Bitter Blood (Morganville Book #2)

Chapter 7

In the morning - not too early - I found cereal and juice waiting for me downstairs, along with a note from my mother that she'd gone shopping, and that she hoped I would stay home today. It was the same sort of note Mom left every day. At least, the "hope you stay home" part.

I intended to, this time. I intended to right up until I looked at my calendar, and realized what day it was, and that it was circled in red with multicolored exclamation points all around it.

"Oh, crap!" I muttered, and pawed through my backpack, hauling out textbooks, notebooks, my much-abused laptop, floods of colored markers, and assorted change. I found the purple notebook, the one I kept for important test dates.

Today was the final exam for my physics class. Fifty percent of my grade, and no makeup tests for anything less than life support.

It's only a test. Michael said -

It wasn't only a test; it was my most important final exam. And if I didn't show up for it, I'd automatically fail a class I had no business not acing. Besides, Michael had said not to hang around Bishop - he hadn't said anything about going to classes. That was normal life.

I needed normal right now.

After the cereal and juice, I packed my backpack and set out in the cool morning for Texas Prairie University. It was a short walk from pretty much anywhere in Morganville; from my parents' house, the route took me down four residential blocks, then into Morganville's so-called business district, about six square blocks of stores. Walking in daylight showed just how much Morganville had changed since Mr. Bishop had shown up: burned-out houses on every block, with few attempts to clear them away or rebuild. Abandoned houses, doors hanging open and windows broken. Once I got into the business district, half the stores were shut, either temporarily or permanently. Oliver's coffee shop, Common Grounds, was shuttered and quiet, with a Closed sign in the dark window.

Everywhere, there was a feeling that the town was holding its breath, closing its eyes, trying to wish away its problems. The few people I saw trying to go about their normal lives seemed either jumpy and distracted, or as if they were putting on some false smile and happy face. It was creepy, and I felt a little bit relieved when I passed the gates of the university - open, like it was a regular sort of day - and fell in with the crowds of young people moving around the campus. TPU wasn't a huge school, but it sprawled over a fairly large area, with lots of park spaces and quads. I usually would have made a stop at the University Center for a mocha, but there wasn't time. Instead, I headed for the science building, navigating the crowds piling into Chem 101 and Intro to Geology. The physics classes were held toward the end of the hallway, and they were a lot less well attended. TPU wasn't exactly MIT on the plains; most students just wanted to get their core courses and transfer out to better schools. Most of them never had a single clue about the true nature of Morganville, because they didn't get off campus all that much - TPU prided itself on its student services.

Of course, there were also local students, destined to stay in Morganville their entire lives. Until a few months ago, I could have identified those people at a glance, because they'd be wearing identification bracelets with odd symbols on them to identify the vampire they owed their allegiance to - their Protector. Only that system had mostly broken down after Bishop's arrival. The vampires were no longer Protectors; most were out-and-out predators. No more blood banks, at least for those loyal to Bishop; they were all about hunting.

Hunting people.

So far, Bishop had seen the wisdom of keeping his hunting parties out of the TPU campus; after all, the kids here helped fund the town and keep the economy running. Most of them stayed on campus, where they had everything they needed except for the occasional trip to a store or a bar, so they didn't know much - and couldn't care less - about Morganville. Morganville didn't offer much in the way of entertainment, when you came right down to it. Even the shops were boring.