Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #3)

by Malone Wright, Jennifer

  I shrugged. “What? I’m totally okay with all that now.”

  Christina shook her head. “I’m going out to the truck. See ya, Gavin,” she called out.

  “Later,” his tired voice said over the intercom.

  After we heard the door unlatch and then close again, Drew reached out and pulled me close to him. “We are going to take care of this. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. All right?”

  I laid my head on his chest and wrapped my arms around him. He knew I was worried about what Anthony had told us, but I wasn’t ready to be worried about myself yet. Not yet … there were more important things to worry about, like saving the world. “I know,” I whispered.

  He reached up and lifted my chin a little bit so that I would look at him. I always enjoyed gazing into his eyes because they told so much about him that he never voiced. At that second, when I looked deep into the green of his eyes, I saw that he was scared. To make it even more interesting, I knew it was me he was scared of losing.

  My fingers found their way up and into his hair. “I am going to be just fine. We have other things to take care of before we can worry about me.”

  He shook his head. “That is not even an option. We will not sacrifice you.” His voice had lowered to a whisper because Gavin was listening on the intercom.

  “That really isn’t up to you,” I whispered back, and pulled him down for a kiss. Aware that Gavin was most likely watching us, I had totally intended for it to be a gentle peck of a kiss. However, Drew was also aware of Gavin’s presence and completely went the other way. He crushed his lips against mine and moved forward; I was forced to back up until I felt the wall press against me.

  I wanted to tell him he was mean for intentionally flaunting our relationship in front of Gavin. At the same instant, heat flared within me, sizzling through my veins. I wished desperately that we weren’t being watched. I wanted to wrap my legs around him and let him carry me to bed so we could make out for a while before sleep finally claimed us. “I wish you were staying,” I mumbled against his lips.

  Reluctantly, he tore his lips away from mine. “Next time,” he whispered. His breathing was heavy and his voice was husky; this kind of behavior was dangerous for us. I knew how hard it was for him to wait for me, but I didn’t really want him to wait. I was totally all right with sex, even though I’d never had it before. Drew, on the other hand, felt that we must wait until I turned eighteen.

  I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal one way or the other.

  Standing there—wrapped up in his arms, knowing he wanted me so badly—I realized something. If what Anthony said about the killing the bloodlines was true, I could possibly die a virgin. Yeah … that was so not going to happen.

  “I have to go.” Drew pulled himself back, putting some space between us. “Christina’s waiting.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you should go.”

  ~~***~~

  I woke the next morning feeling the aches and pains I felt every single day. Hunting vampires was really tough on the body. Even though we trained all the freaking time, when I fought with vampires I always ended up with a ton of bumps and bruises. Even with my superior healing I was always sore the next morning.

  By the time I managed to drag myself out of bed, shower, and throw some clothes on, Drew and Luke had already arrived and were sitting in the living room chatting. Actually, the entire group was in there lounging on the couches and eating some kind of yummy looking pastries that Alice had made.

  Luke, Drew, Alice, Zander, Christina, Oscar, and Gavin all looked up when I hurried into the room. “Why didn’t anyone wake me?” I demanded. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”

  Luke stood as I hurried into the room and opened his arms for a hug. I rushed over and wrapped my arms around my grandfather. I missed him so much. There were a lot of downsides to living in his little house, especially when Alice and Oscar were crowded into the small space with us, but I often wished I was able to get back onto the community and go home.

  “Ah, Chloe! I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I told him honestly. “I wish we could come back home.”

  He nodded. “As do I.” He looked to Alice. “Has there been any progress with finding a way to break the shield?”

  Alice had had a smile on her face, but it fell as soon as Luke brought up Arcadia Falls and the shield. “No,” she shook her head and her blonde ponytail bobbed all over the place, “I’ve been searching all of the spell books trying to find the right one. Nothing has worked so far. I’m trying, though.”

  He smiled with understanding. However, the reality of it was that she wasn’t trying all that hard. The group had had numerous discussions about the subject and we all decided that it was actually better if we left the barrier up. Leaving it up would protect the Hunters within from being attacked, and that was one less thing we had to worry about. Zander and I being unable to get through was a small worry at this point.

  Luke released me and rubbed his hands together. “So, I hear that you have some news. Let’s hear it.”

  He returned to the recliner he had been sitting in and I found a spot between Drew and Alice on the couch. As I squeezed myself into the tiny space, I caught Gavin staring at me. Our eyes locked and he gave me a small smile, but I saw hurt swimming in the depths of his pretty green irises.

  He still insisted that he would fight for me, but since the vampires had taken over everyone sort of had bigger priorities than our love lives. Gavin and Drew still had a lot of issues to sort out and it wasn’t going to be something that happened overnight. Drew harbored so much jealously and anger toward Gavin because of their mother. She had abandoned Drew and his father so that she could be with Gavin and his father. She was not a nice lady, and I would never say it to his face, but I knew without a doubt that Drew was a lot better off without her in his life. Gavin turned out all right, but she loved him, and from what I could see, she didn’t really care that much about Drew at all.

