Maybe they’d at least get to talk one more time, if this was the end. It would be nice to tell Athena that there were some things it was okay to run away from.
Not that Athena would listen. She wasn’t going to run. Not from Rollins, not from Vanya. She didn’t have it in her to fail. It was why Dr. Horne knew she’d reflect well on Rollins one day.
Maybe Athena could rid this place of Vanya before graduation. And maybe, if that happened, she could be convinced to try to get through to Sadie and Addison. To see if they were suffering like Whitney had suffered. Mila could convince her to try, probably. If Mila believed it herself.
“They offered to turn me,” Lucy blurted out. All at once, she could no longer keep it to herself. “Laurentius of Rome. He said he could turn me into a vampire.”
Even with her eyes covered, Lucy could hear the change in Natalie’s breath, the shift of her posture. Fair enough—Lucy hadn’t exactly eased her into it. But she hadn’t seen Natalie since Laurentius made her the offer. And now that she was giving it some thought, she realized Natalie was the only one she wanted to talk to about it.
“Oh,” Natalie said. It was a supremely restrained response. But she sounded more curious than afraid. “Are you, um. How do you feel about that?”
Lucy laughed. She’d been feeling every possible emotion about it since the second Laurentius asked. But that wasn’t really Natalie’s question. The question wasAre you considering it?
“Sometimes, when I think about it, it makes so much sense to me.” Lucy was quiet as she spoke. As if making her voice softer would make the words softer. “More sense than anything has ever made. And that’s the entire reason I came here, right? To find something I really wanted from my life?”
In the pause that followed, Lucy waited for Natalie to shut her down. It was the only smart thing to do at a declaration like that. But Natalie took one of Lucy’s bound hands and squeezed it. “Well,” she said. “You’d have to find somewhere with a nightlife, of course. The mountain doesn’t have much of that to speak of, unless you count coyotes and possums.”
“Natalie,” Lucy said. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Natalie said. And she was. She was using the voice she used for her orientation week library tours, the one that gently pulled everyone into line. “Athena and Mila aren’t here. It’s just us. And—and I don’t know how much longer this is going to last.”Thiscould have meant any number of applicable things. Vanya’s game. Lucy herself. Probably both. “So, if you’re seriously considering it, you should tell me. I’ll bring him here myself if I have to.”
Lucy was thankful for the cool cloth—it caught her fresh round of tears. She really didn’t know what she’d do without Natalie. “Athena thinks that when you become a vampire, the person you are is gone,” she said. “Or at least, she thinks that if our instincts make us what we are, then new instincts make us something different. That we can’t truly love the people we used to love if we come to see them as prey.”
“Hmm,” Natalie said. “And is that why you’re hesitating?”
Of course she was hesitating. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I believe that, exactly. But…Iamhesitating. And there’s no reason why I should. I’m dying anyway—what do I have to lose?”
Suddenly cold, Lucy shook her head to dislodge the washcloth. “There are things I was supposed to do,” she said, as Natalie dutifully pushed the cold cloth aside. “Live somewhere with public transportation. Pay too much for an apartment with people I barely know. Eat a meal at a restaurant with multiple courses. Work at a job that isn’t retail. Maybe in an office. And I’d hate my boss and complain constantly and dream about quitting, but I’d stay anyway, because I’d be able to afford the apartment and the train pass and the prix fixe meal.”
Natalie laughed softly. “You can dream a bit bigger than that, you know.”
“That already feels like a pretty big dream sometimes.” The sun glittered against the ceiling. Lucy watched the shifting light. It still hurt her eyes. But if she wasn’t going to be able to look at it for much longer, she should take it in. “Doesn’t feel very big now, next to the promise of civilizations living and dying at my feet. But it’s still enough. Enough that I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, Lucy,” Natalie said, barely audible. And looking up at her, Lucy knew that, for once, her friend had no idea what to say.
“It’s okay.” Lucy squeezed their joined hands, then untangled them. She’d gotten it off her chest. That was enough. “I think I should sleep.”
“Of course,” Natalie said. “Get some rest.”
Rest was a tall order, though. It wasn’t long before Lucy fell back into fitful dreams. She was faintly aware that in the dream, she was climbing the steep hill to Johnson Library.
And ahead of her, walking in a daylight they could never survive, were Sadie Grainger and Addison Greene. Addison kept looking back expectantly, as if to confirm Lucy was still behind them. Sadie resolutely faced ahead.
They had nearly reached the top when Addison raised a hand to stop them, her long hair swinging as she spun. “Home is right here, under our feet. You’ll see it for yourself soon.” She tapped the toe of her heeled boot against the ground. “I don’t know why Whitney was so upset. The library’s right over there.”
Addison seemed to see something in Lucy’s face then. Though Lucy didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t sure she even had a face, in this dream. “I miss her, too,” Addison said. Her smile didn’t flicker. The light behind her eyes did. “I wish she hadn’t left us. But now we have you.”
Sadie finally turned as well. She looked different in the full light than she had on her missing poster. Her freckles were a sunny, toasted brown. Her hair had threads of gold. The only thing about her that didn’t radiate warmth was the blank curve of her mouth.
Lucy watched them, and they watched her in return—Addison smiling, Sadie staring.What can I do for us?Lucy wanted to ask. But the words didn’t come together through the fog of her mind.
“It’s not so bad,” Sadie said. Her voice was soft enough to be toneless. “If you close your eyes, it’s just like slipping into a bath.”
Click-click.
Lucy jerked awake. But after a few seconds of panicked disorientation, it became clear that the sound that had woken her was the sound of a real door. Her wrists were still tied, and when she tugged them, the headboard creaked against her ear. The light through the blinds was orange and angled low. And in the doorway, a little out of her view, she heard two hushed voices.
“I can stay if you want.” That one was Natalie.
