“So he led you on.” I felt stronger now. “He made you a promise, and then he reneged.”
Malcolm had used Dennis to get to my mother — then he’d refused to keep his part of the bargain. But he’d kept telling Dennis that he might change his mind if Dennis proved himself worthy. Dennis had kept on hoping. Now he was growing older and impatient.
At the time I didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him. (Since then, I’ve reconsidered. Who wouldn’t beg for eternal life? He was tired of being left out, just as my mother had been.)
“Why don’t you ask Root?”
He shuddered. “I couldn’t stand to have her touch me.”
His eyes were dull, yet pleading. “You’ve had a lot to drink,” I said, trying to find an excuse for his behavior.
“Ari,” he said. “Please?”
“You.” I couldn’t think of a name bad enough to call him. Traitor came close. “I thought you were my friend,” I said, and I left him and the balcony behind me.
When I awoke the next morning, I could sense tension before I left the bedroom. Root passed me in the hallway, headed in the opposite direction. She nodded. I couldn’t get used to her acknowledging me. My reputation as a murderous vampire must have made quite a positive impression.
The others were in the living room, watching a long television screen built into a wall. My parents sat far apart on the sofa. Dennis stood to their left. He didn’t look in my direction.
On the television screen, a map showed a swirling red and orange mass moving in the Gulf of Mexico. “A tropical storm?” I asked.
Mãe looked at me. “No, a hurricane. It’s projected to make land-fall a little too close to home.”
The storm’s ceaseless rotation was almost hypnotic.
“A hurricane is a beautiful thing, until you’ve been in one,” she said.
She’d been on the phone with Dashay. Dashay and Bennett were closing up the house and getting ready to move the horses to a friend’s farm, south of Orlando, out of the storm’s projected path. “I need to get back, to help,” she said.
This wasn’t an acceptable part of my family reunion fantasy. Don’t go, I thought, and she thought back, I have to go.
“I’ll come with you,” I said, but she shook her head.
“You’re safer here. Sarasota will get some rain, but nothing like the winds headed for Homosassa and Cedar Key. You don’t know how bad this can be, Ariella. The storm is already a Category Four.”
The television image showed dotted lines emanating from the storm, projecting onto land. The announcer called the highlighted area “Hurricane Barry’s cone of uncertainty.” Homosassa lay close to its center. Mandatory evacuations had been ordered.
“There will be tornadoes.” My father’s voice made the prophecy sound poetic. “The North Atlantic Oscillation is in a strongly positive phase. Sara’s right, Ari. You’re safer here.”
I shot a look of contempt at Dennis, but his eyes were on the television screen. My mother caught the look and sent me a question: What’s that?
But she had enough on her mind. “Will you come back?” I asked.
She hugged me. “Of course I’ll come back. I’m going to rent a second horse trailer, load it up, tow it down to Kissimmee. Then I’ll drive here. The storm won’t hit land for three days or so. I’ll be back day after tomorrow. Meantime, start thinking about what you want for your birthday. Do you realize it’s only a week away?”
“How about a tattoo?” I said.
The shock on my parents’ faces pleased me. I said, “That was a joke. What I’d really like is to see a fireworks show.” I thought of the night of my first kiss.
Clearly relieved, Mãe kissed me. “I think we can manage fireworks.” She exchanged a veiled look with my father, then left.
One moment, my family was in the room. Then it was gone.
Dennis went off with Root toward the lab down the hall.
My father and I sat across from each other, and I let him know what Dennis had asked the night before.
My father’s face changed — his eyes narrowed, his jaw tensed, and his body went rigid, as it had been on the night Michael picked me up to go to the dance. “You should have come and told me at once.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you and Mãe.”
He shook his head. “To think how I’ve trusted him,” he said slowly. “He’ll have to leave.”
His voice was so cold that it scared me. “What about your research?”
At dinner the night before, he’d talked about their work in progress: developing polymer microcapsules to carry hemoglobin, a project he called “truly promising.”
“I can’t work with someone I don’t trust,” he said. “First that business with your mother, now you. He can go back to Saratoga, to his job at the college. He should feel right at home in that environment. Academics are more venomous than vampires ever could be.”