His stomach dropped right out from under him.
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[Unknown Number]
We know about you.
3BACHELORETTENIGHT
BRENNAN’S PHONE
[Unknown Number]
We know about you.
Brennan
Who is this?
[Unknown Number]
111 North Elm St. Saturday 11 a.m. Be there. Ask for Sunny.
BRENNAN’S JOURNAL
ENHANCED STRENGTH & SPEED, ADDENDUM
Accidentally ripped the third floor Ryder Hall bathroom door off the hinges while opening it. I’ll totally deserve it if a priest stakes me in my sleep; I’m terrible at being a vampire.
I put in a work request for the door breaking. Sorry to the underpaid staff that will have to fix that.
Test
Use light bulbs or fragile things to train down passive strength? Like those dogs who hold eggs in their mouths???
Buy stress ball??
It had to be Cole.
Or, Cole had told someone else.
Sure, Brennan had been a little sloppy with a few incidents of sudden thirst, but sloppy enough that someone else had found out so soon? Sloppy enough for that person to have blackmail material?
He spent all day riling himself up about all the ways his undead life was going to come to an abrupt end, wasting another day’s tuition and disappointing his mother by paying absolutely no attention in class yet again. He analyzed every encounter he’d ever had with Cole. Why would he act all innocent if this was the end goal? It didn’t add up.
He worried and scribbled furious notes in his notebook and worked himself near a panic attack once or twice until finally, it was time.
It wasBacheloretteNight.
His new roommate Tony had invited him to watch, of all things,The Bachelorettewith him and his friends. It was some sort of weekly ritual of semesters past, and this was the kickoff for that fall. Apparently, they drank wine and made bets and took it pretty seriously. Tony didn’t seem like the kind of guy who watchedThe Bachelorette,but Brennan was desperate enough for potential friends that he had been clinging to the polite invitation as a social life raft for the semester.
Brennan emerged from his room only after he heard the TV switching on and Tony’s friends catching up and settling in. He had been holed up all day researching how to buy blood on the black market and exactly how unethical was it, in the grand scheme of capitalism? So he wasn’t exactly on high alert when he shuffled out and peered into the living room.
“Okay, Nick has absolutely no banter,” Tony said around a mouthful of popcorn.
He had a half-full bottle of Tito’s on the coffee table in front of him, and he still seemed stone-cold sober. He was the only one avidly paying attention to the TV, which was playing a show that wasnot The Bachelorette—it was brightly colored and everyone had ridiculous accents that sounded more like people making fun of British people than actual British people. On the coffee table, missing a few slices, was an intricately latticed apple pie.
“If she evenlooksat Jake T. I will set myself on fire,” announced a girl from beside Tony, shaking her head. She was Latina, her frameslight, wavy dark hair cut at her chin. She held a glass of wine primly by the stem, the flush on her face betraying that it was not her first.
