chapter 44: how? you said you never would leave me alone

                                    

                                          
November, Same night as the Accident, Right After It
Yoko's point of view 
Someone throwing the door open jolted me awake.
"Yoko, get up!"
It was Alice, swith her phone wedged between her shoulder and her head. She seemed to be in a rush.
"What are you staring at? Get up! I have Enid on the line, you need to get up!"
I laughed. "Ha, see, that's impossible because she's right--"
When I turned my head to her bed I saw it was empty.
"Okay, well, I wasn't expecting that," I said, mostly to myself.
I stood up and rubbed my eyes while Alice went back to the common room.
I had only been sleeping in  panties and a Hamilton T-shirt, so in order to avoid social suicide, I threw on yesterday's pants and a zipper hoodie above the Lin-Manuel Miranda print, before joining Alice.
Cass, Tatum, Divina and Bianca were there too. I wondered why I was the last one in the know again... and also where Wednesday was.
I immediately went to Divina.
"What's happening?" I asked quietly.
"Enid called Bianca and told her I don't know what, she woke me up and we snuck in here. Then I guess she called Alice while we were making our way into here."
"Why didn't she call me first?" I muttered, more as a rhetorical question than anything else. 
"You probably slept through it."
"Nonsense," I answered, but I still patted my pockets to see if my phone was in it. 
It was. Five missed calls. Divina laughed softly and cupped my cheek with her hand.
"You'd sleep through the freaking end of the world."
She kissed me once, I grabbed her face and she unzipped my hoodie. "Is that—"
I silenced her with another kiss. But she pulled away. 
"After the war I went back to New York—" she started to sing 
"Fuck you."
"Gladly."
And as if summoned by her terrible British accent...
"Oh my God, you guys are like bloody rabbits! Keep it in your pants for God's sake! Yes, Enid, I'm sorry—"
"Put her on speaker," Bianca ordered Alice.
She quickly let Enid know and then clicked on the button. We were all standing in a circle. I took Divina's hand.  
"Okay, so is everyone there?"
Her voice sounded like she had cried. 
"The girls, yeah."
"No. Everyone. Tyler needs to be there too."
"Well, you know, with the sentinels and all—"
"ALICE!"
Cascina stepped away from the group. "I'll call him," she said.
"Okay Enid, what could possibly be so urgent?" I yawned.
Both Bianca and Alice gave me a deadly look.
"Girl, I am at the hospital, Wednesday's in the ICU, Stan is dead, Kent probably too—"
"What do you mean Kent is—" Divina interrupted. I felt her grip tighten on my hand.
"I don't know, D. We were in the forest, he showed his medallion and the werewolf went after him and—"
"We have to go and try to—" 
"No way in hell," Bianca cut Divina off.
She shot back, "Get that finger out of my face!"
"Don't, trust me," Enid continued on a forced calmer tone. "You need to get out. I've seen the werewolf before. He's someone from Nevermore. You're not safe. You should see her, Wednesday, she— she's—"
Cascina broke the heavy silence that had fallen. "They're on their way, Tyler said." She covered the microphone. "Do I tell them about Stan or Kent?"
We looked at each other. Tatum was the first to shake 'no'.
"Okay, I'll take it from here," Bianca announced. "Thank you, Enid."
"Wait no! There's more to it. Wednesday said stuff about like a big vampire and I don't know, she was rambling a lot and—"
"A vampire? Isn't that what your brother told you? You know when he went to the library and—"
Divina had been quiet since the news about Kent, and she wasn't expecting to be directly spoken to any time soon.
"Yes, he— he did."
I squeezed her hand to encourage her.
"Kent is like the biggest nerd when it comes to mythology and just all sorts of legends. And like there's this story in our family about this vampire that feeds on other mystical beings..."
She touched her necklace.
"You said he showed his medallion, right?"
"Yes. The werewolf followed him afterwards."
"So it recognized the medal? But each necklace is unique to its family, it's not—, it can't—"
Divina looked for some physical support, I was scared that she'd just collapse so, from behind, I took her firmly in my arms.
"I can't believe it's real."
"I'll continue," Bianca offered. "Correct me if I'm wrong, please."
A tear rolled on Divina's cheek. I felt so helpless I had no idea what she was talking about, nor how to comfort her.
"It's a lot of complex genealogy but basically sirens are really close to vampires, it just branched out at some point. Anyway, an alpha energy vampire was cursed by his peers, whose offspring are now sirens. Lots of families claim to descend from the curse givers, but apparently, only yours is right," Bianca said to Divina.
"So the werewolf is the vampire since he recognized the medallion?"
"A vampire, by now there's a whole net of them coming from the first one."
"And energy vampire, please don't mix them up with us. We don't have to kill to survive," I added.
"Wait so that werewolf might like kill us or something?!" Tatum panicked.
"Why do you think Wednesday's being reanimated right now, dumb—"
"We have to work together here," Bianca said firmly.
"No, you guys need to get out. Too dangerous."
"Enid's the only one who actually faced them maybe—"
Alice got cut off by Cascina's ringtone. She picked up and apologized.
"I don't get anything you guys are saying," Tate complained.
"Same," I added.
"The vampire feeds on other creatures' powers and gets them, but to break the curse he needs the curse giver for a ritual. Often a vampire like this will try and power up before attempting that ritual."
"Divina, you said Kent suspected it was someone from the school staff, right?"
She sniffed. "He did."
