Swear

by Amanda Hocking

  It had been over a week since Elise had last come to me in my dreams, before I had gone to Ireland to her home and before Cate had confessed to her murder. Part of me had hoped that she would be done visiting now that Peter had solved her murder so she could move on.

  But that apparently wasn't the case.

  I opened my eyes in the field of blue flowers, but the usual sun had given way to dark clouds rolling over head. Elise walked toward me, her dark gown and crimson hair blowing around her.

  "Alice," she called as she came toward me.

  "Why are you here?" I asked. "I know what happened to you."

  She tilted her head, and I realized her eyes matched the dark gray of clouds. "What do you mean?"

  "I know that Cate - er, Catherine - killed you."

  She shook her head, appearing unmoved by what I'd told her. "That's not why I've been coming to you."

  "But I solved your murder!" I protested. "Isn't that why ghosts hang around? What other unfinished business could you possibly have?"

  "Peter," she said simply, and thunder rumbled in the distance as a cold breeze blew over me. For the first time, I could feel the wind that ruffled her hair.

  "What about Peter? If you need to make amends with him or whatever, you should be talking to him."

  "He's not the one I can reach," she said. "I don't know why I'm here anymore than you do."

  "That sounds like bullshit to me."

  Already, the flowers were climbing up my arms, their vines digging in my flesh that started to pull me toward the ground.

  "I only know that there is grave danger coming toward you, and that if it isn't stopped, it will destroy Peter completely," Elise said as her voice echoed through the air. "And I can't let that happen to him. He must find peace."

  "What danger? You're going to have to give me more than that."

  "I don't know more than that!" she yelled, sounding truly distressed for the first time since she began visiting me. "I would tell you more if I could!"

  As my hands sunk deep in the cold dirt and the vines cut into my skin, I said, "Well, the good news is that Peter is safe and sound, hundreds of miles away from me. Whatever trouble is coming for me won't affect him."

  "Alice, please," she begged as the ground began swallowing me up. Her words sounded muffled as the flowers pulled the earth in over me. "You must take care. There isn't any time left."

  "What do you mean there isn't time left? What's happening?" I shouted but the dirt was already filling my lungs.

  I woke up in my bed, shivering from the cold of being buried alive. I reached over, hoping to find Jack so I could curl up with and chase the nightmare away. But I was alone.

  Last night, after discovering Jessamine's murder, I'd come home and immediately told Jack, Milo, and Bobby everything that was going on, and everything Abner suggested. Milo finally contended that lying low might be the only way to keep us all alive.

  We took extra precautions, double locking the solid metal doors and making sure there were stakes and knives in every nightstand. The windows that surrounded the apartment we'd already replaced with high impact bulletproof glass years ago, but we drew the shades just to add an extra layer of privacy. Matilda would have to skip her nightly walks and use the garden patio on the rooftop deck, which wasn't ideal, but it was the safer option.

  Now, alone in our bedroom, I got up slowly, and I was about to go get dressed when I heard voices talking in the living room. There was nothing abnormal about that, since Milo, Bobby, and Jack were cooped up with me.

  But this voice sounded very, very distinct. Deep and resonating with a faded British accent that had begun to grow stronger.

  I opened the bedroom door and slowly padded down the hall to find Peter and Ezra sitting in the living room with Jack and Bobby. From the kitchen, I heard clanging and Matilda whining for treats and the scent of maple syrup, so Milo must've been making Bobby breakfast.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked, feeling lightheaded. After Elise's warning about Peter, discovering him in my living room when I woke up was very disorientating and distressing.

  Peter sat in the chair with one leg crossed over his knee and looked puzzled. "Good morning to you, too."

  "Milo called us," Ezra explained, and I forced myself to look over at him. "He said there was trouble here, and he wasn't sure that you all were safe."

  "So why did you come here?" I demanded weakly. "You were safe in London. It's not safe here. Milo and Bobby and Jack can go to you. You should stay in London."

