Night Children

14

I put the top up over the convertible so that we were shrouded in darkness, only the stars to light the sorrow on Cal's face. She sat there, silent as a soldier in the passenger seat, her face turned away from mine. I had never seen her so out of it, all of her usual enthusiasm tossed out the window.

Every once and a while she'd flick her gaze around the streets, searching for Ethan, but after finding nothing she'd just sink back down into the dark. For at least five minutes, neither one of us spoke.

Then she asked, "Why aren't you driving?"

"I'm waiting."

"For what?"

"Waiting for you to tell me what this is all about," I went on. I placed my hands on the steering wheel, wiping off my sweaty palms. "You say you've been trying to get to know me...well I need to know you, Cal. So whatever Ethan did to you, tell me."

Then and only then did her eyes meet mine, gleaming with hesitance. I could tell this subject was one of her least favorites, if not the least favorite. There were some things time could never heal.

She sat there for another moment, as if staring at me long enough would mean she didn't have to talk.

"The vampires...they had a clan where I lived. Los Angeles. I was nineteen and I was stupid so I went out all the time, looking for trouble. Tell you what—I found some," Cal finally said, after moments of silence. She crossed her legs on the seat, leaning her chin into her hand. "At a party, a vampire drugged me, took me to the clan's hideout. I was their slave, along with at least fifteen other people—mostly girls. It was a sick, brutal way for the vampires to make sure they never went hungry. Whatever person they wanted to chew on, they took."

I closed my eyes, reminding myself that I'd asked for this, asked for her to lay this all on me. Nevertheless, I couldn't deny the nausea rolling in my stomach, the subtle anger at anyone who could be so cruel. "Cal, I—"

"Don't," she hissed. "And of course—of course it hurt. But the more you screamed, the more blood they would take. It was a game for them. I thought I'd never get out of it. Until Ethan."

Cal's gaze slid from mine, went out the window again, as if checking if the coast was clear. And it was, nothing but a few night owls drifting past the book shop, wandering the empty sidewalks like lost souls.Times Square and all of its livelihood was still a little ways behind us.

"He was part of the clan. He wasn't a leader, or anything, but they treated him well. He took interest in me, said he could get me out of this if I really wanted it, that the clan members would let him do whatever he wanted. So of course I said yes," Cal muttered. She rolled her eyes, as if scoffing at her own decisions. "I thought, 'anything's better than this hell I'm trapped in now.' I didn't know he was going to turn me until it was too late. And once he did, I—I ran."

I paused. "All the way here? To New York?"

Cal raised an eyebrow at me. "I wanted to be as far away as possible. Somewhere Ethan wouldn't find me, look for me," she said, then gave a little sigh. "But now he's here. So I guess I didn't go far enough."

"Cal," I began, then stopped, because I wasn't sure what I was going to say. What did you say to someone like her, who had been through such horrible things? Cal's life, her experience, had been opposite of mine. Sure, I was different from everyone else, but I had been raised in a house where I was loved anyway. I'd never been kidnapped, tortured, taken advantage of. I'd never had to run away from everything I'd ever known. Compared to Cal's, my life was a dream.

There was nothing for me to say. Nothing that would change anything.

I frowned at her for a while, at the grief twisted into her expression, at the frizzed halo of curls around her face, at her fingers as they tapped across her ankles, before I found words.