I dragged myself through the last half of the day and went straight to my car before I could be interrupted. But just as I was backing out, someone banged on top of my car. Porter appeared in the driver's side window. I stopped and rolled the window down. The back half of the car was hanging out of the space and blocking everyone else. Someone honked.
"Thought you were getting away, huh?" he said. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Home. My mom needs the car for work."
"Good. Zero and I are coming over right now."
I was shaking my head, more from exhaustion than from refusal. I couldn't have company right now. I needed at least a couple of hours alone. The separation from Emily was starting to crawl under my skin, and I knew in a little while I was going to get very hungry. Plus, I hadn't slept since yesterday.
"That's too soon," I said. "I have homework to do first."
"So do it after we leave."
"Come over after dinner," I said. "That'll still be enough time to work on the game."
I could tell that he had no idea how to handle this insubordination. I never did it, and I'm sure I wouldn't have if there wasn't more important stuff at stake.
He studied me for a long time. I could feel him mentally probing for weakness and finding none. I wasn't cool or anything. I was just scared. I needed time and space to process things and figure out what I was going to do next.
More cars honked, which forced Porter to make a decision.
"We're going to be there at six o'clock, sharp," he said, poking my steering wheel. "You'd better be there, and you'd better be ready to work, or we're going to have to find someone else to do the stories for us."
I'm sorry, Mr. Papadakis, but we're taking this company in a different direction.
"I'll be there," I said.
He walked away without another word. I finished backing out and took the car home. My toughest battle was coming up. I hadn't seen my mother since Saturday afternoon, nor had I provided her with the explanation she had been waiting for. The only thing I had going for me was a lack of time. In order for Mom to make it to work before her shift started, she had to leave the minute I got in. Barely enough time for a glare and a hug.
The usual pattern was for Mom to come hurrying out of the house with her purse and stuff the moment I pulled into the garage. But she didn't do it this time. I slammed the car door shut after I got out, hoping this would draw her. Nothing.
I let myself in the house. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, wearing jeans and a sweater instead of her nursing scrubs. She smiled, a look that was both friendly and threatening. I swallowed and closed the door behind me.
"How was your day?" she said.
"Fine."
"Good." She took a sip from her coffee, almost perfectly at ease. Right at the bottom of that peace was the promise of imminent conflict. Something was going to happen, and I wasn't going to like it.
"Shouldn't you be going to work?" I said.
"I took the day off."
I lowered my backpack onto one of the chairs. "I thought you didn't have any vacation days left."
"I had one medical day."
"But that's not what those are for, right? You said you had to be sick to use a medical day."
"So I lied."
I stared at her. She gazed frankly back. She never lied about stuff like that. She never abused the system, even if everyone else was doing it. She was Ms. Follow-The-Rules. The woman who could be counted on to do things right, and who expected her son to do the same.
"Oh," I said.
She pushed a chair out with her foot. The message was clear: sit down. I sat.
I should take a moment here to tell you more about my mom. First of all, Papadakis is my mother's last name. My dad's last name was Reese. Mine used to be Reese until my dad left and Mom went back to her old name. I'm not positive, but I think they're divorced. She never outright told me, and I never had the guts to ask.
The point is, my mom is Greek. And you can really see it when she suspects me of some illicit behavior. At such times, she becomes a seeker of Truth that would make Socrates proud. Not philosophical truth, though. She hadn't inherited the philosophy gene. No, the truth she sought was the kind that would hold up in a court of law.
Mom's face remained placid. Almost pleasant. But I knew this look too well. She said, "I can't help but feel like you've been avoiding me."
I just shrugged. Avoiding her is exactly what I was doing, so I couldn't explain it away. She gestured with her finger, and I leaned closer, across the table. She slipped my sunglasses off and looked me in the eye.
"Your pupils are still tiny," she said.
"They are?"
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. I just watched her. Whatever she was going to do to me, I hoped she did it fast. I needed to check on Emily, and I needed to get some food. I was way too aware of the way my mother smelled, and the tension between us was only making it worse.
