Ivy stilled the fingers encircling her glass. Uncomfortable, I looked for a way to excuse myself and go hide in the car. Ivy glanced at me, then her father. He leaned back, waiting. From outside came the rumble of Erica's car, fading to leave the hum of the clock on the oven the only sound. Ivy took a breath. "Dad, I made a mistake."
I felt Ivy's dad's eyes land on me, even though I was staring out the window trying to divorce myself from the conversation. "We should talk about this when your mother is available," he said, and I took a quick breath.
"You know," I said as I got up, "I think I'll go wait in the car."
"I don't want to talk about it with Mom, I want to talk about it with you," Ivy said crossly. "And there's no reason Rachel can't hear this."
The hidden request in Ivy's voice stopped me short. I sank back down, ignoring the obvious disapproval from her dad. This wasn't going to be fun. Maybe she wanted my opinion of the conversation to balance out her own. I could do that for her.
"I made a mistake," Ivy said softly. "I don't want to be Piscary's scion."
"Ivy..." There was a tired weariness in that one word. "It's time to start taking on your responsibilities. Your mother was his scion before she died. The benefits - "
"I don't want them!" Ivy said, and I watched her eyes closely, wondering if the ring of brown about her pupil was shrinking. "Maybe if he wasn't in my head all the time," she added, moving her juice away. "But I can't take it anymore. He just keeps pushing."
"He wouldn't if you would go see him."
Ivy sat straighter, eyes on the table. "I did go see him. I told him that I wasn't going to be his scion and to get out of my head. He laughed at me. He said I had made a choice and now I had to live and die by it."
"You did make a choice."
"And now I'm making another one," she shot back, her eyes lowered submissively but her voice determined. "I'm not going to do it. I don't want to run Cincinnati's underground, and I won't." She took a deep breath, her eyes rising to his. "I can't tell if I like something anymore because I like it or because Piscary likes it. Dad, will you talk to him for me?"
My eyes widened at her pleading tone. The only time I had heard it before was when she thought she was dead and was begging me to keep her safe. My jaw clenched as I remembered. God, that had been awful. When I looked up at his continued silence, I was startled to find Ivy's dad watching me. His lips were pressed tight and his gaze was angry, as if this was my fault.
"You're his scion," he said, his eyes accusingly on mine. "Stop shirking your duties."
Ivy's nostrils flared. I really didn't want to be here, but if I moved, I would only draw attention to myself. "I made a mistake," she said angrily. "And I'm willing to pay the cost to get out of it, but he's going to start hurting people to make me do what he wants. That's not fair."
He made a scoffing laugh and rose. "Did you expect anything different? He's going to use everything and everyone he can to manipulate you. He's a master vampire." Putting his hands on the table, he leaned toward Ivy. "It's what they do."
Cold, I sent my gaze down to the river below. It didn't matter if Piscary was in jail or not. All he had to do was say the word, and his minions would not only bring Ivy in line but get me out of his hair as well. Expensive, but effective.
But Ivy pulled her head up, shaking it in reassurance before turning her damp eyes to her father. "Dad, he said he's going to start calling on Erica."
The man's face went ashen to make the small fever scars stand out starkly. Relief that Piscary wasn't targeting me flashed through me, then guilt that I could feel such a thing. "I'll talk to him," he whispered, the worry in his voice for his innocent, so-alive daughter clear.
I felt sick. In their conversation were the dark, ugly shadows of the hidden pacts older children made to each other to protect a younger, innocent sibling from an abusive parent. The feeling solidified when her dad repeated softly, "I'll talk to him."
"Thank you."
All of us seemed to draw away in an uncomfortable silence. It was time to go. Ivy stood first, quickly followed by me. I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and shrugged into it. Ivy's dad rose slowly, seeming twice as tired as when we came in. "Ivy," he said as he came close. "I'm proud of you. I don't agree with what you're doing, but I'm proud of you."
"Thanks, Dad." Smiling a close-lipped smile in relief, she gave him a hug. "We gotta go. I've got a run tonight."
"Darvan's girl?" he asked, and she nodded, the hint of guilt and fear on her still. "Good. You keep doing what you're doing. I'll talk to Piscary and see what I can work out."
"Thanks."
He turned to me. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Rachel."
"Same here, Mr. Randal." I was glad the vampire talk seemed to be over. We could all pretend to be normal again; hide the ugliness under the five-thousand-dollar rug.
"Wait, Ivy. Here." The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn wallet, turning himself from a vampire into just another dad.
"Dad," Ivy protested. "I've got my own money."
He smiled with half his mouth. "Think of it as a thank-you for watching Erica at the concert. Have lunch on me."
I said nothing as he shoved a hundred dollar bill into Ivy's hand, pulling her forward into a one-armed hug. "I'll call you tomorrow morning," he said softly.
Ivy's shoulders lost their usual upright posture. "I'll come by. I don't want to talk over the phone." She shot me a forced, close-lipped smile. "Ready to go?"
