Burn Like Fire

by Jayme Morse

Dan rounded the corner and approached Gabe, who was still sitting in the same place on the sidewalk. He was no longer sobbing, but now he was staring off into space.

  “Hey, Gabe . . . I was wondering, do you want to come back to my house to hang out for a couple of days? We’ve been told to stay away from Huntington for now because they’re under attack,” Dan explained. Even though Lexi knew that he didn’t really want Gabe to come home to stay at his house for a while, that the whole reason he was agreeing to it was because it was what she wanted, he sounded really convincing.

  “I-I don’t know,” Gabe mumbled, not bothering to look up at him. “I might just stay here. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You won’t be intruding,” Lexi insisted. “Dan’s family has a really big house, and his parents are gone right now, so there’s plenty of room for you to stay there if you have nowhere else to go.”

  Gabe met her eyes, his cool blue irises seeming to study hers to see if she was serious about this. “Are you sure this is okay? You’re not still mad at me over the . . . the Justin thing?” His voice was merely a whisper, and it sounded like he was nervous to even mention Justin’s name.

  “It’s fine,” Lexi replied, even though it wasn’t. “I don’t want us to talk about Justin, though. I’m not going to lie . . . it still hurts me to know what you did to him. I don’t want to think about that right now, though. I want to try to put it past us.” She decided to leave out the fact that she knew, deep down inside, she would never really be able to forgive Gabe for what he had done to Justin, that the very most she would ever be able to do was try to forget what had happened enough to be civil with him. A part of her that she was trying to keep hidden right now hated him for what he had done.

  “Okay.” Gabe kept his eyes locked on hers. “Okay. I can do that. I won’t mention him. Thank you . . . for putting this past us.”

  Lexi nodded, glancing down at the ground.

  “Have you heard from your mom at all?” Dan questioned him.

  Gabe shook his head. “No, I’ve tried calling her over and over again, but she hasn’t been answering me. I know she’s okay, though. I had a vision, and she was smiling in it.” A look that Lexi couldn’t quite identify filled his eyes, but it quickly passed.

  “So, you think she’s avoiding you, then?” Dan asked.

  Gabe shrugged. “I-I guess so. Nothing else makes any sense.”

  “Why would your mom avoid you?” Lexi questioned. She didn’t know much about Gabe’s mom, aside from the fact that his mom didn’t approve of the relationship he’d had with Lexi because he was a vampire and she was a human. From what she understood, though, Mrs. Marshall really seemed to care about her son. So, it was really surprising for Lexi to hear that Gabe’s mom might be avoiding him for some reason.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since she randomly left Huntington,” Gabe replied with a shrug.

  “Maybe she’s not avoiding you . . . Maybe she doesn’t have her cell phone on her or something,” Lexi offered as an excuse, even though she knew her reasoning was weak.

  “Maybe,” Gabe said, but he didn’t sound too convinced. He sighed and stood up. “When are we getting out of here?”

  “We just need to let Austin and Anna know that we’re leaving. We haven’t told them yet,” Dan replied. “We’ll go do that now. Be ready to leave as soon as they’re good to go.”

  Gabe nodded. “Okay, I will be.” He turned to Lexi. “Thanks for letting me come with you guys. It means a lot to me.”

  She gave him a small smile. “No problem.” Even after she darted her eyes away from him, Lexi could still see Gabe staring at her.

  As she turned away, she hoped that she wasn’t making a really big mistake. She didn’t want to make Gabe think that there was still hope left for them. Because, no matter what happened, there wasn’t.

  Her heart belonged to Dan, fully and completely.

  Chapter 29

  Austin watched as Anna relaxed on the bed. She seemed really tired, but she seemed to be doing okay. Austin was trying to work up the nerve to tell Anna how much he wanted her to become a vampire, especially after Rhonda’s attack. Before he could say anything, though, there was a knock at the door.

  Austin groaned loudly. “Who is it?”

