Blood Relatives

43. Round Two

Carmine pulled into the school parking lot and parked under a street lamp in the back. Luke drove up next to her. It reminded her a lot of last time – it was hard to believe that was only four days ago. She just hoped this time would go better.

Luke pulled the water bottles out of his trunk; they hadn't even gotten a chance to use them last time. At least that meant they didn't have to go through the whole process of making and testing more.

"Check the caps on those." Mia told him. He made sure each one was tight before handing them over. Like freshman year, they were using bottles with sports caps on them – it limited the chances the girls had of actually coming into contact with the stuff.

Luke wiped the top of one of them on his shirt before handing it to Carmine. She took it carefully and put it in the otherwise empty purse she'd brought along just for the occasion – a small thing with a long strap that she slung over her shoulder. Carmine had almost been surprised that she still owned the ugly thing – it was a weird green color and had a lake-blue ribbon attached to the zipper that Carmine had never liked.

Mia had brought a similar one, except not nearly as ugly. And Anna had a drawstring bag she looped around her wrist. Of course, all the boys had to do was put the bottles in their pockets.

"You sure this stuff is still going to work?" Zev asked Carmine.

"Yeah." she nodded. "It hasn't been that long, and I don't think holy water goes bad – unless the person who made it goes evil, I guess."

Zev narrowed his eyes at Conner, studying him for a minute. A slow grin spread across his face. "I guess we should be ok." he said.

"Thanks." Conner rolled his eyes.

"I still wish we knew the full plan." Mia grumbled.

"Probably not a good idea." Luke told her, sliding something from the trunk smoothly into his back pocket. "If things go like last time..." he didn't need to finish the thought.

After Carmine and Conner had looked up how to do an exorcism, they'd left the library. Conner had started talking about exactly what they should do, but Carmine stopped him. As much as she really didn't want to have any surprises for this, she also didn't want to be able to thwart anything they did come up with, just in case. If Adam convinced them that they wanted to do anything to protect him again, Carmine wanted to give the boys a chance to do this without her. So the plan was left almost entirely up to Luke, Zev, and Conner.

Carmine would have thought she'd be relieved for the plan to not be resting on her for once, but it actually only made her more nervous. She just hoped the boys knew as much about exorcisms as they thought they did.

"Everybody ready?" Luke asked slowly.

When no one spoke up, he nodded.

"Right. Then let's go."

They made their way out to the courtyard, just like last time, staying completely silent as they approached. Once they were standing in the brick archway that separated the classrooms from the courtyard, Luke motioned for everyone to stop. Carmine scanned the courtyard frantically, looking for Adam. If last time was any indication, odds were good that he was already there.

Luke motioned for Zev to go around back to the far entrance of the courtyard. He nodded and grabbed Anna's hand. Conner put a hand on Carmine's shoulder, letting her know that they would apparently be partners. Mia looked at Zev with surprise.

"Why Anna?" she asked.

Carmine thought she already had a pretty good idea. If anything did go wrong, they were going to need at least one of the groups to be unevenly matched. Luke might be taking a risk standing next to Mia again, but it would mean Zev would be more likely to be able to finish Adam. And not that Carmine would ever say anything to the rest of the group, but Zev did know what it looked like when a vampire tried to put someone to sleep – he'd seen it twice now. Probably what he was thinking if he'd volunteered to go with her.