Soul to Keep Read online

  “Actually, I came to see if Faeth wanted to go to Tens. Carmen is back from moving her mom. I promised I’d throw a wad of cash her way when she was back in town.”

  Faeth jumped up. “I’m in. Let’s go.”

  “What! What the fuck? You’re both going to ditch me?”

  Kina stood, then leaned over and kissed me soundly on the mouth. “Yup. See you later.” Then she was gone.

  I shook a bit as Faeth slapped me on the back with her massive hand. “We’ll play your dirty game later.” She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth and made an obscene gesture with her hands before leaving me alone on her floor like an asshole.

  ❖

  I vanished up to the kitchen and found the first floor nearly empty. I followed the sound of a TV into the living room and saw one of Natasha’s sophomores, Rayna, was passed out on the couch, still in her clothes. I cut off the infomercials and carried her upstairs. All the girls were accounted for; all but three were asleep. One of Omi’s juniors, Kait, and Lydia, the freshman she was hooking up with, were up watching Netflix.

  And then there was Jill.

  The light in the study lounge was on and there she was, her notes and books splayed out on the table. There was no reason for me to talk to her. She was alive and accounted for. Ginger would be ecstatic. Plus, Jill had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want anyone to talk to her while she was studying.

  I cloaked myself and stood there, watching her as she looked back and forth between her notebook and her laptop.

  Jill had never had many friends. That small fact had been in her dossier when she’d pledged. One real friend in high school and really only one friend now. One of the OBA boys, Jim Fa’u, had latched on to her their freshman year. When he wasn’t busy with his twin brother Tim, football, or his own fraternity responsibilities, they seemed to be attached at the hip. But as far as we knew, he was it. That’s why Ginger had picked her. She felt bad for the misunderstood, unpopular types. And when we found out how annoying Jill was, we’d all been retroactively grateful that we hadn’t gotten stuck with her.

  But over the years, Jill had changed. She was still four feet tall with a fifteen-foot mouth. And it was impossible to take her seriously because of that adorable French Canadian accent, but looking at her then and thinking over the last two and a half years, there were definitely some differences in tiny Jill Babineux.

  For one, she’d gotten her braces off, and practically none of the girls in the house called her Jaws anymore. Just a few seniors and juniors, out of habit. She used to cry on a dime, but she seemed to have fixed that. She was still a stickler for rules and procedure, but thanks to her, the girls had won chapter of the year for community outreach and service. As the chapter’s Wellness chairperson, she’d suggested that the girls vote on who should lead sister counseling, instead of letting the chapter president and vice president automatically fill those roles. The switch led to the girls being more open with the sisters they chose to talk with. So far, Carrie and D’Monique had done a good job.

  She’d done a lot of good for the chapter and herself, I suppose. Her grades were excellent, she was cute, but she was still Jill.

  “I don’t know which one of you is there, but I can feel you watching me.” She didn’t look up when she spoke, but in the next second, she launched a pencil in my direction. I snatched it mid flight, then vanished across the hall and into the room beside her. Just a little tap on the shoulder made her jump.

  “Oh my God! Don’t do that!” She whipped around toward me, all pink in her light brown cheeks and furious.

  “How’d you know I was there?”

  “That trick you do just makes you all invisible, but matter is still matter, and it gives off energy and takes up space.”

  “Ginger always did like ’em smart. Whatcha working on?” I asked, taking a seat on the table.

  “You know, that chair would be more suitable. Considering you’re not wearing any pants.”

  “Yeah, I am.” I hiked up the oversized shirt I had on to show her the shorts I was wearing. They were small, but they were there.

  “I guess.”

  “Still working on your project?” Her notebook was opened to a page covered with furiously scribbled writing that was divided into two columns. I scanned the page and caught things on various issues of sexual health and where they might find possible speakers to handle each topic. One column header said Jill and the other said Brayley. “And you got yourself a partner!”

  “Is there a reason for your sudden interest in me and my academic life?”

  “Not really. You’re up. I’m up. I was just curious. That’s all. Question though. How are you so sure of the direction of all this sex ed stuff if you’ve never had sex?”

  She got even pinker. “I have too had sex!”

  “Hmmm, have you though? And I’m not talking about vampire related sex. I mean caught up in a moment, first crush, can’t keep your hands off each other, or drunken mistake out past curfew sex.”

  “Have you?! I mean isn’t all the sex you have vampire related?”

  “I—huh, that’s a good call. I kinda have. The stuff before I was turned is really fuzzy, but I’ve been in love since and I’ve had sex with people I wasn’t blood bound to, but I’ve been a vampire for a long time.”

  “How old are you?” she asked with this look and tone of suspicion like she expected me to lie.

  “Ahhh, hundred and fifty-one. Give or take a few years. Not as old as Kina, not as young as Ginger. You know.” I wiggled my fingers in the air for emphasis.

  “Oh, well, I don’t see what my sex life has to do with organizing informational sessions. You don’t have to be a murderer to be an FBI profiler.”

  “True, but you have to get inside the head of a killer. You go to crime scenes. And look, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve outlined a program on birth control, STDs, and general reproductive health. Do you see anything missing?” I turned the sheet so Jill could look at it again.