  “It’s us,” he heard Lexi’s voice call from outside the door. “Can we come in?”

  Anna motioned for Austin to open the door.

  When Lexi and Dan were inside, Austin slumped down into the chair at the small eat-in kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re not going back to Huntington tonight,” Lexi told him. “The school is under attack.”

  “What?” Austin jumped up, fists clenched. “Who’s attacking it?”

  “Who do you think?” Dan questioned, pointedly.

  “Greg Lawrence,” Austin murmured. He shook his head in frustration. “Well, we can’t just sit here. We have to go do something to help.”

  Lexi shook her head. “No, we can’t . . . or at least I can’t. My dad made me promise that I won’t go back to Huntington while it’s being attacked.” She sighed. “He doesn’t think it will be safe for me there.”

  “Well, of course it won’t be,” Austin agreed. “That doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t go, though.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Lexi replied. “I promised my dad I wouldn’t go, but I didn’t promise that the rest of you wouldn’t.”

  Twirling a piece of hair around her finger nervously, Anna hesitated. “I’m not so sure about this, guys. Maybe we’re better off just sitting this one out and letting the other students and teachers at Huntington take care of the problem.”

  Austin glanced over at her, surprised by what she’d said. “Anna, do you remember the reason you applied to Huntington in the first place?”

  “Yeah . . . to avenge my mom’s death,” Anna replied. Frowning, she added, “This is different. I wanted to get revenge, but I didn’t want to go on a vampire killing spree. That wouldn’t make me that much different from them, would it?”

  Austin shrugged. “It depends how you look at it. Don’t you think that your mom is up there in heaven watching down on you . . . and thinking that you can’t just let these vampires get away with what they’re doing? Don’t you think she would want you to stop them if you could so that they can’t do anything to hurt anyone else, the way her own family was hurt?”

  “I guess,” Anna replied, quietly. She looked down at her hands and bit one of her nails nervously. When she glanced back up, she explained, “I’m just scared.”

  “What are you scared of?” Austin asked, meeting her chocolate brown eyes with surprise. When he saw Anna, he always saw one of the bravest girls he had ever met. She was this badass vampire hunter chick who always seemed to be one step ahead of the game. It was shocking to him that Anna could be afraid of anything.

  “I just have a bad feeling about this. I’m afraid that Greg Lawrence has built up an army of vampires that are too powerful for us to ever defeat—that no matter how hard we try, there’s nothing we’ll ever be able to do to beat them,” Anna admitted.

  “We won’t be able to beat them unless we stand up to them in the first place,” Dan insisted from across the room. “We need to at least try to do something to stand up to them, or it’s like we’re already letting them win.”

  “Dan’s right,” Lexi agreed. “If my father didn’t make me promise to stay away, I would be out there on the front line fighting with all of you.” She paused. “Actually, screw promises. I might just come to help you guys fight, anyway. My father can’t really expect me to stay away when there’s a chance that I might be able to do something to help.”

  “One day,” Dan corrected her, turning to look at her. “That day isn’t today. I’m sorry, Lexi, but I want you to stay away from Huntington.”

  “But you’re planning to go,” Lexi protested. “How is that fair?”

  “I’m not as big of a target as you are. If Greg Lawrence sees y
ou, he’ll do everything in his power to make sure he brings you down.” Dan glanced over at her, with a softened look on his face. “I’m sorry, Lexi, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Lexi rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue with him.

  Austin turned to Anna. “I wish I could say I felt the same way Dan does about Lexi, but I don’t. I know how powerful you are. I know that if you set your mind to it, you can do anything you want—whether it’s killing Greg Lawrence and his posse or hunting down some random vampire. So, I hope you’ll be in. I think we’re going to need you.”

  Anna stared at him for a long moment before sighing. “Fine, you can count me in. As long as you’re going to be there, I guess I can’t complain too much. I’m not about to let you go without me. You’ll probably get yourself killed.”

