Chapter 166

It didn’t long for Claire to get to my room. I let her inside. She looked frustrated. Her eyes were hard. I closed the door behind her and looked at her.

“What wrong?”

“Have you looked on the forum?” Claire asked, softly, shifting her weight back and forth nervously.

I shook my head.

“Everyone knows I’m still alive. It’s everywhere.”

She offered me her phone and I read the message. I was a little jealous. Everyone seemed to be reaching out to her, wanting to see her, wanting her to come to a party that was coming up soon. I grinned.

“We should go.”

“What?”

“They don’t want us here,” I said. “And we’re being invited. We should go.”

I looked at my phone and found that I did have the same invitation in my inbox. There were a few messages from the rugby team. I was glad they were still alive.

Claire licked her lips. “Okay, but how are we going to get out of here?”

“Easy,” I said.

I wasn’t sure if it was easy or not, but I had to say it. I gave her some of the clothes that Raven had given to me and we headed out. It was getting dark and most people weren’t wandering around.

We reached the front door, and I saw no one. We walked on and soon enough one of the guards appeared. It was the same one who had forced the cuffs on me. I stiffened, glaring up at him.

“I’m on orders,” he said, looking down at me. “If you intend to leave Lunae’s Circle, I am to take you to the nearest portal.”

“How did he?” Claire whispered.

“We are leaving,” I said. “Are you going to take these off me?”

He turned without answering and lead us through the town.

“Are you going to answer me?”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll put you through a cave,” he said stiffly.

I glared at his back, wanting to lash out at him. He couldn’t talk to me like that. Whose orders was he under anyway?

We reached a gateway of stone, and he turned. “This gate will take you to the Red Moon Territory. You’re on your own from there.”

“What about these?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you plan to leave or not?”

“How do we get back?” Claire asked.

“You don’t,” he said, waiting for us to make a decision.

“Hedy, I don’t know about this….”

“Fine,” I said. “Just get this off me.”

“They don’t come off while you’re in Lunae’s Circle,” he said.

I eyed the gateway and realized what he meant. They’d come off if I went through the gateway. I turned and walked through, as soon as I was on the other side, the collar and the cuffs slid off of me and clattered to the ground. I was tempted to kick them and send them flying but they vanished before I could.

I turned around expecting a doorway, but there was nothing there but a large piece of stone. It didn’t have any special markings or anything like that.

Soon, Claire stumbled through it, looking around nervously. We were alone in the area. She looked back and worried her lip.

“Let’s get going,” I said. “We should be able to make it to the party.”

I planned on taking a lot of pictures of me with people, having fun, with boys and drinking and whatever else I could manage. I’d send them to Candido and we’d see how indifferent he’d stay about it.

Claire followed me laughing a little. “I can’t believe we’re doing this… My hearts racing.”

I looked at her.

“Ever since I woke up… after...” she paused. “Well, you know, it’s been nothing but hiding and keeping secrets. Cages and locked doors…”

She took a deep breath. “It’s been forever since I felt back to normal.”

“I’ve never been to a party.”

Claire grinned. “Well, we’re not totally dressed for one, but maybe we could fix that.”

We hurried through the forest towards some small town that was nearby. I didn’t know how Claire knew it was here, but it was still mostly intact. It was empty, but the stores were still standing. Claire climbed in through a broken window and went to a rack to pick out some clothes.

“Isn’t this… kind of like stealing?”

Claire ditched the shirt I’d given her, pulling on a halter top and a short-cropped jacket.

“Hardly,” Claire said. “No one’s here. Besides the vampires have control of the area, don’t they? Can you really call it stealing when the owner is your enemy?”

“I guess not.” I traded my white dress for a pair of jeans and a lace tank top. It wasn’t something I could have imagined myself wearing before, but I liked it, and the thought of the way Candido would look at me in it was enough.

He’d be so jealous to see me like this with some other man. Claire tossed me a jacket and we headed out of the abandoned store. There was a car on the road, luckily with the keys still inside as if the driver had been pulled out of the car. Claire climbed in as she was the only one who knew how to actually drive.

I turned on my GPS to direct us, and I replied to one of the messages, telling them that we were on our way. It didn’t take us long to get there, but as we pulled up, I heard the sound of music and the faintest scent of alcohol.

Claire climbed out and hustled towards the familiar people from the rugby team.

“Claire!” Someone cried, sweeping her up into a hug. “By the Goddess, we really thought—what the hell was all that about?”

“Mistaken identity,” she said and waved me over.

“Is that Hedy?” Someone else asked, laughing. “Well, hell! I didn’t think you went to parties!”

“I do now.”

“Well, alright! Let’s get you some drinks. Come on!”

Someone offered me a drink and I took it. I drank it knowing that Candido would be upset. I wanted him to be. I wanted him to worry about what I was doing and with who. I wanted him mad at himself because if he would just give me what I wanted, if he would just let us be together and stop pulling away from me, he wouldn’t have to worry about it. I wanted him to be jealous.

Claire seemed to just be happy to be around people again. She seemed oddly at ease as if she knew that she wasn’t going to hurt anyone, as if she was sure that everything would be okay. I was happy for that. The music pumped loudly. People danced in the middle. A guy I didn’t recognize pulled Claire onto the dancefloor with him. She laughed, but didn’t fight him. I guess they knew each other. Someone else came up to her hugging her tight. She laughed and spun around with them too.

I drank another cup of whatever type of punch this was and grinned. This was the best idea we’d had. We never got to do this before the war had started. Or rather, Claire had done all of this and I had been so busy trying to devote myself to Candido and Moon Shadow that I never got to do anything fun. He was always keeping me inside and I had been happy that way. I thought it was because it was because he wanted me to himself. I thought that was the only way to get his attention, but it wasn’t.

I wanted his attention. I wanted him to care and keep me all to himself. I still wanted that, but he wasn’t giving that to me. He hadn’t really been giving it to me then with Sibyl involved.

I’d show him exactly what it meant for him to treat me like this, to ignore me. I thought back to my birthday and I scoffed. Before, he would have taken me to the best restaurant in town and dressed me up. He hadn’t even managed to take a shower to take me to get cake. He’d been prepared to just put those shackles on me. He didn’t fight at all. It felt like he didn’t care. No, he didn’t care. He hadn’t put in any effort. His mind was on the war or whatever was happening on the other side. It wasn’t on me.

But it would be soon enough.