Chapter 22 WHAT WE AGREED
"You smell extraordinary."
I couldn't stop thinking about the four Ashford students around her row, her back pressed against the seats and her face when she looked up and found me on the steps.
I pressed my forehead against the tile.
She is fine. Jake had been there. The plan was working. Saturday was happening. And soon I'd just go back to seeing her as an ordinary girl.
I turned the water off and got changed. I walked back out to the coach and said all the right things about the match.
And when Jake appeared with Lily beside him, her hand in his, her facial color coming back, I smiled at the right moment and said the right things and looked at the right places.
I was very good at performing. I had been doing it for two years. And yes, I would do it for a little longer.
The nurse's office at Ashford Academy was nothing like Mrs Hale's bay at Nightfang.
It was larger and colder. Everything in it was white The beds had metal frames and the curtains were very stiff. Even the antiseptic smelled more expensive.
I sat on the edge of one of the beds while a nurse I did not know checked my pulse and shone a small light in my eyes and asked me questions in a brisk, efficient voice.
I answered them all correctly.
I was fine. Physically I was completely fine.
No injuries and no bites but my hands would not stop shaking.
I pressed them flat against my thighs and told them to stop and they ignored me.
Jake sat in the chair beside the bed.
He had not left. The Ashford nurse had told him he could wait outside and he had looked at her with a very pleasant smile and sat down anyway and the nurse had decided this was not a battle worth fighting.
He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees watching my face.
"I am actually fine," I said.
"I know," he said.
"You are doing the face," I said.
"What face," he said.
"The face where you are watching me like I might faint," I said.
"I am not doing a face," he said with a small smile.
"Jake."
"I am simply sitting here," he said. "Calmly. With no particular expression."
"You have a very particular expression," I said.
He almost smiled. "Are your hands still shaking?"
I looked at my hands on my thighs.
"No," I said.
He looked at my hands.
"Lily," he said, accusingly.
"Ok.... haha. They are slowing down," I said.
He reached over and covered both my hands with one of his. So warm. The shaking stopped immediately to my surprise.
"Better?" he said.
"Better," I said.
He kept his hand there.
We sat in the cold white room and I focused on the warmth of his hand and my breathing evened out slowly and the particular animal panic that had been sitting under my ribs since the stands began to loosen its grip.
"It has never happened before," I said. "Like that."
"You have been at away matches before?" he said.
"A few," I said. "But always in bigger groups. And nobody ever...." I stopped. "I forget sometimes. That I smell different."
"You do not have to forget," Jake said. "You just have to be more careful."
"I know," I said.
"I should have stayed with you at half time," he said.
"It is not your fault," I said.
"I should have stayed," he said again, firmly.
I looked at him. His jaw was tight. He was doing that thing where he was upset on my behalf and was processing it quietly so I would not see the full extent of it.
"Jake," I said.
He looked at me.
"Thank you...." I said. "....for coming."
"Always," he said simply.
I looked down at our hands. And then I noticed my neck pendant was gone.
The chain was there. I could feel the thin line of it against my collarbone but the small silver crescent my mother had pressed into my hands on my first day at Nightfang was gone.
That pendant was very important. I didn't know what for but my mom always checked for it and told me to keep it safe.
I reached up.
"Oh my.... No," I said.
Jake looked up. "What?"
"My necklace." I was already pulling the chain out from under my collar. "The pendant is gone."
I held up the empty chain. My hands had started shaking again.
"It must have come off in the stands," Jake said immediately. "We can go back and look...."
"It is a football ground," I said. "There were hundreds of people. It will be...."
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
Jake stood up. "Hey. Hey, look at me."
I looked at him.
"We will find it," he said.
"You do not understand," I said, my voice shaking but I didn't care. "It was my father's. My birth father's. My mum gave it to me. She said it was the only thing she had of him. The only thing she kept and it is so important. It is the only thing I have of him, Jake. I don't even know his name. I do not know anything about him or the pendant. That necklace was...."
"We will find it," he said again.
He sat back down and put both arms around me and I pressed my face into his shoulder and the tears came before I could stop them. It was completely humiliating.
I did not cry often.
I had learned early that crying in a school full of vampires who already considered you weaker than them was a great error of the highest order. But I couldn't help my frustration.
Then I sat back, sighed and wiped my face. He straightened my glasses.
"Sorry," I said.
"Do not apologise," he said.
"I was just feeling so...."
"Lily. Do not apologize."
I looked at him. He looked back steadily.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," he said.
He tucked my hair back. Then he stood up. "I am going back to the stands to look for it."
"Jake the match will have...."
"I am going to look," he said, simply and decided.
He walked to the curtain and pulled it back. He stopped.
Alexander was standing in the doorway. He was still in his kit from the match. Grass stained at the knees and his brown hair was damp with sweat. He looked at Jake and they shared a smile. Then he looked past Jake at me.
His face was unreadable.
"How is she?" he said to Jake.
"She lost her necklace," Jake said. "The one her mum gave her. I am going back to check the stands."
Alexander looked at me. Our eyes met for a moment.
I waited for something. Maybe some acknowledgement.
He looked away.
"I will get the coach to hold the bus," he said to Jake. "Take your time."
Then he turned and walked back down the corridor.
Just like that, he was gone.
Jake looked back at me. "I will find it. I promise."
He left.
The curtain swung closed behind him.
I sat alone on the metal-framed bed in the cold white room and looked at the empty chain in my hands.
Alexander had looked at me like I was someone he barely knew.
Like the sofa had not happened. Like the music had not happened. Like none of it had happened.
I wrapped the empty chain around my fingers.
He was helping me get Jake. That was the agreement. That was all this was. He did not owe me warmth. He did not owe me anything beyond what we had agreed.
I also needed to not forget that he used to be so cruel to me and likely would soon be again.
I knew that.
I pressed the chain against my palm. I knew that.
Alexander's POV:
I walked back down the corridor leading to the field until I found a corner and stopped.
I stared at the Ashford player. He swallowed, defeated and moved when I signalled.
I pressed my back against the wall and then I closed my eyes, waiting.
Lily had been crying about the necklace that that bastard had magically stolen.
I had seen her cry over it over Jake's shoulder.
I had wanted to go in. I had stood in that doorway and looked at her and wanted to cross the room and sit beside her and say something that was actually true for once.
But Jake had been there.
Jake had his arms around her.
I had said the right things and turned and walked away.
The way I was supposed to.
I opened my eyes and met the Ashford guy's eyes.
And the next thing, he was gone.
She had lost the necklace to the bastard for a scary moment.
The one her mother gave her. The only thing she had of a father she had never met. I had noticed it around her neck a hundred times without ever asking about it.
I knew how important that pendant was but I didn't want to bring any attention to it.
Deep down, I wasn't feeling too good about this guy knowing what it meant to have that pendant.
I had given him a firm warning and even though he seemed rebellious, he'd watered down and complied.
I pushed off the wall, walked through the corridor and straight to the stadium.
The stadium was emptying. Students and staff moving toward exits. The field was being cleared.
I went to the stands and found her row.
The pendant had been kept on the seat where she'd sat.
Intrigued, I squatted and studied the pendant closely.
The small silver crescent pendant just gleamed faintly in the afternoon light.
I held it in my palm, looked at it for a moment and then, I closed my fingers around it and stood up.
Jake was coming up the stairs from the other end of the stands. He saw me and saw my closed fist.