“We drove,” Cecile supplied. “But the car broke down.”
“Can you take me to it?” Drake said. “I know a thing or
two about cars.”
“I know a thing or two about cars, too,” Cecile said, her
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
eyes narrowing a little. “What do you think, I need a man to
change my tires for me?”
“Were you able to fix whatever’s wrong with it?” Drake
asked.
Cecile was silent for a moment. “No,” she admitted.
“Would you mind if I just take a look?”
She sighed. “Oh, all right,” she conceded.
We all followed her back in the direction we had come.
As we walked, I couldn’t help but notice the change that had
come over my best friend. Her usually frizzy hair was shiny
and bouncy. Her skin was positively radiant, seeming to give
off a glow even in the late afternoon light. She was even well
put together and clean, which was frankly shocking after all
we’d been through. I knew I didn’t look tidy at all. I tried to
run a hand through my hair and came away holding a stick.
My hands and arms were covered with dirt. I was a mess.
Cecile was immaculate.
How could that be?
We seemed to reach the car very quickly. I was
surprised, given how long our flight through the woods had
seemed. Were we all moving faster than usual? I sure wasn’t
capable of the high speeds I’d seen from Cryder, but Drake
probably was, and as for Cecile, she was skipping along like she
didn’t know what her feet were doing. Maybe it was just the
fact that I was relaxed now and not being chased by a
psychopath. That would probably make anyone feel less aware
of time passing.
The car was right where we’d left it. “Do you have a
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spare tire?” Drake asked.
“I don’t know,” Cecile said stiffly. She really didn’t
know anything about cars. A laugh welled up in my throat, but
I pushed it down—she wouldn’t appreciate my finding humor
in that. It was just so very Cecile to insist that she was perfectly capable of handling everything, even when she wasn’t.
Drake checked the trunk of the car and found the spare
and a jack. He quickly had the car propped up and began
screwing the lug nuts off the tire with his bare hand.
“Um,” I said, staring. “Don’t you need a tool to do
that?”
“I didn’t see a lug wrench back there,” he said. “It’s all
right, I can handle it.”
I turned to Cryder. “At some point we’re going to have
to talk about all this, you know.”
“All what?”
“Don’t give me that.”
“What am I giving you?”
“You know perfectly well all what. The fact that he can
unscrew those with his bare hands. The way you guys run.
How strong you are. The...the fangs.” I swallowed.
“Everything.”
“Oh.” Cryder nodded slowly. “Right. Of course. Okay.”
“I mean soon, Cryder.”
“Soon, yes.”
“Soon like today.”
“We’ll go back to our house,” Drake said, from where
he was crouched on the ground. I hadn’t realized he was
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
listening. “It’s the best place to talk in private.”
“You two live together?” Cecile asked, raising an
eyebrow at each of them in turn. “Are you like…together?”
“Of course not,” Cryder said, looking scandalized.
“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that,” Cecile
said.
“There would be something wrong with my courting
Rena if I was already involved with someone else,” he pointed
out.
Cecile mimed a spit take. “Courting? What are you
going to do, ask her to the debutante ball?”
“If there was a debutante ball,” Cryder said, now
looking thoroughly annoyed, “I would ask her.” He turned to
Drake. “And I’m not sure bringing them to our house is the
best idea right now, Drake.”
“Why not?” he asked, tightening the final lug nut on
the new tire. He got to his feet and dusted off his hands on the
knees of his pants. “It’s the safest place.”
“Everything’s bound to come out if we go there,”
Cryder hedged.
“That’s for the best,” Drake said. “Cecile needs to know
everything now.”
“But, Rena.”
“It’s about time you told me what’s going on, Cryder,” I
interjected. “I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark like this, especially about things that are so obviously important.” I
shook slightly, but I pushed it aside. So much had happened in
such a short period of time.
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Drake’s eyes were soft. “You can’t really shield her any
longer, Cryder. Not after what’s just happened. She deserves to
know.”
“Thank you,” I said, but a thrill of fear shot through me.
What was I about to discover? What had Cryder thought I
needed protecting from?
I was about to ask, but suddenly the world swam, and
the ground seemed to rush up at me. I felt like I was falling in
slow motion, and as my vision blacked out, I had time to
realize it had been almost a full day since I’d had any of
Cryder’s mystery concoction. Hands grabbed my shoulders and
I thought I heard someone calling my name from far away, but
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even think of what to say.
Then they were gone.
And I heard a different voice.
Dad.