"I remember who the werewolf is!" Enid suddenly exclaimed. "Marcus from senior year. Not exactly school staff but a track coach!"
"Yeah, I know him. He's in my class, but he's also as stupid as it gets, I don't think he—"
Alice was interrupted again. 
"He must have an accomplice!"
"We just have to get through all the school files and see who might be his accomplice."
"No need to do that, I think I get it," Cascina intervened. She had just gotten off the phone but had been following the conversation carefully. "Tyler told me Ajax got caught by a sentinel and they sent him right to the principal office."
"Bit odd, isn't it?" Alice reacted. "Isn't it way too late to—"
"Principal Medina is 'related' to Marcus," Enid said. 
"What?!" Alice exclaimed. "I didn't know that. They look nothing alike!"
"Medina is behind all of this, huh?"
~~~
Alice's point of view
"Okay. I'll be here, making calls, so someone needs to go help out the boys, we need to get that book about the vampires from the library, the others barricade this dorm and—"
As per usual, Bianca had taken the reins and she started to boss us around.
When we'd realized the principal himself was behind all of this, most of us started to freak out. Bianca had to use her siren song to calm us down. For a second I didn't feel anything anymore, in a good way. I didn't miss Chloe. I wasn't scared of what was going to happen to Enid. I didn't miss home. I didn't stress for the big tests after the break. I didn't miss Chloe. 
"I'll go find the boys," Divina said.
"I'll come with you," Yoko immediately offered.
"I think it's a one person job," her girlfriend rejected.
"But—"
"Kent and I have done this route hundreds of times, don't worry. Won't get caught."
"Ok," Bianca settled the debate. "Who's going for the book?"
Tate and Cascina offered their help.
"Okay, you guys know how to get in there right? Snap twice in front of the fugly statue."
"The rest stays here."
The rest being Yoko and I.
"I need to call Enid back for a second," I said when everyone else had gone and it was just the three of us in the dorm. "In private, so I'll be doing my room first, alone."
"Ok, whatever," Yoko answered. 
She was clearly still upset about Divina not wanting her to tag along.
"Fine, Alice. Yoko, come help me move this in front of the French door."
I looked in my recent calls and clicked on Enid's name while going up the stairs.
When she answered I was already at my door.
"Hey, sweetheart, I just— How are you?"
"Hi again," she greeted. "Is the rest gone?"
"Yes, don't worry."
She sighed on the other line.
"I'm so scared, Alice. I really don't think she's gonna make it. In the car, she— her heart, it stopped for a second and I had to stop the car and do CPR and I think I broke her a rib and—"
"Breathe, Enid, breathe. Sit down for a second? Where are you?"
"I AM ALREADY SAT DOWN, ALRIGHT?!"
We were silent for a second.
"I'm so sorry, Al. I didn't mean to—"
Her voice broke. 
"Don't worry. It's fine."
"You don't get it, her heart stopped three times already— Even Neil isn't optimistic. The only other time he wasn't—"
"Enid, love, listen to me. You'll be fine"
"I will but she won't. I— I couldn't help her, I couldn't s—"
"Don't."
I knew what she was going to say, what this was about. 
"What?"
"It's not your fault."
This was bringing her back to Lucas' death. 
"You did everything right. Sometimes you can't do—"
"OF COURSE IT IS MY FAULT!"
"You did everything you could do."
"No, Alice. I should've listened to her." She wasn't speaking to me anymore, she was speaking to herself. "I thought she was just being paranoid. I should've been there for her.  I should've respected her 'not parting ways' rule. I—"
"Enid, stop."
"I should never have kissed you. I should've believed her, trusted her..."
I sighed. "Enid, I— she gave you every reason not to believe her. Every reason to not trust her!"
"NO! She—"
"I DON'T WANT TO ARGUE WITH YOU!"
The other line went quiet, until she started crying again. 
"Stop blaming yourself! She made you act a certain way with her because of her own actions. You did what was best in the moment."
"Alice..."
"Now please, Enid, I'm going to ask you one more time to own your deeds and to stop feeling guilty for stuff you don't have a grasp on, even if it's your own behavior sometimes."
"Alice," she whispered, "I— Stan, I—"
I encouraged her, "You what?"
"Nothing."
She hung up. 
~~~
Yoko's point of view
"Why do people always have to yell?" I wondered to myself.
I was already stressed about the whole situation and Alice screaming on the phone upstairs wasn't helping.
"Okay, so I called the police about Kent possibly being in the woods still, they didn't really believed me but I pushed," Bianca shared.
"They didn't? Jericho police should catch up at some point," I scoffed.
Bianca ignored my comment and kept going on.
"About the situation here on campus I had to call another service. I mean what is a SWAT team going to do against an overpowered being like that vampire?"
"Energy vampire," I underlined/emphased again.
"They said they'd take some time, thoughand that we were doing the right thing by staying in smaller groups. The operator told me it had to be everyone for themself."
"So we're not trying to—"
"Ajax is the perfect distraction we didn't know we needed. At least Medina is busy with him right now and not with us."
Silence filled the room. Bianca had just chosen to sacrifice him.
"I just hope the boys make it because we need Tyler's hyde form to protect us."
And speaking of the devil, there was a soft knock on the door. Bianca approached the entrance and looked through the peephole before letting Tyler and some other boy in. She closed the door behind them. 
"Glad you're here," Bianca welcomed.
My heart sank.
"Where's Divina if she's not with you?"