Jack smiled, his green eyes shining in the dim light. Schuyler thought she had never seen anyone so calm under pressure. He had been such a stabilizing influence, a natural leader, assuaging Bliss's anxiety and taking such respectful care of Morgan. He put his left hand on top of Schuyler's. "Any time. And tell Bliss not to worry. We all make mistakes.”
His skin felt warm and smooth to her touch, and Schuyler thought they could stand like that forever, framed in the doorway to her room. But Jack released his hand first, and she reluctantly took hers back as well.
"Well…good night," Jack mumbled, nodding to the sunrise that was slowly breaking through the clouds. He began to walk away, his footsteps soft on the wood floor. "'Night," Schuyler whispered. "Sweet dreams?"
"You bet," Jack replied.
Schuyler laughed softly to herself as she unlocked the door to her room. She hadn't meant for Jack to hear her last words, but there were no secrets from a vampire with extrasensitive hearing.
Later that morning, Schuyler and Bliss shared a taxi to the airport. Their flight was scheduled at eight, and both of them had had only two hours' sleep after all the ruckus.
"You okay?" Schuyler asked.
"God, I need a cigarette," Bliss said, fumbling for her purse. She brought one out and lit it, while rolling down the window at the same time. "Want one?”
Schuyler shook her head.
"I'm not sure," Bliss admitted. "I kind of wish I had waited. I don't know, I just felt like doing it. You know? Because Mimi talks about it all the time—and all those other girls, they always brag about their familiars. And I felt like such a stupid, I don't know, virgin or something.”
"So what was it like?" Schuyler asked.
"Honestly?”
"Yeah.”
"It was awesome. It's like you devour their soul, Schuyler. I could taste his…being. And then I felt great, you know. It's a high. A rush. I know why people do it now," Bliss confessed.
The taxi whizzed along, and the girls looked out at a view of the flat, untroubled waters of the Caribbean. It was a spectacular sight, but both of them were glad to be going back to the dirty, gray streets of New York.
"I haven't done it yet," Schuyler confessed, taking a deep breath.
"You will," Bliss said, flicking her ashes out the window. "But take it from me when you do take a familiar, make sure he matters something to you. I feel a pull toward Morgan, and I don't want to. I hardly even know the guy.”
PATIENT RECORD St. Dymphna Home for the Insane Name: Margaret Stanford Age: 16 Admitted: April 5, 1869 PREVIOUS HISTORY: Recommended isolation therapy, April 30, 1869 Patient unresponsive. Isolation therapy no longer recommended, May 23, 1869.
Patient continues to have delirium, delusion, nightmares.
Suicidal tendencies more pronounced.
Patient is violent, danger to self and to others. Recommend transfer to full-security facility.
PRESENT CONDITION: A week before patient was to be transferred, patient started responding to treatment. Patient stayed and was allowed to remain in our facility for several weeks, in which no signs of delusion, hysteria, or dementia were observed. Patient responds well to questions and appears to have fully recovered. Recommend release to family in three months if progress continues.
THIRTY-ONE
Every Valentine's Day, the student council sponsored a holiday fundraiser by selling roses that would be delivered in class. The roses came in four colors: white, yellow, red, and pink, and the subtleties of their meaning were parsed and analyzed by the female population to no end.
Mimi had always understood it thus: white for love, yellow for friendship, red for passion, and pink for a secret crush. Every year on Valentine's Day, Mimi was the recipient of the biggest and most elaborate bouquets. One of her human familiars had once bought five dozen red roses to declare his undying devotion.
Mimi perched on her stool in Chem lab, her first class that morning, and waited for the floral tidal wave.
The student council flunkies arrived with their buckets of flowers. "Happy Valentine's Day!" they chirped to a harried Mr. Korgan.
"Go ahead, get it over with," he complained.
Many of the girls received several small bouquets—most were yellow roses, which meant the girls had spent their money on each other, in the way girls do to make themselves feel better about not having a Valentine on that holiest of holidays.
Schuyler, sitting at her usual table—they had rotated around so that she was back with Oliver again—accepted a pretty yellow bouquet. Oliver had sent her one last year as well, and sure enough, the accompanying card had his precise handwriting on it.
"Thanks, Ollie," she smiled, inhaling the fresh blooms. "And here's one for you, Mr.
Hazard-Perry," the freshman delivery girl said, handing him a bouquet of pink roses. Oliver colored. "Pink?”
"A secret crush!" Schuyler teased. She had decided to send him the pink flowers since they always traded yellow roses, and it was getting too predictable. Why not spice it up a little.
"Ha. Right. I know they're just from you, Sky," Oliver said, plucking the card from the top. He read it aloud: "Oliver, will you be my secret valentine? Love, Sky." He placed it back in the envelope and couldn't look at Schuyler for a moment.
Schuyler wanted to peer inside his mind. She had been successful in accomplishing the first factor of the glom-telepathy—but Oliver had been taking lessons as well, and as soon as he had mastered the antidote to telepathy—occludo, which meant closing your mind to external influence—Schuyler couldn't get a read on him anymore.
Bliss, who was sitting with Kingsley, received two red bouquets of similar size. "Ah, I have a rival I see," Kingsley drawled.
"It's nothing. It's just from some guy I don't even know that well," Bliss mumbled. Sure enough, the second bouquet was from Morgan, who had ordered the flowers all the way from his dorm room in Rhode Island.
"You are always on my mind. Love, M." his card read.
Kingsley handed his bouquet to her personally. "I wish these were green, they would suit you better. The color clashes with your hair.”
"It's fine," Bliss muttered. She still didn't know how she felt about Kingsley. Being with him seemed like a betrayal to Dylan's memory.
Having handed out all the middle-size bouquets, the floral messengers were now bringing out the big guns. The three or four dozen mega-arrangements, roses of the deepest scarlet, all of which seemed to have Mimi Force's name on their cards. Soon, the area around her desk looked like a funeral parlor.
"Looks like that's it," Mr. Korgan grumbled.
"Wait we have one left," the runner said, bringing out what was surely the most expensive bouquet of all: a three-foot-tall arrangement of two hundred white roses, in the palest ivory color.
All the girls swooned. Almost no boys bought white roses ever. It was too big a sign of commitment. But this one practically trumpeted a captured heart.
The runner set the bouquet in front of Schuyler.
Mimi raised an eyebrow. She had always won the roses lottery. What was this all about?
"For me?" Schuyler asked, awestruck by the size of the thing.
She took the card from the tallest stem.
"For Schuyler, who doesn't like love stories." It was not signed.