Hourglass

“Closer,” I whispered, pulling him down for a kiss. Lucas’s mouth captured mine, and his hands began tearing at my dress the way I’d torn at his clothes. I helped him push away the straps of my sundress, without ever breaking the kiss, because I didn’t want to stop touching him.

My clothes crumpled to the floor. His skin was against my skin, the cedary scent of him the only air I could breathe. All I wore now was the red coral bracelet, and it shone against his bare skin as he pulled me toward our bed.

In the morning, I felt terrible. Probably that was because I’d been chased by vampires and pounded by sleet, not to mention chilled to the bone, but Lucas freaked out about it.

“You said you’ve been really sick.” He pressed his palm to my forehead, which was silly, because his body temperature was almost always warmer than mine. “Any more dizzy spells?”

“You haven’t even let me get out of bed yet. How would I know if I’m dizzy?” I gestured at the quilt that covered me and the pillows beneath my head. “Usually you have to stand up to tell.”

“I’m just concerned.”

“Well, that makes two of us. But I don’t want you to have to worry.”

Lucas sat heavily on the corner of the bed and rested his forehead in his hand. “I love you, Bianca. That means I have to worry. Something’s wrong with you that neither one of us understands. We need to talk to some vampires—and not the kind we dealt with last night.”

I confessed, “I’ve thought about talking to Mom and Dad. Not because I wanted to—though I do, so much—”

He took my hand, to show that he understood.

“—but I don’t think they’d hear us out.” As much as I hated this knowledge, I felt that it was true. My parents would respond to my call in only one way: They’d come get me. They would do whatever it took to separate me from Lucas, and they’d probably try to force me to become a vampire like them.

Lucas considered that for a second. He seemed to have some trouble getting the next words out. “Well, what about Balthazar?”

It had cost him a lot to admit that Balthazar might be the one to help me, I knew. But that, too, was a dead end. “I already asked him, at school last year. He doesn’t know what happens to born vampires if they don’t complete the transition.”

“Damn.” Rising from the bed, Lucas paced. I watched him from my tangle of covers. Forget about it, I wanted to say. Maybe it’s nothing. We got away from Charity; we should be celebrating!

That was me trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. I’d told Lucas the truth in part so that I couldn’t pretend any longer. It was time to face this.

Lucas stopped in his tracks. “We’re assuming that this has something to do with your vampire side. But what if it isn’t? I mean, you could just be sick. With walking pneumonia or something like that.”

“It’s possible. I’ve thought about it.” Full vampires never caught viruses or got appendicitis or anything like that, but growing up, I’d had the sniffles and stomachaches like any other child. In the past few years, I’d been very healthy, and my parents had said that was my vampire strength buoying my immune system. But maybe it was still possible for me to get sick like anybody else.

“Dana had walking pneumonia a couple of years ago. It messed with her appetite, her strength, that kind of stuff. That might be all this is.”

“Maybe so.” I liked the idea a lot. Too much, really—nobody should want to have walking pneumonia—but it beat the alternative.

Lucas sat back down on the bed, more cheerful than he’d been since the planetarium. “So, we’ll get you to the doctor. He can check you out, figure out what’s wrong.”

It sounded like a good idea, save one thing. Hesitantly, I said, “Can we pay for the doctor?”

“We’ve got enough money for a visit to the clinic. It sets us back, but—we can manage.”

“If I need antibiotics—Lucas, that stuff can be really expensive—”

“If you need antibiotics, we’ll sell the car.”

“The stolen car?”

“What other car would I be talking about?” Lucas wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Lucas, that would be wrong! That belongs to somebody who probably wants it back.” I couldn’t believe he’d said such a thing. “Besides, how would you even do it? The car is stolen. It’s not so easy to sell a stolen car. I’ve seen it on TV; there are serial numbers and all kinds of things to track it down.”

He sighed heavily. “Bianca, I work at a chop shop.”

I was confused. What was a chop shop? The first thing that made me think about was chop suey, and I imagined a Chinese restaurant. But Lucas worked at a garage. “I don’t understand.”

“A chop shop is a garage that deals in stolen cars.” Lucas stared down at his hands as he said this, rubbing absently at the raw skin on his wrists. “We scrape off the VINs, break ’em down for parts, repaint them, doctor license plates, whatever people need. I’m not proud of it. But I can do it.”

“Why would you work at a place like that?”

“Bianca, get real. I’m shy of my twenty-first birthday, and I don’t even have a high school diploma, much less any certifications as a mechanic. Who else do you think would hire me? I hate working with crooks. I hate it so much, some mornings it makes me sick. But I have to do something so we can survive, and a place like this—that’s pretty much the only place that would hire me.”