Chapter 12 PLEASE STAY AWAY
I avoided him for three days.
It was not difficult. Nightfang Academy was large enough that two people who wanted to avoid each other could do so successfully as long as they were strategic about it.
I was very strategic.
I took different routes to class, and arrived at the cafeteria early enough to be already there.
In the car I remained focused on Jake, laughing at everything he said, asking questions, being so inquisitive. Even for the things I knew.
Jake noticed none of this. Alexander noticed all of it.
I could feel his eyes on me in the rearview mirror even when I refused to look.
So I ignored it, and him too.
Avoiding things I did not want to think about had always been one of my better skills. The problem here was the bond.
It did not care that I had a plan and that the plan involved Jake and not Alexander and that what happened in the nurse's bay was a mistake that I had decided permanently not to think about.
The bond hummed quietly in my chest every time he was near. I ignored that too.
On Wednesday, I was cutting through the east corridor again. I had learned my lesson about being alone back there when I heard footsteps behind me.
I knew without turning around.
"Lily."
I kept walking fast.
"Lily I know you can hear me."
"I am busy," I said to the corridor ahead of me.
"You are walking," he said. "That is not busy."
"I am busy walking."
He caught up easily. Vampires and their legs. He fell into step beside me without being invited and matched my pace exactly and I stared straight ahead and pretended he was not there.
"We need to talk," he said.
"We really do not," I said.
"What happened in the nurse's bay—"
"Did not happen," I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
"Lily."
"It did not happen Alexander," I said. "It was the painkiller. And the bond. And.... it did not happen."
We reached the end of the corridor. I turned the corner. He turned with me and fed up, I stopped walking.
We were in a small alcove between two classrooms.
I turned to face him. Big mistake.
He was closer than I expected. The alcove was not large and he was not small and suddenly the space between us was very small.
"How did it happen?" I said.
He looked at me steadily. "You pulled me down."
"Before that," I said. "You were.... you were leaning over me. You were going to bite me."
"I lost control," he said. "I could smell your blood from the cuts and I—"
"You were going to bite my neck," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"While I was asleep."
"I was not going to—" He stopped and exhaled. "I lost control. I did not intend for it to go as far as it did. When you opened your eyes I was going to pull back."
"But I pulled you down," I said.
"Yes," he said quietly.
I looked at him. He looked back.
"So it was my fault," I said.
"That is not what I said."
"But that is what happened."
"Lily...."
"I pulled you down," I said. "Half asleep and full of painkillers and confused and I pulled you down." I pressed my fingers to my forehead. "And then.... and then we...."
"Yes," he said.
"Stop agreeing with everything I say," I said.
"You keep saying the true things," he said.
I looked up at him. He was watching me with that steady look that was somehow worse than if he had been smirking.
"It cannot happen again," I said.
"Okay," he said.
"I mean it Alexander."
"I know you do," he said.
"I have a plan," I said. "Jake is the plan. Jake has always been the plan. What happened was the bond messing with my head and your vampire senses losing control and it was a combination of circumstances that will not...."
He kissed me.
I do not know which one of us moved first.
One moment there was space between us and the next there was not and his hand was at the back of my neck and my hands were flat against his chest and it was the nurse's bay all over again except we were standing up and completely awake and there were absolutely no painkillers involved this time.
No excuses.
I kissed him back for four full seconds before my brain caught up with my body.
I pushed him away hard.
He stepped back. We stared at each other. My chest was heaving. His was, too.
"Stay away from me," I said.
He opened his mouth.
"No," I said. "Stay away from me. You are.... you are confusing me. Every time I get close to you something happens and I cannot think straight and I do not understand it and I hate it." My voice was rising. I could hear it rising and I could not stop it. "You are doing something to me."
"Lily...."
"Is it a vampire thing?" I demanded. "Is that what this is? Some kind of compulsion? Some trick you are using because of the bond?"
His expression turned more serious. "No. I would never...."
"Then why?" I said. "Why every time you are near me does everything get loud and confusing and why can I not just feel what I am supposed to feel as a normal person?"
He was quiet.
"I am supposed to love Jake," I said. "That is the plan. That is how the bond breaks. That is what we agreed." I pressed both hands against my chest like I could physically hold the feelings in. "And then you.... you look at me like that and you kiss me like that and I forget everything and I do not know what is wrong with me."
"Nothing is wrong with you," he said quietly.
"Something is wrong with me," I said. "Because I cannot be in a corridor alone with you for five minutes without...." I stopped, slowly beginning to tremble at sheerly knowing that as crazy as what I was saying sounds, it was real. I shook my head.
"Stop doing whatever you are doing to me. Stop it.... Please.... whatever vampire trick this is, whatever the bond is making you do, stop."
"It is not a trick...." he said.
"Then what is it?!" My voice broke slightly on the last word.
He looked at me.
For a long time, he just looked at me and I could see him deciding something or some internal conversation was happening behind his grey eyes.
He opened his mouth.
"Alexander...." I started.
"Let me just...."
"No." I took a step back. "No. Do not say whatever you are about to say. I do not want to hear it." I pressed my fingers to my lips. They were still warm. "I need to love Jake.... I need the bond to break. That is what I want and you agreed to help me and I need you to help me and not.... not do this."
I was crying now.
I did not even know when that had started. But I stood there fighting small, furious tears that I hated with everything in me.
Then I stepped toward him and grabbed the front of his shirt.
"What is wrong with you even?" I said. My voice was very small now. All the anger had been there had left for something more honest. "What are you doing to me Alexander? I don't want to feel like this. I want to feel like this about Jake. Tell me how to feel like this about Jake."
He looked down at my hands on his shirt.
Then he looked at my face.
"Tell me," I whispered. "Please."
He reached up slowly and covered my hands with his. His grip was warm and careful. He opened his mouth.
"Lily...."
I let go of his shirt and stepped back, wiped my face with the back of my hand and arranged my glasses.
"Stay away from me," I said quietly. "Please. Just.... for a while. Stay away from me and let the plan work."
He said nothing. So I turned and walked away.
My footsteps echoed down the empty corridor. He did not follow me but I felt him standing there, standing and watching and not saying the thing he had decided to say.
And some terrible part of me wished he had said it anyway.
Many weeks later, autumn had fully settled in, and I almost did not attend the party.
At seven thirty in the evening, I stood outside his house in my best jeans and a blue top I had ironed twice, telling myself I was being ridiculous.
It was just a party. Alexander's nineteenth birthday party with a gathering of wealthy vampires in an enormous house where everything probably cost more than my mother made in a month.
"It's just a party," I muttered under my breath.
For a second, turning around and going home felt like the smarter option. Then my phone buzzed.