  "The same reason you told us last night," Jack spoke slowly and carefully, with concern growing in his eyes over my reaction. "The House of Basarab might follow us there, or there might be even more followers in England. We don't know, so it's safer to stay put for now. That's what Abner told you."

  I nodded, but my heart had started hammering in my chest, and everyone could hear it so they were looking at me like I had three heads. I was pretty sure that I might pass out at any second, because Peter was here, he was here like Elise warned, and nothing was safe.

  "You should go, though," I insisted and my voice was growing stronger but shriller. "You should all go to London. I can stay here. They won't follow you to London, probably not, if I'm here. So, you should all go."

  "Alice." Ezra got up off the couch and walked over to me. I was still mumbling about how they should go, so he put his hands on my shoulders and forced me to look up at him. "Alice, Peter and I are here to help, and we will help. It's going to be all right. With all of us here, together, we'll be safe."

  "But danger is coming, and I don't know if any of us will be okay," I said, with tears filling my eyes. "I don't think we'll all make it this time."

  Ezra studied me before asking, "What happened?"

  "I just... I had a bad dream," I said lamely. I hadn't told Peter about my dreams of Elise, and I wasn't ready to start now. Not feeling the way I did at that moment.

  But Ezra's mahogany eyes widened with understanding. He'd been the one I turned to when I realized it was Elise haunting me, and I knew that he knew exactly the kind of dream I had.

  "Alice, I swear to you, we will work together, and it will be okay," Ezra said, and his deep calmness finally seemed to break through my panic and shock. I wiped my eyes and nodded. "We're a family, and we look out for each other, no matter what."

  I SHOULD'VE KNOWN SOMETHING WAS UP.

  Once Ezra helped me calm down, we all sat around and discussed various options and plans. Ultimately, we decided that it was best to stay on the course we were currently on - hiding out for a few days until the Agency either gave us an all-clear or directed us to do something else.

  Then Jack disappeared, claiming he had to get some work done and our bedroom would be the best place to do it, while Ezra tried to come up with ways to distract us all from worrying so much about our impending doom. Which mostly involved stilted conversation, cumbersome board games, and eventually just watching nature specials and trying not to think about how much vampires were like predators eviscerating their prey.

  As it got closer to sunrise, Jack came out of the back bedroom, looking overly nonchalant, but he had this odd jitteriness about him when he asked me, "Alice, can you join me for a second? I wanted to show you something."

  "Sure," I said, then glanced over at Ezra and Peter sitting beside me on the couch. "But it's getting late, so I should get sleeping arrangements figured out for our guests."

  "Don't worry about it," Milo said quickly, his voice lilting with forced cheer. "I'll take care of it. You can just go with Jack."

  "Yeah, just go ahead with Jack," Bobby chimed in. "We'll take care of the mess out here." He motioned to the board games on the table and the pillows strewn about the room from where he and Milo sat camped out on the floor.

  "Okay?" I replied uncertainly and slowly got to my feet. "Is something going on?"

  "You've been on edge, and it would do you good to relax for a few moments," Ezra assured me warmly. "Don
't worry about us right now."

  "This is all super weird," I muttered as I let Jack lead me back to our room.

  Through the shut door, I could already hear The National's "Fake Empire" playing softly. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob, smiling down nervously at me, and his soft eyes danced with excitement. Then he opened the door and stepped to the side so I could go in first.

  Flower petals of various shades of blue were sprinkled over the bed and floor, and candles were carefully placed around the edge of the room, glowing warmly. Sheer fabric hung from the ceiling just above the bed, giving it an intimate feel.

  I recognized all the decorations and romantic flourishes as being from Milo's wedding, but it didn't make it any less beautiful.

  "I planned on getting you all new stuff, and having this whole big romantic set up for you, but with everything that's happening, I didn't want to wait anymore, but I couldn't really run to the store either, so I just used what we had around here," he explained.

  "It's beautiful, and I love it," I said, genuinely awed as I turned back to face him. "But what is all this for?"

