Stargazer. Claudia Gray

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      “I can’t this weekend.” If I’d been any less exhausted, would Balthazar have seen the nervous anticipation in my eyes? “Can I take a rain check?”

      “Sure.” He grinned at me as he headed for the door. All at once, I wondered if Balthazar hadn’t meant his offer as a way to get close to me. If so, I’d have to figure a way out of it.

      I’d worry about all that later. It was the first Friday in October, and that meant I was only a few hours away from being with Lucas again.

      First I hurried back to the dorm so that I could shower. No way was I going to meet up with Lucas smelling like sweaty old socks. I didn’t fix my hair or carefully apply makeup, so I wouldn’t tip Raquel off to my plans. I imagined my ultrafeminine former roommate, Patrice, gasping in horror as I simply pulled my hair back into a sloppy bun.

      Raquel noticed anyway. “Why are you getting dressed up to lounge around in the woods?”

      “It’s hardly like I got out the fur coat and tiara.” I wore jeans and a plain sweater.

      She shrugged. “Whatever.” Raquel sat cross-legged on the floor, in the middle of another of her art projects; this collage looked fairly depressing, with a lot of black and a prominently displayed etching of a guillotine. All that mattered to me was that she paid no attention as I finished getting dressed. Ideally I would’ve gone to see Lucas in my prettiest outfit, but there was no way I could believably wear anything dressy. I reached deep into the back of my underwear drawer for a tiny bundle wrapped in a scarf, which I tucked into my backpack along with a thermos that would’ve looked innocent to Raquel.

      “See you tomorrow night, okay?” My voice sounded strange—taut and unnatural, as though it might break.

      I put one hand on the doorknob, thinking I was all but home free, when Raquel idly asked, “Aren’t you taking your telescope?”

      Oh, no. If I were going to watch the meteor shower, of course I would bring my telescope with me—it was heavy, and it had to be handled with care, but I could get it onto the school grounds. What I couldn’t do was lug that thing all the way to Amherst. I thought I’d gone over every detail of my getaway plan. How could I have forgotten something so basic?

      “I have another one,” I lied, making it up as I went. “Telescope, I mean. It’s not quite as good as this one, but it’s a lot lighter. So I thought I’d get it from my parents’ apartment instead.”

      “Makes sense.” Raquel looked up from her scissors, so that we could see each other’s faces. She looked a little sad; maybe Raquel would never admit that she would miss me over the weekend, but I thought she would. “Tomorrow, then.”

      “Tomorrow.” Guiltily, I promised, “We’ll hang out next weekend. Figure out something fun to do.”

      “Here? Yeah, right.” She buried herself in her work again, and I was free to go.

      As I walked out onto the grounds, twilight was descending over the school. Dusk was one of my favorite times of day; to me it felt as much like a beginning as the sunrise. The sky was a milky violet-gray as I walked to the far end of the grounds and made my way into the woods. My ears pricked up in response to the night sounds: my own footsteps on soft pine needles, the hooting of a faraway owl and—very distant—a girl laughing in a drowsy kind of way that made me think she must be out there with a guy.

      I continued on my way, realizing as I went how much sharper my hearing was than it had been last year. Perhaps I’d become so accustomed to the din of Evernight Academy that I didn’t sense the difference so much, but out in the woods, it was obvious. The flapping of birds’ wings, traffic whirring along the nearest road—all of that was clear and distinct. It wouldn’t have been, before.

      I wouldn’t have been thinking about how good one of those birds’ blood would taste, either.

      The vampire in me was closer to the surface. And being with Lucas always brought the vampire—the predator, the hungry one—to life in me more powerfully than before. Maybe I wasn’t the only one taking a risk with this meeting tonight.

       I’ll take care of Lucas. I would never hurt him.

       (If I bite him again and drink deeply enough, he becomes a vampire, and then the two of us could be together forever.)

      I shook my head, refusing to get ahead of myself. Instead, I kept going until I reached the road. Then it was just a short stroll to the lone intersection in the area, a four-way stop. I took my place on the road that led to nearby Riverton and waited.

      Five cars and a motorcycle came by; those were useless to me. From my hiding place in the nearby bushes, I sighed in frustration.

      But lucky number seven was the one I’d been waiting for all this time: the laundry service that came to Evernight once a week for the school linens. As always, the driver had his music playing full blast. He would just have left the school, which meant he was headed back—and the sign on the side of the truck confirmed my recollection that the laundry service was based in Amherst.

      The truck stopped at the sign. I ran to the back of the truck, which, luckily, was unlocked. As the metal clicked, I flinched, but fortunately the loud music in the cab must have covered it. Quickly I hopped inside among the bundles of laundry and pulled the doors shut behind me as the truck took off again.

      See? That was simple! I was both so nervous and so elated that I had to fight not to start giggling. Instead, I curled down among the laundry bags, just one more bundle if he happened to glance back here. Everything smelled a little musty, but not unpleasant, and with all the cushioning around me, my ride promised to be pretty comfortable.

      It took approximately an hour to drive to Amherst. Around then, I’d start risking a few peeks out of the small window in the back. Once we reached Amherst, I’d take advantage of another stop to get out—again without being seen, I hoped. After that, I could catch a cab or walk or whatever I had to do in order to reach the train station.

      By midnight, I would be in Lucas’s arms again.

       Chapter Five

      “WOOHOO! BAY-BEEEEE!”

      The car zipped past me, going way too fast in the Amherst town square. A couple of frat guys were hanging out of the windows and yelling at every girl they saw.

      I’d thought that, by this hour, the streets would be pretty much deserted. What I hadn’t considered was that Amherst was a college town, with something like three or four universities crowded up against the city boundaries. The town didn’t slow down at midnight; the kids around me were just getting the party started.

      Kids. These people were up to five years older than me. Their faces and bodies were more mature than those of the students at Evernight. It was strange to think that they’d already lived longer than Balthazar ever did. But when I was at Evernight, I could sense the experience, worldliness, and strength of my classmates; their faces were young, but their centuries showed in their eyes. Compared to them, the cigarette-smoking college students jostling one another on the sidewalk around me were only children.

      What did that make me?

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