Page 47 of Road Trip with a Vampire
I pretended not to notice the change in him, though seeing him so tense sent my heart knocking hard against my rib cage. “What do you want to talk about?”
He stalked towards the bed, eyes on the spot beside me as if considering sitting there. After a beat, he knelt on the floor instead, making our faces nearly level. I had to close my eyes against the intimacy of this position. We were so close I could smell the metallic tang of blood on his breath.Human, I thought; whoever he’d drunk from had been human. I forced myself to focus on that instead of the intense way he was looking at me.
“I told you why I was out there,” he said. “But why wereyou?”
It was the bucket of cold water over my head I needed.
“I already told you,” I hedged, averting my eyes. “I was just out for a late-night stroll.”
Peter quirked an eyebrow. “Odd place for a late-night stroll.”
“There was nowhere else,” I pointed out. “Not unless you enjoy walking along freeways, which I don’t.”
“Fair enough,” he said. He nodded at my hands. “That light you were holding out there. That wasn’t a flashlight.”
I swallowed. “No.”
“Did you go outside to conjure it?”
No point in denying it. He already knew the answer. “Yes.”
“And you went wandering behind our sketchy motel in the middle of the night to conjure a ball of light because…”
He paused, waiting for me to finish his sentence. I felt like a rabbit caught in a trap. He still knelt before me, and it occurred to me that he was doing that to put me at ease. After years of living alone with my secrets, though, it still felt like an interrogation.
“I thought you didn’t want to overstep,” I said, my tone frosty. “You’re overstepping now. But if you must know…I was out there because I couldn’t sleep.” That was true enough. “I don’t use my powers much anymore, and instead of tossing and turning, I decided to—”
He cut me off with a look so piercing it felt like he was looking straight through me. “Why do you keep it hidden?”
My stomach dropped. “Why do I keep what hidden?”
“Your magic.” He held up two fingers. “Twice on this trip you’ve used your magic when I wasn’t around to see it. Just now in that field and earlier at the rest stop. But you haven’t used it at any other time. Not even once.” He leaned in so close I could see myself reflected in his fathomless dark eyes. “You don’t need to hide from me, Zelda. I already know what you are.”
Except he didn’t. Not really.
Did I owe him the full story? No. But something about his sincere, unexpected concern unlocked something deep inside that I’d kept bottled up for far too long.
Or maybe I was simply tired of living all alone with my secrets.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat.
“Things…get destructive when I use my magic,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. “Iget destructive. The crowd I used to run with—vampires mostly—were into chaos.” I gave a small shrug. “One day, some…very bad things happened, and I decided to leave my old life behind. When I did, I decided to leave magic behind, too.”
It wasn’t the whole picture, but it was more than I’d given anyone in years.
He frowned. “You left your magic behind?”
“Yes,” I said. “Most of the time I don’t use it at all. It’s better for everyone that way.”
“It isn’t better for you.”
“It is.”
“Is it?” he asked, skeptical. “Zelda, is hiding your powers whyyou’ve been in obvious physical discomfort ever since I’ve met you?”
The world tilted on its axis.
I gaped at Peter as I mentally sifted through the events of the past few weeks. I thought I’d done a good job of keeping my problem under wraps. Lindsay and Becky certainly hadn’t noticed me struggling. If they had, they’d have said something.
