by Melinda Metz
Olivia and Kaz shared a look, a she-says-she’s-okay-but-clearly-not look. Kaz shrugged. “Okay. Whatever. This is all-about-Shay day,” Olivia said. “You know, I could have just wired you money for the train or something, if all you really needed was a way back home.”
“I needed more than that,” Shay reassured her. “I needed not to be alone.”
“Just tell me this for now. Do we need to worry about some psycho guy coming after us?” Olivia asked, flicking her long strawberry blond hair off her shoulders.
“No. Gabriel and I are done,” Shay said. Although she’d always be able to feel his emotions, so how done could they really be? Right now he was feeling something close to despair. About what had happened to Ernst and Richard? Had his family found out the truth about Gabriel choosing to save her over them?
That was not her problem. She shoved his emotions out of her mind, the one thing she’d gotten pretty good at since becoming a vampire.
“And he knows this?” Olivia asked.
“I made it absolutely clear.” Wait. Was that why Gabriel was feeling so horrible? Could that despair be about her and not whatever was going on in his family? Losing her?
He killed my father. He deserves whatever despair he feels, she thought.
Olivia got up. “All right. Let’s go, then.”
Shay stood up so fast that she knocked her chair over.
“You’ll probably need a couple of venti coffees if you’re going to be driving all night.” Kaz took a step toward the counter.
“No, I’m awake. I juiced up on Diet Pepsi Max,” Shay lied. Gabriel had managed to eat a little bite of cotton candy that she’d fed him one time, but Shay wasn’t sure what coffee—or anything else—would do to her vampire system. After her experience with the muskrat, she’d decided to stick to nothing but human blood from now on.
“Maybe that’s why you’re so—” Kaz made violent circles with his hands as he led the way to the door and held it open for Shay and Olivia.
“Yeah, I way overdid it,” Shay replied, grabbing on to the excuse. “Keys, please,” she said when they reached Kaz’s SUV.
Olivia started to get in the front seat. “Go in back,” Shay urged. “It’s better for napping.” And it would put her beating heart a tiny bit farther away from Shay. I’m full, she reminded herself. Satisfied. I don’t need to feed. Still, the smell of her friends’ blood was impossible to ignore.
Shay powered down the window closest to her as she started the car. “Shay, it’s only forty degrees out,” Olivia complained.
“Sorry.” Shay put the window back up. When they were asleep, she’d at least crack it. As she began to drive, she searched the stations until she found some music that seemed sleep-inducing. Kaz and Olivia were out within ten minutes.
Shay tried to relax. She focused on her technique—this was only the fourth or fifth time she’d ever actually been behind the wheel. Driving with superhuman vision was a little disorienting. She could see so far ahead that it distracted her from what was right in front of her. She concentrated on keeping exactly to the speed limit and signaling every time she wanted to change lanes. She needed something besides the smell of blood to concentrate on.
But nothing on the road was enough to distract her. With every mile, her thirst grew more overpowering. She felt as if she were withering inside. Once when she was in the hospital, she hadn’t been allowed water for a couple of days. She was being hydrated intravenously, but it hadn’t felt that way. Her world had narrowed down to pure thirst.
That’s how she felt now. But it was the desire for blood that consumed her this time. Blood. She needed blood. It was all she could think about.
“Coming over.” Olivia wriggled into the front seat. “Time to talk.”
“You’ve hardly slept at all,” Shay protested, her fangs nudging at her gums, wanting out. “Only a few hours.”
Olivia pressed the scan button on the radio and stopped on a Lady Gaga song. “Riding in a car all day is tiring, but not the kind of tiring where you want to sleep,” she said.
“Tell that to Kaz,” Shay replied, impressing herself by how normal she sounded. She could do this. Yes, she wanted to drink. Badly. But she could control herself. Could and would.
“Kaz is a world-champion sleeper,” Olivia said, giving him an affectionate look over her shoulder, a move that presented her neck to Shay.
Shay tightened her grip on the wheel—kneading it with her fingers just like her mom always did—and ground her teeth together. “So what’s the deal on the guy?” Olivia asked.
