checking and rechecking my throat about a thousand times in the next two hours as I wait for the last of the drugs—and what I’m hoping is some kind of bizarre hallucinogen—to wear off.

Because if this isn’t some drug-induced hallucination, then nicked arteries and aliens are the least of my concerns.

Part of me wants to get up and go for a walk to clear my head, but memories of what happened the other night are still fresh. After the day I’ve had, and what I just saw in the mirror, I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my shit completely if anyone tries to hassle me tonight. Especially when a glance out the window reveals that the moon is still high in the sky.

Not that that should matter in a normal world, but “normal” has pretty much been a distant memory since I set foot in this place. Just the thought has me running my fingers over the bandage on my neck, my mind racing all over again as I try to figure out what could possibly have caused the puncture marks on my neck.

I mean, sure, if I was living in a horror novel, there would be an obvious explanation for those perfectly placed, perfectly spaced punctures. But I’m not Bram Stoker, and this isn’t Transylvania, so there has to be another reason.

A snake? Two shots to my neck? A really mean practical joke?

It has to be something. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.

The fact that I can’t help but remember Jaxon’s warning about the full moon and his sneered comment about Marc and Quinn being animals doesn’t make it any easier to be logical. Nor do Macy’s warnings that Flint and Jaxon come from different worlds, that they’re just too different to ever get along.

It has to be the drugs, right? It has to be.

Because what’s skating around the edges of my mind is totally absurd. Completely bonkers. There are no such things as monsters, just people who do monstrous things.

Like this.

If Marise didn’t give me a couple of shots in the neck, then this has to be a practical joke. Jaxon has to be messing with me. He has to be. There is no other reasonable explanation.

This is the idea I hold on to all through the next couple of hours, the mantra I repeat to myself over and over and over again. And still, as soon as the clock on my phone hits six a.m., I’m up and in the shower—being careful, as instructed, not to get the bandage on my neck wet.

After all, what do I know about vampire bites? The last thing I need to do is aggravate the thing…

Not that this is a vampire bite or anything. I’m just saying, at this point I’m taking nothing for granted.

After I’m dressed in a black skirt, black tights, and purple polo shirt this time, I arrange my hair so it covers both my neck bandage and the cut on my cheek, grab my lined hoodie, and sneak out of the bedroom before Macy’s alarm even goes off. Part of me wants to wake her up and ask her the question burning itself indelibly within my mind, but I don’t want her to lie to me.

I’m also not sure I want her to tell me the truth.

Jaxon, on the other hand… If he lies to me, you’d better believe I’m going to stake him through his fangy black heart. And yes, I know that makes no sense. I just don’t happen to care at this exact moment.

I march through the school like a woman on a mission. The fact that I’m also still a little dizzy—just how much blood did I lose, anyway?—makes things particularly interesting, but there’s no way I’m lying around in bed, waiting to talk to him, for one second longer.

I make it up to the tower in about five minutes flat, which pretty much has to be some kind of record, considering it’s all the way at the other end of the castle. But when I rush through the alcove to pound on Jaxon’s door, there’s no answer.

I keep pounding, and when that doesn’t work, I text him. And call him. And then pound some more. Because this can’t be happening right now. He can’t really not be here when I most need answers from him.

Except apparently he can. Damn it.

Frustrated, pissed off, and more worried than I’d like to admit, I drop down on one of the overstuffed chairs in his reading alcove and stare at the now-boarded-up window that started all this so I can pretend not to notice that the rug that was here yesterday is now gone.

Then I lean back and prepare to wait Jaxon Vega out.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m pretty much climbing the walls. Half an hour later and I’m firing off more than a few obnoxious texts to the raging jackass. And forty-five minutes later, I’m contemplating burning down the whole freaking tower…at least until Mekhi walks in, sleepy-eyed and amused.

“What are you smiling at?” I demand none too politely.

“You look cute when you’re grumpy.”

“I am not grumpy.”

“Oh, right. You’re pissed off beyond belief and more than capable of ripping Jaxon’s fat black heart out of his chest and stomping on it?” He quotes my most outrageous text back to me, I assume to embarrass me. But I am beyond being embarrassed. I mean, I have fang marks in my neck. Fang marks.