The Keep: The Watchers Page 2

  A familiar voice startled me from my thoughts. “You’ve got guts, showing up here like this.”

  I spun. It was Yasuo.

  I knew that happy, relieved feeling of seeing a friend, but the sensation was instantly cut short by the look of him. So crushed. So pale and bleak.

  “Yasuo.” I realized I’d hoped to run into him. He’d forgive me. We were friends. We needed each other. We’d work through this together. I put on a brave, gentle face, hoping to convince myself—and him—that there was forgiveness to be had. “How are you doing?” I hoped he heard how the words had come from my heart.

  “How am I doing?” A smirk contorted his face, and his words came sharp and cold. “How am I doing? Please tell me you didn’t come here to ask how’m I doin’? Because I’ll tell you, Drew. Here’s how I’m doing: I suck. You killed my girlfriend, remember? Or wait. Maybe you don’t, because you’re…too…freaking…self-involved to care about anyone but yourself.” Hatred glimmered in his eyes. Emma was gone, and he blamed me.

  “No, wait,” I blurted. “It’s not like that. I have news. I think—”

  “Screw what you think.” He spun away from me, shutting me out, striding in the direction of the dining hall.

  Friends were rare on this rock. I needed Yasuo and I thought he probably needed me, too. Undaunted, I did a quick jog to catch up. “I think there’s a chance she’s still alive,” I said at his back. The words spilled from me in a rush. I needed to get his attention, to convince him there was hope. That I was still a worthy friend before he shut me out forever. “Emma. She was alive, Yas. After the fight. What if she’s still alive?”

  He froze utterly, but it wasn’t an I’m-listening kind of pose that he’d assumed; rather, it was more like rage had finally frozen him, crackling him to ice. “She’s not.”

  I refused to believe it. I was desperate. I had sunk my teeth into this new hope and wouldn’t give it up so easily now. “Just hear me out,” I begged. “Audra said something weird. She said they had to tie her—”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Wait. What do you mean? Do you know what happened?” Yasuo lived inside the castle. He was privy to many of its secrets. He got to peek behind that thick granite curtain every day. “What do you mean gone? Do you know what they—”

  “I just know, all right?” He speared his fingers through his hair in what looked like a gesture of desperation, and I saw how his hands trembled.

  “But how do you know?”

  “I know,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Did you actually see her?”

  “Let it go.”

  He stormed away, and I followed at his heels. Until I knew exactly what’d happened, until I saw it with my own eyes or talked to someone who had, I wouldn’t believe it.

  “I just need to understand. Did you see her…after?” I shuddered. It was unthinkable.

  “Leave it.”

  His long legs were striding down the path again, and I had to do a skip-hop to catch up. “What if I can’t leave it? She might’ve been your girlfriend, but she was my best friend. And that’s something.”

  It’d once been everything.

  He stopped and met my gaze full-on, throwing me in the path of hundreds of tiny razor blades. He peeled his lips back, revealing shimmering fangs. They were longer than I’d realized.

  “When’d your fangs grow?” I wished he’d look away again. A nervous laugh fizzed out of me. “The better to bite me with, right?”

  “Listen…to…me,” he said, enunciating slowly and with ice-cold fury. “She’s gone. Forever. Gone.”

  “No,” I whispered in a voice like a child’s. His words finally registered. I saw the truth in his expression. It’d cracked—he’d cracked. I clutched my head in my hands, experiencing her death all over again. Grief embraced me—so familiar, it felt like my natural state. It would never go away. I’d carry it forever. “No. No, no.”

  “Yes, Drew. She was ripped up the fucking middle, and it was your fault.” He looked manic, anguish flowing from him like a torrent of acid. “She loved you,” he said, his words like a slap. “Emma loved, but it always was all about you.” He stepped forward, stabbing a finger in my chest. “You, you, you. And Em was too good—she was too goddamned nice—to do anything but humor you. And you turned around and let her…let that happen to her.”