  Everyone was waiting for one of us to tell them what was going on, so Drew took the initiative and recapped Anthony’s story about how the first vampires were made and the remaining bloodlines, leaving out the last part about Zander and I being part of Anthony’s own line. His gaze flicked over to Luke, since Luke was his mentor and one of the elder Hunters.

  It wasn’t often that I saw Luke surprised, but his jaw was slack and his eyes wide. “An end to the vampires. It … could it really be possible?”

  I nodded. “If what Anthony says is true, then yes, it’s totally possible.”

  “There are a few things we need to discuss before we get too excited, though.” Drew rubbed his forehead like he always did when he was stressed out. “First of all, he only knows where Korina is. That is only one bloodline, but it can still take out a huge majority of them.”

  Christina had gotten up during his story and stood by the window, flipping her giant knife around like a baton. “Well, I don’t understand why we don’t just take out Anthony, too.”

  “Good question,” Drew complimented her. “Two reasons, one is that he can help us find the remaining vampires, since he knows them. The second reason is a bit more complicated. We can’t prove it, but Anthony says that Trevor was of his line, which in turn …”

  “Makes Chloe and I at risk to die if you kill him,” Zander finished for him.

  I nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Shit.” He bowed his head down into his hands.

  Gavin spoke up before anyone else had the chance. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. We can’t risk it.”

  “We risk our lives every day,” I told him. “Each time we leave this house to go fight the vampires we take the chance that we might not come back.”

  Luke shook his head. “No, it doesn’t matter. Anthony stays alive then.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “We don’t even know if he is telling the truth about this. He could be making it up just t
o save himself.”

  Gavin glared at me. “Not. Gonna. Happen.”

  I sighed. I knew they were all going to feel like this. “Another thing we haven’t thought about is that Zander and I are only half vampire, the concept of the line falling might not work on us because we were born, not made.”

  “I can probably find a blood spell somewhere, but we won’t be able to do it unless we can get some of his blood. That will determine if Chloe, Zander and Anthony share the same bloodline.”

  Alice appeared thoughtful as she spoke, as if she were already searching the spell books in her mind

  “You can do that kind of thing.” Christina questioned, her eyes wide.

  Alice nodded. “Of course.”

  Oscar leaned forward and flipped the pages of one of the magazines on the coffee table. “It’s strange that he would want to help in the first place.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Drew agreed. “I feel that he is genuine in wanting to get rid of the other lines. He says he is willing to give himself up, but he did go through some trouble to find Chloe and let her know that if he dies then she possibly could, too. That sounds like something a person would do to protect themselves.”

  Luke held his hands up. “Let’s take this one step at a time. The first thing we should concentrate on is finding the other lines. We can worry about Anthony Christos and his bloodline later. For now, we have the opportunity to take out, at the very least, one other line. If Dahlia is of Korina’s line, this should eliminate a large majority of the vampires who have taken over the city.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “So, we go to New Orleans?”

  Luke nodded. “We have to. Getting into New Orleans is not going to be easy, though. All of the cities are guarded.”

  I hadn’t thought about that part. What I had thought about was that if it was bad here, it had to be worse in New Orleans. Vampires there just walked around out in the open all the time, even before the attacks began.

  “I also think it might be better if we do not tell The Board about this,” Luke added.

  Suddenly there was a heavy silence that hung heavy in the room. No one seemed to know what to say. I know I didn’t. Luke wasn’t really a member of The Board anymore—they had pretty much booted him off for endorsing our infiltration of the Talon Building—but he was still a Hunter and he almost always went to them with important information. I guess he was more peeved about them not backing him with the Talon Building than I thought he was.

  Drew was the first to speak up. “All right. It’s just us then.”

  That was the downside to not telling The Board, we wouldn’t have any backup. I had a feeling that this trip to New Orleans was going to be one place we were actually going to need it, but at the same time I knew that collectively we were a force to be reckoned with. I had several superior skills, including my fire power, we had several trained Hunters, Gavin had his water power, Alice rocked a sword, Christina handled knives like they weren’t deadly weapons, Oscar was a siren who could compel people with the sound of his voice, and Zander was just a badass who liked to kill vampires.

  I had faith in us, but that didn’t mean that some extra Hunters wouldn’t have made this job a whole lot easier. “I’m game. But I had an idea today, to keep people safe while we go to New Orleans and try to fix this.”

  It looked like everyone was still taking in the whole bloodline ordeal. My group of friends usually had a lot more to say. I was especially surprised that Christina hadn’t been shooting off smarty pants comments the whole time. Even Drew and Gavin weren’t bickering like they usually did.

  “What do ya got?” Christina gave her knife a final flip and sheathed it before hopping onto Zander’s lap.

  “I know that this might be an inconvenience to The Board and the Hunters, but it would keep people safe.”