"I want some answers," she said, "I want to know what happened to you on Saturday, in detail. I want to know why you're already asleep when I get home every night, where your glasses are, and why your eyes look like that."
I was trapped. Trapped, but not completely unprepared. I knew this question was coming, and I had decided that the story I'd given to Porter would have to work on her, too. Unfortunately, she was smarter than Porter.
I said, "I didn't want to talk about it because it's embarrassing."
She nodded, giving me permission to go on.
"I got mugged. I was on the wrong side of town with that expensive software and I think some guys followed me when I left the con. They beat me up and took it. I don't know where my glasses are. I must have lost them."
"How many guys?"
"Two."
"What did they look like?"
I scratched the back of my neck, trying to come up with something fast. "They were gang members, I think. And they were wearing . . ." Oh, man. What did gangsters wear? "Hats. And jeans."
"Hats and jeans."
"Yeah."
"Well, if you got mugged why didn't you let me take you to the police?"
I made myself shrug. "Like I said, it's embarrassing. Plus, the cops never find those guys, so what's the point?"
"And they took Porter's software."
"Right."
She smiled without humor and reached over to the chair that was directly next to her. The table blocked my view, so I couldn't see what she was reaching for until she produced a black package with raised electric-blue lettering. She placed it on the table in front of me.
"You mean this software?"
Game Toolbox. I grabbed the thing and stared at it. The package had gotten bent, but that wouldn't affect the key inside.
"Where did you find this?" I said, but then I caught myself and tried to slip back into casual mode. "I mean, how did you get a hold of one of these?"
"The video game fairy must have left it in our car."
I deflated a little. Don't get me wrong, I was relieved that the software had been found, but I knew my cover was dangerously close to being blown.
"Wow," I said. "I must have---I was pretty out of it when they were done with me, right? What's the word? Delirious. So . . ." Dammit, nothing was coming out as smoothly as it was supposed to. I sounded too much like I was trying to cover up something.
She leaned across the table, took my chin in her hand, and tilted my face away. She touched my jaw, then my throat.
"You look better than you did two days ago," she said.
"A lot of that stuff came off in the shower," I said. "I think it was mostly dirt."
"I thought it was hickeys."
"Hickeys?"
"You mentioned something about hickeys."
"Did I say hickeys?"
"You said hickeys."
"I was delirious."
"Why would you say hickeys?"
"Why would a woman make out with me and then beat me up?"
She let this go unanswered. Suddenly it was obvious, to both of us, I think, that we weren't having a discussion. We were jousting. Which meant she knew I was lying, and she knew I knew she knew, but she didn't know how to prove any of it.
Moms. They're like the final boss in the RPG of your life.
All at once, she got up and started to pace. She walked to the fridge, and then back to where I was sitting.
"We're both too intelligent for this," she said.
"For what?"
"I get it, okay? You're almost grown. You're not going to tell me everything that happens to you. I hate it because you used to be able to trust me and now it feels like you don't anymore, but I get it."
She paced around a couple more times, then she came back to the table and sat down again.
"I don't expect you to be completely candid with me," she said. "But I do expect you to be honest. Now I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that you're not keeping something from me."
I dropped my eyes to the table, guilty. But then I took a deep breath, made myself look up again, and met her gaze.
I said, "I'm keeping something from you."
The truth seemed to surprise her. She said, "Is it drugs?"
"No."
"Am I going to end up with a grandchild to raise?"
I put my face into my hand and laughed weakly. If only she had to worry about something like that.
She accepted this as a no and said, "Are your grades going to suffer?"
"I don't think so."
"So it's not drugs, and it's not sex, and it's not truancy."
"Right."
She lifted her hands like she was hoping for God to send down some answers. "What else is there?"
Undead blood-sucking, I thought. But she wasn't asking me, so I wasn't obligated to tell.
We sat there for a long time, neither of us talking. Then Mom said, "Well, I took the day off so I could spend some time with you. I want to have dinner together for once, and maybe we can watch some TV."
