She said, “I mean it. The trick is—the trick is giving in.”
“Giving in?”
“Surrendering to the death.”
Balthazar scowled, his heavy brow furrowing. “Surrendering to death sounds like a bad idea. In any situation, but especially this one.”
“I know how it sounds. But somehow—somehow it was the right thing to do.” Skye braced herself against one of the desks as she shakily got to her feet. “I’ll know better what to do next time. It won’t destroy me.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
Skye shrugged. “It’s not your choice to like or dislike.”
“Skye—do we have to be like—”
“We’re okay,” she said, and tried to mean it. Her feelings were too raw for that, really, but she didn’t want to turn into a teary mess with two guys in the same day. “Just take me home, all right?”
He took her home.
The drive to her place went even slower than the journey there. The snow had finally outstripped the plows’ ability to keep up with it, and the scant few cars still on the road were creeping along. Balthazar’s car was no four-wheel drive, but he kept it steady anyway. He was as good with automobiles as he was with horses.
“I should call Mom and Dad,” she said, just to break the silence in the car. “They won’t be able to make it back tonight. Their organization usually springs for a hotel room in Albany when that happens.”
Balthazar said, “I’m sorry if I hurt you this morning.”
Skye stared over at him. “That’s not what we were talking about.”
“It’s just a relief to have you talking to me,” he admitted. “I mean it. I shouldn’t have been as—rough on you. Or as rude. And I shouldn’t have bitten you.”
He didn’t regret walking away from her, Skye decided. He only regretted letting her get close at all.
She said only, “You’re here to protect me. That’s it. I understand now.”“All right.” He sounded as if he didn’t entirely believe her. Fair enough, she figured; she didn’t entirely believe herself. “Hopefully we can still hang around—”
“I don’t think so.” Riding together in the snow. Sparring in her basement, flushed and sweaty and enjoying every touch. Texting each other throughout study hall. Did she have to give it all up? Yes. Skye knew she had to be ruthless for her own sake. “You’re still here, and I appreciate that—you’ll never know how—anyway. But we should move on.”
“Move on,” Balthazar repeated, as he finally steered the car into her driveway.
“You’ll do—whatever you’d do otherwise. I’ll hang out with Madison more. Study at home, even. It’s not like it would kill me. I’m even going to the Valentine’s Dance with Keith Kramer. So—yeah. Moving on.”
He gave her a look—oh, God, why did he look his absolute hottest when he was crazy jealous? The absurdity of any guy as amazing as Balthazar being jealous of cardboard-cutout Keith would’ve been hilarious at any other time. As it was, it stung almost as badly as his rejection had that morning.
“Thanks again,” Skye said as she got out of the car. “Good night.” She walked inside and shut the door behind her without a backward glance.
Moving on, she repeated to herself, meaning it. That means you don’t get to think about the fact that you’ve made Balthazar jealous. That can’t be why you go to the dance.
Though I guess you can enjoy it a little bit.
The Time Between: Interlude Three
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
October 1918
FOR A VAMPIRE, ONLY ONE CALAMITY PROVIDED more abundant feeding grounds than wartime: plague.
That made 1918 a very good year for the undead.
Although the war had not yet ended, it was clearly in its last gasps; armistice was expected any day. With the conclusion of the bloodiest conflict in history near, Philadelphia ought to have been cheerful and bustling with activity. Instead, Balthazar found himself walking along deserted streets.
In the past few weeks, a deadly wave of the Spanish flu had swept through the city with the same virulence with which it had killed millions from the Arctic Circle to South Africa. Victims—oddly, usually the youngest and strongest—began coughing and complaining of earaches or headaches. Then came the fevers, scorching hot. The pulses of the sick quickened so that Balthazar could hear them, fast and tremulous as the hearts of rabbits before the kill, from far away. Death seized them through the lungs, infecting and swelling them so that air could no longer course through the body. The sufferers turned blue-black with suffocation before their terrible deaths.
Sometimes he could spare them that. Their blood tasted foul to him; viruses could not poison vampires, but this one was so wretched that it spoiled even the pleasure of drinking from humans without guilt. But if providing a merciful death for a few sick people was the lone service he could provide for humanity, then he would provide it.
In Philadelphia, the Spanish flu epidemic was so severe that city officials had ordered trenches dug for mass graves. Some undertakers, taking opportunity of rising demand, had raised their fees; others told survivors they’d have to dig loved ones’ graves themselves. Doctors and nurses were in desperately short supply.
Which was why a suspiciously young-looking man could describe himself as a medical student from “out west” and get away with it.