Unafraid aa-3 Read online

  chapter 5

  Michael hated to admit it, but his father had excellent taste in cars.

  The Mercedes Benz SUV was sleek and formidable, like a metal and chrome chariot that had been drenched in crimson blood. The color choice was hardly subtle, but picked to arouse Michael’s senses.

  Despite his resistance, it was working. Michael imagined that sitting in the driver’s seat would be like being in the center of a bloodstained cloud. He pictured himself perched high above the ground, gripping the steering wheel and leaning his body into the contours of the black leather seat as he drove into Eden waving to his classmates and strangers. He imagined the look of shock that would appear on R.J.’s face if he ever pulled into the gas station driving this instead of his grandfather’s beat-up Bronco. That would be priceless. Everyone who saw him would be jealous of his luxurious car.

  Everyone who saw him would know he was special.

  But if someone did see him drive the car, if someone saw him just sitting in it, wouldn’t they really be admiring his father? The first question anyone would ask would be “Where’d you get such an awesome car?” And Michael would be forced to reply, “It was a birthday gift from my dad.”

  As he stood in front of the Benz, his hands buried into the front pockets of his shorts so they wouldn’t reach out and feel how insanely smooth and magical he knew the hood of the car had to feel, the rest of the imaginary conversation played out in Michael’s head.

  “Your father got you a Benz for your birthday?!” the stranger would say. “Dude, you must have the best dad in the world.”

  “Not really,” Michael would tersely reply.

  “Come off it,” the stranger would press on. “Do you know how expensive that thing is?”

  “He’s just trying to buy my love.”

  “C’mon, cut the guy some slack.”

  “Should I also cut him some slack for brutally murdering my mother and making everyone think she committed suicide?”

  Michael waited for the stranger’s response, but none came. But really, what could anyone say after a comment like that even if the conversation was only being played out in his mind? No! This had to stop! Michael told himself. He didn’t want to think constantly about what his father had done; he didn’t want to be reminded constantly that his father had destroyed his family so callously, so definitively. Michael shook his head to force the negative images to leave. But as he pushed the unpleasant thoughts from his mind, another filled the space, one that was much more disturbing than all the others combined. Even if his father had done nothing to his mother, Grace would still have killed herself that night; her note was proof. So his father’s actions, while vile and deplorable, had only accelerated his mother’s death; they weren’t the primary cause.

  Stunned by this revelation, Michael’s body froze as his mind reeled. How could he think such a thing? It was horrible, shameful, and yet, sadly, it was true. Is this how a vampire thinks? Logically, coldly, without allowing human emotion to corrupt the basis of understanding? Ronan wasn’t like that.

  No, not at all. Well, that wasn’t completely true, Michael realized. Ronan wasn’t inhuman with him, but he did have another side. His views about some people and situations were much more analytical than Michael’s were. Sure, he got hotheaded about certain things, like when he talked about the complex relationship between water vamps and David’s race, but he could also approach a topic quite impersonally and remove all sentiment from the solution. Maybe it was just because Ronan was older, raised much differently than he was. Or maybe it was just because vampires were coldhearted as well as cold-blooded.

  Were he and Ronan destined to become like Vaughan and David? Or would their connection to The Well ensure that their humanity would remain intact as long as they walked the earth disguised as humans? Michael was more confused than ever. How in the world did I get from thinking about my car to thinking about my morality?

  All thoughts—simple and complex—were forgotten when Michael saw a patch of fog raise from the ground. Phaedra! She hadn’t abandoned him. She knew he needed to be rescued, and she had returned.

  He watched the fog spin like a baby cyclone, and anticipation swelled in his heart. But just like in his dream, the fog turned out to be nothing unnatural. In this instance, merely the dusty remnants of someone who had raced toward him with incredible speed. Someone he had never expected to see.

  Thanks a lot, Phaedra! Michael thought. This has got to be some sort of cosmic joke.

  “I heard Fritz blethering on about your fancy new car, so I thought I’d check it out for myself.”

