Mei looked at me. “Vampires can die?” In her surprise, she hadn’t lowered her voice.
Kenzie heard and answered for me. “In a staking, they can. ”
I sank low on the couch. Wow. The vampires must be pretty pissed if that was the message they were communicating to the masses.
“Who do they think did it?” someone asked.
I shivered. I knew who they thought did it. Alcántara had seemed suspicious of Carden from the moment I’d sprung him from that prison cell, making me wonder more than once how much the Spanish vampire had really intended to rescue him in the first place.
Carden was Vampire; I’d seen it firsthand. But I’d also seen something else in him—those flickers of concern for me, shreds of his old humanity that told me that, although he might be physically capable of the killings, Carden wouldn’t murder for sport.
“They don’t know,” Kenzie replied, sounding exasperated. “That’s the point. They’re escalating security island-wide. Until then, classes today and tomorrow are canceled. You’re in lockdown until further notice. ”
The questions exploded again—“What lockdown? Can we eat? We can’t leave at all? What if I want to go to the gym?”—but Kenzie ignored all of them. “No more questions,” she said brusquely. Then she wove her way through us and left the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Emma and I plopped on my bed, and Mei-Ling on hers. I flopped backward, staring up at the ceiling. So much for my ill-fated investigation. How could I hunt for evidence if I wasn’t even allowed to leave my dorm? “I am so sick of these four walls. ”
When we’d heard the news that we were basically being quarantined, my first thoughts had been, When will I see Carden? It was as if I’d already decided I’d feed from him again. It was pathetic.
Mei-Ling misunderstood the reasons for my misery and gave me a sympathetic look. “We could sit in the lounge. ”
“Nonstarter,” I said. The common area was plagued with girls angling for a fight. “The lounge is crawling with people. This is our only option. ”
Emma turned onto her side to face me. “Sorry we can’t hang in my room. ”
“Does your roommate ever leave?” I asked. “I’m so sure she was transcribing our last conversation. It creeped me out. ”
“She did seem suspicious,” Mei said.
“Oh, totally,” I agreed. “I think she probably assembles her notes into little reports for the vampires. ” The girl was so into life on Eyja næturinnar, she’d changed her name from Audra to Frost, and spent all her free time studying Icelandic and brushing up on her Norse legends. I thought the new name made her sound like one of the X-Men.
“She’s just an eccentric, is all. ” Ever-forgiving was our Emma.
“Eccentric?” I rolled my eyes. You’d have thought Frost’s study habits would make her prime friend material for me, but the slavering look she got in her eyes whenever she came near a vampire was enough to turn my stomach. “She’s Master Dagursson’s pet. ’Nuff said. ”
I put my arm over my head, covering my eyes. Most normal teens got to spend their free time talking on the phone, texting, or downloading stuff to their iPods. Not us. For all we knew, a whole new iPod had been invented since we’d arrived. “Nope. We’re stuck here, and I’m dying of boredom. ”
“We could play Gin Rummy,” Emma said.
With a moan, I rolled onto my stomach. I wriggled, trying to get comfortable around the permanent ache in my gut. “Not again. I’m sick of cards. ” But then I laughed, hearing how ridiculous my tone of voice was. “Sorry, guys. I’m sounding like a brat. I’m just cranky. ” Cranky and in pain.
Emma smiled. “You’re not the only one. ”
> She had no idea. She thought she did, but if she was cranky, then I was raging. It was only day two of lockdown, and my Carden detox was in full swing, worse now that we weren’t even having chance encounters. I felt like I was dying without him.
The vampires gave us supplements—lockdown didn’t mean starvation—but the refrigerated blood they served wasn’t the same. It was a weak substitute, like craving coffee and getting something old and watered down instead.
With a sharp inhale, I sat up. My friend was trying, and so would I. I would have a good attitude.
Emma sat up, too, and patted my back. “It’s totally understandable. We’re cooped up in here while there’s some crazy murderer out there. ”
That wasn’t my problem, but I nodded just the same. She had no idea what I was going through, but this was one misunderstanding I was happy to embrace. Anything to get my mind off Carden.
Mei stood and pulled down the window shades, looking creeped out, as if the killer might be standing just outside. “It is disturbing. ”
I caught her eye and gave her a nod. “Disturbing is exactly the word for it. ” The vampires employed a few humans to do menial tasks and there was Ronan who actually had family on the island, but otherwise everyone kept to themselves. “A regular human person, drained of blood? It’s an aberration. ”