Drink, Slay, Love

Chapter Twenty Six

The funny thing was that even despite the dire seriousness of the situation, Pearl could tell it bothered Bethany to cut class. She'd insisted that she had to participate in the emergency meeting with Evan's family, and she'd offered to drive, but every few minutes Bethany glanced in the rearview mirror as if she expected the principal to charge up the street behind them, brandishing a pitchfork and a detention slip.

Pearl rolled her eyes. "The teachers are not the big bad scary monsters. Take it from me, one of the big bad scary monsters."

At a red light, Bethany looked at Pearl with ridiculously wide, innocent eyes. "You aren't a monster. Not anymore. I'm not scared of you."

"You should be," Pearl said. "This isn't natural. What I feel . . . what I think . . . your pet horsey put this all inside of me. I'm your Frankenstein's monster."

Behind her in the backseat, Evan said, "Your thoughts are your own. All I did was . . . heal the broken parts inside you. I woke up your soul, that's all."

Pearl turned her head away from both of them. She looked at her reflection in the window, as if it could show her her soul. Rain continued to fall, tracing jagged lines down her reflection as if she were covered in tears.

"Also, I'm not a 'pet horsey,'" Evan said.

A few minutes later they reached Evan's house. They spilled out of the minivan and into the house. Evan's parents plus three of his siblings were already in the kitchen.

Without any preamble, Evan said, "We discovered when and where the Connecticut Fealty Ceremony will be." He gestured to Pearl. "Go on, you can tell them."

The words stuck in her throat. She looked at these faces-vampire hunter faces-and she couldn't speak. Sandy, Evan's mother, smiled at her encouragingly, as if she were a sitcom mom urging her wayward daughter to tell the truth about a bad report card. Evan's father, Donald, kept his face neutral, an expression Pearl was sure he'd had to practice. Like Sandy's, his face was lined with smile marks, and his pink nose marked him as someone who blushed easily. At the table Evan's siblings were not so calm. Lizzie folded her hands on the table in front of her. Her knuckles were as white as pearls. One brother, Marcus, fidgeted in his chair, rocking back and forth so that the chair legs squeaked on the linoleum. A second brother, Allen or Alex or another A name, looked tense enough to leap up like a cat if Pearl so much as twitched.

"I can't," Pearl said to Evan. She bolted outside into the rain.

"Stay. Explain," Evan ordered Bethany. Pearl heard his footsteps behind her. But she had a head start. She threw the door open. Twisting around, she grabbed the porch gutter. She propelled herself up onto the roof, and she scrambled up to the peak. The roof tiles were slick, and she slipped twice before she stood at the top.

A few seconds later Evan launched himself onto the roof. "You like roofs," he grunted as he scrambled up the wet slope.

"Roofs are dramatic," she said. "Vampires have a fine sense of drama."

He stood next to her, balancing with bent knees. Rain spattered him as if the clouds were spitting. "So . . ." He let the word dangle, as if this were a casual conversation.

"So," she said.

"You okay?" he asked.

She considered it. "No, really not okay. You know, this conscience thing is a bitch. I don't want the humans to die." Blinking away raindrops, she looked at him. "Yes, I can admit that."

He half smiled. "Happy to hear it."

"But I'd rather not aid in the slaughter of my Family, either," she said.