Yes, she had always been fascinated, but this was taking it a step too far. Tessa was officially a vamp groupie.
Some of her usual fire sprang back into her body, and she pulled herself up to meet me in a clash of female pissed-off-ness. Her finger jabbed at me while she spoke. “I have been here eight times in the past few weeks but have only seen you twice. You are busy or injured, or basically living a fucking life without me. I can’t lose you.” Her breath huffed in time to her finger jabs. “I know it’s next to impossible to be turned, but I’m going to do my best. Besides, Blake and I have been talking while I wait for you to show up or not, and he’s hot and sweet. Plus, the feeding itself feels … amazing.”
Blake? I didn’t know what to say. I loved this chick so much; she was my person. If I ever killed someone, I’d call her to help me dispose of the body. I could not blame her for trying to keep us together, but I needed her to stop.
“Tess, I love you, but you can’t do this. The Hive is not a place you want to live. It’s rough, and dangerous, and there’s a decent chance that you’ll get killed by some overzealous vampire long before they will turn you. I need to know you are okay, that you and Mom are out there living normal lives. It’s what gets me through each shitty day here.”
“What about Ryder?” she said, ignoring all the negative I was saying. “Seems to be something going on with you two.”
I shook my head before reaching across to grab another bottle of blood. “Ryder is my trainer, end of story. He’s helping out Lucas, making sure I don’t die on my first day. He doesn’t have any interest in me.”
He’d made that perfectly clear.
“But you are interested in him?”
I had told her a little about my weird attraction to him.
“You should just go for it, Charlie. Dive on that delicious piece of ash. Don’t wait for him to figure shit out, you take what you want and don’t look back. There’s no way he doesn’t love you a little. You’re hot as hell and funny and awesome. He’s secretly crushing on you, I have no doubt.”
And that was the second reason she was my person. Girl had my back no matter what. I ignored her Ryder pep talk. I knew there was something between me and him, but he clearly had some issues below the surface, something that held him back.
“So besides Blake, how’s your love life going?” It felt like a million years since I’d lived with her in our college room. It was really hard missing all the things in the human world. I forgot about my old life when I was busy in my training bubble, but times like this it hit me hard that everything outside of the Hive continued to go on without me.
Tess and I talked for the next hour, which was the total allotted time we had together. She mainly talked about her new boy-toy Blake. I tried my best to dissuade her, but she said she’d be back no matter what. I knew that meant for more than me. She was still going to be a feeder. Dammit.
We also discussed my weird blood results. There was still no more word on the cryptic “not an ash” diagnosis and I had almost convinced myself that the vampire doctor was crazy. During my dinner with Lucas he had assured me that her family would be safe and free as soon as he knew she was keeping her end of the deal. He needed to make sure she kept her mouth shut about my Original father status. Not that it mattered. I apparently was the lamest descendent of an Original ever. No levitation here.
“Take care of yourself, Tess.” I was trying to hold back tears as we hugged again. The vampire escort was waiting not very patiently to take her out of the feeding room. “I’ll see you next week.”
Her voice was rough. “You better. If you die during the culling, I am going to burn the Hive to the ground – I swear on Grandma Joan’s grave.”
She’d loved her cow-wrestling, gun-toting gran. Joan had been a hoot for sure.
I chuckled. “I’ll be okay, I will survive.” I let some of my confidence seep out in those words, hoping like hell the last thing I said to my best friend wasn’t going to be a lie.
Later that night I sat on the bathroom counter putting on mascara as Jayden coached me on how to pencil my eyebrows.
“It’s the year of the brows,” Jayden was saying when a knock came on the door. Tonight was party time, when all of the culling participants forgot about their shitty lives and had fun. My bestie cracked a smile. “My surprise is here.”
I raised an eyebrow. Please be a gorgeous straight boy here to take advantage of me. Jayden returned with a bottle of homemade-looking liquor.
“Strong-ass vampire moonshine.” He held up the bottle and I grinned. Second best thing.