I elbowed him. “What? Did you think he was going to slice up my belly instead of just my lip?” Because we’d all seen that happen—I’d seen it on my first day here.
He nodded to my mouth. “It’s a little…uncomfortable.”
“Whaddya mean uncomfortable? I’m the one who got slashed by Dag’s pinkie.”
“You know, D.” Yas was nearly writhing with discomfort now, staring at my mouth. “The blood.”
“Is it that bad?” I licked my lip to see if it was still bleeding.
Yasuo darted his eyes away. “Don’t do that.”
“What is your problem?” I stared at his profile, and then it hit me. “Ohhhh. Is it hard for you to see blood?” Duh.
“Yeah. I’m only a Trainee, but already we can…We have…There’s a hunger, you know?”
I grabbed his arm and playfully pursed my lips. “Want a taste, big boy?”
Yas recoiled, flinching away from me. He looked angry and just a little disgusted. “I said don’t do that.”
I stared blankly, totally confused now.
Yasuo sighed, sounding pained. “Listen, D. It’s a hunger, but with the blood, it’s more than a hunger. Like, it’s a little…It’s kind of—I don’t know—sexual.”
Floored, I was unable to say more than, “Oh.” I mean, how does one go back to normal after a statement like that?
But then he made it worse by trying to dig out from his hole. “And you know I think you’re pretty and all, but I just don’t feel like that—”
“Stop.” I put my hand up. “Seriously. Stop. So not an issue, okay?”
He drew in a sharp breath and let it out. “Okay.”
We were such a lame pair, both of us blushing furiously now, and we upped our pace, walking briskly to the dining hall. The silence was uncomfortable, and I felt how both of us were racking our brains to come up with some genial, plain-vanilla chatter.
Yasuo braved it first, though his voice was tight when he spoke. “So. You swimming later?”
“Why?” My answer was automatic. Ronan was MIA, and swim lessons with him were the only reason I’d ever get in the water. That, and maybe a gun to my head.
Ronan. Damn the little pang I felt in my chest. I wondered if Ronan ever had hungers.…
I shrugged away the thought, quickly adding, “There’s no way I swim if I don’t have to.”
“But didn’t you hear? Ronan is back.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Ronan was back?
I told myself it was no big deal. He hadn’t been gone for long. He was nothing to me, just as I was nothing to him. He’d helped me last semester, and we’d gotten a little chummy, but I figured I was just his special project. I figured Tracers got brownie points the longer their Acari survived.
Besides, he’d gotten so aloof after I’d won the Directorate Challenge, just as Master Alcántara was beginning to pay me more attention. I thought maybe I was shifting from Tracer Special Project to Vampire Special Project, as terrifying as that was.
Running into him would be no big deal.
So why did my chest tighten as I walked up the steps to the dining hall? Not because of Ronan, I told myself. It was because it was noon and time for lunch, and meals were always a good excuse to freak out. Because everyone went to meals. All the Tracers, the Acari, the vampire Trainees, and the Watchers, too—though there were only a very few of them. All the cliques, all the drama…and it seemed the more I tried to keep a low profile, the more I became a magnet for attention.
Yeah, that was for sure the only reason I was feeling stressed. Not Ronan at all.
I screwed my eyes shut tight for just a moment, preparing myself and thinking of the older girls who’d also be in the dining hall—the Initiates and their more advanced Guidon sisters whose job it was to keep us in line. The dorm Proctors would be there, too—they were kinder, like my Proctor, Amanda, but it didn’t make up for the casual cruelty of the rest of them.