“He’s history,” Shay said. Her scalp felt prickly, and her hands shook despite her grasp on the wheel. She’d been insane to call Olivia. Completely out of her mind. It didn’t matter what she told herself, she couldn’t sit in this car for the hours and hours it would take to get home to Massachusetts, not without blood.
“Shay, you dragged me all the way out here to get you—after you took off, you made me lie to your mom, you slept with some guy I don’t even know, and then suddenly you’re calling for help and freaking out because you’re stranded in Virginia. This is all bizarre.”
“You have no idea how bizarre,” Shay muttered.
“Well, tell me, then. I will not let you shut me out anymore. Start with the guy or don’t, but talk. Now.”
“I couldn’t stay with him,” Shay said after a moment. The devastation of what she’d found out about Gabriel blotted out even her thirst, at least for a few moments. “He just . . . he wasn’t a good guy.”
“So he had sex with you and then he was done with you?” Olivia asked. Her words were harsh, but her tone was soft.
“No. No, it wasn’t like that.” Shay shook her head, trying to dispel the dizziness swirling through her body. “God, what ever made me think he was so great in the first place?”
“Did he take you to his friends’ place? You said he thought the two of you would be safe there,” Olivia said.
“Yeah, we went there. But safe? Not so much. They were not happy to see me. I guess maybe he didn’t know his friends as well as he thought he did.” Even after what he’d done, Shay still felt sure Gabriel had believed that his family would take her in as one of them. He’d been deluding himself—but he hadn’t been trying to delude her. Not about that.
“Did his friends blame you for what Martin did to Gabriel, holding him captive?”
Shay gave a snort of laughter. “You could say that.” She used her tongue to push at her fangs. They’d started to release again.
“Did you tell your mom about Martin?” Olivia asked. “Because she’s home now. With him.”
“She knows some of it, yeah,” Shay replied. “But he’s so much worse than she thinks. That’s something I’ve got to deal with when I get there.”
I’m getting Mom away from him, Shay promised herself. I’ll drink him dry if he tries to stop me.
The thought of Martin terrified her. She had distorted, garish memories of him trying to blow up the lab. She’d been clinging to the last shreds of life at that moment. But everything was different now. Now she was the one with the power. Now Martin would fear her. She’d make him fear her.
“Are you going to call the cops on him?” Olivia asked, leaning a little closer, sending a fresh burst of blood-scent over to Shay.
“I haven’t figured it out yet,” Shay said. “I don’t really have any evidence, and cops tend to believe rich doctors over sick teenagers.” The truth was, though, that she knew whatever she did to Martin, it wouldn’t involve the police. She couldn’t afford to attract the attention of the authorities.
She swallowed hard, trying to fight the hunger that increased with every pump of Olivia’s warm blood. “Hey, Liv, do you have any perfume? The shower at the hotel was über-grungy, so I didn’t use it, and I think I kind of smell.”
Olivia twisted around again as she reached for her purse in the backseat. Her scent hit Shay even harder.
“Uh, they like you to drive in one lane or the other,” Ol
ivia commented, handing Shay a spritzer of Wakely.
Shay realized that she’d gotten so distracted by the scent of blood that she’d let the car drift. She corrected the wheel with one hand, dousing herself with perfume with the other.
“Forty dollars an ounce,” Olivia reminded her.
“I’ll buy you more as soon as we’re home. I just don’t want you and Kaz to have to breathe in my reek.” Actually, Shay was hoping the perfume would dull the scent of the blood. And it did, some, burning the inside of her nostrils and making her eyes water. I’m going to make it. It’s going to be okay, she decided.
“How pissed off at you is Martin going to be—for letting Gabriel go?” Olivia asked. “I still can’t believe he had someone chained up in his office. That’s complete psycho horror movie behavior.”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about that part,” Shay said. Because she didn’t care how pissed he was. He couldn’t possibly be as mad as her. “I haven’t thought about way too many things. I just wanted to see you and get home.” She shot a quick glance at Olivia, not quick enough that her eyes didn’t have time to seek out the thin blue vein running up the side of her neck.
“Shay, one lane,” Olivia cried. “One!”
She’d drifted again. Shay jerked the wheel too hard to the right and almost took them over the edge of the shoulder.