  “Not a minute passes where I don’t wish that’d been me.” It took everything I had not to take a step back. I would not be afraid of Yasuo—he was once my close friend. He’d be my friend again. I refused to accept that he was done with me forever. “If I could’ve traded places with her, I would have. We need to stick together now, more than ever. Emma would want us to be there for each other. There’s no reason we need to be grieving alone through this.”

  He gaped at me, aghast. “If you think you can show up here and say some shit and be all nice and I’m-so-sad and that it’ll make it all better, think again, D. You just want yourself to feel better. This is you making it about you, all over again, as always.”

  “You’re not the only one who gets to be sad,” I snapped. I was the one who was angry now. “Don’t think for one second that there’s anything pretend about how totally and completely heartbroken I am. You’re not the only one who gets to grieve. You’re pissed, sure, but guess what? I’m pissed, too. I should’ve been the one Al sliced up the middle—I get that. But I wasn’t, okay? And now we have a chance for revenge. Don’t you want to know what happened to her?” It was knowledge that’d surely torment me for the rest of my life, but I had to know her exact fate. Had Alcántara tortured her? What happened to all those girls? “We can take them down, Yas. We can fight them together. Get our revenge.”

  “None of your stupid little games or plans is going to bring Emma back. I wish you were dead instead.”

  “Fine. Maybe you should just kill me right now. How about that?” I took a turn stabbing my finger into his chest. “You can have your revenge on me, and we can all slaughter one another until there’s nobody left on this stupid island.”

  I let the dramatic pronouncement hang, then continued more calmly. “Or we can team up, Yas. We can be allies. We can fight this system. Approach it logically, systematically. We take our time, and we can have payback. For Emma. You’re on the inside. Maybe we can’t save her, but maybe we can save the next girl. She’d have wanted that. We could do it for her.”

  He stared at me for a moment, silently processing. His features softened, and hope filled my chest like a balloon.

  But then he said, “You’re right. I should just kill you now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I couldn’t bear to see if Yasuo would be true to his word. A tide of students appeared, and I turned from him and merged with the others heading to the dining hall. When I got there, I didn’t wait to sit down. I just grabbed my drink and pounded it, standing right there at the fridge, black lunch tray dangling empty in my hand.

  I swallowed, and a pleasant shiver rolled up my body. It sounded disgusting, consuming the blood of another, but how quickly we got used to it. Who could resist the rush of courage and power that came from consuming the lifeblood of a vampire? It was cumulative, too—the more we drank, the stronger we grew.

  I peered into the glass-fronted refrigerator. Vampire blood glimmered in preposterously formal, cut-crystal tumblers, all lined up in neat rows. For one crazy moment, I contemplated stealing an extra.

  I shook off the feeling. As with all good things, just enough was just right. But too much? Too much could make a girl powerful beyond imagining…or it might just make her nuts. Too much of a good thing could drive a weak mind mad.

  And me, I had to be extra careful, bonded as I was to Carden. Already I got to drink straight from the source, from Carden’s own powerfully beating heart, and that was infinitely more reckless than simply filching an extra shot glass at dinner.

  An explosion of sound startled me from my thoughts. A cluster of guys coming into the
dining hall. I tensed, hearing Yasuo’s voice rise above the rest.

  I stole a peek over my shoulder. His eyes were waiting for me, glaring so intensely, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a couple of red laser-beam dots wavering on my forehead. I had to look away.

  It was hopeless. Emma was well and truly dead. I wanted revenge, and apparently Yas did, too. Only he wanted revenge on me.

  The rush of strength I’d felt from the drink evaporated. My bravery faded into bravado, leaving me feeling like a wispy paper-doll cutout of myself.

  My head was buzzing. I needed to sit.

  Despair and the ghosts of friends past scratched at a door in the back of my mind. Because I needed to sit…but where? Less than a year ago, I’d have been settling in at a table with Emma. Yasuo would’ve been there, too, cracking stupid jokes, goofing off. I’d watched as the two of them slowly began to crush on each other. Watched as it’d developed into more. My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve been there, too, with her Cockney accent, calling her fries chips and her chips crisps. Tracer Judge might’ve stopped by, his friendly puppy-dog eyes meeting everyone’s gaze but Amanda’s. They’d been a couple, and their failed escape had been the death of them.