  Luke leaned forward, his curiosity piqued.

  “I want to get a couple of buses and gather up the survivors from the city who haven’t pledged to the Vampire Council yet. Arcadia Falls is safe and I want to take them there.”

  Silence followed. I shifted uncomfortably because I didn’t know what everyone thought of the idea. Sure, it would give away the secret of the community, but we could save a lot of people.

  “It’s genius,” Luke whispered. “My granddaughter is a genius.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumbled.

  Finally, people started talking. Drew reached over and squeezed my leg. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before.”

  “Because we thought that we would be taking the barrier down,” Alice pointed out. “What would be the use of sending them there if the protection wasn’t going to remain around the community?”

  I continued with my train of thought, “If we cleared out the old gym, we could put up cots in the building and use it as a shelter.”

  Oscar, who had been quiet most of the time, adjusted his body on the couch. “If we do this, we are going to need to find supplies, too. A lot of supplies. Feeding all those people is going to be pretty hard. Plus, you will need cots and blankets. All of that is what we will need … at the very least.”

  Luke stood. “I’ll run it by The Board right now.” He left the room to go contact whoever he needed to call. The Board members might not sanction a trip to New Orleans to find the head of a few vampire bloodlines, but this was something they would probably go for. A Hunter’s mission in life was to protect the human race from vampires by eradicating them from the world. In this case we could protect a lot of humans and they would probably be on board with that.

  Luke was on the phone for a while, I assume with several different people. He came back after a little while sporting a satisfied grin. “They’ll do it.”

  “Yes!” I executed a fist pump. “Let’s save some people from those blood suckers!”

  Luke chuckled and held up his hand. “They are spreading the word through the community and starting preparations immediately. If we are going to pull this off, it has to be in broad daylight, when it’s safest. For now we just need to worry about getting people there. They will take care of the details.”

  “Sweet.” I looked to the group. “You guys up for this?”

  There was a chorus of all kinds of positive responses while everyone got moving. I hurried to the hall closet and flung open the double doors. Yet another arsenal greeted me. I ran my eyes over all of the weapons and ammunition, then selected a box of UV shells for my gun.

  I turned over the closet to Alice and Oscar before hurrying to my room so I could get my weapons on.

  Excitement about what we were going to do made me giddy. I couldn’t help it, it was so rare that anything good happened lately. I wanted to savor the feeling. I strapped on my weapons as fast as I could, grabbed my bow, and headed out the door.

  This was going to be awesome.

  ~~***~~

  We locked up the house securely and all of us crammed into the Escalade to head into the city. Normally, we never left the house unattended—we always had someone stay behind to run the security system and keep watch while we were gone—but no one wanted to stay behind for this mission. Plus, we figured as long as we got it finished while it was still light out, everything should be fine.

  We headed straight for the high school in hopes that we could find a couple of buses there. Luckily, we picked the right school because there were two buses parked behind the school in a gated in lot. I burned the lock off of the gate and let our SUV pass through. Running behind them, I drew my gun before prying one of the bus doors open.

  After I was on the bus, I walked the aisle and cleared every seat to make sure there weren’t any vampires hiding out for the day. Once I was sure it was clean, I poked my head out the door. “It’s clear!”

  Christina and Zander climbed the steps up onto the bus with me, and Zander immediately checked the ignition. “We’re going to have to hotwire it.”

  “Do you know how to do that?”

  He spre
ad his hands wide. “I’m a man of many trades.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t call knowing how to hotwire a vehicle a trade.”

  “Call it what you will.” He shrugged and sat down in the driver’s seat, then reached under the bulky dashboard, feeling for wires. “Honestly, though, I’ve never hotwired a bus, but I don’t see it being much different than a car.”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Christina mumbled just as the bus shuddered and roared to life.

  “Piece of cake,” Zander told me as he stood up. “I better go help with the other bus now. Who’s going to drive this thing?”

  Christina smoothed down the red, oversized tank that she had on over a pair of black skinny jeans. “I think Drew is going to drive this one and Luke is going to drive the other,” she answered.

  I nodded. “Sweet.”

  In less than ten minutes we were divided up and pulling the buses out onto the streets. Drew joined me and took the wheel. Surprisingly, Gavin hurried up the steps and sat down in the seat right behind Drew, greeting us with, “Hey, guys, I’m with you.”

  “Really?” Drew muttered.

  I took the seat across the aisle from Gavin, closest to the door. “Shhh,” I scolded Drew, “we’re on a mission. Save that for another time.”

  Christina and Zander stayed on the bus Luke was driving, and Alice took over the wheel of the Escalade, so of course Oscar stayed with her.

  We only went a few blocks before we started seeing survivors. The scared humans scattered and hid when they saw the big yellow buses roll up. It was one thing to see cars out in the city, but no one used buses anymore.

  Drew stopped in the middle of the street and put the bus in park. A loud hiss sounded as he reached over and pulled the lever to open the door. “Ready?” he asked.