by Melinda Metz
Gabriel had told her about vampire senses—that every sensation was heightened. She’d known that he could smell things and hear things from far off. She’d known that he could see in the dark.
But not like this.
I should be grateful for the night vision, Shay thought miserably. It was better than being trapped underground in a strange place with no lights at all. If she were still human, the darkness of these caverns would have driven her mad.
But she wasn’t human. And the fact that she could see every detail of a place that she knew—she knew—was pitch black, well, it freaked her out.
Shay wrapped her arms around herself and sank to the ground. I thought it would be like in the visions. When she’d experienced Gabriel’s life through her visions, she had also experienced his vampire senses. She’d seen in the dark, and tasted the individual flavors in a Giver’s blood, and felt the rush of strength in his muscles. She’d just assumed that that was the way it felt to be a vampire. But the visions hadn’t been what she thought. She had been in Gabriel’s body and she’d experienced his life, but it was as if there were a layer of gauze over everything. She hadn’t known it at the time, but now she did.
What Gabriel had felt and seen and experienced was a hundred times more complex and detailed than anything she’d felt in the visions. Her senses weren’t just heightened, they were a whole different thing. This wasn’t seeing in the dark, this was nighttime turned to day—and then viewed through a telescope. To use the word “hearing” to describe this ability to detect the tiniest sound . . . it was just wrong. This wasn’t hearing. This was something else Something superhuman.
Something un human.
“I’m a vampire,” Shay murmured, dizzy and terrified by the truth of it. “I’m dead and I’m a vampire.”
She wanted to cry, but her body was just too stunned to do it. Or maybe vampires couldn’t cry. Had she ever seen Gabriel cry in a vision?
I should have stayed with him, she thought. He could have explained all this so I wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed.
It didn’t matter now. She’d run away from Gabriel hours ago. For all she knew, he’d died up there on that rock shelf. He had been weak as a kitten—whether from her drinking so much of his blood or from his having been poisoned by her blood, she didn’t know. And she didn’t care. She’d jumped off the shelf and run off at an impossible speed, and Gabriel hadn’t followed her. He’d barely lifted his head. He hadn’t said a word after she told him what she saw.
He killed my father.
He hadn’t even tried to deny it. Sam had told Gabriel about his love for Shay’s mother. He’d told Gabriel that she was pregnant and that he was happy about it.
And then Gabriel had turned on him and told Ernst about it. He said it was verboten, Shay remembered. That love between a vampire and a human was an abomination, a horror. But he had never told her that it was punishable by death. She had never in her darkest dreams imagined that Gabriel and his family had killed Sam. All these years she had no father, all these years her mother thought Sam had abandoned her . . .
And all this time Gabriel had let her fall in love with him, and he’d never told her the truth.
She’d even asked him once what had happened to Sam, and Gabriel said he didn’t know. He had chained her father to the floor and participated in a blood ritual to murder him, and then he’d looked Shay straight in the eye and lied about it.
“I can handle this on my own,” Shay whispered. “I don’t need Gabriel for anything. He’s no better than the rest of them.”
Shay took a deep breath, strangely comforted by the hatred that seeped through her at the thought of Gabriel. Until now she’d been running, darting through the endless caves like an animal, terrified by the sounds and smells and the unfamiliar surroundings. Terrified by the strength in her own limbs, by the fact that her eyes could see things they shouldn’t see. She’d been running from Gabriel—from the truth about Gabriel—but she hadn’t been thinking about him.
Now that she had, the hysteria was dying down.
She was hungry.
Shay hugged herself tighter. She was hopelessly lost in the caverns. She had no idea how far they stretched under the mountains in Tennessee. She’d never even known there were mountains in Tennessee.
It didn’t matter. She would find her way out. She wasn’t some weak little sick girl anymore, she was a supernatural creature with outrageous strength and speed. She’d figure it out. She couldn’t spend the rest of eternity being overwhelmed by her own senses. This was reality now. She would handle it.
