Free The Vampire Book of the Month Club by Rusty Fischer

her shoulders like it’s being gradually released by a flock of cherubs hovering gently around her ears.
    And it’s in that hang time, those precious 34.2 seconds (or so it seems), that I see what I’ve been looking for all day, what I’ve been suspecting since I saw her drain her eighth Styrofoam tray full of blood in food and culture class: two tiny bruises evenly spaced at the nape of her neck, just in the back, which her lustrous hair would normally cover.
    Bianca didn’t just come back from a mental-health day.
    She came back from the dead.

Chapter 9

    I want Abby to be there when I test my theory, but she has an early call on the set of Zombie Diaries 4 and can’t hang after school.
    I text Wyatt, asking him to meet me by my locker after the final bell, but he’s got a callback for a photo shoot for some Swiss watch line that he says would be “great for his portfolio” (whatever that is) and can’t make it either. (Hmm, maybe if I want more attention, I should seek less-famous friends.)
    That’s OK. It’s a simple test, really, and I can do it from afar, so there’s no way I should be in any danger.
    Right?
    To make sure I’m set up early, I get a pass for the last ten minutes of class from Mr. Simmons, my seventh-period physics teacher, and set up at my locker.
    All I have to do is open the door. Everything I need to prove Bianca Ridley is a vampire (I can’t believe I’m writing that) is right inside my locker.
    The irony of what I’m about to do strikes me as I’m waiting for the final bell of the day to ring. How many times have I written this scene in a Better off Bled book? How many times has Scarlet Stain had to prove someone is a living vampire before shoving a stake in his heart or loosing a town full of torch-and-pitchfork-bearing peasants on him?
    And here I am, standing in the most posh prep school anywhere, in the middle of the day, getting ready to do the very same thing.
    The final bell of the day rings loud and clear, the commons area floods with kids—big kids, little kids, rich kids, richer kids, pretty kids, prettier kids . . . and no Bianca.
    Now, this girl is always first to her locker after school lets out, hands down.
    It’s like a contest with her or something.
    Last year my seventh-period class was literally right around the corner from my locker—I’m talking six short steps, I counted them one day—and she still managed to beat me every single time.
    I don’t know if she just gets out of her chair and leaves her last class a few minutes early without telling anyone (not that I’d put it past her) or if she’s a speed walker or has supersonic shoes or has mastered time travel, but no one gets to her locker faster than Bianca Ridley.
    Until this very day.
    The one day I’m counting on her to get to her locker faster.
    Her locker is only six down from mine, facing my still-open locker door, and she never misses an opportunity to freshen her lip gloss, apply some fresh mascara, or study her face . . . until today ?
    Has she pulled another disappearing act?
    Is she seducing Reece in the supply closet as we speak?
    Is this some master plot to humiliate me in front of the whole school?
    As quickly as the commons area fills with noisy, spoiled, well-dressed brats, it bleeds itself dry, kids running, shouting, skipping toward the bike racks, the bus loop, or the student parking lot as fast as their designer shoes will carry them.
    They leave only balled-up wads of paper, empty soda cans, a stray #2 pencil, and dead, dusty silence.
    Soon I’m standing there, all alone, my locker still open, my gaze darting left and right, when suddenly I hear their footsteps behind me. One after the other, squeaky shoes on an empty floor. Fast at first, coming faster, then slowing a few yards behind me.
    I can’t turn too soon or I’ll spook her, and she’ll wonder why I’m standing there, all