“To be Vampire…it should not demand that one be evil.”
Evil. Was it possible to require blood to survive and not be evil? I couldn’t help but think of myself. Me, who now craved the blood of vampires.
It stayed on my mind all night and all through the next afternoon. I was still contemplating the meaning of it all, sitting there on the beach, waiting for Ronan’s arrival.
I checked the time on my watch—it was a fugly digital model well suited to geeks and Navy SEALs everywhere. Thursday. 13:47. Getting close to Primitive Skills time…aka Ronan’s wilderness camp.
Unlike the academic subjects, many of these survival classes were girls only. I supposed it was because the guys were going Vampire, and if you were a vamp, why learn to survive off the land when you could survive off the landowners, right?
Shudder.
How would Ronan act when he saw me? I’d headed over early, wanting to get our initial interaction over with before the other girls showed up. He’d been so kind the other night in the dining hall. The fact that I might’ve looked so sad, so raw, as to make Ronan feel sorry for me made me feel pathetic. And, frankly, a little embarrassed, too.
I wanted him to think I was okay. I wanted to say hi, to exchange a meaningful look that said I’m cool; it’s all good before the start of his class. Usually he showed up early to prepare, but he still hadn’t arrived.
Unfortunately, many of my classmates had. They trickled in, wearing parkas and boots over their navy blue catsuits, managing to look like they were slinking down a catwalk instead of simply walking across the cold, damp sand.
Did I look like that? Was I that graceful and just didn’t realize it? I’d had a year of brutal physical training by now. It was possible.
“Imagine that you’re alone,” Ronan said, startling me from behind. He’d strolled up and was diving right in to his lecture. So much for my meaningful look. “You find yourself on a beach such as this. You’re hungry. Growing weaker.” He walked to the water’s edge, and we hopped into step behind him. The waves were calm today, a rhythmic crash and whoosh along the shore. “What do you eat? How do you quench your burning thirst?”
One girl volunteered, “I’d have water in my pack.”
He brushed that off. “Your water is long gone.”
An auburn-haired Initiate named Isabella rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that why we’re taking this class? So you can tell us what to do?”
“Nice,” I muttered, giving her a critical eye. She’d never survive her first mission.
It made me want to do better. To excel. I forgot Yasuo and the nature of evil, and for the moment, I even forgot Carden. I wanted to be the one with the answers. “There are shells,” I said. “For food, I mean.”
Isabella chuffed a bitchy little laugh. “A little crunchy, don’t you think?”
I gave her my best side-eye. “Where there’re shells, there’re shellfish.”
“Very good,” Ronan said with a firm nod. He gave me a pleased look, and Isabella looked like her head might explode. “Acari Drew is absolutely correct.”
He walked to the water’s edge. The tide pulsed and swirled around his combat boots, slowly soaking the cuffs of his black cargo pants. Even though it couldn’t have been much past two thirty, the sky was a flat gray, the sun already threatening to dip below the horizon. A cloud shifted, shooting a beam of weak sunlight wavering and glimmering along the packed sand. Ronan squatted, peering closer.
“The light will fade quickly now.” His voice was low, making him sound deep in his own thoughts. He raked his fingers along the wet sand, and for a moment, I lost myself to the image of it. That hand was strong, a man’s hand, with close-clipped nails and skin that was lightly tanned from his time outside, doing things like surfing and teaching us how to survive. He traced his fingers along the shoreline, and it was a slow, languorous movement, almost dreamy, like he was stroking the long hair of a woman.
I gave a sharp shake to my head. What the hell had that thought been? I reminded myself it was that very hand and its hypnotic touch that’d tricked me onto this island in the first place.
“Simply use your senses,” he said. “Even in the moonlight, you can find shells. You can see, and if you can’t see, you can feel the irregularities in the sand. See there.” He pointed to a spot I hadn’t noticed before, where the sand dimpled. He used his fingers to dig a well around it, revealing the tip of a shell. “Razor shells are common in this part of the world. If you had salt, you could sprinkle it and the shell would pop right up. But”—he dug deeper, till he could snag it with his fingertips and jiggle it free—“you’re clever girls. You need only to pry it up.”
He held up the shell. It looked like a long, golden-brown fingernail. “There’s meat in here. Not much. But I know from experience—if you’re hungry, it’ll seem a meal, right enough.” He whipped it back into the water, lobbing it past the breakers, where it landed with a hollow plunk.
He wandered again, scanning the shoreline. Each wave left behind a delicate ruffle of foam and a patchwork of shells and rocks and seaweed. “There is also the limpet,” he said, and it took him no time to find and pluck one of the bumpy gray shells from the sand. “These are even more plentiful. You can’t take two steps on these beaches without stepping on one.”
He handed it around. It resembled a tiny conical hat and fit nicely in my palm. Whatever creature had lived inside was long gone, and shards of broken white barnacles covered the surface.
“Technically, the limpet is a snail,” he said. “A bit chewy for my taste.” He’d added the last comment with a shrug and a half smile, briefly catching my eye as he did so. I had the strange—and probably incorrect—thought that he’d said it for my benefit.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said. “You walk the beach, imagining yourself hungry and alone. Search for items you think could give you sustenance. You might be surprised at what you find.”
A couple of the girls—mostly Isabella and her friends—began complaining at once. “I can hardly see,” one of them griped.
I didn’t bother to check who’d spoken. I just walked away, anxious for a little space to prove myself even further, finding my own selection of awesome foodstuffs.