Blood Relatives

47. Still Suspicious

Carmine dropped her friends off before heading to her own house. She pulled in the driveway and saw that the lights were still on. She had been really hoping to go straight up to her room and hop into bed. Good thing her parents knew she'd be out late tonight, so she wouldn't be in trouble. She checked herself in the rearview mirror as best she could. At least she didn't look as beat-up as Luke. She wondered what he was going to tell his parents.

She walked in the front door, crossing her fingers and hoping her parents were in their room. Of course, they were waiting up for her in the living room.

"Hi honey," her mom said. "Did you have a good time?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess." Carmine wouldn't exactly call almost dying a good time.

"Did you spend the whole time studying?"

"Most of it." she said wearily. She was kind of tired of lying. And she'd completely forgotten about that history test she told her mom about. That was the only reason she was allowed to stay out till almost midnight on a school night. At least she had tomorrow to study. But she didn't want to think about that now. Right now all she wanted to do was go upstairs, crawl into bed, and finally relax. She was asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.

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When Carmine woke up, she'd almost forgotten about all that had happened the night before. Of course, her friends were quick to remind her at lunch.

"Did you make it home ok?" Luke asked her.

Even though it was starting to get warm outside, Luke had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. Well, Carmine guessed that was one way to hide a bruise.

"Yeah. You?" Carmine asked him. He'd looked a lot better after he'd gotten some food, but Carmine had still been worried about him driving.

"Yeah, Conner drove." Luke told her.

"Took the car home and everything." Conner grinned.

"My dad thought it was stolen this morning." Luke said. "He was surprised that Conner was picking me up."

"What'd you tell him?" Carmine asked.

"That Conner didn't think I should be driving. And after he saw this–" Luke pulled at the hood of his sweatshirt, showing her his neck. "–he agreed."

Carmine found herself staring at him. The bruise stretched almost up to his jawline. Carmine was surprised it actually looked so bad – she'd seen plenty of attacks by now, and no one ever showed any signs after more than about an hour at most. She found herself wondering if Mia's sloppiness was only part of the problem. Maybe the real reason was because he wasn't human. Good thing his other one was almost completely gone.

"Were you in trouble?" Mia asked quietly. Luke laughed.

"Not me." he told her. "But Zev's grounded for the next two weeks."

"Why?" Carmine asked. What did he do?

"I was a little loud coming in last night." Zev told her.

"Tripped over a chair sneaking in through the kitchen." Conner said helpfully. Zev shot him a look.

"Anyway, I woke my dad up. And he took one look at me and figured that whatever it was I'd been doing was something I shouldn't have."

"I'm sorry." Mia said for what must have been the twelfth time since last night.

"It's fine." he shrugged. "I can always sneak out if I need to." He and Luke grinned. Obviously, they'd done it plenty of times before.

"So what about Rudi?" Anna asked slowly.

"What about her?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Zev winced sheepishly.

"It's not your fault." Mia told him.

"Actually, I think it is." he said.

"She would have figured it out anyway." Carmine told them. "I mean, it's not like Adam's in school today." Or ever again, she added to herself.

She wanted to know if Rudi still thought Carmine and her friends might know about what the boys really were, but she knew she wouldn't get any answers at lunch – Luke would shut down that line of questions instantly. She'd have to wait until art.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure she does." Conner told her. "You should have seen the way she was glaring at me in English."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Nothing." Conner said. "We just act like everything's normal and hope she decides that maybe she was overreacting."

"And if she doesn't?" Carmine asked slowly.

"Then next year is going to be really long." Conner told her.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked again. Conner shrugged.

"Just try to keep it low-profile." he told her.