Draug meant dead.
Yas was dead.
Or he might as well be, if what I’d seen was really true. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around it. I couldn’t believe it. But I’d seen his eyes, those red, soulless eyes that I’d seen before. I thought of the Draug in Tom’s pens, remembered those hands reaching through bars, clawing the air, mindlessly swiping for food. Anxious to taste blood. To taste fear.
Was that why Yas had been so unhinged lately? I’d imagined that when a Trainee turned Draug, it would be an immediate thing. An instant change. But if Yas was any indication, it was a slow, laborious process. Like devolving into madness.
It was a madness that had its roots in the castle, in what they did inside the castle. What they did to the guys. To the girls. To all of us.
“Annelise?” The familiar voice pulled me from my morbid thoughts.
“Ronan?” I gaped at him, completely thrown now. I was reeling, unable to make sense of anything, and it was surreal to see Ronan. In my moment of need, it wasn’t Carden who’d appeared, but him.
“Are you going to dinner?”
“Huh?” I looked from him to the dining hall and back again, realizing I’d just been standing there, staring at the students spilling from its doors. For an instant, each was illuminated by a pool of light before walking into the night. Their bellies were full; they were sad or happy or anxious, each immersed in his or her own world, completely unaware of me in my hell.
A hell where Yas was gone from me. From everyone. Forever.
“Annelise?” He peered at me, eq
ual parts concern and puzzlement. “I said, are you going to dinner?”
“Dinner. ” I shook my head, shaking my mind back into reality. “No. Not happening. ” I doubted I’d ever eat again, my stomach was in such knots.
“Are you all right?”
I couldn’t deal with this right now, this concern from Ronan. Was he here to protect me or simply because he’d wanted to seek me out? It made me feel confused and exposed. “Yeah,” I answered tightly. “I’m fine. ”
“I say you’re not. ” He stepped closer and took my arm, and I flinched away, but he took it again, at the elbow, with a grip both firm and gentle. “Come. ”
I looked over my shoulder at the dining hall and asked, “Don’t you need to eat?” But deep down I hadn’t really meant that. If I’d wanted to voice what I really thought, I’d have said something like, I want out…. I need help…. I want someone to take me away.
But those were dangerous thoughts, each one a brutal reminder of why I was here in the first place. “You. ” I tugged at my arm. My life in Florida had sucked, sure, but it hadn’t been like this. This unending parade of terror and heartbreak. “This is your fault. ”
His face fell, hearing my words. He knew what I meant, and still, he didn’t let go. He only pulled me closer. “Come with me,” he said, and this time his words were a soft lull.
Even through my thick coat, I felt the warmth begin to buzz from his fingertips. I stared at his hand nestled in the crook of my arm. “You’re doing your trick,” I said, though at that point, I didn’t even care. If it could put me out of my misery, I welcomed it.
He shrugged and gave me a sad, halfhearted smile. “It seems an emergency, aye?”
“Fine,” I said numbly, falling in to step beside him. “I’ll go with you. You don’t even need to do your special voodoo grip. ”
We walked for a while, headed toward the cove where we’d had so many of our swim lessons. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. “Where are you taking me?”
“It’s where I go when I’m low. ”
I sighed. Whatever. I’d lost Amanda and Judge. Emma was dead in a way I presumed so horrific it’d been enough to make her boyfriend snap. Carden had disappeared off the face of the earth. And now Yasuo was transforming into a monster before my eyes. Maybe this little jaunt would make Ronan feel better, but I doubted I’d ever feel better again.
I assumed we’d head down to the water’s edge and was surprised when he led me off the trail. “Off the path? Hasn’t there been enough trouble?”
“And can’t you be quiet for two minutes?” he snapped back, but even in the dark, I saw in his eyes how he wasn’t truly angry. He led us to a spot looking down at the shore. It was nestled in the hills, perfectly situated so that neither people on the path nor those on the beach would’ve been able to see us.
“You’re full of secrets,” I said.
“I’m not the only one. ” The way he sat next to me—sat close next to me—swept the thoughts from my head like a bracing breeze might clear smoke from a room.
As he watched the waves, I stole glances at him. Because, why? Why was he doing this now? Why couldn’t he have taken me on moonlit walks to secret spots before I’d bonded with a vampire? What was he up to?