Ben opened his mouth to add something more, but Jane walked back into the parlor. Outside, we heard several vans pulling out of Jane's driveway. I shrank away from her instinctively and tried to think of something besides my underlying hostility toward Jane and the seminude thoughts I'd had about her husband.
Wait, I couldn't think about the fact that I'd had those thoughts, either.
Jane's "brain scanner" didn't seem to be on at the moment, or she had a really good poker face when it came to people who were living in her house having seminude thoughts about her husband.
Ack! Why couldn't I stop thinking about it? Why?
Jane gave us a strained but cheerful smile and rubbed her hands together. "OK, kids. You've been very good little vampires. And it occurs to me that I haven't been a very good surrogate sire, keeping you cooped up like this."
"So we get our phones back?" I asked eagerly.
"No, better," Jane assured me. "You're going to get to go outside, in the yard."
I tried not to pout. I really did. But I only had so much control over my bottom lip. Ben looked confused, too, so at least I wasn't alone in that.
"Come on, you two!" We followed her out onto the huge front porch, where Georgie and Gabriel were arm wrestling. Georgie was winning. Jane shook her head, but there was a little smile on her face as she stepped out onto the grass. The night was cool and cloudless, the sort of weather you dreamed about in the choking heat of high bluegrass summer.
Would I miss that? Afternoons that stretched until nine thirty? The sensation of sitting in your car in August after a day spent in air-conditioning, feeling like you were sliding into a hot bath? Lying out at the beach? I mean, sure, I'd only been to the beach once, when I was seven, but I'd always meant to go again when I could afford it. And now I was never going to have that experience. How much fun could it be to go to the beach at night? Wasn't that when sharks attacked?
I had a feeling that I would have a lot of these little moments over the next few months, realizing what I would be missing out on now that I was undead.
That would be fun.
"Close your eyes," Jane told us.
When I didn't immediately close mine-because this could all be some complicated ruse to allow Jane to drop some sort of net over me and let the scientists cart me away without damaging her furniture-she huffed out a breath.
"Really?"
"Fine." I sighed, though I kept one eye open a tiny bit, just in case.
"I feel like I've neglected you in your first nights as vampires. A good sire would have helped you balance out all of the things you feel you're missing now that you're undead by showing you all of the awesome things that you can do. Since you're both without a good sire right now, I want you to close your eyes. Forget about what you can't see," Jane told us, and I smarted from that "without a good sire" comment. "Listen to the wind rustling through the dying leaves. Listen for the heartbeats of all the animals hiding in the woods. Take a deep breath, and take in all of the scents in the air around you. Smoke from a neighbor's bonfire. The drying grass, which someone was supposed to mow yesterday."
Behind me, I heard Georgie groan while Gabriel snickered. "Told you," he said.
Despite my net fear, cutting off one of my senses really did help me pick up on new scents and sounds. I could hear dozens of fluttering heartbeats in the distance, the dry rattle of leaves. I could smell smoke and decay and dry, cracking earth. Each new sensation was layered on top of the last one, but it wasn't overwhelming. It just helped me figure out my surroundings. For instance, I could smell a skunk waddling around somewhere off to my left. I definitely wanted to avoid that. And I could hear a dog barking in the . . . wait, that wasn't in the distance. That was getting closer.
"No!" I yelled as Fitz came flying out of the darkness and threw himself at me. I'd braced for it, but I still went crashing into Ben. We landed with an "Oof," sprawling across the grass. With doggy kisses on my cheeks, I opened my eyes. It was like seeing the world for the first time. I could see every star in the sky, not just white pinpricks on a black backdrop but the actual halo of light surrounding a center of brilliant fire. I could see every leaf falling from the trees surrounding Jane's house. I could see the outline of every blade of grass.
"Whoa," Ben whispered.
"Ouch." I grumbled, trying to roll Fitz off my chest.
"Fitz, off!" Jane told him sternly. "Go!"
Fitz went running off into the trees.
"Better go catch him," Jane said.
"Is this a trick?" I asked. "Like entrapment? Are you going to shoot me if I run?"
Jane rolled her eyes and shooed me away. "Just run."