‘I’ve done a stupid, stupid thing.’ She shook the autographed box of Plasma Puffs with every word. ‘Jessica is the vampire, not Jackson,’ she said. ‘And that means Olivia doesn’t have to break it off with him.’ There could be a silver lining to this cloud of doom. ‘I’ve got to tell her.’ But then the image of Olivia waiting for Jackson flashed into her mind. ‘Oh no.’
‘You’re turning pink again,’ Brendan said.
Ivy knew that any moment now, Olivia was going to make a big speech to Jackson about why they couldn’t be together – because he was a vampire. But since he wasn’t, it meant that Olivia was about to break the First Law of the Night! There were a tomb-load of reasons Ivy had to stop her.
‘Come on,’ Ivy said, shoving the Puffs in with the Marshmallow Platelets and charging full speed up the stairwell.
‘But what about my Count Cocoa Chew?’ Brendan called after her.
‘If you help me get to Olivia, you can have all the Count Cocoa Chews you like!’
Olivia was perched on the edge of a low stone table in the oldest cemetery in Franklin Grove waiting for Jackson. Even though it was daylight, and Olivia knew that vampires didn’t jump out of the shadows and bite people any more, she didn’t want to wait by herself for any longer than she had to.
She hoped Jackson would understand what she was trying to say by meeting here – she wanted him to understand that she wasn’t freaked out by him being a vampire. It just meant things couldn’t move forward between them.
A dark figure caught her eye, moving from one tree to the next on the other side of the graveyard.
The figure came nearer and Olivia could see that whoever it was was trying not to be seen.
She slipped off the table, darted behind a statue of an angel and crouched down. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, she thought. Anyone could be wandering around this graveyard!
Then the person stepped out of the shadow. ‘Harker Films’ was written in big bold letters across his jacket. Jackson. He was in his security-guard disguise again.
He was looking right at the table where she’d been sitting. ‘Olivia?’ he called.
He must have seen her waiting there and now was wondering why she’d disappeared. ‘Sorry I’m late. I thought I had some paparazzi following me, so I did a couple of extra loops.’
Olivia felt like a goof ball as she straightened up and stepped out from behind the statue. ‘I, uh, was just doing a little weeding.’
Jackson smiled and came over. ‘You’ll have a tough time doing this whole place by hand.’
‘Oh, no. I just, uh . . .’ Olivia didn’t want her nerves to take over. She didn’t want to say anything stupid. And now that he was here, looking at her with his beautiful blue eyes, she didn’t really want to break it off either. But it was for the best.
‘I’m teasing,’ Jackson said, taking off his hat and looking around with a wry grin. ‘This isn’t exactly what I had in mind for our first date, but the place definitely has atmosphere.’
‘I just wanted to show you that I wasn’t scared,’ Olivia said.
‘OK,’ Jackson replied, but she wasn’t sure he completely understood her point. He leaned against the table next to her. ‘Look, I’ve got something to tell you and I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like it.’
Olivia’s heart went out to him. He was biting his lip and looked pretty worried about what he was going to say. She wanted to spare him the stress. ‘I already know.’
‘You know?’ Jackson looked shocked.
If he hadn’t read the Vamp! magazine article about Olivia and Ivy, then of course it would take him by surprise that a human could be in on the vampire secret. ‘Yes, and it doesn’t bother me.’
‘I don’t know how you know, but why doesn’t it bother you? It would bother me,’ Jackson replied.
‘Don’t say that,’ Olivia said. She didn’t want him to be unhappy about who he was. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being yourself.’
‘Myself?’ Jackson said. ‘I don’t have any control over it.’
‘Of course not,’ Olivia said, thinking of her and Ivy’s history. ‘You can’t choose who you are.’
Jackson looked totally confused. ‘Are we talking about the same thing?’
It must be hard for any vampire to expose the secret, after living their whole lives upholding the First Law. Olivia decided that if she just laid it all out and said the ‘v’ word herself, it would prove she knew and then she could tell Jackson what she brought him here to say.
She took one of his gloved hands in her mittens and took a deep breath.