Page 38 of Wicked Bonds
Finally, she says, “Did you ever try?”
“Someone I trusted betrayed me to the Coven before I had a chance to try. I didn’t know until it was too late. Before I figured it out, I was already in the ground.” I don’t like to think about that too much.
She crosses the room and sits on the bed, motioning for me to join her. I do, this time close enough to feel where our forms almost touched.
She studies me, head cocked. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you deserve to know,” I say. “And because I don’t want you to end up like me.”
“A ghost?”
“If they drain your life force, you just cease to be. You don’t end up trapped here. That only happens if you die an untimely death, before they use you up.”
Her lips press together. “I keep thinking if I just tough it out, if I survive long enough, maybe I can get out. There’s got to be a way.”
“You can’t,” I say. “There isn’t.”
But there is, isn’t there? There’s one way. The way I told someone about so long ago. I never got a chance to find out if it would really work. I don’t tell her that. “Well, there wasn’t for me. You’re powerful though, Rose. If anyone could get out, you could. You could have a chance.”
She grins. After everything I’ve revealed to her, this girl actually smiles. “I like the way you think, ghost boy.”
I don’t have a pulse, but if I did, it would be racing.
She lies back, arms behind her head. I stretch out beside her, our bodies parallel, not quite touching.
“Promise me something,” she says.
“What?”
“Don’t leave me alone.”
I don’t respond. I’m in no position to make promises. I’m not sure if she takes my silence as agreement, but she doesn’t push it.
We lay there for a long time. She drifts off, hair fanned over the pillow. I stay watching the way her chest rises and falls as she breathes. As she lives.
I don’t want to see her life force drained. Not Rose. I’ve never met anyone more alive than her.
Before I fade out for the night, I lean close and whisper into her hair, “I won’t let it happen to you.”
It surprises me how much I mean it.
Eighteen
Rose
I need to get out of bed, I’ve already missed breakfast service, but instead I lie there, staring at the ceiling and replaying every word Drake said, looping in slow, sickening detail. I try to imagine what it would feel like, being drained dry, not just of magic but of everything, of my life, until all that’s left is dust.
Doesn’t sound pleasant.
By the time my last class is over, I’m vibrating with a blend of rage and that slow, sick hatred for the one person who’s lied to me with a straight face and then acted like he was doing me a favor.
Lucien.
He doesn’t show up in the dining hall for lunch. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him there. Fucker probably has a secret Batcave somewhere on campus where he sleeps upside down and drinks the blood of virgins. I skip the Margherita pizza and honeycomb ice cream on the menu, which actually soundsdelicious, pretending I don’t notice Thorne and her friends watching from across the dining hall and whispering behind their hands. Let them talk. Let them choke on it.
I don’t know where Lucien hides out. He’s not at the library, not prowling the faculty hallways, not lurking in any of the public lounges. By mid-afternoon I’m running out of ideas. I remember that daywalking for vamps is a thing. But I’ve checked the quad and the courtyard to no avail. I loiter outside the admin office until I see Mrs. Bright, then tail her down the corridor, staying just out of sight.
I spot her unlocking a heavy, dark wooden door at the end of the hall. It’s labeled ‘Staff - Level 1 Clearance Only’. She disappears inside with a clack of kitten heels, leaving the door to swing slowly shut. I catch it with my foot, slip inside, and keep to the sides as she vanishes up a flight of stairs.
