a wild animal that might attack her at any moment. The pop-song ringtone sounded a second time. ‘I’ll just . . .’ she said again, before hurrying out of the room and closing the door.
A moment later, Ivy heard her sister murmuring in the hallway. He’d better not hurt her again, Ivy thought fiercely. She liked Jackson, but it had taken Olivia ages to recover after his megastar lifestyle had driven them apart. Seeing her sister upset was pretty much the one thing Ivy could not bear.
Biting down on her worry, she distracted herself with Holly’s email:
Come if you want, but don’t feel you HAVE to . . .
Sigh. Of course she couldn’t really say that, no matter how much she wanted to. Instead, she deleted and started again, summoning some of Olivia’s cheerleader pep:
We’d love to see you !!!
Were three exclamation points too obviously fake? Ivy tapped one black-nailed finger on her desktop, trying to make up her mind.
Before she could make any changes, though, Olivia stepped back in the room, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.
‘That was Jackson,’ she said. ‘Did you know it was Jackson? You probably knew it was Jackson.’
‘Well –’ Ivy began.
Olivia didn’t wait to let her answer. ‘He was calling from a photo shoot, and he said it made him think of me.’ She perched on the edge of the chair beside Ivy, almost shivering with tension. ‘Do you think that means something? It probably doesn’t mean anything. But . . .’
Her words were tumbling over each other so quickly, Ivy gave up on trying to break in. Olivia might not have vampire super-strength, but right now she was talking with full vampire-style super-speed.
‘He said the shoot was themed around dreams coming true, and it made him wonder . . . didn’t my dreams come true when I went to Hollywood?’
Ivy winced, thinking of Olivia’s starring role in the movie Eternal Sunset. The only thing ‘eternal’ about the movie was the delays caused by Hollywood industry strikes. The movie had been put on hold indefinitely and Olivia’s dreams of building a career had stalled. She’d come back home and Jackson had moved on with his celebrity life. Now Olivia was stuck in limbo – or Franklin Grove, as they usually called it.
‘He sounded really wistful, like . . . like he was missing me.’ Olivia’s eyes glimmered, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she talked even faster. ‘I didn’t know what to say to that. So I thought, just to break the tension, I’d mention that book Holly was talking about at the picnic.’
‘Bare Throats at Sunset ?’ Ivy groaned. ‘Now there’s a romantic subject.’
‘That’s not the problem.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘He said he’d look out for it, but Ivy – the strangest thing of all was what he said just before hanging up.’ She finally stopped talking, her blue eyes wide and filled with panic.
Ivy frowned, feeling all her protective instincts rising. Hollywood mega-star or not, if Jackson Caulfield has said or done anything to hurt my sister . . .
‘He warned me to look out for vampires.’
‘What?!’ Ivy’s jaw dropped open.
‘I know!’ Olivia nodded. ‘I was so shocked, but I still managed to bluff. I said, “What vampires?” But then he asked me, hadn’t I seen his chirps?’
Ivy was already twisting around to her computer to load Jackson’s BirdChirp account. BirdChirp was an online social networking group that almost everyone had an account with, from A-list stars to people as normal as the twins. Well, if you can call us normal, Ivy thought, remembering all the scrapes they managed to get into.
‘What were his chirps?’
‘He said there’s this funny blog that’s become a bit of a viral hit . . .’ Olivia’s voice trailed off as Ivy clicked Jackson’s latest link and a new web page flashed up. Its header made Ivy immediately feel her skin prickle with sweat.
Vampires . . . in Franklin Grove !
‘Oh no,’ Olivia whispered. She slumped on to Ivy’s coffin-bed.
Ivy couldn’t speak. She scrolled down the web page, horror sending chills across her skin as she read.
‘If you think vampires only live in horror stories or Transylvania, think again. They’re here, they’re in the heart of America, and they’re walking the streets of Franklin Grove. Don’t believe us? Then get your teeth stuck into our weekly update on vampire sightings that will make your BLOOD run cold . . .’
Ivy stared at the screen, reading the same words over and over again. ‘Jackson’s been chirping about this?’
‘And millions of people follow him,’ Olivia said softly.
‘No wonder the blog’s gone viral.’ Ivy felt sick as she looked down at the hundreds of comments listed under the most recent entry. ‘At this point, it’s practically an Internet disease.’ Especially where vampires are concerned.
‘What are we going to do?’ Olivia said.
Ivy stiffened her shoulders. ‘We’ll take our own Internet action,’ she said. ‘We have to get on the Vorld Vide Veb and send a batsqueak.’ It was the VVV equivalent of a BirdChirp, and Ivy couldn’t think of any faster way to spread the message among vampires. ‘We have to alert our whole community about the danger.’
Olivia nodded, looking determined. ‘They’ll have to keep an eye out for this blogger, whoever it is.’
‘And be careful not to do anything too vamptastic.’ Ivy grimaced. ‘No more super-powered games of Frisbee, I guess.’
‘Not unless you can all control your strength.’ Olivia got up from the bed and stood beside Ivy. ‘But it’s going to be OK. Now that we know what’s going on, you guys can protect yourselves.’
‘That still doesn’t answer the real question . . .’ said Ivy, staring at the signature at the end of the blogger’s post.
‘Your brave reporter in the heart of Franklin Grove.’
Ivy shook her head. That could be anybody – literally. It was time to focus. ‘How does this blogger know the truth about vampires?’
‘And why does he or she want to expose them?’ Olivia asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Ivy said. ‘But I know one thing for sure.’ She folded her arms, glaring at the blog on her computer screen as if she could laser it with her eyes. ‘It’s lucky I came back when I did.’
No matter how hard she tried, Olivia couldn’t make her nerves stop being so . . . nervy. The wistfulness in Jackson’s tone as he’d talked about their perfect time in Hollywood, back when she’d really believed that they would be together forever . . . What with that and the vampire blog
