Vamped by Lucienne Diver Page B

Nebulizer for emergencies. EpiPen. The whole nine yards. Now I’m cured.”
    “Now you’re in prison,” I said, looking around. “This place … it’s like a barracks.”
    “I prefer to think of it as a dorm room,” she answered. From the chill in her voice, I don’t think I was making a new friend. “Anyway, it’s temporary. She doesn’t have any place else for us at the moment and she can’t just have us all running around loose, causing mass hysteria, right?”
    It made a sort of twisted sense, I supposed. And maybe the reason Melli kept Rick human and in school was to scout out the vulnerable kids, those easily cut out of the herd or with some reason to be thankful for their transformation.
    “Can I have my book back now?” the girl asked. Then she added “ please ,” like she’d only just remembered the magic word.
    I couldn’t think of any more questions at that moment. My mind was still reeling from her responses.
    “Sure,” I answered, glancing at the book before handing it back to her. You Suck by Christopher Moore. A vampire novel. Too funny.
    Her smile was genuine this time, as she took the book and settled against the wall to read. I’d already ceased to exist for her.
    So, smelly Melli commanded loyalty. There were probably as many reasons for that loyalty as there were kids, but I just couldn’t see her as some kind of Lady Liberty, asking for our tired and poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free—although that’s exactly what this girl was now doing.
    I needed to learn more, and not just from someone with a fairy-tale vision of the whole thing. I didn’t trust Melli as far as I could throw her, especially with my new vamp strength.
    And so I waited for the moment when I could slip my cage. I thought about doing it during the change of teams—when one returned and the other was called out—but it seemed there’d be too many people milling around then. Someone would be bound to notice. I could set up some kind of distraction for getting out, like jamming a hairpin or something into a socket and short-circuiting things, but with everyone’s nifty new vamp-o-vision, I wasn’t sure that would really do me any good. And I didn’t see how it would help me slip back in unnoticed when my snooping was done … unless it somehow kicked up a real frenzy. But if that happened, chances were Melli’s thugs would come running and do a little investigation, and I’d be snagged. I needed something low key, where everyone would be distracted …
    Like Chaz and Tina putting on a really embarrassing show of PDA right there in the dorm, not even bothering with bathrooms and closed doors.
    “Get a room!” someone called.
    Someone else wolf-whistled.
    Tina and Chaz didn’t seem to notice. And no one seemed to notice me sliding off my boots so that I could slip silently into the hallway. There were no guards in the basement hallway, and the only sound was from the room I’d just left behind, where I could now hear some guy taking bets on which base they’d hit.
    I crept toward the stairs up to the main floor, the cinderblock cool on my stockinged feet, and listened again. Nothing. Either the coast was clear, or smelly Melli’s guards were really quiet. I mean, she totally had guards, right? She couldn’t just keep her thugs for kidnapping people and ripping off sporting goods stores, could she?
    I poked my head out of the staircase and looked around. Still nothing. Well, I was no stranger to risk. It was the hallmark of high fashion. That and originality. Well, that and originality and the attitude to carry it off. I was all about attitude. I marched into that upstairs hallway like I had reason to be there, figuring it gave me more improvisational options if I was caught than if I was obviously sneaking. Perhaps I was just out looking for more fashionable footwear.
    No one was there to care.
    I walked toward Melli’s office, waiting for someone to come by, but the Alpha and Beta teams