  Austin chuckled. “Yeah, that’s true. See, you have to be there to save my ass.”

  Anna gave him a small smile. She glanced over at Lexi. “What’s our plan, then? Are we going straight to Huntington?”

  Lexi shook her head. “No, we’re not. We’re going to go to Dan’s house for the night to recoup. It will give us some time to actually form a plan. We’ll go from there.”

  “Okay, sounds good to me,” Anna said. “We need some time to pack things up, but we should be ready to leave in ten minutes or so.”

  Dan started to walk towards the door, but Lexi lingered behind. “Gabe is coming with us. Just so you guys know.”

  “He is?” Austin asked. At first, he was more shocked by this news than anything else. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about his cousin forgiving Gabe so easily; how could she forget the fact that he had killed her ex-boyfriend and kept it from her for months?

  Even though he had trusted him at one point in time, in Austin’s mind, Gabe was nothing more than a deranged psycho now. The more Austin thought about it, the more it made him feel sick to his stomach to think that he would be spending the night under the same roof as this backstabber.

  “Yeah, it’s . . . it’s a long story,” Lexi explained. “I might tell it to you one day, but for now, can you just try to be nice to him? It would mean a lot to me.”

  Austin felt his own jaw drop, as he gaped at her. He glanced over at Dan. “And you’re okay with this?”

  Dan shrugged. “I didn’t have much of a say. It was what she wanted. If it makes her happy, it’s fine with me.”

  “We’ll be nice,” Anna promised them. “Now, let us pack up so we can get out of here.”

  Once the door closed behind Lexi and Dan, Austin turned to Anna. “Why did you tell them we’ll be nice to Gabe?”

  “Because we will be nice to Gabe,” she replied. When she saw the confused look on Austin’s face, she explained, “It doesn’t really matter how we feel about Gabe right now. Lexi and Dan already made their minds up about letting him come back to his house with us, for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter what the reason is—we have to be nice. It’s the polite, civil thing to do.”

  Austin considered what she was saying. He knew that she was mostly right; being polite was the civil thing to do, but it did make him like it any less. “Do you trust Gabe?”

  “Do you?” Anna shot back at him.

  “No,” Austin admitted. “Not after the whole Justin thing.”

  “Me, either,” Anna replied. Pressing her chin against Austin’s shoulder, she said, “We have to be nice because it’s the right thing to do, but I also think we should keep an eye on him. We can’t let him out of our sight for too long or trust him at night when Lexi’s sleeping. We’ll even take shifts watching him to make sure everything’s okay. Will that make you feel a little better about him staying with us?”

  Austin nodded. “Yeah, it would make me feel slightly better about everything, I guess. Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Anna gave him a small kiss on the lips. “Hey, what did you want to ask me about before Dan and Lexi came into our room?”

  “Oh, I don’t even remember,” Austin lied. “Maybe it will come back to me some other time.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Anna murmured, nuzzling her chin against his chest.

  Austin listened to the soft sound of her beating heart. Even though he knew it drew him to her to some extent, it was the one thing that he wanted to change about her . . . the one thing he wished she didn’t have anymore.

  *

  When they were outside, Austin handed Dan the keys to the car. He wanted to relax with Anna in the backseat. As she laid her head in his lap, she inhaled the scent of his Ralph Lauren cologne. It made her feel drawn to him.

  Austin told her he wouldn’t drink from her for at least a week so her body had a chance to replenish its blood, which made Anna feel disappointed. She couldn’t help but think about the amazing moment she and Austin had shared when he’d drank her blood in the motel room the other day. Nothing could compare to the way she felt when he drank from her.

  Anna sometimes wondered if it felt this way for other vampires. She had always known that it was supposed to be one of the most romantic things a human and a vampire could share with one another, but she had never expected it to feel quite as good as it did. She’d always assumed it was like sex—something that looked really great in the movies, but that was only so-so in real life.

  Anna couldn’t have been any more wrong.