He was singing along with the radio, replacing Bobby
Darin’s classic lyrics with some riff about the town we were
passing through, and I was laughing...but it wasn’t me. It was
young-me, me as I had been before anything had happened,
me before I knew how dark life could get. Watching the scene,
I wanted to wrap my arms around that little girl and protect
her from everything I knew lay in her future, but I was utterly
helpless. I could do nothing but watch. I watched as the car
swerved and the lights flashed, and through my pounding ears
came the horrible crunch of metal that sometimes filled my
deepest nightmares. But I wasn’t asleep this time. I couldn’t
claw my way out of whatever this was. I couldn’t depend on
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
Cecile to burst in and wake me up.
The scene shifted. I was outside the car, sitting on the
grass beside my younger self, who was crying. There were
sirens, and screams, and Mom—
Mom?
No. She’d died in the car. She wasn’t in this part of the
memory.
But I heard her. She was upset—of course she was upset,
we’d been in a crash, Dad was—but she was angry. She was
yelling at someone. Why was she so angry? Was it the other
driver? I didn’t understand. I felt like I was a little kid all over again, staring at the chaos of this scene, utterly unable to take in what had happened and was continuing to happen. None of
/>
it made any sense.
Against my better judgement, I tried to look toward the
car. More than anything, I wanted to avoid seeing the mangled
wreckage that had stolen my former life. But I had to know
what was happening.
As soon as I turned my eyes toward the vehicle, though,
I was met by a blinding light. I had to close my eyes
immediately. It was too painful to look. Was that
psychosomatic? I tried to peek again and got the same result.
My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, then—it was a genuine
light preventing me from seeing anything that was going on.
My mother was over there—I could still hear her yelling—but
I couldn’t go to her or even look at her. Had that happened?
Was this how it had really been, the day of the accident? It
couldn’t have been. I would have remembered something so
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strange and unsettling.
Wouldn’t I?
Could this have happened, but I’d blocked it out or
simply forgotten in the wake of all the other trauma of that
day? Was that possible?
A hand took hold of my arm—it was gentle, not
rough—and pulled me close. I was lifted into strong, capable
arms. That felt familiar. This happened. I was sure of it, even
though I didn’t know exactly how I knew.
“Rena!” my mother screamed. I wanted to go to her. I
struggled against the arms that were holding me, but it felt as if I’d become my young self. Whoever had me was so strong that
my own strength was childlike.. or maybe my perception was
simply merging with the memory. Whatever it was, I couldn’t
get away. Instead, I was pulled closer, held against someone
who smelled clean and earthy, with a hint of smoke. Like the
woods.
Like Cryder.
Another shift.
Now I was in a hospital room. I remembered this part.
The machines were beeping. I was wearing a hospital gown
that didn’t cover me adequately and lying on a pillow that was
so flat it might as well have not been there at all. My arm
throbbed from the IV. I could feel it nestled under my skin,
itching and pulling at me uncomfortably. But all of that was
eclipsed by the horrible knowledge of the crash that came
rushing back to me, and the understanding that I was alone in
the world. My parents were gone.
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
But Mom was outside the car.
I felt short of breath.
Had she survived the crash? Could she be alive after all?
How could that be? Surely, she would have come to
find me. Cecile’s house had to be the first place anyone would
look. I hadn’t been hidden. No. I couldn’t believe this. If Mom
was alive, she wouldn’t have let me believe otherwise even for a
day. She would have come for me. Whatever I was
experiencing, it was a dream, not a memory. It hadn’t
happened this way, and I couldn’t allow myself to be suckered
into thinking like this.
I couldn’t….
I heard soft voices. “She’s coming around,” someone
said.
I blinked my eyes open.
The hospital was gone. I was on the ground beside the
car, staring up at three concerned faces. “Rena!” Cecile gasped.
“Are you all right?”
I wanted to answer her, but my vision swam. I closed
my eyes.
“We need to get her inside,” Drake said, sounding
alarmed. “Put her in the car, Cryder.”
“Just a minute,” Cryder said. He was holding me up,
one arm under my shoulders and the other brushing the hair
out of my face. “We can take a minute here. She’s dizzy.”
I was dizzy. I was glad he’d said so.
“Take a deep breath, Rena,” Cryder advised. His voice
was gentle. “Get some air.”
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I closed my eyes and did as he’d advised. .and
immediately was hit with that woodsy scent from the memory,
or vision, or whatever I’d seen. Cryder! I snapped my eyes open,
which made the world spin again, but I had to know. “You!