  The nervous smile still played on his lips, and he rubbed the back of his neck before starting with, "I've been thinking a lot about how I died before I became a vampire, and how that made everything different. I think that's why the bond with us was such a mess in the beginning.

  "You were always meant for me," he went on. "Your blood was supposed to be bonded with me, but since I don't have a 'soul' or whatever you want to call it, it all got twisted around, so that the blood bond felt like it was with Peter. And in the beginning, when everything was so confusing and painful, it was terrible."

  He grimaced at the memory. "Everything that we went through felt absolutely awful, and honestly, there were times where I wasn't sure that we would make it or that I was doing the right thing.

  "But now." His smile returned, and he let out a relieved breath. "Now I'm actually happy it happened that way. Because I got to fall in love with you. It wasn't an instant or a flash - it was moments building on one another and time spent together. Ezra and Mae didn't have that, and Peter didn't have that with Elise.

  "But with you, I got to learn about you and who you were and discover for myself that I didn't want to live another day of my life without you. I know without a shadow of doubt that we were meant to be together, but I'm still so happy and grateful that I got to choose you, and that you got to choose me."

  With that, he dropped to one knee in front of me and pulled a ring box out of his pocket. "I love you, and I want to spend eternity with you."

  "Jack." I smiled down at him with tears in my eyes. "You already proposed!"

  "I know, but I want to do it right this time." He grinned and opened the box, revealing a marquise cut diamond in a platinum band, and I gasped. "Alice Marie Bonham, will you marry me, Jack Allen Hobbs?"

  I was about to say yes, but his name startled me into asking, "Hobbs?"

  "You told me before you didn't see the point of getting married, since what it says on the paper isn't even who I am," he explained. "So I'm asking you as I am, with all my faults and occasional strengths, to be with me, the real me, forever and ever."

  "Of course, I'll marry you, Jack. I don't think I can live without you."

  He laughed in a combination of happiness and relief. "Well, I hope to never find out if either us can survive without the other."

  As he slid the ring on my hand, I asked, "But are you sure you want to marry me, with all my faults?"

  He stood up and pulled me into his arms. "I've never been as certain of anything in my life as I am of you. You are for me, and I am for you."

  AFTER ANOTHER TWENTY-FOUR HOURS on lockdown (which went relatively fast thanks to the large amount of time I spent with Jack in our bed), we were all feeling a little stir crazy, and I wasn't sure how well they would take the news that I was venturing outside of the safety of the apartment complex tonight.

  I came out of the bedroom after taking a phone call to find everybody preoccupied with mundane activities. Matilda napped in the corner, Milo was cleaning, Ezra was lounging in a chair by the window reading a book, Jack sat on the couch with his laptop while Bobby and Peter played poker.

  "Do you ever miss food?" Bobby was asking Peter as he took a big mouthful of a plate of vegetable lasagna that Milo had made him. They were both sitting at the dining room table, playing cards with old poker chips, while Bobby ate supper and drank a Coke Zero.

  "Human food tastes terrible," Peter replied without looking up from his cards.

  "I know. But when you were human, you had to have favorite foods, and I know blood is amazing and all that, but do you ever miss the way food used to taste?" Bobby clarified.

  "I miss Mountain Dew and nachos," Jack said from where he sat on the couch, staring intently at his laptop screen.

  "My mom used to make pies that were out of this world," Peter said, looking momentarily reflective before shaking it off. "But blood is many times better, so no, I don't really miss food."

  I cleared my throat, since nobody seemed to notice me standing in the middle of the room, and announced, "Abner called. I need to go into the Agency."

  "Great!" Jack said and closed his laptop.

  "Great?" I asked in surprise as he stood up. "That is not the reaction I was expecting."

  "I need to run down to the comic book shop," he explained. "Jeroen has an issue with the system, and I need to go in and reset it. It should only take like 30 minutes tops, and then I'll be home."

  I shook my head. "You can't just run to the store."

  "If the Agency thinks it's okay for you to drive across town to them, then it's okay for me to run to the shop," he countered.

  "I don't think that's the same thing."