  Michael hadn’t seen Nakano since the end of school. He didn’t know if Nakano was spending the summer on campus, if he had moved in with Jean-Paul, or if he had returned home to be with his family, if he even had a family. Staring at the boy, Michael suddenly realized he didn’t know very much about Nakano other than the basic facts: his motives were suspect, his hair was once again too long, and he hated Michael. The last item made it difficult for Michael to understand why Nakano was standing next to him. Not as difficult to understand, however, as why Michael didn’t just leave. But why should he? After all, he was there first. Nope, he was staying put.

  “Well, take a good look at it,” Michael said. “If that’s what you came to see.”

  Nakano stared straight ahead, his hands also tucked into the pockets of his shorts, which were jeans cut off just above the knee, and he lifted his chin to study the car. He looked like a surveyor inspecting a plot of land. “For once Fritz wasn’t talking through the back of his neck,” Nakano declared.

  “Freakin’ awesome car you got there.”

  This made absolutely no sense. Why was Nakano here? Why did he care about my car? And why am I talking to him? “Thanks,” Michael said in a voice halfway between surprised and sincere.

  “My bum dad doesn’t even send me a card on my birthday,” Nakano admitted. “Not even sure he knows what day I was born.”

  So that was it! Nakano wasn’t paying Michael a compliment; he was praising Vaughan. And why not? They were more like family than Michael and his father were. “First gift I got from him in seventeen years,” Michael said.

  “Kind of makes up for it if you ask me,” Nakano replied.

  Well, I didn’t ask you! Michael thought. I don’t even know why you’re here. We’re not friends. It’s not like I care what you have to say. And yet Michael was listening to every word Nakano said. He hadn’t asked him to leave, nor had he left Nakano alone to admire the car he so obviously coveted. For some reason despite all their previous differences—and those differences were huge—neither boy felt the urge to escape each other’s presence. Maybe because they were tired of running in the opposite direction? Or maybe because they both knew that it was time to end their feud and accept the fact that they actually had more in common than they wanted to admit?

  “So are you going to drive it?” Nakano asked. “Or just stare at it?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  Nodding as if he understood Michael’s dilemma, Nakano continued. “Cars aren’t allowed on campus you know, against the so-called rules and all.”

  “Yeah, David informed me that I have to move it,” Michael replied.

  Finally, Kano turned to face Michael and spoke to him directly for the first time. “So what’s the problem? You got your license, didn’t you?” he asked, knowing full well the answer. “Not that you needed anything so ... human.”

  Why couldn’t anybody understand the importance of having a driver’s license? “Ever since I was a little kid I always thought being able to drive would give me freedom.”

  “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Nakano crossed his arms in front of his chest, one thin, sinewy arm on top of the other, and tilted his head back and forth when he spoke. He looked and sounded like a child in a schoolyard mocking his playmate.

  As odd as he looked, this was the Nakano Michael had come to know. “So you just came here to make fun of
me?”

  Abruptly, Kano stopped moving his body and stared at Michael as intently as he had previously been inspecting the car. “Let it go, Howard,” Kano said.

  “Let what go?”

  “Your license, this car, your relationship with your father even,” Nakano explained. “None of that really means anything, does it? Not sure why you’re making them out to be so bleedin’ special.”

  It was weird enough to be standing next to Nakano having a semicivilized conversation, but it was completely insane to think that Nakano might have offered him a solution to his problem when no one else could. Nakano’s comment offered him solace. “That actually makes sense.”

  “Of course it does,” Kano replied, turning his attention back to the Benz. “You got your powers and your immortality and ... Ronan. This car and everything it represents means nothing to you.”

  It was true, and suddenly Michael felt foolish for making the car seem much more important than it actually was.

  “It can only have a hold over you if you let it,” Kano added. “No matter how sweet the car looks, it’s still just a car.”

  Michael turned to Nakano and said two words to him that he never, ever thought he’d say. “Thank you.”

