Page 24 of Prayer of the Damned

“I’m sorry…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, maybe it’s my father’s way of preparing me for unexpected situations.” She looks like it’s no big deal, even though it’s ahugedeal. “You feeling any better?”

She caresses my back, and I nod, placing my hands on my still chest. Shit, realizing that I’m neither dead nor alive is really starting to sink in. “Can you eat human food?” she asks with sincere concern, and I shake my head. “Well, damn, what are you supposed to do?” Her forehead stiffens. “How are you supposed to feed? Your body recoils from synthetic blood, and I know for sure that feeding on actual blood is forbidden for freshmen students.”

“I’m fine as long as I don’t think about it. I don’t feel hungry.” It’s true. I haven’t eaten in three days and it never even occurred to me, even when the memory of Libretto’s blood flooded my mind.I’m a broken vampire, I think bitterly.

“In themeantime,” she emphasizes that last word, “we may be immortal but our bodies need sustenance. Promise me that if it changes, we’ll get one of the faculty members involved.”

“No, we can’t.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea…” she hesitantly says.

“I’m fine. If it changes, you’ll be the first to know. Promise.”

Valentina doesn’t seem convinced, but she lets it drop.

“Well, well.” The guy who was staring at me before steps out onto the balcony. I straighten up so as not to raise any suspicions about what just happened.

“What do you want?” Valentina charges at him, putting herself between us.

“We wanted to suggest that we move the party somewhere more interesting,” he smiles.

“Thought you were toocoolfor us,” Valentina’s voice is positively venomous.

“Maybe we changed our minds.” He runs a hand through his golden hair. The moonlight is reflected in his skin, creating a kind of aura around him. What’s this guy’s deal?

“Why?” she demands. Exactly the question going through my mind.

“Because you’re the only idiots who dared approach us.”

“And who exactly are you?”

“Why don’t you join us and we’ll get to know each other better?”

I send Valentina a questioning look, and she frowns. I don’t wait for her reply, detaching myself from the railing and following him. My curiosity is overwhelming; I have to find out what his deal is.

“Wait!” Valentina hurries after me and grabs my arm. “Are you sure about this?” she whispers in my ear.

“What else can go wrong?”

“After that? Everything.” She sighs, but joins me anyway.

The strange guy leads us up a dusty stairwell to the roof of the university building, where his friends are waiting for us, sitting too close to the edge of the roof. We sit next to them, and Valentina willingly takes the whiskey bottle the girl offers her.

“If we can’t eat human food, how can we drink alcohol?” I ask. It contradicts what my father told me.

“Guess it’s the Devil’s joke on the Holy Trinity,” the girl answers.

“The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?” I ask, and she bursts into laughter.

“Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Ah.” I don’t get it.

She sees my confused expression. “Drugs don’t affect us the way they do humans. It takes something really strong to get us going, so the Devil replaced it with alcohol.”

I remember Leo’s comment, that Trent was supposed to slip me a roofie, and now I understand why it hadn’t affected me the way they’d expected. Thank God for that, or the night would’ve ended much differently.

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