Shadow Lake Vampire Society - Wendi Wilson Page 0,37

whirl. Had he done something to me? No. I didn’t think so. But he’d been there at the mess hall, hadn’t he? Or was that a dream? Everything swirled in my brain, muddying the colors and making the truth of what actually occurred so hard to discern.

I touched my head and winced, finding a goose egg growing on the back of my skull.

Levi held up his hands and backed up a few steps, bumping into a bookshelf beside a dusty concrete wall. “It’s okay. I didn’t bring you here to hurt you.”

“Where am I?” I asked, doing a quick inventory of the room. It was small and low-ceilinged. The walls and floor were made of cinder blocks, the ceiling some sort of metal that had rusted and warped over time. Still, it seemed solid enough.

Maybe too solid. I was starting to feel claustrophobic. Trapped.

My eyes darted to Levi as my heart raced to dangerous speeds. “Are we…?”

“In the bunker. Yes.”

“Oh God.” Panic dug into me with cold fingers as sweat broke out down my back, and my vision tunneled. We were underground. Just like the crawl space.

“Piper, listen to me.” Levi’s voice came to me as if from far away, yet somehow the tone and timber soothed me. “Slow down. Take deep breaths.”

When I didn’t seem to heed him, he took a step closer and crouched down until he was at my eye level. “Squeeze your hands into fists.”

“Huh?” My heart was still galloping out of control, my breathing erratic. The blood. Dad.

“Squeeze them.” Carefully, he reached for my hand and curled it into a fist.

I did as he said, not knowing what else to do. Dad. The footsteps.

“Good. Now inhale through your nose for five seconds.”

Nodding, I followed directions, realizing, in my terror, that he was following techniques similar to some Dr. Whitely had tried.

And it was working.

“Okay, now hold your breath for five seconds,” he said, his voice perfectly calm. “As you exhale, release your fists.”

Slowly letting out my breath, I relaxed my hands. The panic and terror ebbed away. Blinking, I wiped my face before I placed my hands on the blanket on either side of me and stretched out my fingers. “Thank you.”

He nodded, his expression still full of worry. “I’ll get you some water.”

He strode out of the room, his footsteps echoing on the floor. I watched as he went, still dazed. Levi had been there at the mess hall, I remembered now. Just as the cinder blocks shifted and I fell, he’d arrived. Something else about him and our interaction was bothering me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

More importantly, I remembered what I’d seen. Sarah and Chef Chloe had Johnny in a storage room, and they were doing something to him. He needed help!

I stood up, the metal bed creaking underneath me. Quickly, I crossed the little sleeping area and made it to the doorway where Levi met me, a water bottle in his fist.

“You should drink.”

“There’s no time. There was a boy. Sarah and Chef Chloe were doing something to him.”

Now that the words were past my lips, my accusation sounded ridiculous. I scanned Levi’s face for his reaction, but his expression remained full of the same concern he’d shown earlier. Concern for me, not Johnny.

“Levi, did you hear me?”

He nodded then held out the water bottle. “You should still drink this. Then we can go see the dean.”

“We should see the dean now.” I tried to step around him, but he moved to block my path, the water bottle still in his fist.

“Drink first.”

“Fine.” I snatched it and unscrewed the cap, taking a big gulp.

As I did, Levi began talking. “Look, I brought you here because it’s not safe for you at camp. You can see that now, can’t you? You should go.”

This was the last thing I was expecting. I lowered the water bottle and stared into his captivating gaze. “What? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“I did, which is exactly why you shouldn’t be here.”

I blinked again. “I just told you that I think Sarah and Chloe are up to something and you come back at me with ‘You should go home’? What the hell, Levi? We need to do something right now.”

His jaw clenched, as did one fist. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

But I wasn’t down for some macho man bullshit right now. “Take me to the dean.”

“I don’t think—”

“Fine, then get out of my way.” I stepped around him, brushing against his