Free The Vampire Book of the Month Club by Rusty Fischer Page B

effect.
    I sigh, pushing slightly against Wyatt, but not too much.
    He doesn’t sigh so much as grunt, an animal hunger filling him, filling me as I grunt back in reply.
    How many times have I imagined kissing Wyatt this way? Always in fantasies deep inside my head: shoving him into some random locker, ravishing him in the waning afternoon light of another boring school day as dust bunnies from four hundred lockers swirl around us.
    And here I am, using Wyatt to spy on Bianca, lying with my lips, telling the truth with my hips, and somewhere, far outside me, in the real world that still exists outside our own personal coconut-flavored heaven, I hear the slam of a locker and am jerked back to reality.
    Seconds now, only seconds left. I roughly shove Wyatt away, whip open my locker, and stare straight at the eight-by-ten-inch mirror I have wedged in there.
    Beyond Bianca’s locker I can see clearly to the double back doors, leading outside to the track and field. My line of vision is clear; there is nothing blocking it. Though there should be. Bianca should be blocking it, blocking everything. There is no Bianca.
    I turn all the way around, just to make sure she’s still standing there. There she is, plain as day, right where she was, slowly picking lint off her busty sweater as she adjusts her purse strap before leaving.
    â€œNora, what the—?” Wyatt gasps.
    Again I grab his neck, this time shoving his face toward the mirror. “Look, Wyatt. Look .”
    He does, he sees, he looks behind him, eyes wide, looks back in the mirror at where Bianca should be and . . . nothing. Just an empty row of lockers backlit by the double doors to the track.
    It’s like one of those illusions you see in magic shows, where the magician uses a special mirror to make his pretty assistant disappear.
    Only, in our case, this isn’t magic. Or maybe it is.
    Black magic.
    â€œOh my God.” He looks me deep in the eyes. “How did you know?”
    I take one of my complimentary copies of Better off Bled #4 from the top shelf of my locker (I always like to keep a few handy, you know, for the freshmen), shove it into the middle of his chest, and snap, “Are you kidding me? This is what I do!”
    By the time he’s grabbing my arm and pulling me out to the student parking lot, Bianca is gone, but the commons aren’t entirely empty.
    Standing in a corner, hidden from even Bianca herself, I see a very familiar shape. Looming, dark.
    Just after Wyatt enters the hallway leading from the commons, and just before I follow him, the shape emerges from the shadows and smiles.
    Reece is watching; Reece was watching.
    And now he knows that we know.
    I think he’s smiling, but I’m wrong. It’s just his fangs poking out from his upper jaw, puffing his lips out, curling them upward.
    It only looks like a smile.
    His dead, dark eyes say something completely different.
    And it’s not good.
    For either of us.

Chapter 10

    â€œS o tell me this,” Wyatt says after his fourth chocolate-covered biscotti at Hallowed Grounds an hour later. “Was there anything not manipulative about you kissing me just so Bianca wouldn’t suspect you were trying to catch her in the act of being a . . . a . . . whatever she is?” He leans in close so as not to be overheard, his eyes alive and bright, his throat still flush. Whether that’s from my kiss or Bianca’s vampire status remains to be seen.
    â€œYes, I mean, no, I mean . . . It’s complicated, Wyatt, OK?” I say, looking over his shoulder to the front door, half expecting Bianca and Reece to storm in—maybe even fly in—any minute.
    â€œDo you have somewhere to go?” he says, reaching for his second hot chocolate. “I think, considering the fact you tricked me into meeting you after school today, lured me into a false kiss, and used me like a piece of meat, you at least owe me a thoughtful and careful