Hourglass (19 page)

Quickly I pushed myself upright—too quickly. My head swam with the sudden movement, and for a second, I thought I might fall. But I steadied myself against the table and took a couple of deep breaths. Soon I felt I could walk again.

I peeked into the hallway. Selma was only a few doors down, but she was deeply engrossed in conversation with the doctor. Her words were only barely loud enough for me to overhear: “I’m sure that thermometer is working correctly. It was only ten minutes ago. I’m telling you—”

Time to hurry. I tiptoed halfway down the hall, then took off running toward the waiting room. Another nurse appeared in the corridor, and she looked startled as I pushed past her.

Don’t look back.
Without slowing down, I ran through the doors and into the waiting room. “Lucas!” I called over my shoulder. “Let’s go!”

He stared at me, startled, but was on his feet in an instant. We were going to get away. We’d make it. Then we were outside, sizzling July sun enveloping me in an instant. Waves of heat rippled up from the steps and the sidewalk. It was too much, and
I slumped against the guardrail. The stairs seemed to stretch and tilt beneath me.

“Bianca!” Lucas caught up with me and scooped my arm around his shoulders. Staggering against him, I was able to get down the steps and around the corner.

“Keep walking.” I panted. “They’ll come out and look for me, I know it.”

“We’re walking. What happened in there?”

“My readings were coming back weird. The nurse freaked out.”

Lucas took me down a side street, keeping our pace quick. I felt a little steadier but knew I needed to lean on him. “What do you mean, weird?”

The truth hit me then. I’d spent my whole life preparing for this moment, in one way or another, and yet it was strange and terrible to face.

“I’m not yet a vampire,” I whispered. “But—I’m no longer human.”

WE RETURNED HOME FROM THE CLINIC AT SUNSET. Lucas poured me back into bed, and we worried about what to do. I told him everything that had happened at the clinic and the weird readings that had made the nurse panic.

“Never happened before?” he said. I shook my head.

“Then—you’re changing. Whether you like it or not. You’re becoming a vampire. A full vampire, I mean.”

“I can’t be a full vampire unless I kill. That’s the only way it works.”

“How do you know?” Lucas demanded. He lay on the bed with me, though I was beneath the covers and he was on top of them. “Nobody really understands what happens with kids like you, right?”

“Almost nobody. But my parents understood. They never would explain most of it, but this part, they were really clear on.” I stared up at the white ceiling, studying the whorls of plaster.

“There are only two ways a person becomes a vampire. Either
you’re a regular person who gets bitten repeatedly by a vampire and then is killed by the final bite, or you’re a born vampire—like me—who makes a kill. That’s it.”

“Then what’s happening to you?” He cupped my cheek with his hand. His dark-green eyes were anguished. “I can’t stand this. Not knowing. And I realize it’s got to be worse for you.”

I held his hand to my face and tried to smile. I couldn’t bear to tell him what I was starting to believe.

With my body weakening, I had begun to experience the strangest sensation—a kind of sinking, a wearing away, as though I were somehow
less
each day. Something inside me was fighting against the force of life, and that something was winning.

My parents had always refused to tell me what would happen if a born vampire refused to make that first kill and complete the transformation. Now I thought I knew what had frightened them so badly that they wouldn’t even speak of it.

I was beginning to wonder if the only alternative was to die.

Lucas’s fingers threaded through my long hair as he combed it to soothe me. At last I said, “If I wrote my parents a letter, would you promise to send it if—”

“If what?”

I closed my eyes. “If anything bad were to happen.”

“Bianca—”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now. But if you would promise—it would mean a lot to me.”

Lucas was quiet for a while before he whispered, “I promise.”

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I knew something inside me had changed for the worse.

Before, even on my worst days, I’d been able to get around a little bit. Now I was so weak I couldn’t get out of bed without Lucas’s help. To my embarrassment, he had to walk me to the bathroom. He brought me breakfast in bed, but I couldn’t eat more than a wedge of toast. Even that, I had to force down.

“Do you want me to get you blood?” he asked. His hands gripped the back of the chair so tightly that his knuckles were white. “I could catch something, or I could bust into a hospital, hit the blood bank.”

“I don’t want any blood. I don’t want anything. Just—some water, maybe.”