Tentatively, Shay sniffed the air, turning her head to face different directions.
Stale air. Stale air. Toxic air. Another bat colony.
Focus on the air, she told herself. Just the air.
Rocks. Fetid water. Some kind of insect hive.
How do I even know what these scents are? she wondered. She’d never smelled a hive of wasps in her life. Was there some kind of instinctive odor-recognizer in her vampire body? The thought brought the hysteria back, so she shoved it down. Focus on the air.
Fungus. Stale air. Maple.
Maple! Shay felt a burst of hope. The scent of maple meant freedom. If the air smelled like maple, that meant it was air coming into the cave from the woods, bringing outside odors in. If she followed that smell, she’d find an opening in the rock. I’ll get outside, and then I’ll figure out what to do.
Shay got to her feet and started moving in the direction that the maple scent had come from. She could do this. She had gone through a thousand awful physical exams over the years—spinal taps and bone marrow tests and lots of other scary and painful things. She had gotten through them all, somehow. She had gotten through Martin’s betrayal, when he hit her across the face. She had gotten through being held captive by Gabriel. And later by his family.
She had gotten through dying.
So she could get through this. She just had to find her way out of these caves and get away from Ernst and his murderous vampire family.
The scent of maple grew stronger as she scrambled through another narrow cave. It opened into a larger space, but the outside air was coming through a tiny fissure in the wall of that cave. Shay stuck her leg into the fissure and tried to squeeze through. She was incredibly skinny from being sick all her life, and yet she was too big for that small opening.
Don’t panic. Focus, she told herself.
Shay put her face to the fissure and breathed deeply. Maple and now oak.
I will not be trapped in here. Shay thrust her arm through the fissure, dug her fingers into the hard rock, and pulled as hard as she could. There was a snapping and cracking sound, and the opening crumbled like a little avalanche, sending bits of rock tumbling and dust flying into the air.
Shay jumped back in surprise, fast enough to avoid getting hit by the rocks. Then she peered at the fissure. Still small, but bigger than it had been. She had broken through solid rock with her bare hands.
“Well, that’s pretty cool,” she said aloud. She inched up to the opening again and squeezed herself inside. Maybe it would collapse on top of her now that she’d weakened the rock. But maybe she’d be strong enough to live through it if it did.
She shimmied and twisted her way through the fissure. It was tight, but she managed to make it through. On the other side was a narrow space, more a tunnel than a cave. About ten feet later, it opened out into a cavern. The scent of trees came from somewhere high above.
Shay tilted her head back and squinted into the distance. There, about seventy feet up, was a patch of gray light. She blinked, shocked to see anything other than blackness. Shay reached for a handhold and pulled herself up onto a spire of rock. The air smelled of more than just trees now, it smelled of flowers, and rain, and animals. Fresh air.
There was some kind of ledge up there, maybe a rock shelf like the one she’d left Gabriel on. It was impossibly far away.
Shay gathered herself and jumped. Straight up, pu
shing off of the spire with her feet. In her life she had barely had the stamina to play a game of hopscotch. Back when Olivia would play jump rope at recess, Shay always had to sit reading a book. Now, though, it was effortless. One push and she was flying upward, the damp air of the cave rushing past her face. She reached out and grabbed on to the ledge, her fingers tightening automatically. Without thinking, she pulled herself up and over the edge, landing on her feet on a wide shelf of rock.
“Wow,” Shay breathed. Her body had gone from house cat to lion in the space of one day. She felt the dizzy disorientation begin to fade. She was strong. She’d found her way here, and now she would get out of the caverns and away from Gabriel’s family.
The gray light came from a cave mouth at one end of the rock shelf, about thirty feet away. It was raining outside—Shay could hear each drop as it hit the stone of the cave, and she could smell the sweet and earthwormy scent of it. The air up here was wet, coating her skin in a fine mist.
“Thank God. I’m finally out,” Shay said. She didn’t care if she got drenched—no more worrying about catching cold and getting sick. She’d never be sick again. She was a vampire, indestructible.