"That could be good," I said carefully. "But I do have a lot of homework, and the guys are coming over at six."
"We can eat early," she said.
"Okay."
I think this satisfied her. She wanted to hear that I wasn't opposed to being with her altogether. She got up from the table and went to the fridge. "You want keftedes or chicken?"
Keftedes are Greek meatballs, and they used to be my favorite. Now I couldn't have cared less what she cooked. I said, "Keftedes is fine."
"That's odd. I thought I had a pound of beef in here---"
"Actually, can we do chicken instead?"
"Sure."
I grabbed my backpack and headed for the stairs, but Mom's voice stopped me.
"By the way," she said. She poked her head out of the kitchen. "You're grounded."
"Grounded? For what?"
"I still don't know what you're up to," she said. "But if you can't tell me, it can't be good. Right?"
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
"That's what I thought. Dinner's at five."
She disappeared back into the kitchen. I dragged myself up to my bedroom and flopped face-first on my bed.
Mom does 999 damage. Game over.
* * *
I needed to sleep. Desperately wanted to sleep. But all I could think about was Emily and the longing for her grated on my nerves like broken glass. And Sid, too. It did help to see Sidney at school, but by now it had been more than twenty-four hours since I'd fed on her, and, man, I wanted to fix that. But she wasn't going to put up with it. She was going to try to wait it out. I didn't blame her, but I wasn't looking forward to the panic attack coming my way.
I was tired of the whole thing, and I'm sure that sounds insane. Like, who wouldn't want the problem of two good-looking girls letting you put your hands all over them and demanding that you feast on their nubile flesh? But, trust me, it's not as good as it sounds. For one thing, neither of them wants me or wants to be seen with me, which is not exactly a boost for the ego. For another, if I just let myself give in and be as hedonistic as I want, I really think I could end up turning into the male version of Parva. And, look, it's one thing to pick the evil path in a video game for fun, but I wasn't going to do that in real life. I didn't want to go to hell.
I got up off the bed and headed downstairs. The smell of chicken warmed the house, and even though it didn't make me hungry, it did make me nostalgic. Nostalgic for what, I don't know. Maybe my humanity.
The chicken wasn't the only thing I could smell, though, and when I realized what I was hungry for my throat constricted and I backed away. Mom came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.
"What are you doing?" she said.
I had to see Emily. I needed to be with her, if only for a minute. I already knew she was going to throw a high-heeled shoe at me, but I couldn't just pretend like she wasn't the smartest, safest place for me to get blood. I had to eat, or I didn't think I could be trusted to spend an evening alone with Mom.
"I'm going to take a quick walk before dinner," I said.
"You're grounded, Nathaniel."
"So being grounded means I can't even take a walk?"
"Right. Wash up for dinner. We're eating in twenty minutes."
Panic started to prickle in my chest, but I trudged to the downstairs bathroom and washed my hands. I went through the motions of helping Mom get things ready for dinner, and then we sat on the couch with our plates. She turned on Jeopardy, and I gazed stupidly at the chicken. I was supposed to be eating this because this would fill the open grave in my stomach. I was not supposed to eat any blood in the immediate vicinity, no matter how good it smelled.
I stabbed a piece of chicken and put it in my mouth. I chewed it up like a robot and swallowed. Another robotic bite, another attempt at distracting myself from my mother's blood. My mouth hated me for what I was doing to it. I hated Parva for putting me in this situation. I was absolutely determined to find her one day and make her pay for what she'd done.
"What's wrong?" Mom said. "Is the chicken no good?"
I focused on her eyes so I wouldn't look at her throat.
"I'm just not very hungry, I guess."
Liar.
"Well, eat the veggies, at least."
"Yes, ma'am." I put a piece of broccoli in my mouth and swallowed the whole thing without chewing it. There was a knock on the door. Mom looked at me.
"Did the boys decide to come over early?" she said.
No, it wasn't Porter and Zero. There was only one heartbeat on the porch. And that smell, wafting toward me through minuscule gaps around the door. The sweet, sweet smell of rescue.
Emily.