Really, I didn’t even want the water, but at least that way Lucas could feel like he’d done something for me.

The passage of time meant nothing to me; I didn’t go outside at all. Lucas called in sick to work; I was scared he’d get fired, but then again, maybe a chop shop didn’t expect every single employee to show up every day. When I asked him about it, Lucas nodded. “Places that break the law don’t usually get too excited about enforcing the rules. Don’t worry about me, okay, Bianca? Just take care of yourself.”

But how was I supposed to do that?

That night, Lucas went out to fetch some more groceries, returning in record time with paper bags he tossed on the table and seemed to forget about. “Hey,” he said. “Were you
able to look at your book?”

“A little.” He’d found a paperback copy of
Jane Eyre
earlier that day and brought it to me, but I felt too dizzy and weary even to read. The black type against the white pages seemed to burn my eyes.

Lucas nodded and sat in the chair. I wondered if he sat there now because he wanted more distance from me than he could get if he sat on the side of the bed, or because he wanted a better look at my face. He sat staring at the floor, his forearms on his knees. One foot scuffed against the floor, back and forth, revealing the agitation he had otherwise fought so hard to hide.

“Whatever you want to say,” I whispered, “just say it.”

“I sent a letter to Balthazar today,” Lucas said. “I e-mailed Vic, too, and asked him if there was any way possible he could come home, or maybe Ranulf, even. Maybe one of them will show up soon and know something to do.”

Vic wouldn’t be able to help, and I suspected that Balthazar had already given us all the answers he could. As for Ranulf—well, he’d been around awhile, so who knew what he’d learned? But I doubted there was any way out of this situation. Whether he knew it or not, Lucas had summoned them because he needed support. “That’s good,” I said.

Lucas shook his head. “I never should’ve taken you away from Evernight.”

“How can you say that?” I tried to sit up, but dizziness overtook me. Instead I settled for propping up on one arm. “I wanted
to leave. I was the one who asked you!”

“Wouldn’t have mattered if you’d begged me. I still shouldn’t have done it.” He raked his fingers through his bronze hair, like he wanted to tear at it. “Your parents knew what was going on. So what if they lied about it? At least they would’ve known what to do. At least they could’ve taken care of you. And I can’t. The only thing I want in the world is to make you well, and I can’t.”

“Stop it. Lucas—what’s happening to me—it’s part of who I am. Part of what I was born to be. Our running away didn’t make this happen.”

“But your parents could’ve made it stop.”

“We don’t know that. The only thing we do know is that they would’ve tried to convince me to become a full vampire, and I don’t want that. Not even now.”

Lucas wouldn’t be consoled that easily. “You’ve been on the run. In danger. You haven’t had enough money to do what you wanted to do, even eat what you wanted to eat—I told you I’d take care of you. And I let you down.”

“You
never
let me down.” I had to make him understand. This was one of the only things in the world that I knew to be true. “These past two months with you have been the best of my whole life. Even with Charity after us, even when we were stuck with Black Cross—it was worth it, because we were together.”

He hid his face in his hands. “I’d give it up to make you well.”

“I wouldn’t. And it was always my decision, not yours. I
didn’t make a mistake.” When Lucas finally lifted his face to look at me, I smiled at him. “I would do it again. A hundred times over, I’d do it all again to be with you.”

Lucas came to me and held me close. For that moment, that was the only courage I needed.

When I awakened in the middle of that night, though, it became harder to be brave.

“Hold on, okay?” Lucas braced me against his chest, rubbing my back. “Just hold on.”

“I can’t!” My body shook uncontrollably. It wasn’t a seizure, because I still knew who and where I was, and I could move; I just couldn’t stop shaking. It had begun in my sleep, waking Lucas before it woke me. He’d had to shout my name a few times before I fully regained consciousness.

“Please, Bianca. Please.”

“I can’t stop, I can’t stop—”

“You don’t have to stop. Don’t beat yourself up. Just ride it out. I’m here with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I gasped. But the shaking didn’t end for almost an hour, and by the time it did, I was so exhausted that I felt like I’d never move again.

One thing was for sure: After that, Lucas and I were both much too fried to even think about sleeping.