  “I think we’ve got everything covered.”

  “Exactly. This is what matters to you, but what about a talk on healthy relationships? Sexual orientation and sexual expression. You’re dealing with college students and you have nothing on here about rape and other sexual violence. You could do ten seminars on sex and gender and race alone.

  “I don’t see anything that addresses the needs of your transgender classmates. What about Taylor? Wouldn’t you want her to feel included? And then there’s sex and disability. You’re missing the joys of sex, the joys of masturbation, safe toy play. You’re taking such a clinical approach you’re ignoring the real concerns of your target audience.

  “You run your programs this way and you might as well just add another standard biology class to the course curriculum. A good PR blitz might get your first run of seats filled, but I doubt you’ll have any repeat customers. People want to talk these sorts of things out in a safe, open environment. They don’t want a lecture.”

  “I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “’Cause you’re not having sex?”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s something to be said about experience and how it correlates with empathy. So maybe you don’t need to get out there and fuck, but upping your human interactions might help.”

  “I—”

  “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to it. If you want some actual experience in the porking department, let me know. I’m around.”

  “You mean…for us. To have sex.”

  “Ah, yeah. We’re not blood bound, so technically it wouldn’t be vampire related.”

  “I—um, I’ll think about it.”

  “Sounds good. Later.” I hopped off the table and left her to her work.

  As I walked back downstairs, I started thinking more seriously on the offer I’d just made Jill. She was cute. It could be fun. And even though we had some pretty firm rules making it pretty damn c
lear that we couldn’t drink from each other’s feeders, there was absolutely no rule against sleeping with them. Like I said, could be fun.

  Chapter Five

  Jill

  I took the night to sleep on the interesting suggestions Tokyo had made. She was wrong about a few things. I’d lost my virginity freshman year, to Ginger during our first feeding. That counted. And I’d fooled around with Skylar, Carrie, Hollis, Emma, and Tara in the time we’d served Ginger. Yes, our run-ins had always been during our Friday Night Movie feeding, but it still counted. Another girl’s head between your legs counted. Your mouth on another girl’s breast while another girl climaxed on your thigh counted. And even Ginger didn’t know it, but James and I had had sex too.

  We both wanted to know what it was like to have sex outside of the feedings, so we tried it once. It was okay. Our difference in size made the whole thing practically silly, but we both figured some things out, like that we didn’t really want to sleep with each other again and that we both preferred the company of our own sex. So yes, I had completely had sex before, but what Tokyo said about the wanting, urgency, the heat? I’d never felt that before. Perhaps maybe once.

  There was my sorority sister, Benny. She was a senior when I was a freshman, and now she was married, to Tokyo’s ex-lover to make things more ridiculous. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think I loved Benny once upon a time, but after she left with Cleo and they started their family, I saw what they had was love and what I felt was admiration and lust. I looked up to Benny, and I wanted her to like me maybe because I didn’t love myself completely. But that was then.

  Now I knew what came first—school. And the rest could definitely wait. College romances were just as fleeting as high school affairs. I only knew of one human couple who had survived Alpha Beta Omega, and even then, Amy and Danni hadn’t gotten all the way out. They still provided blood to vampires outside of the house. That was not the kind of long-term adult relationship I was waiting for.

  I was waiting for something different, something special, which isn’t cliché at all, because why would I want something that everyone else had? I was waiting for certainty. Permanence. Someone who knew herself as well as I knew myself. Someone not bound to an immortal blood-drinking demoness. Someone who was mine and mine only. I wasn’t going to find that person under the ABO roof or at Maryland University, period. And I certainly wasn’t going to find that type of connection in the much frequented bed of Tokyo herself. There was no difference in the convenient encounters I had shared with my sorority sisters and the emotionless sex I’d find in Tokyo’s temporary, conditional company.

  But she did have a point. I had to think about my audience. I was dealing with hormonal college students who leapt before they looked and had the morning afters and the confused, failed relationships to prove it, if the girls I lived with served as a reliable control group. I had to get this right.

  The next time I met Brayley, I brought up the idea of changing our approach.

  “Are you sexually active?” I asked her as soon as she sat at our table in the library.

  She hesitated a moment, probably because James and our other fraternity brother, Van, were there. But James and Van didn’t care about our presentation in the slightest. They’d tagged along to our first two meetings and had completely ignored us. Except for when James interrupted to show me the drawing he was tooling with.

  “I—yeah. Why?”

  I brought up the changes Tokyo had mentioned. “I want your perspective. What do you think is important?”

  “Well, what about what you think is important? You’re asking me like I’m the sexual expert. I take it you’re not…climbing the smoke pole.”

  “I’m not attracted to guys, but no, I’m not…climbing anything or its equivalent.”

  “Oh. Well, that doesn’t mean you don’t have opinions or have things you’re curious about.”

  “I do, but I don’t want this to be about me.”

  “Oh, come on. Yes, you do or you wouldn’t be this anal about something that’s not due for another eight weeks and makes up like a sixteenth of our grade. What about you guys? What programs do you think you and other frat dudes would want to see?” she asked James and Van.