I nodded, giving Ivy's dad a head bob as I followed her out into the dining room and to the front door. Knowing how good vamp hearing was, I kept my mouth shut until the elegantly carved door thumped shut behind us and our feet were again on the snow. It had grown dusky, and the snow-drifts seemed to glow in the light reflected off the sky.
Erica's car was gone. Key's jingling, Ivy hesitated. "Hold up," she said, boots squeaking in the snow as she went to where the red car had been parked. "I think she ditched her caps."
I stood by my open door and waited while Ivy came to a standstill beside the wheel marks. Eyes closed, she flung her hand as if throwing something, and then strode to the other side of the drive. As I watched in a mystified silence, she searched the snow. Bending at the waist twice, she picked something up. She came back and got into the car without comment.
I followed her in and fastened my belt, wishing it were darker so I didn't have to watch her drive. At my questioning silence, Ivy held out her hand and dropped two bits of hollow plastic into my grip. The car started, and I aimed the vents at me, hoping the engine was still warm. "Caps?" I asked, looking at them small and white in my palm as Ivy pulled away. How on earth did she find these in the snow?
"Guaranteed to keep from breaking skin," Ivy said, her thin lips pressing together. "And with that, she can't accidentally bind anyone to her. She's supposed to wear them until Dad says so. And at this rate, she's going to be thirty before that happens. I know where she works. Mind if we drop them off?"
I shook my head, extending them back to her. Ivy checked both ways at the end of the drive before pulling out in front of a blue station wagon, wheels spinning in the slush. "I've got an empty caps case in my purse. Would you put them in there for me?"
"Sure." I didn't like digging around in her purse, but if I didn't, she'd do it while driving, and my stomach was in enough knots already. I felt odd as I put Ivy's purse on my lap and opened it up. It was disgustingly tidy. Not a single used tissue or lint-covered candy.
"Mine is the one with the colored glass on it," Ivy said, watching the road with half her attention. "I should have a plastic one in there, somewhere. The disinfectant is probably still good. Dad would kill her if he knew she threw them in the snow. They cost as much as her summer camp last year in the Andes."
"Oh." My three summers spent at Kalamack's Make-A-Wish camp for dying children suddenly looked pale. Shifting past a small container that looked like an elaborately decorated pillbox was a thumb-sized white vial. I unscrewed the top to find it full of a bluish liquid.
"That's the one," Ivy said, and I dropped them in. They floated, and when I went to stick my pinky in to sink them, she added, "Just put the top on and give it a shake. They'll sink."
I did just that, dropping the vial into her purse and setting it beside her.
"Thanks," Ivy said. "The time I 'lost' mine, he grounded me for a month."
I gave her a weak smile, thinking it was kind of like losing your glasses or retainer...or maybe your diaphragm. Oh God. Did I really want to know all this?
"You still wear caps?" I said, curiosity getting the better of me. She didn't seem to be embarrassed about it. Maybe I should just go with it.
Ivy shook her head, signaling an instant before she crossed two lanes of traffic to get to the expressway's onramp. "No," she said as I clutched the door handle. "Not since I was seventeen. But I keep them in case - " She cut her words off. "Just in case."
Just in case what? I wondered, then decided I didn't want to know. "Uh, Ivy?" I questioned as I tried not to figure out where she was going to force herself into traffic. I held my breath while we merged and, from behind us, horns blew. "What the heck does bunny ears and 'kiss, kiss' mean?"
She stared at me, and I made a peace sign and crooked my fingers twice in quick succession. An odd smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "Those aren't bunny ears," she said. "Those are fangs."
I thought about that, then flushed. "Oh."
Ivy chuckled. I eyed her for a moment, then deciding there would be no better time, I took a slow breath. "Um, about Skimmer..."
Her good mood vanished. She shot me a look, then put her eyes back on the road. "We were roommates." A faint flush came over her, telling me it was more than that. "We were very close roommates," she added carefully, as if I hadn't already figured it out. Ivy hit the brakes hard to avoid a black BMW that wanted to pen her in behind a minivan. Accelerating quickly, she darted around to the right, leaving him behind.
"She came out here because of you," I said, feeling my blood quicken. "Why didn't you tell her we aren't like that?"
Her grip on the wheel tightened. "Because..." She took a soft breath and tucked her hair behind her ear. It was a nervous tic that I didn't see very often. "Because I didn't want to," she said as she settled in behind a red Trans-Am doing fifteen over the posted limit.
Eyes worried, she looked at me, ignoring the green minivan that both the Trans-Am and we were roaring up on. "I'm not going to apologize, Rachel. The night you decide taking and giving blood isn't sex, I'm going to be there. I'll take what I can until you do."
Horribly uncomfortable, I shifted in my seat. "Ivy..."
"Don't," she said lightly as she yanked the car to the right, hitting the gas to dart ahead of both of them. "I know how you feel about it. I can't change your mind. You're going to have to figure it out for yourself. Skimmer being here doesn't change anything." She slipped in front of the van, giving me a soft smile that convinced me even more that blood was sex. "And then you'll spend the rest of your life kicking yourself for waiting so long to take that chance."