She stepped toward the cave entrance, eager for the fresh air and the rain. The dreary gray daylight washed over her—and she shrieked in pain.
Shay hurled herself backward, tumbling over the edge of the shelf and falling through the empty air. She landed flat on her back on the rock far below. Stars exploded in front of her eyes.
The sun. The thought reached Shay from somewhere beyond the pain in the back of her skull. It’s still daytime, and I can’t go out. Not even in the rain. Not ever again.
Her incredible vampire vision blurred with tears. She wasn’t strong. She was scared. She was a vampire, and she was alone. Forever.
The sun began to go down.
Relief flooded through Gabriel as he felt it. He’d been lying on the cold stone shelf ever since Shay ran off earlier that day. The only other times he’d defeated the death sleep—exactly twice in his long life—the sun had sapped his strength and put him to sleep as soon as the adrenaline rush was over. But not today.
How can I still be awake? he wondered for the hundredth time. He felt the sun like a physical presence even though he was deep underground. It pressed on him, and he imagined he could tell its exact location in the sky as the minutes slowly ticked by. Feeding from Shay had done something to him. It was the only explanation. He’d taken in her half-vampire blood, and then she’d taken almost all of his own strong blood.
He was weak. Maybe even poisoned—if she’d been a full vampire, drinking that much of her toxic blood would surely have killed him. It was anybody’s guess what her unique blend of human and vampire blood had done. But to defy the death sleep for the whole day? That was unexpected.
Or possibly he was dying. He felt the pressure of the sun, and yet his body didn’t react to it. Not only that, but his body couldn’t function at all. He’d lain still for hours, unable to even lift a finger. When Shay ran away, he hadn’t been able to go after her. He couldn’t get himself back to the lab either, to check on his family. It wasn’t like the time he’d been paralyzed by the hawthorn. Then, his body had felt like dead weight, locked in place. He hadn’t even been able to talk or blink. Now his body felt feather-light, hollow and weak. And he could still croak out a word or two. Every so often, he’d tried to call for Shay, not that he got an answer.
Where was she? There should be communion between the two of them now, because he had transformed her into a vampire. But he couldn’t feel her. There was a swirling confusion, a sort of dizziness and fear that kept overtaking him. That could be Shay, he supposed. She was on her own as a new vampire, with no one to explain things to her. And it was daytime. He’d never heard of a vampire being created while the sun was up. He didn’t know how it would work. She hadn’t immediately succumbed to the death sleep, which no newborn vampire should be able to resist.
Had the daytime transformation affected the communion? The confusion and fear could be his own. The world had gone crazy in the past few days. Gabriel had been so frantic with worry that he hadn’t had time to really think, until today. Lying here, unable to sleep, he could do nothing but think. And it was insane. He was in love with a human. And she was Sam’s daughter. His father considered her an abomination, his family had essentially killed her. Gabriel didn’t know how to feel anymore—it was enough to make anyone confused and afraid.
And then Martin, and Ernst, he thought. And Richard.
He didn’t want to think about that part. He had no idea what he’d left behind in the lab. Had the fire climbed the ravine and reached the building? Were there human firefighters in the family’s quarters right now, discovering the sleeping vampires? Was the whole compound ablaze, killing everyone?
Was Ernst all right? He’d been paralyzed by the hawthorn—how long would its effects last?
His family wouldn’t know that Gabriel had chosen Shay over them, not unless Ernst recovered from the hawthorn much faster than Gabriel had. But even if they knew, even if they hated him now, he was still driven crazy by the need to keep them safe and to warn them about Martin. If Ernst was still paralyzed, he wouldn’t be able to tell them about the attack. They needed to know that Martin wanted a vampire to study—and that he wanted the rest of them dead so that they couldn’t come after him.
Richard would have taken over in Ernst’s place. He would have told them the lab is compromised, Gabriel thought. He would have told them they were in danger. But Richard was dead.
