Shortcut through the woods

"I didn't know there was a road here," Max said as he and Miley wound through woods so dense the sun was all but blotted out. He carefully turned his head away from her and searched the shadows with his vampire vision, watching a deer back away and turn tail as the car approached. Birds scattered from the trees. He thought of the cats in the vet clinic, how they had yowled and hissed the afternoon after he'd been bitten. They knew the evil lurked inside him. It was probably a good thing his mom had given up on having pets because of his asthma. How would he have explained his own cat or dog flipping out every time he came into a room?

Miley cast him a sidelong glance, as if she still thought he was afraid to go this far into the preserve. Mostly, he was trying to figure out if the road could serve as a shortcut to the Harley house. He wanted to keep Ryan as far away from Miley as possible.

Then they reached a length of chain strung across the road. A No Trespassing sign dangled from the middle. Max wondered if it marked the beginning of Harley land. He didn't really know very much about the Harleys. He dimly remembered hearing about the fire. He would have been ten years old when it had happened.

He checked the map on his phone. Leo—or his phone—was located well past the chain. Miley leaned over and studied it, too; then she looked from the chain to the woods and back again.

"I guess we go on foot from here," she said. "Let me check in again with Amelia first."

He approved of her caution and texted Levi while he waited.

"Guy at motel had a heart attack. Think he saw. Go to the hospital and try to find out, kk?"

"Saw what?" Levi texted back.

"Think u know," Max replied. He could tell by Miley's conversation that Amelia still hadn't heard from Leo, and she was getting pretty worried.

Miley was trying to comfort her by reminding her, "You know how guys are," and Max was insulted. Maybe some guys would go all silent like Leo had, but he would never worry Miley like that.

I'd just lie to her about where I'd been, like I've been doing ever since I met her.

Except...he had never lied, exactly. Not yet, anyway.

Miley hung up. She had the world's longest eyelashes. There was real worry in those dark brown eyes.

"I just don't get why he hasn't checked in with her, if he's okay," she said.

"Because he's Leo?" Max blurted, then glanced down at his phone as it dinged, indicating the arrival of a message.

Got motel guy's name off Dad's police scanner. Alex Moon. Going to hospital.

KK, thanks, Max texted back.

"You'd just think he'd let her know," Miley said. She reached behind to the passenger seat and grabbed a warm coat. The gray one. Max had on a sweatshirt, but he didn't really need it. The cold didn't bother him anymore. That wasn't a big enough plus to make him glad he'd been bitten, unlike what Ryan had promised. He'd claimed Max would grow to love being a Vampire. So far? No love to be had.

•••

Either Seth had been taking advanced goalie lessons, or he had had a side dish of irritation along with his Gatorade because Leo hadn't told him where he was. Either way, he exceeded his four seconds. Then they ran out of hot water in the showers and by then, Levi had been very happy to be in his room, at home, checking up on the ever-growing mob of zombie sheep in his MMORPG. He kept one ear open for good stuff on his dad's police scanner.

Then Max e-mailed him a map featuring a very narrow, one-lane road leading into Des Pontonniers Preserve. It looked like you could use it as a back way to get to the preserve from the Harley house.

Chalk one up for technology.

And one for the Harley.

He read Max's text about the heart attack. "'Saw'," he murmured. He listened to the scanner and got the motel guy's name. He texted back, muttering, "So, Max, saw what? Saw Ryan?"

"Yes?" Ryan said from behind him.

"Yeaooww!" Levi shouted. He turned around to find Ryan leaning against the wall. He did that on an irritatingly frequent basis, both at Max's house and Dax Joe. He was wearing his black leather jacket and he looked especially pouty and broody. "Could you not do that anymore? It is so not cool."

Ryan leaned over Levi's shoulder and picked up his phone. "What motel guy? What's Max doing? Where is he?"

"Doin' stuff," Levi said.

Ryan looked disgusted and held out Levi's phone to him. "Tell him to meet me."

"He's kinda busy," Levi said.

"Levi?" Levi jerked at the sound of his father's voice from the hallway.

"Gotta get that." Levi pointedly shut down his desktop—Ryan actually hissed—and slid his phone into the pocket of his jeans. "Don't touch anything," he ordered the vampire.

Then he left his room, shutting the door, and went to see what his father wanted. His dad was leaning against the kitchen counter drinking a glass of milk.

"How was lacrosse practice?" he asked.

"Fine," Levi said. He waited for his dad to get to the point.

"Good." He paused with his glass against his chest. "What's your homework like for the weekend?"

"It's there," Levi said, then realized this conversation was fallout from the very suckish parent-teacher conference. Then he threw caution to the winds and said, "Okay, I admit it, I was listening to the scanner. Some guy at a motel had a heart attack?"

His father narrowed his eyes. "Levi, how many times . . ." he began, then nodded. "Yes."

"Just . . . keeled over?"

His dad finished his glass of milk, rinsed it out, and put it into the dish drainer. For some reason, that made Levi think of his mother, and that made him miss her a little more than usual. Life in his head was accompanied by the soundtrack of a small, eternal, dull ache, but word was that would go away after a few decades.

"Why do you care about some guy in a motel?" his dad asked him.

"I care about all mankind, Dad," Levi said, and his father gave him an eye roll.

"Where's your partner in crime?"