Читать книгу Stargazer - Claudia Gray, Claudia Gray - Страница 11
Chapter Seven
Оглавление“THIS IS NO PLACE FOR AMATEURS,” SAID EDUARDO. The twin scars on his cheek looked deeper—a trick of the dim lights of the camping lanterns on the walls.
I thought fast. “I’ve been going to school surrounded by vampires for more than a year now.” It was the truth, if not the whole truth. My voice shook, but I hoped desperately that Eduardo would chalk that up to emotion, not fright. The man was an unrepentant killer of vampires; it was hard to look him in the face. “I need to know what I’m really up against.”
I’d never seen Eduardo smile before. It wasn’t an attractive expression. “Supposedly they behave themselves at Evernight Academy. You’re only a kid. You should stick to the ones who pretend to be kids, too.”
“I was fighting vampires when I was a lot younger than Bianca is,” Lucas retorted. “I think she can handle it.” He slung his arm around my shoulders, and at last my fear started to wane. Lucas’s support seemed to end the argument; at any rate, Eduardo didn’t protest any longer, and if anybody else had objections, they kept them to themselves.
Lucas glanced over at me, questioning why I was dead set on joining them, but we both knew we’d have to talk about it later.
The hunt didn’t feel like a hunt at first. It was like any other road trip: People murmuring quietly as they pulled on their jackets, looking at one another with tired eyes and clambering into the beat-up van and Kate’s turquoise pickup truck.
I remembered the very first road trip I’d ever taken, when my parents drove me to the beach one summer. They hated the water—both the rivers we had to cross to get there and the ocean that lapped at the shore—but they took me because I wanted to go so badly. They sat under a beach umbrella the whole time. Even though they’d drunk blood before we left, they didn’t want to spend so much time in the sun. While I made sand castles, swam, and played with other kids, they watched and waved. It was a sacrifice they had made for me.