DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

wild story, but I questions he’d asked made it sound as though he believe it.

Why wouldn’t he after everything he’d seen?

She couldn’t sleep, though. She stayed awake, staring out at the city above the rooftops and the trees. The gunshots stopped, as did the crashes. The laughter died. The music faded.

Only the screams remained.

And they continued throughout the night.

PART II

1

In the morning, she could almost believe that none of it had happened, that it was a normal world, that she and Kevin had merely stayed late in the classroom to study and had fallen asleep, or even that they were rebellious teenagers in love who had snuck into the building for a romantic rendezvous and had spent the night together.

Anything was easier to believe than the truth.

Getting up quietly, Penelope walked across the cold tile to the window and peeked through the closed slats of the blinds. The street outside looked the same as it always did. There were a few cars parked next to the curb, and the houses across the way were early morning still. The weather was gloomy and cold, the air touched with a tinge of fog.

Only there was no traffic on the street. Not a single car drove past, not a single pedestrian walked by.

In the center of the parking lot she saw empty, broken wine bottles.

Dion, she thought.

She felt a sickening twinge of nausea as she recalled Mother Janine bending over in front of Dion, baring her sex to him. What had happened to her mother after that? Had she been ruptured by his enormous organ?

Had she died from hemorrhaging or internal bleeding?

Penelope hoped so.

No, she didn’t.

Maybe she did.

She took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure. The truth was, she didn’t really know what she felt. Her thoughts and emotions were still in a state of shock. She peered through the blinds, at the hillside above their winery on the opposite side of the city. She thought of the orgy in the meadow last night, and though the remembrance horrified and frightened her, it was at the same time… enticing.

She moved away from the window. The pull was strong. There was no denying that. It was only strength and willpower that had kept her from succumbing, that had allowed her to overcome the base desires of her blood.

Blood.

That was the most frightening thing about it all. The fact that she wanted to be part of it, that she knew she should be part of it.

But how long could her mind hold out against her body and her emotions?

She moved away from the window. There was a telephone mounted on the wall to the side of the blackboard. She hadn’t noticed it last night, but she saw it now, and she walked across the room and picked it up.

No dial tone.

The phone was dead, but that didn’t really mean anything. The line just went to the switchboard in the office. If she could get to a phone on one of the outside lines, she might be able to call for help.

She walked over to the door, started pulling on the of the teacher’s desk to move it away. There was a loud screech as one of the desk legs scraped across the floor.

Kevin awoke with a start, practically leaping to his feet from the position on the floor in which he’d fallen asleep. He was instantly awake and on the alert, glancing quickly from the door to the windows and back again, before finally letting his gaze settle on Penelope.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I was going to look for a phone, see if we could go for help.”

“You were going to sneak out on your own?”

She looked away, embarrassed. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Shit.” He shook his head. “I guess you can’t trust anyone.”

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I thought we were in this together. It means that since we seem to be the only two normal people left in the whole fucking valley, I thought we were going to stick with each other and not sneak around behind each other’s backs.”

She looked at him apologetically. “Sorry.”

He was silent for a moment. “So where were you going to call from?”

“A phone in the office. Or the pay phone by the gym if that didn’t work.”

“Who were you going to call?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The police in Vallejo, maybe. Or Oakland. Or San Francisco.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But I’m coming with you.”

“Okay.”

Together they moved aside the desk and chairs they’d used to block the door. Kevin put his ear to the door for a moment, listening to make sure no one was out there, before opening it.

The hallway was deserted. And dark. It was morning, but no windows opened onto the hallway, and, save for theirs, the doors to all of the classrooms were closed. The lights were off.

Penelope had never seen the school like this, and somehow it seemed creepier than it had last night. Buildings were supposed to be dark at nighttime, but this daytime gloom was unnerving.

They walked slowly down the hallway toward the stairs, not speaking, treading softly. There were no sounds other than their own, but instead of reassuring her, the silence made her feel uneasy, on edge. Someone could be lying in wait for them right now, hearing their every move, listening to their progress, preparing to leap out from behind one of these closed doors… They made it safely to the stairway, started quietly down.

It was not as dark downstairs. A row of thin windows high above the lockers let in a dusty version of daylight. There was no noise, no indication that anyone else was present, but Penelope still felt tense.

They should have brought weapons, she thought. They were stupid. If someone attacked them, they had nothing with which to fight back.

They walked toward the office. It was weird being in here like this.

Usually, the corridor was crammed with students rushing to and