  In response, Nakano shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Don’t mention it.” It was an attempt to be cavalier, to try to act and sound as if Michael’s words, his appreciation, weren’t welcomed.

  Looking at the car, Michael could finally see it for what it was, an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship, but not the ticket to his freedom or public admiration. “I really mean it, Nakano, thanks a lot.” Nakano stepped forward and pressed his face against the driver’s side window. “If you really want to thank me,” he said, his breath fogging up the window. “Why don’t you take me for a ride?”

  Michael felt his forehead crinkle; it was just about the weirdest proposition he had ever been offered. But Michael had learned to embrace the weird. “Okay.”

  Without a second thought, Michael took the keys out of his pocket and clicked the button that released the locks on the car doors. Nakano was already sitting in the passenger seat before Michael had a chance to open up the driver’s side door. He turned the key in the ignition, and the Benz proved to be as beautiful inside as it was out; the car hardly made a sound when it started.

  “Niiiiiiiiiiice,” Nakano said approvingly.

  “Guess that’s what they mean when they say an engine purrs,” Michael added. The hum was soft and smooth and not completely unlike the vibrations of The Well. Despite the odd choice of Nakano’s being his very first passenger, Michael took the sound as an omen that he had made the right decision.

  He drove to the parking lot slowly, not because he was scared or being careful, but because he wanted to savor the experience. It was the first time in his life that he was driving without an instructor. It was a milestone, and he wanted it to last as long as possible. When he saw Saoirse near the edge of campus, he also realized how much he really wanted to share it with everyone. Beeping, he waved his hand wildly out the window. “Saoirse!”

  Startled, the girl turned her head, but instead of waving back or running toward the car to greet Michael, she ran in the other direction, into the woods. “What the hell?” Michael muttered. He beeped again, but she was already out of sight. “Why’d she do that?”

  Holding his arm out the window to feel the soft breeze caress his hand, Nakano remarked, “Because girls are freakish.”

  Michael turned back to see who Saoirse had been talking to. He could have sworn he had seen her lips moving as if she had been talking to someone who must have been standing just behind the large oak tree, but no one was visible. “Did you see anybody with her?” Michael asked.

  “Nope,” Kano replied. “Just enjoying the ride.”

  And what a smooth ride it was. Only a short distance, but Michael could tell the Benz handled the road a lot better than Blakeley’s old Honda. Proudly, Michael parked the car in an empty spot in the small parking lot behind the headmaster’s office. He turned to thank Nakano again for giving him the push he needed and making him realize what a fool he was being. But Nakano was already gone. Girls weren’t the only ones who could be freakish, Michael thought. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need Saoirse or Nakano to acknowledge him or go crazy over his car to make him feel like the luckiest kid in the world. There was only one person he needed to do that.

  When he got to St. Sebastian’s Ronan was there as he had suspected. However, he hadn’t expected to see him sitting on the side of the pool, his feet dangling in the water; he had thought he would find him swimming. Ronan didn’t need to practice to maintain his form, but he enjoyed spending as much time in the water as possible. “You keep practicing like that,” Michael said, “and I’ll have no problem beating you this year.”

  Smiling, Ronan reached out his hand, and Michael took it. He kicked off his flip-flops and sat next to him, submerging his feet in the cold water. “Ooh that feels nice,” Michael remarked.

  “Not as good as this,” Ronan corrected. He pulled Michael closer and kissed him on the lips, only once, then rested his forehead onto his. Michael loved how Ronan’s skin felt—strong and warmed by the sun that flooded the gym. Their noses pressed against each other, their breaths instantly adjusting to the other’s rhythm.

  “I made a decision,” Michael whispered.

  “What’s that, love?”

  “My father isn’t going to stand in the way of my freedom and ruin my life,” he said. “I drove my car.”

  “Good for you,” Ronan replied, genuinely happy.

  Michael broke their connection and sat back. “And you’ll never guess who drove shotgun.”

