Page 64 of Black Curtain

His words went through our group like an electric current.

We all fell silent.

Jem stared around at the rest of us, panting, his pupils as dilated as everyone else’s, except maybe Nick’s, which didn’t seem to have any iris left at all. I honestly couldn’t tellwhatwas happening with Nick, though. I wondered if the cake was affecting him differently, given what he was. I wondered if he was coping with the seer cake.

He definitely didn’t seem like he was coping.

I wondered how long we’d be high on the cake.

“I explained that.” Dalejem turned to me, his voice warning. “I explained it, Miri.”

I wondered what was happening to everyone we left behind in New Mexico.

Dalejem looked at me.

His voice and eyes grew even more warning, but I heard the tilt there, the intense emotionality.

“I. Told. You. That. Too. Doc.”

Looking at his dramatic features, his near-black eyes from the pupils having swallowed up all the green of his irises, I knew he was as off-balance as the rest of us.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Jem. I just forgot.”

“Don’t worry about them, Miri,” Jem warned. “Everyone in New Mexico. They’ll be fine. Completely fine. Fine.We’rethe ones in trouble. Just us.”

I nodded. I only nodded to calm him down.

I wanted to believe that, too.

I really, really wanted to believe that.

“DON’T HUMOR ME.”

“Of course not.” I smiled.

The smile didn’t feel at all natural. I didn’t feel in any way reassured.

I watched Jax stare at me warily.

We were all standing. None of us had left the foyer of the creepy house.

When Brick’s recorded voice died down, leaving us in silence, I got to my feet. Black got up when I did. Dex climbed down off the stairs, but not before he hit the button again and we had to listen to Brick’s exceedingly unhelpful message for a second time. The only thing any of us got out of hearing it again was that it was definitely a recording.

Jem still hovered over Nick.

Jax and Kiko hovered by Dex, but I couldn’t quite tell what was happening there, other than something about the three of them was visibly upsetting Nick.

Within seconds of the last echoing word of that Louisiana drawl fading in the high-ceilinged foyer––for the second time––pretty much all of us started talking at once. Well, most of us. Ifeltlike we were all talking at once, but that might have been because I could hear just about everyone psychically whether they spoke out loud or not. I got hit by emotions and thoughts from everyone there.

Well, pretty much everyone.

I say “just about” and “pretty much” because I couldn’t feel anything from Nick.

Nick was a vampire. His mind was completely absent to me. Blank.

I knew the only way that would change is if he bit me.

“He’s not going tobiteyou,” Jem growled. “JESUS, Miriam!”

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