Melissa Darnell - Covet

She looked at me, her still watery eyes filled with a flash of hope that squeezed my insides like a vise. “How?”

I didn’t have an answer yet. But I would, no matter what it took. “I’ll find a way.”

“Mr. Coleman, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Daniels called out as she entered the theater through the audience area doors. “I don’t believe you’re supposed to be helping us anymore.”

Great, just what I needed. “That’s a misunderstanding—”

“I don’t think so. I spoke with your parents last week. Their intentions were very clear.” Mrs. Daniels took her usual seat in the back row.

Savannah quickly wiped her face dry then went back to working on the sound system. Obviously she would be no help here.

I jumped off the stage and strode up the aisle to Mrs. Daniels’s row. The woman’s gaze was every bit as frosty as Savannah’s when she was trying to shut someone out.

“Ma’am, I still want to help out with the team,” I insisted, trying my most charming smile on her. It always worked on the teachers and the ladies in the front office.

One blond eyebrow arched. “No one stays on the team in any capacity without their parents’ consent, not even volunteers on the stage crew. School rules. You’ll have to take it up with your parents if you want to help us out again. Until then, I’ll have to ask you to go to the front office, where you’ve been reassigned as an office aide for your first periods from now on.” She flipped a page on her clipboard, silently dismissing me.

Great. Now how was I supposed to talk to Savannah, be with her at all, without the Clann seeing? The only class we had together was history every other day with Mr. Smythe, Dylan Williams and the Brat Twins…four descendants who would be extra vigilant in spying on us now.

I glanced back at Savannah. Her shoulders hunched in response, but she refused to look up.

Fine. Savannah had made herself clear. Until I found a way to change the rules, she wouldn’t see me, and there would be no point in arguing with Mrs. Daniels.

But Savannah was wrong if she thought I’d given up on us. I would find a way to change the rules. Somehow.

SAVANNAH

My friends fell silent as I joined them at our usual table in the cafeteria on my first day back at school. I wasn’t hungry, but I’d skipped breakfast, so I’d grabbed a bag of chips and a Coke. And tried to ignore the ache that being within a hundred yards of Tristan always caused. Usually he sat outside at a tree during lunch. Today he was sitting by his sister at the Clann table and staring at me.

In the silence, my chip bag cracked like a gunshot as I tore it open. But I’d pulled too hard. The bag ripped in half, exploding harvest-cheddar-flavored chips all over my lap and the table in front of me.

I sighed. “Good thing I wasn’t hungry.”

“Sav…” Anne began, and I cringed at the hesitant sympathy in her voice. I knew what was coming. Most of the Charmers and Mrs. Daniels had all used that same tone of voice to offer their condolences about my grandmother earlier this morning.

I looked up, found all three of my friends staring at me with drawn, sympathetic faces. I held up a hand. “I know y’all are probably worried about me. And I appreciate it, really I do. But I’m okay. Honest.”

They nodded too quickly and too hard.

Desperate to change the subject, I pasted on a smile and looked at Michelle. “So what’s the latest gossip? Did I miss anything good last week?”

Michelle opened her mouth, then bit her lower lip. “Um, actually, all the hottest gossip has been about Tristan and…you.”

Oh no, we were not going there. “Okay, then I’ve got some news. I moved in with my dad last week.”

“What the heck?” Anne gasped. “But how…I mean, I thought he lived in another state. Will you have to transfer?”

“Nope,” I told her. “He bought that old Victorian place across the railroad tracks. You know, the one you can see from the Tomato Bowl? He’s fixing it up as a local showcase house for his renovation company.”

All three pairs of eyes widened.

“Oh, Sav, that’s terrible,” Michelle whispered, as if I’d just stated that I had some incurable disease. “Everyone knows that house is haunted.”

“And extremely unsafe,” Carrie added. “No one’s lived in it for decades. It must be in terrible condition. Probably filled with lead plumbing and asbestos, too.”

“Well, it does need a lot of work,” I replied, making a mental note to get some bottled water to keep at the house. “But that’s my dad’s specialty. His business’s whole focus is on renovating historical homes and restoring them to their former glory. So he’ll probably have it all fixed up in no time.” I hoped.

“Have you seen any ghosts yet?” Anne asked before taking a long chug of her soda.

“No.” I laughed. “It is a little spooky though. Dad says it gets so noisy at night because all the wood and plumbing expands or contracts or something with the change in temperature from day to night. My room has a great view, though, and it’s about four times the size of my old one. So everyone will finally have plenty of room for our sleepovers.”

I smiled and looked around, expecting them to at least get excited about that. Instead, everyone was suddenly very busy eating or gathering up their trash.

They were freaked out by my new home, and they hadn’t even seen the inside yet.

I thought about the houses they all lived in…Carrie’s brick lakeside home, Anne’s pristine modern brick home in town by Buckner Park. Even Michelle’s house, while not always the tidiest because of all her little brothers and sisters, was fairly new.

And now they thought they’d get lead poisoning if they came over to my house.

I snagged a chip from my lap and chomped on it in silence. Then I felt it…the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end, like someone was staring at me.

Slowly I looked over my shoulder.

Tristan.

My lungs tightened, refusing to expand. Would he come over, insist on arguing with me again about things I had no power to change, make another scene in front of the Clann kids?

But he only sat there staring, his jaw set, his eyes that shade of dark emerald they always turned when he was angry or upset.

Maybe he’d finally started to see the reality of our situation.

My head said I should be relieved.

But all I felt was the aching need to cry.

TRISTAN

I tried to find that old confidence inside me that I was right and somehow I’d find a way to change the minds of the vamp council and my parents. But my parents refused to talk to me about it, my mother even going so far as to threaten to take away my truck keys and ground me if I said Savannah’s name one more time in her presence. And I had no way to directly contact the vamp council.

By Friday night, as I sat in the high school theater while the Charmers performed their Spring Show onstage, I knew there was only one solution to all of this.

I had to become a vampire.

I had no way to convince the Clann or the council to change their rules. But if I became a vamp, then there wouldn’t be any danger in being with Savannah. They’d have to leave us alone.

Savannah would never turn me herself, even if I tried to make her lose control of the bloodlust. She believed the myth that vampire blood killed descendants. I’d have to convince another vamp to do the deed. But who? I knew only one vampire. Her dad. And I had no idea how to convince Mr. Colbert to turn me, or even where they lived.

I knew someone who might know their new address, though. And she was in the phone book. I slipped out of the theater to make the call. Thankfully she answered.

“Hey, Michelle, it’s Tristan Coleman. From first period office aide—”