You were there?”
“What?” There was fear in Cecile’s voice. “What is she
talking about?”
“Oh, Rena…” Cryder breathed.
“You were at the crash, weren’t you? I... you saved me?”
Had he been the one to take me away from the car, to the
hospital? Was it possible?
The implications were overwhelming. I wanted to hear
Cryder’s answer, but it was all too much—the dizziness, the
colors disappearing around me, the weakness drowning me. I
let my eyes slip closed and succumbed once again.
This time, there was only darkness.
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
Chapter Fourteen
` THE FIRST THING TO PENETRATE THE blackness
was the smell of coffee. Cecile’s coffee. I’d have known it
anywhere. She always added nutmeg to the brew, called it her
secret recipe. Everyone who had ever tried it loved it.
Everyone loved Cecile.
A moment later I heard her voice. I couldn’t make out what she
was saying, but I knew I’d recognize that strident tone and
whisper that couldn’t quite contain itself anywhere. It brought
to mind every time she’d hissed a secret across the aisle to me
during school, insistent that whatever she had to say couldn’t
wait.
I opened my eyes.
I was in a bedroom I didn’t recognize, with pale yellow
walls and mahogany furnishings, lit by a dim light. The room
was empty. But I could hear Cecile’s voice not far away. A
moment later, Cryder spoke. They must have been just outside
the door.
I pushed back the comforter and got to my feet, slowly,
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because I expected the dizziness to wash over me as soon as I
stood up. But to my surprise, I felt fine. It was as if I’d gotten a hearty meal and a full night’s sleep. How long was I out? Was it
possible I’d slept through the night?
A cracked door in the corner of the room proved to lead
to a bathroom. I stepped to the sink, turned it on, and splashed
some cold water on my face.
Whoa.
The water felt…
Well, it felt rich. I wasn’t sure how else to describe it. It
was like sinking into a soft down mattress, biting into a spoon
full of whipped cream, and stroking your skin with silk, all
rolled into one. I jerked back, startled, and wiped my face on
my arm. Then, cautiously, I held my hand under the water. It
produced the same feeling.
What is this? Wherever we were—Drake and Cryder’s
house? Had we gone there? —something was very strange
about the water. I steeled myself and washed my face,
scrubbing extra hard with my hands to distract from the
strange, frightening feel of the water.
Then I looked up at the mirror.
What?
It was me that much was clear. Same eyes, same
birthmark above my mouth. The reflection in the mirror
>
moved when I did. And yet something was different. It was
something subtle, yet somehow significant enough that I
almost thought I was looking at a different person. When was
the last time I’d gotten out of bed with my hair in such perfect
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
condition? When was the last time my skin had been so clear
and even? It was like my idealized version of myself. And come
to think of it...hadn’t I had bruises around my neck? I pulled at the collar of my shirt, checking, gently touching my skin.
Nothing. I was bruise-free.
What the hell?
I closed my eyes, trying to make sense of it all, but
behind my eyelids the only thing I could see was the crashed
car that had risen in my memory the night before. And there
was my mom, screaming, yelling—
Fighting.
She was fighting.
And as she turned to me, the sun flashed and revealed
her golden eyes, her bared fangs.
Mom?
Cryder, young but still powerful. He’d been there, too. I
saw him clearly now, darting past the car, lifting me in his
arms. I remembered being placed in a car. Then nothing.
And then the hospital.
He drove me to the hospital. I’d always assumed it had
been an ambulance. I’d never asked. But it had been Cryder all
along.
How could that be?
I made my way out of the bathroom, switching off the
light. I was half tempted to get back into bed and see if the
world made more sense when I woke up again. But I couldn’t.
It was time for answers.
I stepped out into the hall.
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Cecile, Cryder, and Drake were there, waiting for me.
Everyone looked up from where they sat in the hallway.
I could tell they’d been up all night, but not in any of
the usual ways. Nobody was red-eyed or tired looking. Nobody
had messed up hair or wrinkled clothing. Instead, it was in the
way they reacted to me, as if they were all exhaling collectively, letting out a breath that had been held for far too long. They’d
been worrying about me, I realized. These people—all of
them—truly cared what happened to me.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk.”
***
I wanted coffee, but Drake said no.
“She needs to be taking in as much of the mixture as
possible right now,” he said, speaking to Cryder over his
shoulder. “If she’s hungry or thirsty, prepare her some.”
Yearn For Blood (Blood Origins Book 1) Page 11