  “Who?”

  “Nakano.”

  “Seriously?!” Ronan shouted, genuinely surprised.

  “Believe me, I’m more shocked than you are,” Michael replied. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  Smiling, Ronan said, “However it happened, I’m glad you finally got behind the wheel.”

  “Me too,” Michael agreed. “But just because I did doesn’t mean I forgive my dad. It just means that I like to drive, and of course I had to park my car properly before David had another hissy fit.”

  Ronan closed his eyes. “I’m glad you understand that the relationship between parents and their children can be complicated.”

  Ronan’s tone had hardly changed, but Michael knew he was no longer talking exclusively about him and his father. “Um, you don’t have another secret to tell me, do you?” Michael asked, only half-kidding. “Like maybe somebody else came before Morgandy?”

  Opening his eyes, Ronan shook his head. “No, you know about everyone from my past now.”

  Well, if it wasn’t Morgandy or another boyfriend, what could it be? “So then what’s wrong?”

  Smiling wistfully to cover up a sigh, Ronan covered Michael’s hands with his own. “I still haven’t heard from my mum.”

  “After all this time she still hasn’t gotten in touch with you,” Michael said. “Even, you know, just a telepathic ‘Hey, how ya doin’.’ ” Ronan kicked his feet in the water, his body as restless as his spirit, and the pool was immediately filled with tiny waves. Up and down and up and down, the water kept rising and falling, slapping into the sides of the pool so hard that water sprayed over onto the gym floor even after his legs stopped moving. “I tried reaching out to her telepathically, I tried calling her cell phone, I even tried calling her private line that she instructed us to use only if it was a dire emergency and we didn’t want to risk someone’s tapping into our minds, and nothing, not one word from her!” Ronan blurted. “It’s like she’s deliberately blocking me out.”

  Angry and frustrated, Ronan let go of Michael’s hands and leaned forward. His body hunched, tense, he stared into the pool, the surface once again calm, as if the water could unlock the mystery of his mother’s silence. The water held no answers, but Michael did.

  “Let’s go.”
r />   Looking up, Ronan saw that Michael was standing next to him, towering above him, his hand outstretched. Still lost in his own emotions, Ronan was too confused to respond right away. “I said, let’s go,” Michael reiterated.

  The firmness of Michael’s voice propelled Ronan into action. He took his hand and stood up, half on his own and half relying on Michael’s strength to hoist him upright. “Where are we going?” Ronan asked quietly.

  “To get to the bottom of Edwige’s vanishing act,” Michael proclaimed. “Now that I’ve sort of made resolution with my father, it’s time you did the same with yours.” Michael smirked, “Well, with your mother, but you know what I mean.”

  Always the romantic, Ronan kissed a few knuckles on Michael’s hand. “Yes, I do.”

  Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Michael once again repeated himself. “Now come on, let’s go visit your mother.”

  As Michael made a move toward the front entrance of the gym, Ronan lurched toward the back door. “Why are you going that way?” Ronan asked. “Someone might see us sprinting off campus.”

  Smugly, Michael smiled. “We’re not going to use our water vampabilities to visit your mother’s flat. I’m taking you for a drive.”

  “You can’t drive to London,” Ronan protested, his voice shrilly echoing in the gym. “You heard what David said.”

  Michael grabbed Ronan’s hand firmly. “And don’t you remember what I said? Rules were made to be broken.”

  Yes, they were, Ronan thought. Weren’t they living proof of that? “Well, all right then,” Ronan agreed. “Let’s go to London.”

  Just as they were about to step outside, Michael turned to Ronan, his eyes wide with excitement.

  “And don’t you love my new word? We’ve got water vampabilities!”

  This time it was Ronan who had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He couldn’t, however, stop himself from teasing Michael. “You are off your dot,” Ronan said, giving Michael a playful push. “Do you know that, Howard?”

  Proudly, Michael responded, “Yes, Glynn-Rowley, I most certainly do.”