  When she glanced over at Austin, she found that he was watching her carefully. “Is everything okay?” he whispered when he caught her gaze.

  “Yeah, everything is great. More than great, actually.” Anna smiled at him. She made a decision. She was going to tell him tonight that she didn’t want to become a vampire. As much as she loved Austin and she knew that she wanted to be with him forever, she didn’t want to have to sacrifice the special bond that they shared. She didn’t want to have to give up the best feeling in the world.

  Part of her wondered if they would even still be attracted to each other if they were both vampires. As much as she would like to think that they would be, the truth was, she hadn’t met Austin until after he had already turned. It made her wonder how different things would be if they’d met at a different time.

  Would they have both been attracted to each other if they had both been humans when they’d first met, or would the chemistry that they shared—the chemistry that seemed to be the result of the blood that ran through Anna’s veins and Austin’s incessant hunger—never have existed?

  As Dan pulled the car into the circular driveway outside a huge mansion a few hours later, Anna felt her own jaw drop. She stared at the statues and water fountain that loomed in front of them. “This is your house? Why didn’t you tell us you were rich?”

  Dan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Because I’m not rich. This isn’t my house; it’s my parents’ house.” He turned off the ignition and swung open his car door. “Come on.”

  Anna opened her own car door, and tumbled out of the car and onto the black pavement. She followed Dan across the driveway and up to the front door of the house. Austin and Gabe climbed out of the car behind her and followed close behind.

  When Dan rang the doorbell, Anna raised her eyebrows. “You don’t have a key to your own house?”

  Dan glanced over at her. “Like I said, it’s not my house. It’s my parents’ house. And it’s a newer house. It’s the house they bought when they moved away from Briar Creek.”

  “You didn’t go with them?” Anna asked, surprised. Even though she and Austin had been spending a lot of time with Dan lately, she didn’t know all that much about his upbringing.

  Dan shook his head. “No, I didn’t want to have to uproot my life just to go to another town where I wouldn’t fit in. And the main reason my parents wanted to leave was because of me . . . because I turned into a vampire. They were—and still are—embarrassed of what I’ve become. When they left, I stayed with my Uncle John so I wouldn’t have to leave Briar Creek.”

  “Why was your family living in Briar Creek in the first pla
ce?” Anna found herself questioning. “If they didn’t want you to become a vampire, maybe they shouldn’t have been living in a town that was full of vampires.”

  Dan laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. The thing is, my parents had no clue that there were vampires in Briar Creek. When they moved me and my sister there, all they saw was the nice houses and the perfect yards.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Anna murmured. “You have a sister?”

  As if on cue, the front door of the house was flung open and a pretty girl with blonde, curly hair stared back at them. “Hello,” she said, offering them all a small smile. “I’m Dan’s sister, Caroline.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Anna started to say as they all moved slowly into the house, but she noticed right away that Caroline’s eyes had drifted over to Gabe.

  Chapter 30

  “Caroline?” Gabe asked, his voice merely a whisper. A lump had formed in the back of his throat, and he wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or cry. It was all he could do to take in the beautiful girl who stood before him—the beautiful girl who he hadn’t seen in years.

  Caroline couldn’t seem to peel her eyes away from him, either; her blue, cat-shaped eyes pored through his in a way that felt all too familiar to him. “Yes, my name is Caroline,” she replied, softly, her voice a beautiful symphony. “What’s yours?”

  “Gabriel.” He cleared his throat. “Err, most people call me Gabe.”

  “Gabe. I must say, I prefer Gabriel.” Caroline’s lips tilted into a small smile, as she extended her hand to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Hadn’t those been the exact same words she’d said the first time they’d met?

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Gabe whispered back. When he touched her soft hand, he felt a tiny jolt ripple through his body, the type of jolt that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Judging from the amused look in Caroline’s eyes, Gabe was pretty sure she had felt it, too, but he was too afraid to ask.