Wel, not entirely gone. Some of it was stil visible, but the space the house had once occupied was empty. The roof had col apsed into ragged, angular wooden lace, charred black, sagging lower than the front door had been.
The sun was rising fast. The black pine trees were showing hints of evergreen. Soon the paler tips would stand out against the dark, and at about that point I would be dead. Or really dead, or whatever. This second thirsty, superhero life would go up in a sudden burst of flames. And I could only imagine that the burst would be very, very painful. This wasn't the first time I'd seen our house destroyed - with al the fights and fires in the basements, most of them lasted only a few weeks - but it was the first time I'd come across the scene of destruction with the first faint rays of sunlight threatening.
I sucked in a gasp of shock as Diego landed beside me.
"Maybe burrow under the roof?" I whispered. "Would that be safe enough or - ?"
"Don't freak out, Bree," Diego said, sounding too calm. "I know a place. C'mon."
He did a very graceful backflip off the bluff edge. I didn't think the water would be enough of a filter to block the sun. But maybe we couldn't burn if we were submerged? It seemed like a real y poor plan to me.
However, instead of tunneling under the burned-out hul of the wrecked house, I dove off the cliff behind him. I wasn't sure of my reasoning, which was a strange feeling. Usual y I did what I always did - fol owed the routine, did what made sense. I caught up to Diego in the water. He was racing again, but with no nonsense this time. Racing the sun.
He whipped around a point on the little island and then dove deep. I was surprised he didn't hit the rocky floor of the sound, and more surprised when I could feel the blast of warmer current flowing from what I had thought was no more than an outcropping of rock.
Smart of Diego to have a place like this. Sure, it wasn't going to be fun to sit in an underwater cavern al day - not breathing started to irritate after a few hours - but it was better than exploding into ashes. I should have been thinking like Diego was. Thinking about something other than blood, that is. I should have been prepared for the unexpected.
Diego kept going through a narrow crevice in the rocks. It was black as ink in here. Safe. I couldn't swim anymore - the space was too tight - so I scrambled through like Diego, climbing through the twisting space. I kept waiting for him to stop, but he didn't. Suddenly I realized that we real y were going up. And then I heard Diego hit the surface.
I was out a half second after he was.
The cave was no more than a smal hole, a burrow about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, though not as tal as that. A second crawl space led out the back, and I could taste the fresh air coming from that direction. I could see the shape of Diego's fingers repeated again and again in the texture of the limestone wal s.
"Nice place," I said.
Diego smiled. "Better than Freaky Fred's backside."
"I can't argue with that. Um. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
We looked at each other in the dark for a minute. His face was smooth and calm. With anyone else, Kevin or Kristie or any of the others, this would have been terrifying - the constricted space, the forced closeness. The way I could smel his scent on every side of me. That could have meant a quick and painful death at any second. But Diego was so composed. Not like anyone else.
"How old are you?" he asked abruptly.
"Three months. I told you that."
"That's not what I meant. Um, how old were you? I guess that's the right way to ask."
I leaned away, uncomfortable, when I realized he was talking about human stuff. Nobody talked about that. Nobody wanted to think about it. But I didn't want to end the conversation, either. Just having a conversation at al was something new and different. I hesitated, and he waited with a curious expression.
"I was, um, I guess fifteen. Almost sixteen. I can't remember the day... was I past my birthday?" I tried to think about it, but those last hungry weeks were a big blur, and it hurt my head in a weird way to try to clear them up. I shook my head, let it go.
"How about you?"
"I was just past my eighteenth," Diego said. "So close."
"Close to what?"
"Getting out," he said, but he didn't continue. There was an awkward silence for a minute, and then he changed the subject.
"You've done real y wel since you got here," he said, his eyes sweeping across my crossed arms, my folded legs.
"You've survived - avoided the wrong kind of attention, kept intact."
I shrugged and then yanked my left t-shirt sleeve up to my shoulder so he could see the thin, ragged line that circled my arm.
"Got this ripped off once," I admitted. "Got it back before Jen could toast it. Riley showed me how to put it back on."
Diego smiled wryly and touched his right knee with one finger. His dark jeans covered the scar that must have been there. "It happens to everybody."
"Ouch," I said.
He nodded. "Seriously. But like I was saying before, you're a pretty decent vampire."
"Am I supposed to say thanks?"
"I'm just thinking out loud, trying to make sense of things."
"What things?"