The Calling (Darkness Rising 2)

"Um, yeah. He's a great guy. Which is why he didn't deserve to be treated--" She stopped and stared at me, then choked on a laugh. "You mean--Are you asking--? You think I've got a crush on Daniel?"

"Don't you?"

She laughed harder. "Oh my God, you guys really are as naive as you seem." She looked at me. "I don't like guys, Maya. As friends, yes. As dating material? Wrong gender."

"Wrong--? Oh."

She shook her head. "I kept telling myself you guys had figured it out. I mean, come on. I'm a walking stereotype. I even use a guy's nickname. I was twelve when the kids at my old school figured it out, so I stopped trying to be girlie. Then I come here, and no one says anything, so I figure you all know and you're just pretending otherwise, which pisses me off, but it's better than getting Playboy stuffed in my locker. Apparently, I was wrong. It's not an option in your cozy little world."

"Right. So the kids who are out at Salmon Creek are only figments of my imagination?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe if you paid a little more attention to your classmates, you'd have realized that we don't care. But we don't jump to conclusions either. We figure if someone wants to be open about it, she'll tell us."

Now it was her turn to say "Oh." Then, "Well, anyway, I don't like Daniel. Not that way. I just think he's a really good guy. I didn't like seeing him disrespected, but not because I wanted him for myself. If I gave off that vibe, I sure as hell didn't mean it."

She hadn't. Daniel didn't think she had a crush on him. Even I'd always felt it was platonic, until Rafe suggested it wasn't. But Rafe hadn't known Sam well.

"Okay," I said. "I guess I can believe that Nicole doped me, if she just thought it would 'encourage' me to get with Rafe. But killing Serena? Trying to kill me? Over a guy?"

"Have you forgotten how she acted after the crash? How she ranted about you and Daniel?"

"Her father had just died."

"So it did seem out of character to you. Right? Not a side of Nicole you've ever seen? Well, I've seen it. I saw it when I first moved in with the Tillsons. She was used to being an only child and all of a sudden, she wasn't. She started stealing things and blaming me. Spiked my orange juice once, hoping I'd go to school drunk. I couldn't prove any of it until I found her planting clinic meds in my room. I caught her off guard and she lashed out and it was just the kind of paranoid talk you heard after the crash--how I was stealing her parents, how I'd probably killed mine. Ugly, crazy talk. Then, a couple of hours later, she came into my room crying, saying she was stressed out over exams and she'd been taking cold medicine and she didn't know what happened to make her act like that, but she was really, really sorry."

"And you believed her."

"Of course I did. She was totally freaked out. I started thinking she wasn't responsible for the missing stuff, that I'd made a mistake about vodka in my OJ. Sure, she'd planted the drugs, but you know how stressed she got over exams. Add cold medicine and it could push her over the edge. So I let it go. But I've caught glimpses of that Nicole a few times since. I don't know what's wrong with her, Maya. Maybe it's mental illness. Maybe it's whatever drugs they have her on. Maybe it's a side effect of the experimental stuff. But she's not stable. That's why..."

She took a deep breath. "That's why I didn't want to go back for her. I feel bad about it, but ... we can't. She's dangerous."

Kenjii perked up. She looked to the left, then tore off.

"Daniel's coming," I said. I thought fast. "We can't tell him."

"He should know."

"What? That we suspect Nicole killed Serena? That she tried to kill me? Over him? She's gone, so I'm safe. He's safe. And if he thinks Serena died because of an accidental drug side effect, then I'm going to let him keep thinking that as long as possible."

She paused, then nodded. "Okay, you're right."

Daniel appeared, Kenjii at his side. He looked from me to Sam.

"All clear," I said. "Sam and I were just discussing what her parents told her. About everything."

I looked at Sam. She hesitated, then nodded. "Right. You should know, too. It's not much but ... you should know."

Daniel nodded, then said to me, "Did you see anything?"

I shook my head. "I could see a lot better from the hilltop. We're still heading in the right direction, but I couldn't spot the road."

"Let's keep going then. Sam? Talk and walk."

Sam's story was similar to Rafe's. Like his mother, her parents had left the experiment. In her case, though, that had always been the plan. Many of the parents hadn't been real couples. To ensure the best results, the scientists had performed in vitro fertilization using men and women who both carried the latent genes. But Sam's parents met during the initial screening process, and fell in love. Neither of them had any interest in living as experimental subjects--they just wanted their child to be a benandanti. So they played along up to the point where Sam was conceived and her DNA was modified to reactivate the gene. Then they bailed.

As Rafe's mom and mine found out, though, the St. Clouds weren't willing to let them go.