Drink, Slay, Love

Chapter Sixteen

Ms. Delancey, the school counsellor, was overly fond of her mechanical pencil, in Pearl's opinion. If she clicked it one more time . . . She clicked, and Pearl reached over, whipped it out of her hands, and snapped it in half. She handed back the pieces.

"So . . . ," Ms. Delancey said as she studied the two halves of her pencil, "I see we still have a few items to work through."

"I think my boyfriend is going to break up with me," Pearl said.

Ms. Delancey tucked the pencil into her drawer and pulled out a fresh one. Glancing at Pearl, she appeared to reconsider. She returned the new pencil to her drawer and selected a pen instead. She clicked the top so that the pen popped out. "Why?" she asked.

That was one of the things that Pearl liked about Ms. Delancey. She didn't express sympathy or disapproval, and she was required to listen to whatever answer Pearl gave. Every vampire should have a counsellor, Pearl thought, and not for dinner.

"He doesn't understand my choices," Pearl said. Jadrien would have already snacked on the counsellor, on Bethany, on Evan, on Sana. . . It wasn't that they didn't look tasty, but there always seemed to be a reason not to bite. She needed Bethany to tutor her, and Sana entertained her during track practice. As for Evan . . . the time just never seemed right. "I have a lot of pressure on me right now, and he . . . well, he's the same."

"And how does that make you feel?" Ms. Delancey clicked the pen top twice.

"Irritated," Pearl said. She focused on the pen.

Ms. Delancey quit clicking.

"I didn't ask for this," Pearl said. The ceremony feast shouldn't be her responsibility. She was supposed to be an honoured attendee, concerned only with swearing allegiance for the first time without humiliating herself in any way. The older vampires were supposed to worry about the details of the event. None of them understood how different the hunt was in daylight. She kept having to exclude people as victims. It was a lot easier when the concerns were merely logistics. "I liked the way it was."

"Do you want to return to that?" Ms. Delancey asked.

Pearl considered it. She studied the photos on Ms. Delancey's desk: two children in sundresses at a park, a bride in a garden with Ms. Delancey in a drab-olive bridesmaid dress, a man on a sailboat with a two-foot-long fish in a net. She saw a hint of her own reflection in the glass of the photo frames. "Yes," she said.

"What makes you feel . . ."

"I don't belong here," Pearl said. She felt as if a cartoon lightbulb had snapped on over her head. Suddenly, everything was clear: the reason she felt so much stress, the reason things felt off with Jadrien. . . She shouldn't be here. This shouldn't be her hunt.

"You've been here more than two weeks," Ms. Delancey said. "Is this feeling better or worse now than it was when you started? Are you more comfortable here after two weeks?"

Pearl stood. "Yes, I am!" And that defined the whole problem. She wasn't supposed to be comfortable here. She was supposed to be in the catacombs, either asleep or with Jadrien. She thought of how she'd turned him down last night. That wasn't right. He was supposed to be her future consort, yet she'd drunk from him and then blown him off. Two weeks ago she'd never have done that. She'd never have resorted to stored blood or refrained from snacking on a human.

"In two more weeks we can assess this again," Ms. Delancey said. "Sometimes these things take time. You've never been in a public school environment before. The adjustment can't be easy, and we shouldn't expect it to be quick."

Pearl didn't want to adjust. She wanted humans to revert to being merely meals again. She wanted to stop pretending to fit in. She wanted to return to being the ordinary child she was born to be, not a special miracle charged with this impossible task. Daddy was right—she was too far undercover. She needed to break out of this and return to being herself. "Thanks, Ms. Delancey," she said as the end-of-day bell rang. "You helped me clarify something that's been bothering me."