I shook my head.
"Watch this," he said, kneeling in front of the beam of sunshine again. "And don't shove me out of the way this time. You already proved I'm right." He put his hand out. It was almost as hard to watch this time, even if my leg felt normal. The second his fingers entered the beam, the cave was fil ed with a mil ion bril iant rainbow reflections. It was bright as noon in a glass room - light everywhere. I flinched and then shuddered. There was sunlight all over me.
"Unreal," Diego whispered. He put the rest of his hand into the beam, and the cave somehow got even brighter. He rol ed his hand over to look at the back, then turned it palm up again. The reflections danced like he was spinning a prism. There was no smel of burning, and he clearly wasn't in pain. I looked closely at his hand, and it seemed like there were a zil ion tiny mirrors in the surface, too smal to distinguish separately, al shining back the light with double the intensity of a regular mirror.
"Come here, Bree - you have to try this."
I couldn't think of a reason to refuse, and I was curious, but I was also stil reluctant as I slid to his side.
"No burn?"
"None. Light doesn't burn us, it just... reflects off of us. I guess that's kind of an understatement."
Slow as a human, I reluctantly stretched my fingers into the light. Immediately, reflections blazed away from my skin, making the room so bright that the day outside would look dark in comparison. They weren't exactly reflections, though, because the light was bent and colored, more like crystal. I stuck my whole hand in, and the room got brighter.
"Do you think Riley knows?" I whispered.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Why wouldn't he tel us if he did? What would be the point?
So we're walking disco bal s." I shrugged.
Diego laughed. "I can see where the stories come from. Imagine if you saw this when you were human. Wouldn't you think that the guy over there just burst into flames?"
"If he didn't hang around to chat. Maybe."
"This is incredible," Diego said. With one finger he traced a line across my glowing palm.
Then he jumped to his feet right under the sunbeam, and the room went crazy with light.
"C'mon, let's get out of here." He reached up and pul ed himself toward the hole he'd cut to the surface. You'd think I would have been over it, but I was stil nervous to fol ow. Not wanting to seem like a total chicken, I stayed close on his heels, but I was cringing inside the whole way. Riley had real y made his point about burning in the sun; in my mind it was linked to that horrific time of burning as I became a vampire, and I couldn't escape the instinctive panic that fil ed me every time I thought of it.
Then Diego was out of the hole, and I was next to him half a second later. We stood on a smal patch of wild grass, only a few feet from the trees that covered the island. Behind us, it was just a couple of yards to a low bluff, and then the water. Everything around us blazed in the color and light shining off of us.
"Wow," I muttered.
Diego grinned at me, his face beautiful with light, and suddenly, with a deep lurch in my stomach, I realized that the whole BFF thing was way off the mark. For me, anyway. It was just that fast.
His grin softened a little bit into just the hint of a smile. His eyes were wide like mine. Al awe and lights. He touched my face, the way he'd touched my hand, as if he was trying to understand the shine.
"So pretty," he said. He left his hand against my cheek. I'm not sure how long we stood there, smiling like total idiots, blazing away like glass torches. The inlet was empty of boats, which was probably good. No way even a mud-eyed human would have missed us. Not that they could have done anything to us, but I wasn't thirsty, and al the screaming would have ruined the mood.
Eventual y a thick cloud drifted in front of the sun. Suddenly we were just us again, though stil slightly luminous. Not enough that anyone with eyes dul er than a vampire's would notice. As soon as the shine was gone, my thoughts cleared up and I could think about what was coming next. But even though Diego looked like his normal self again - not made of blazing light, anyway - I knew he would never look the same to me. That tingly sensation in the pit of my stomach was stil there. I had the feeling it might be there permanently.
"Do we tel Riley? Do we think he doesn't know?" I asked. Diego sighed and dropped his hand. "I don't know. Let's think about this while we track them."
"We're going to have to be careful, tracking them in the day. We're kind of noticeable in the sunlight, you know."
He grinned. "Let's be ninjas."
I nodded. "Super-secret ninja club sounds way cooler than the whole BFF thing."