  So few people in my life had gained my regard, and now most of them were dead.

  I swayed. Get to a chair.

  I made my feet walk to the first empty table, which was thankfully out of the fray, along the wall near the door. I just needed to eat. Not talk to anyone. Get in and get out. I didn’t want to be there, but I needed my calories—proper nourishment could mean the difference between life and death on this island.

  I wolfed down bread and soup. An awareness of my surroundings was even more critical than those calories, and I pretended to keep to myself while really I was reading the room. I could no longer see Yasuo, but still I felt his eyes boring into me. He was across the room, sitting with his fellow Trainees.

  Emotion clenched my throat, making it hard to swallow. I hadn’t known many friends in my life. Losing one hurt worse than any injury, and I’d had a lot of bad injuries.

  I tried to focus on my breathing instead. I chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed. Chewed, swallowed, and tried to consider the fact that I did still have people in my corner.

  Carden…Just the thought of him unspooled something in my chest. I tried to picture him, to remember his scent, his eyes. The taste of him. To recall the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. Though I couldn’t summon a complete snapshot, I clung to every thread of every memory as though I could weave it all together into a lifeline.

  I longed to see him and consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d see him later. He would come for me—there was no question of it. It was something I knew in my bones. He always sensed when I needed him.

  And there were other people I could rely on to cheer me up. Ronan was, well, Ronan—and oddly, he usually managed to make me feel not entirely alone. There was Josh—he always made me laugh, which was nice. And thinking of my old roommate Mei-Ling was always good for a smile, too. Even though she’d escaped and I’d probably never see her again, I liked to think of her out there somewhere, sending positive thoughts my way.

  I tried to think of more.

  I couldn’t.

  Grief seized my throat, and the fresh-baked bread stuck there, my mouth suddenly too dry. I dunked the last crusty heel of it into my soup, but that released a potato smell into the air, a bland, tepid, creamy sort of smell, like the puddle of milk leftover in my school thermos at the end of the day. My stomach turned.

  I shivered and clenched my teeth against sudden chattering. I’d never warmed up after the run-in with Yasuo, and not even the dry blast of ancient, pinging radiators could touch the chill that cut to my bones.

  The screech of a chair leg against the floor brought my head up. Three girls were settling in at the end of the table. They were Acari, new Acari, clearly green enough not to know that my blue catsuit was code for stay away. One nodded at me, but I only stared back, my face an even blank.

  My training had been good for something, and in that brief instant, I managed to assess reams about them. One was petite—she looked about my height—with hair that would’ve been a boring shade of brown were it not for her mesmerizingly perfect ringlets. Another had dark hair and olive skin in a tone that suggested an uncommon lineage, the sort of thing involving an Irish grandfather and a Lebanese grandmother. The third was tall and lean, and her prettiness had an unremarkable quality to it, that brand of conventional uniformity that made a girl instantly popular in high school.

  I had a surreal flashback. Me, sitting at a table almost exactly one year ago. I’d have looked short, just like Curly over there, sitting next to Miss Pretty, whose legginess summoned the ghost of my nemesis, Lilac.

  Curly nodded at me like her friend had. I looked down, suddenly focused on my soup. It was early days for them, when the culling of new girls was fierce and daily, and I found it best not to be friendly with anybody who might disappear at any moment. Besides, I just didn’t have the energy to enlighten new Acari about things like friendly nods and how they could get a girl’s butt whipped.

  My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve nodded back. She probably would’ve had a kind word, too. But I wasn’t Amanda. The realization bummed me out—though, in a weird way, it should’ve bolstered me, considering Amanda’s behavior had gotten her killed. Besides, I might not have been friendly, but neither was I flashing around my throwing stars like any good Initiate should. So there was that.