  Jack shrugged. "The Agency called you to go out, so they can't be that worried. And I'll be close to home, and I'll be right back. If the system doesn't get reset, we could potentially lose thousands of dollars and irritate lots of customers."

  "I have training," I argued.

  "And you're a target. I'm not," he reasoned. "If it's safe enough for you to go out, it's safe enough for me. So... is it safe for you?"

  "Ezra." I turned to him. "Help me out."

  "I don't really think either of you should be going anywhere," Ezra said, rather contrarily, as he watched us over the top of his book.

  I turned back to Jack. "I have to go. It's my job, and I need to keep us safe."

  "Yes, and this is for my job, and it helps keep us fiscally solvent," he said with a finality where I knew there would be no sense in arguing, and he did have a point.

  "Fine," I relented. "Just bring a stake with you and be careful."

  "I always am." He kissed me quickly, then dashed off to put on his shoes and grab his keys before I had a chance to change my mind. "Love you, and I'll see you when I get home."

  "Do you want me to go with you?" Bobby asked me once Jack had taken off.

  "No, there's no sense in all of us being out there. I'll be back soon."

  I got in the elevator and rode down to the underground parking garage. The place was dimly lit, thanks to many of the dull blue lights having burned out, but it was enough for me to see fine.

  The garage was full today, and our cars were hidden in the far corner. I grumbled to myself when I saw Jack's DeLorean parked next to my Mercedes. While I hadn't explicitly asked him to take his car, I'd been hoping he would, but it was easier walking around downtown, so he usually just walked to work.

  I'd unlocked my car when I heard footfalls echoing behind me. I stiffened instinctively, and though I couldn't immediately explain why, I soon figured it out - the heartbeat was far too slow and quiet for a human.

  And now, it was coming from right behind me.

  I turned around to see Cate Brennan, standing with her arms folded over her chest, and her dark eyes looked just as wild and crazy as they had the last time I saw her in Ireland.

  "Nice to see y
ou again, Alice," she said with a wide smile that revealed her sharp teeth.

  "YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME with this," I groaned.

  "If only Cyrus wasn't so useless it never would've come to this," she sneered at me.

  "You're with the House of Basarab?" I asked in shock.

  "Those losers? Please." Cate laughed darkly. "I knew Cyrus from around Prague, and he'd always bragged about taking out hunters for sport.

  "I'd been keeping tabs on Peter, just to make sure that he wasn't plotting against me," she explained bitterly. "With some digging, I discovered he had some type of relationship with you and that you had trained under a vampire hunter by the name of Olivia. I honestly thought he sent you both to kill me, so I put Cyrus on your tail to take care of you."

  "So you're the one that's been telling everyone about my job?" I asked.

  "I wanted to find someone to kill you without getting my hands dirty, but it looks like I'll have to do this myself." Her thick eyebrows arched as she narrowed her eyes at me. "You had to have known I would come after you. You ruined everything for me. I couldn't let you get away with that."

  "Come on, Cate. You're the one that burned down your own house."

  "What choice did I have?" She was practically screaming at me. "You exposed me after decades of hiding! I had been protecting Elise all this time, and -"

  "Protecting her?" I interrupted and smirked at her. "How delusional are you? You killed her, and you hung onto her body! You're no better than a serial killer with a memento."

  She growled at me, with crimson lips pulled back in a viscous snarl. "You stupid bitch."

  Cate crouched down, like she was about to pounce, so I pulled my arm back. Even though I swung at her with my full-force, I still expected her to dodge out the way or block me. Instead, she just stood there, her expression rapidly shifting from angry to shocked as my fist collided with her.

  Then she went flying back onto the pavement, cradling her face as blood dripped down from her smashed nose and fat lip. Vampire bones were far stronger than human's - which made my punch all the more powerful - but flesh tore just as easily, and that was why her face was such a bloody mess.

  I rolled my shoulder and pulled a stake out of my jacket liner, and then I stepped out from between the cars. Cate rolled onto her side, still holding her nose as she cursed at me.