Her mind was simply cloudy. She didn't try to think much anymore. She was happiest when she was asleep.
But tonight she couldn't sleep. She could still taste the wild cherry Popsicle in the corners of her mouth. She would have tried to wash the taste away, but the thought of water made her feel vaguely nauseated.
Water's no good. Not what I need.
Poppy turned over and pressed her face into the pillow. She didn't know what she needed, but she knew she wasn't getting it.
A soft sound came from the hallway. Footsteps. The footsteps of at least two people. It didn't sound like her mother and Cliff, and anyway they'd gone to bed.
There was the lightest of knocks at her door, then a fan of light opened on the floor as the door cracked. Phil whispered,
"Poppy, you asleep? Can I come in?"
To Poppy's slowly rising indignation, he was coming in, without waiting for an answer. And someone was with him.
Not just someone. The one. The one who had hurt Poppy worst of all. The betrayer. James.
Anger gave Poppy the strength to sit up. "Go away! I'll hurt you!" The most primitive and basic of warning-off messages.
An animal reaction.
"Poppy, please let me talk to you," James said. And then something amazing happened. Even Poppy, in her befuddled state, recognized that it was amazing.
Phil said, "Please do it, Poppy. Just listen to him."
Phil siding with James?
Poppy was too confused to protest as James came and knelt by her bedside.
"Poppy, I know you're upset. And it's my fault; I made a mistake. I didn't want Phil to know what was really going on, and I told him I was just pretending to care for you. But it wasn't true."
Poppy frowned.
"If you search your feelings, you'll know it's not true. You're turning into a telepath, and I think you already have enough power to read me."
Behind James, Phil stirred as if uneasy at the mention of telepathy. "I can tell you it's not true," he said, causing both Poppy and James to look at him in surprise. "That's one thing I found out from talking to you," he added, speaking to James without looking at him. "You may be some kind of monster, but you really do care about Poppy. You're not trying to hurt her."
"Now you finally get it? After causing all this-?" James broke off and shook his head, turning back to Poppy. "Poppy, concentrate. Feel what I'm feeling. Find the truth for yourself."
I won't and you can't make me, Poppy thought. But the part of her that wanted to find out the truth was stronger than the irrational, angry part. Tentatively she reached for James-not with her hand, but with her mind. She couldn't have described to anyone how she did it. She just did it.
And she found James's mind, diamond-bright and burning with intensity. It wasn't the same as being one with him, the way she had been when they shared blood. It was like looking at him from the outside, sensing his emotions from a distance. But it was enough. The warmth and longing and protectiveness he had for her were all dear. So was the anguish: the pain he felt to know that she was hurting-,and that she hated him.
Poppy's eyes filled. "You really do care," she whispered.
James's gray eyes met hers, and there was a look in them Poppy couldn't remember seeing before. "There are two cardinal rules in the Night World," he said steadily. "One is not to tell humans that it exists. The other is not to fall in love with a human. I've broken both of them."
Poppy was aware, vaguely, that Phillip was walking out of the room. The fan of light contracted as he half-shut the door behind him. James's face was partly in shadow.
"I could never tell you how I felt about you," James said. "I couldn't even admit it to myself. Because it puts you in terrible danger. You can't imagine what kind of danger."
"And you, too," Poppy said. It was the first time she'd really thought about this. Now the idea emerged from her muddled consciousness like a bubble in a pot of stew. "I mean," she said slowly, puzzling it out, "if it's against the rules to tell a human or love a human, and you break the rules, then there must be some punishment for you... ." Even as she said it, she sensed what the punishment was.
More of James's face went into shadow. "Don't you worry about that," he said in his old voice, his cool-guy voice.
Poppy never took advice, not even from James. A surge of irritation and anger swept through her-an animal surge, like the feverish restlessness. She could feel her eyes narrow and her fingers claw.
"Don't you tell me what to worry about!"
He frowned. "Don't you tell me not to tell you-" he began, and then broke off. "What am I doing?
You're still sick with the change and I'm just sitting here." He rolled up a sleeve of his windbreaker and drew a fingernail along his wrist. Where the nail cut, blood welled up.
It looked black in the darkness. But Poppy found her eyes fixing on its liquid beading in fascination. Her lips parted and her breath came faster.
"Come on," James said, and held his wrist in front of her. The next second Poppy had pounced and fixed her mouth on it as if she were trying to save him from a snakebite.
It was so natural, so easy. This is what she'd needed when she was dispatching Phil to get Popsicles and cranberry juice. This sweet, heady stuff was the real thing and nothing else was like it. Poppy sucked avidly.
It was all good: the closeness, the rich, dark-red taste; the strength and vitality that flooded through her, warming her to her fingertips. But best, better than any mere sensation, was the touch of James's mind. It made her giddy with pleasure.
How could she ever have mistrusted him? It seemed ridiculous now that she could feel, directly, how he felt about her. She would never know anyone the way she knew James.
I'm sorry, she thought to him, and felt her thought accepted, forgiven, cherished. Held gently by the cradling of James's mind.
It wasn't your fault, he told her.
Poppy's mind seemed to be clearing with every second that went by. It was like waking up out of a deep and
uncomfortable sleep. I don't ever want this to end, she thought, not really directing it at James, just thinking it.
But she felt a reaction in him-and then felt him bury the reaction quickly. Not quickly enough. Poppy had sensed it.
Vampires don't do this to each other.