His eyes filled with tears. His brother had died to save the rest of the family. Regardless of the tension between them since Gabriel’s return, he still loved Richard. He’d helped to raise him from the time he was a small boy. He’d rejoiced when Richard found love . . . and Richard had reacted with fury when Gabriel found love.
Gabriel blinked away the tears. He was devastated by what had happened. But he couldn’t forget what his family had done to Shay.
Just as she’ll never forget what I did to Sam.
He closed his eyes. He should have known that Shay would find out eventually. He’d told Sam’s plans to Ernst, and he’d stood by accusingly as Ernst sentenced Sam to death. Shay had had visions of so many things in his life, he should have known that she would have a vision of that sooner or later. Of all his experiences, that one—Sam’s last blood ritual—was the one that haunted Gabriel the most.
Sam’s screams of desperation had lasted through all three nights of the ritual that killed him. When Gabriel closed his eyes every morning, he still heard them. The last image in his mind as he drifted into the death sleep was always Sam’s agonized face . . . or at least it had been, until Shay. While Sam was slowly dying, Gabriel had thought there could be nothing worse than the horror of his desperation. But he’d been wrong.
The worst thing was the end. Gabriel was the last to drink from his brother before the entire family drank together, taking the last of Sam’s blood. Gabriel felt it as he drank . . . Sam was nearly dead. Gabriel pulled away, removing his eyeteeth from Sam’s throat. He’d avoided Sam’s gaze since the ritual began, even though he couldn’t avoid Sam’s emotions blasting through the communion.
But this last time he couldn’t help himself—he met his brother’s eyes.
Sam was looking back. “You act out of love for your family,” Sam whispered. “Someday you’ll regret your part in this, and when you do, remember . . . I forgive you.”
That was the worst part. The worst moment of Gabriel’s life.
He’d still drunk with the rest of his family, taking the very last drops of Sam’s blood. The final emotions they’d felt in the communion were love for Emma and for Shay in her mother’s womb, followed by forgiveness for all of them who had slowly killed him. That sensation of sweet and piercing forgiveness was what Gabriel had never been able to forget, much as he wanted to. Every time he thought of it, he was struck again by Sam’s innate goodness
and his deep love of all living things. Every time he thought of it, he was crushed by the knowledge that he had snuffed out that goodness, that love. For so long he’d clung to the belief that what he’d done was right. He’d needed to believe it was necessary for his family’s survival.
But now, after meeting Shay and coming to know her, that belief had slipped away and he was forced to face the truth: Sam had trusted Gabriel with his deepest secret, and Gabriel had betrayed him. Gabriel had caused the death of the person he loved as a brother and a best friend.
“If transforming Shay has killed me, I deserve it,” he said weakly into the emptiness of the cave. “Maybe it will make me worthy of your forgiveness, Sam.” He didn’t believe that, though. After what he had done, he would never be worthy.
“Gabriel!” The voice echoed through the cavern, piercing his dark thoughts. “Where are you?”
Millie. He felt her now, fear and agitation and confusion. She must be feeling him, too, using the communion to locate him. It wasn’t something they did often, but when necessary, in times of great distress, the link could tell the family where to find one another.
“Here,” he croaked. His voice was pathetically quiet. Even with her vampire senses, it was doubtful that his sister would hear it. Gabriel closed his eyes.
It was another five minutes before Millie appeared on the rock shelf next to him. She took one look at him and dropped to her knees at his side. “What happened?”
“Martin,” he said. “He must have traced the signal from Shay’s cell—” At least he’d been able to get out that warning.
“We found Ernst in Richard and Tamara’s room. He can’t move,” Millie said.
“Hawthorn,” Gabriel told her. “Martin shot him with it.”
“Is that what’s wrong with you? What are you doing in the caves?”
“Mils . . . I need blood.” He could feel his consciousness blurring.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. We’re all confused.” She scooped him up in her arms. “I’ll run.”