Once we could no longer deny that it was morning, I asked Lucas to find a pen and paper for me, which he did. Dark shadows circled his eyes, and his skin was ashen. I
wanted so badly to be able to take care of him, instead of lying here helpless.

I let Lucas prop me up on a couple of pillows. Then, despite my trembling hands, I managed to write a short note.

I had to pause there. I knew what I should write, but I wasn’t strong enough to do it. Imagining my parents reading those words was too much for me.

That day passed in a haze for me. I drifted in and out of sleep—at least, sometimes it was sleep. Sometimes it was unconsciousness. I couldn’t tell them apart any longer.

Although I felt feverish, I knew that actually my body had become very cold; I could tell from the way Lucas’s touch seared like fire every time he mopped my forehead or held my hand. My sweaty limbs tangled in the sheets, and I pawed restlessly at the strands of my hair that stuck to my neck and back. Nothing seemed entirely real for a very long while.

Instead I wandered through memories, all of them disjointed and unconnected to any of the others. Most of the memories were happy, so I was content to let my mind drift. One moment, I was walking down the streets of New York with Raquel, laughing about how our muscles ached from the morning’s workout. The next, I was back at Arrowwood, and Mom was proudly putting the finishing touching on my fairy princess costume for Halloween. Then I was at Evernight, letting Patrice give me a
manicure that matched hers, so both of our nails shone in soft lilac. Or in the fencing hall, facing Balthazar, who was letting me off so easy that he laughed even as he wielded his sword.

Or in the diner with Vic and Ranulf as they sat side by side in their Hawaiian shirts. Or in the van with Dana as she cranked up the radio and sang along.

In the woods with my father, listening to hooting owls and talking about why I needed to stay at Evernight Academy.

In Riverton with Lucas, cradling the jet brooch he’d given me, and looking up at him with all the gratitude and love in the world.

Why would I ever want to come back from that?

When my mind finally cleared, I realized it was nighttime. I had no idea whether it was just past dusk or two in the morning. Groggily, I turned my head, seeking Lucas. He stood by my bedside, his face pale. When our eyes met, I smiled, but he did not.

“Hey,” I whispered. “How long was I out?”

“Too long.” Lucas slowly knelt down. His face was more or less even with mine. “Bianca, I don’t want to scare you, but—what’s happening to you—”

“I know. I can feel it.”

Our eyes met, and the pain in his eyes almost outweighed the fear and sadness I felt for myself. He closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the ceiling; if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was praying.

Then he said, “I want you to drink from me.”

“I’m not hungry for blood,” I whispered.

“You don’t understand.” Lucas took an uneven breath.

“Bianca, I want you to drink from me until I’m dead. I want you to change. I want you to become a vampire.”

The shock left me powerless to speak for a moment. I could only gape at him in astonishment.

“You turned away from being a vampire a long time ago, I know,” Lucas said. He clasped one of my hands in his. “But this looks like your only choice. If that’s what it takes to save you, it’s not so bad, is it? You could go back to your parents. Be young and beautiful forever.”

It wasn’t as simple as that, and we both knew it. But if Lucas was really ready to take this step with me, I could consider it. “You would become a vampire, too,” I said. “We’d make the change together. Can you do that?”

Lucas shook his head. “No.”

“What?”

“Bianca, you have to promise me—you have to swear on everything that means anything to you—when I’m dead, before I come to, you have to destroy me. Don’t let me rise again as a vampire. I’m willing to die.”

So he could accept my transformation, but not his own. The fragile hope I’d felt for a few seconds shattered.

Lucas tugged at the neck of his shirt, exposing his neck. Quietly, he repeated, “Drink from me.”

“You want me to kill you,” I whispered. “You’d give up your life to save me.”

He gave me this look like that was so
obvious
, so
necessary
,
and tears welled in my eyes.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said. The shadows in the room framed his face; it seemed as if the light in the room was drawn only to him. “I’m ready. The last thing I’ll ever know is that you’re going to be okay. That’s all I need.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Yes,” he insisted. But I still had enough strength to push back.

“How could I go on, knowing you’d died to save me? The guilt—I can’t live like that, Lucas. I can’t. Don’t ask me to.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty! I want you to do it!”

“Could you?” I asked him. “Could you kill me, even to save your own life?”

Lucas stared at me, trying and failing to contemplate the horror of doing that.