  “Gay athletes,” James said. “I want a program about how being gay in professional sports is actually very common and how being gay doesn’t make you any less of a man or an athlete.” He and his brother had been discussing whether or not James should come out to NFL scouts.

  “Are all three of you gay?” Brayley asked.

  “Yes,” we all answered.

  “So the rumors are true,” Brayley said with a smile.

  “About ABO and OBA being queer friendly Greek organizations?” I clarified. “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you guys survey a few people? Hit some of the freshman dorms? The other Greeks, and just ask? Some people are bound to take you seriously and then you get some actual direction from your constituents,” Van said.

  “What’s wrong?” Brayley asked as she looked in my direction. “I think that’s a great idea. And we have the time.”

  “No, you’re right. And you’re right too, Van. That’s a great idea. I’m just thinking.” I hated to delete my whole outline and the progress we made, but I selected the key parts of the document on my laptop screen in front of me and did it anyway.

  Even more, I hated that Tokyo was right.

  ❖

  Tokyo

  I’d accepted the darkness, let the bleak loneliness of isolation consume me, and soon I became resigned to the fact that I was fucking grounded and I had to get the approval of a fucking three-year-old vampire before I could leave the house again. I considered talking to our Master about it. His word outweighed Ginger’s to the power of ten, and if he knew exactly how silly it was for me to be following the girls around nearly twenty-four seven, he’d lift Ginger’s stupid punishment and let me go back to the carefree bloodsucking life I was meant to live.

  But Dalhem was busy with bigger things. Ultimately, he was responsible for all of our feeders and all of us. I downplayed the severity of this situation a lot, but he was responsible for every vampire and every human we touched in this part of the world. As a full demon, his failure to protect us would have complete and eternal consequences for him. And for us. So yeah, it was a big deal if there was a chance more of our girls could get snatched up off the street. And it was a big deal if any kind of evil entity was trying to use her body, for any purpose.

  I came to this realization during a Pretty Little Liars mini-marathon. My darling Yazmeen had the afternoon off and came by to spend it with me. I stopped paying attention after the first episode, but I sat with her, playing with her hair. Sometime after the third episode and before I sent her off to get some dinner, I considered what it would be like to lose her before her time. I had been very lucky. All of my feeders had died of old age. I’d always been there in time to save those who were sick or injured. Definitely lucky. But even feeling their pain had been fucking awful and overwhelming. What would I do if a demon, the bad kind, tried to take one of my girls from me?

  I didn’t feel so bad about sticking around the house anymore. Was I bored out of my fucking mind? Yes. But was I pissed? No. I wanted to be there, to fulfill my pledge. I loved my girls that much and I wanted to keep them safe. Still, I had selfishly been looking forward to our movie night. Aside from their Saturday morning charity work, the girls did what they wanted with their weekends, but Friday night, they were ours.

  In our all-purpose room, a corridor down from Natasha’s apartment, I collapsed on my usual couch, and my girls wasted no time crowding around me. D’Monique had had a terrible week. I knew she was ready to feed me then get a good fucking from the others. Faeth’s taste in movies was awful, and it was her week to pick, so I knew for sure no one was going to pay attention to whatever she put on once everyone was settled.

  Ginger always started the night off by greeting the girls, telling them s
ome corny shit about how they made it through another week. She also loved to remind the seniors how many weeks they had to graduation. I started fingering D’Monique the moment she sat down and pulled my hand between her legs. It was nothing to pull her tiny pajama shorts and her underwear to the side. I pretended to listen to whatever Ginger was talking about. But then she waved Jill forward.

  “Before we get started, Jill has an announcement and a favor to ask all of you. So please give her your attention.”

  “Thank you,” Jill muttered.

  “Jaws!” Skylar yelled from across the room. Jill ignored her, but I noticed a faint tic near her eye. The nickname still bothered her.

  “Um, I have a project to do in my human sexuality class, and I want to create actual programs, or at least, generate a blueprint for actual programs, I think the university should implement. I was going in one direction, but Tokyo gave me the idea to turn things back to other students like you guys.”

  Ginger and Camila both flashed me looks, one hundred percent surprise. Two hundred percent suspicion. Kina and Omi started handing out pieces of paper and pens.

  “If you can circle the topics that interest you and then write in one topic or issue that’s not listed,” Jill added.

  “Can we have a program on gang bangs, like the one we should be having right now?” Yazmeen asked.

  I tried to shhh her, but the comment was already out.

  “If group sex is something that interests you, then please write it in.”

  I smiled, feeling an odd bit of pride light in my chest. It was nice to see Jill holding her own. I mean, she always had; I guess I just noticed her now. There were some more comments hurled from around the room, a few more jokes about the clap and eating ass (we’d turned these poor girls into a bunch of freaks) but after a few minutes, things around the room settled down.

  There was more chatter, forty-two girls taking a sex survey called for a bit of discussion, but they seemed to be taking it seriously. Navaeh almost broke her pencil circling “Pregnancy.” I looked over Chelsea’s shoulder and was impressed at the variety of options Jill and her partner had added. They added all the topics we talked about, plus a few points about splitting the seminars up by gender. McKenna caught me looking as she wrote in her answer.