Infinite Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

different-colored sandals—one red, one yellow—and a blue button-down shirt. His facial features showed him to be Japanese. I started to speak to him in his native tongue, “Why would you want to sit with me?”
    He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows screwed up. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair. “I don’t speak Japanese,” he said in English. “But my parents do.”
    “Strange,” I said. “A Japanese boy who only speaks English?” I took off my sunglasses so our eyes could meet.
    “How do you know Japanese?” He leaned his right hand on the stone wall and kept eye contact with me.
    “I know a lot of languages,” I said. I stared through the brown of his irises, forging a bond. Vampires use the gaze as a way to see your intentions. If the person stares back at you, you can trust them. Sometimes this failed me, and I was lied to regardless. Once I discovered this betrayal, I had no problem ripping out their throats with my teeth. But this boy, he had a white aura and an innocence to his soul.
    “How many languages can you speak?” he asked.
    “Twenty-five,” I said honestly.
    He laughed, seeming not to believe me. When I didn’t react but looked into his brown eyes quite earnestly, his jaw dropped.
    “You should work for the CIA.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Tony,” he said, and I shook his hand. I snuck a peek at his inner wrist. The veins stuck out just fine—he would have been an easy kill.
    “Lenah Beaudonte,” I said.
    “Beaudonte,” he said, drawing out the e so it sounded like ay. “Fancy. So can I?” He gestured to an open spot on the wall next to me.
    “Why?” I asked. I didn’t inquire in a mean or accusatory way. I was genuinely interested in why this seemingly normal boy would want to sit next to a person like me.
    “Because everyone out here pretty much sucks?” he proposed. He nodded in the direction of the pretty girls still looking my way. Now they were standing even closer together, occasionally peeking up at me. I smirked in response. I liked his honesty. I also liked the use of the word “suck” in a non-vampire situation.
    Communication in this century was fascinating. It was so casual and without the formality that I was accustomed to hearing in the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, as many times before, I would have to adapt. For hundreds of years I had listened to the parting of lips and undulations of tongues. I had stood on the fringe and studied, translated, sometimes in many dialects, in order to find the best way to adapt and fit in. Understanding the way people spoke to one another assured that I could interact and mingle in society without being noticed—it made it easier to kill.
    I broke from these thoughts when Tony hoisted himself up and let his legs dangle over the edge of the stone wall. He kicked his heels back so they bounced off the stone. We sat there for a moment, and I liked the silence; in fact, it gave me an opportunity to look him over. He was a bit taller than me, and burly, like a wrestler. Sitting this close, I was able to see the wispy lines of veins running along his neck. But that’s not what kept my attention. He wore at least ten earrings in each ear! Some were so wide that they had stretched his earlobe out and I could see right through it.
    “So, why are you sitting over here by yourself?” he asked.
    I pulled back quickly and placed my sunglasses on. I thought it over a moment; the way I would speak, that is. I remembered the way the car delivery boy spoke, and the casual intonation behind Tony’s words; both were quite easy to understand. Words in this century were lazy, and the formulation behind them held very little social expectation. Everyone seemed to speak this way, with very little worry for formality. I could do this, I thought. I would have to internalize contemporary cultural references, but this won’t take long at all . I exhaled as a smile crossed my face. “Because most of the