  “Yo. Curly.” Yasuo had showed up to assess the new blood, and his words were a knife in my chest. He’d voiced a nickname—Curly—that I’d been thinking myself, and it crushed me to remember how things had been between us. All the old secret looks and private jokes, the stuff that two like-minded people—two friends—shared. All of that was gone. Then the knife twisted as I remembered how his first words to me hadn’t been much different. Hey. Blondie. We’d sat next to each other in Phenomena class. He’d been my first real friend on this island.

  No longer. Now he just studiously avoided eye contact with me.

  Curly might’ve given me a nod, but the appearance of the boys had her intent on her bowl of soup. Was she right to be scared? Was Yasuo being friendly as he had been with me so long ago, or had his warmth all died with Emma? He had a little gang now, unlike when we’d first met. Sitting there, I’d dismissed them—all the guys blurred together as a mass of cocky attitudes and half-grown fangs—but when the skin on my neck prickled, I reassessed.

  Scanning the group, I saw there was a pair of eyes trained on me. While the others were studying the fresh blood, Rob had been studying me.

  Rob. He was the jerky Trainee who’d once made a move on me—if you could call attempted assault a move—and when I responded by slicing a giant hole in his pants with my throwing star, I’d made an enemy forever.

  He’d sworn revenge, but at the time, my reaction had been a resounding what-ever. I knew I should’ve taken threats like that seriously, but I mean, really. We were surrounded by threats, and I had enough on my plate trying to make sure there weren’t any real vampires trying to kill me. Teenagers like Rob tended to pale in comparison when someone like Master Alcántara had you in his sights.

  And besides, I had an ancient and powerful vampire on my side to protect me. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could call Carden McCloud something so mundane as “boyfriend,” but he was my bonded vampire, and that seemed infinitely more powerful. So, I had Carden looking out for me, and though it was probably a false sense of security, it was security.

  “Is she deaf?” one of the guys asked.

  Curly hadn’t responded to Yasuo’s little greeting, and these were the sorts of guys who weren’t used to being ignored. Yas leaned down to speak in her ear. “Hey, Shirley Temple. I’m talking to you.”

  The leggy, pretty girl went wide-eyed, making her look like a panicked woodland creature. Her gaze skittered over
the Trainees. They’d closed in, standing behind the girls in a half circle, looming. Pretty Girl looked like she wanted to bolt, but then a redheaded Trainee named Danny came up from behind and planted his hands on her shoulders. I’d misread her. Unlike Lilac, this girl was scared. Easily intimidated.

  She wouldn’t last a day.

  I had to look away. I tried to dismiss her from my mind.

  It was past time for me to leave. I piled my cutlery neatly in my bowl. And yet…I didn’t budge.

  A strange, new light was burning in Yasuo’s eyes, and it kept drawing my attention, mesmerizing me. I didn’t know what that expression meant. I had to see what he’d do. Who he’d become.

  He reached out and pulled one of Curly’s ringlets straight. It sprang back into place as he let go. “Well? Do you have a name? Or are you mute and deaf?”

  This wasn’t the Yasuo who’d sat next to me that first day of class, the guy with the spiky mussed hair and the crooked smile. This Yasuo was unsmiling, bitter. His eyes had been drained of their warmth, and for an instant, he looked like a marble version of himself.

  This Yasuo was becoming Vampire.

  “My name’s Regina.” She gathered up every inch of what I estimated was her five-foot-zero frame and gave her best contemptuous smile.

  I could tell it wasn’t practiced, though—she hadn’t been one of those girls in her high school—and I read her story in a flash. It was all in the way she held her shoulders, that flicker in her eye. She’d thought herself a loser back home. Maybe she’d been knocked around like I had, or maybe she just thought about things too much, seeing flaws where there were none, which was kind of like me, too. Either way, the whole thing gave me a painful pang.

  “Regina!” Danny crowed. He’d rhymed Regina with vagina—of course he had—the joke exaggerated by his thick British accent.