"Nope, I haven't."
"You're not missing anything. Which is my point. Wouldn't Riley's standard of living be a little higher if he surrounded himself with decent vampires? If we're supposed to protect her, shouldn't he be looking for the smart ones?"
"So Riley doesn't need brains," I reasoned. "He needs numbers."
Diego pursed his lips, considering. "Like chess. He's not making knights and bishops."
"We're just pawns," I realized.
We stared at each other again for a long minute.
"I don't want to think that," Diego said.
"So what do we do?" I asked, using the plural automatical y. Like we were already a team.
He thought about my question for a second, seeming uneasy, and I regretted the "we." But then he said, "What can we do when we don't know what's happening?"
So he didn't mind the team thing, which made me feel real y good in a way I didn't remember ever feeling before. "I guess we keep our eyes open, pay attention, try to figure it out."
He nodded. "We need to think about everything Riley's told us, everything he's done." He paused thoughtful y. "You know, I tried to hash some of this out with Riley once, but he couldn't have cared less. Told me to keep my mind on more important things - like thirst. Which was al I could think about then, of course. He sent me out hunting, and I stopped worrying...."
I watched him thinking about Riley, his eyes unfocused as he relived the memory, and I wondered. Diego was my first friend in this life, but I wasn't his.
Suddenly his focus snapped back to me. "So what have we learned from Riley?"
I concentrated, running through the last three months in my head. "He real y doesn't tel us much, you know. Just the vampire basics."
"We'l have to listen more careful y."
We sat in silence, pondering this. I mostly thought about how much I didn't know. And why hadn't I worried about everything I didn't know before now? It was like talking to Diego had cleared my head. For the first time in three months, blood was not the main thing in there.
The silence lasted for a while. The black hole I'd felt funneling fresh air into the cave wasn't black anymore. It was dark gray now and getting infinitesimal y lighter with each second. Diego noticed me eyeing it nervously.
"Don't worry," he said. "Some dim light gets in here on sunny days. It doesn't hurt." He shrugged.
I scooted closer to the hole in the floor, where the water was disappearing as the tide went out.
"Seriously, Bree. I've been down here before during the day. I told Riley about this cave - and how it was mostly fil ed with water, and he said it was cool when I needed to get out of the madhouse. Anyway, do I look like I got singed?"
I hesitated, thinking about how different his relationship with Riley was than mine. His eyebrows rose, waiting for an answer.
"No," I final y said. "But..."
"Look," he said impatiently. He crawled swiftly to the tunnel and stuck his arm in up to the shoulder. "Nothing."
I nodded once.
"Relax! Do you want me to see how high I can go?" As he spoke, he stuck his head into the hole and started climbing.
"Don't, Diego." He was already out of sight. "I'm relaxed, I swear."
He was laughing - it sounded like he was already several yards up the tunnel. I wanted to go after him, to grab his foot and yank him back, but I was frozen with stress. It would be stupid to risk my life to save some total stranger. But I hadn't had anything close to a friend in forever. Already it would be hard to go back to having no one to talk to, after only one night.
"No estoy quemando," he cal ed down, his tone teasing.
"Wait... is that...? Ow! "
"Diego?"
I leaped across the cave and stuck my head into the tunnel. His face was right there, inches from mine.
"Boo!"
I flinched back from his proximity - just a reflex, old habit.
"Funny," I said dryly, moving away as he slid back into the cave.
"You need to unwind, girl. I've looked into this, okay? Indirect sunlight doesn't hurt."
"So you're saying that I could just stand under a nice shady tree and be fine?"
He hesitated for a minute, as if debating whether or not to tel me something, and then said quietly, "I did once."
I stared at him, waiting for the grin. Because this was a joke. It didn't come.
"Riley said...," I started, and then my voice trailed off.
"Yeah, I know what Riley said," he agreed. "Maybe Riley doesn't know as much as he says he does."
"But Shel y and Steve. Doug and Adam. That kid with the bright red hair. Al of them. They're gone because they didn't get back in time. Riley saw the ashes."
Diego's brows pul ed together unhappily.
Chapters 5
"Everyone knows that old-timey vampires had to stay in coffins during the day," I went on. "To keep out of the sun. That's common knowledge, Diego."
"You're right. Al the stories do say that."