“Stop,” Olivia ordered. “I’m driving. I’d like to make it home alive.”
“Sorry,” Shay said.
“Are we there?” Kaz asked, voice thick with sleep, as Shay pulled over.
“Hardly. We’re not even over the state line. This is northern Virginia,” Olivia told him. “I’m going to drive. Shay’s still got the twitchies.”
Shay jumped out of the car and sucked in as many deep breaths of the night air as she could before she had to get back inside, where the air was saturated with the scent of blood. The smell of the perfume was still strong, but Shay’s body had changed in so many ways. She was a hunter now, a tracker, and blood drew her, pulling her to the source.
Kaz watched her, one eyebrow lifted. “Do you need medication or something?” he asked after Olivia had pulled back onto the road. “Do you have it with you?”
“No. I’m okay,” Shay replied. She noticed Olivia shooting Kaz a worried look in the rearview. “Really,” she added.
“Do you think maybe you should go to my house first, instead of going straight home?” Olivia asked. “Your mom could come over and see you, let you know how much trouble you’re in with Martin. I don’t want him going off on you.”
This was so familiar: Olivia worrying about Shay, wanting to manage things for her, protect her. And meanwhile, Shay was using every bit of strength she had to fight the instinct to sink her fangs into Olivia’s neck and drink. She shuddered, remembering how she’d almost killed that guy in the pickup.
“Shay, what? Are you cold?” Olivia asked, misunderstanding the way Shay’s body was shaking.
“No. But I think I’m going to be sick. Pull over,” Shay cried. She had to get out of the car, before she did something unspeakable.
“You just told Kaz you weren’t—,” Olivia began.
Shay’s fangs released fully. There was no time. She reached over and grabbed the wheel, jerking the car over to an exit ramp as Olivia slammed on the brakes. They skidded to a stop, half on and half off the ramp. Shay shoved open the door and ran.
“Shay!” Olivia screamed.
Shay didn’t turn back. There was a gas station just off the exit. One car at the pumps. A woman next to it, pumping gas. Giving herself over to her instincts, Shay hurled herself at the woman, knocking the nozzle out of her hand. Before it had the chance to clatter to the ground, Shay’s mouth was filled with blood. She had one arm locked around the woman’s waist, one hand pressed over her lips to keep her from screaming, as Shay took what she needed.
The dizziness left her body. She felt clear and strong as the blood flowed from the Giver to her, bringing with it a collage of emotion, almost too many feelings to absorb. Don’t take too much, she told herself. Not too much. But she had to have a little more.
“Shay!”
The familiar voice was so full of horror and disgust that Shay instantly released the woman, who slumped to the ground. Not drained, though. A part of Shay was still aware of the blood coursing through the woman even as she turned to face Olivia.
Olivia let out a long, shrill shriek. In her friend’s eyes Shay could see her own reflection. Blood dripped from her mouth down her chin. Involuntarily, she licked it away, and Olivia let out a low retching sound.
“It’s not—” Shay didn’t have time to finish, not that she knew what to say anyway. Olivia turned and tore back toward the car.
“Sorry,” Shay said to the lady on the ground. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Then she chased after Olivia. Too late. Olivia slammed herself into the car. Kaz gaped at Shay, eyes wild, as the automatic door locks went down.
Olivia floored it, and the car sped off, tires squealing.
Shay stared after it, mouth open, still trying to come up with the words that would make Olivia understand.
Like that was even possible.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
SOON THEY WOULD COME FOR HIM. The death ritual would begin at three a.m., the soul’s midnight, the time of night when more humans let go of life than any other, when the barrier between this world and what lay beyond was the thinnest. It was one of the first things Ernst had taught Gabriel, back when he was still a young human boy. He’d called it superstition back then, but when it had been time to take Sam’s life, Ernst had wanted to do it at three o’clock. Gabriel suspected that his father still bought into the “superstitions” he’d learned in his own youth more than even he realized. He was absolutely sure that Ernst would follow the same rules for his own ritual that they’d followed for Sam’s.
Let them come, Gabriel thought. He lay in one of the farmhouse bedrooms, waiting. Let my life end. What is there to live for now? There was no joy without Shay, who now despised him. Without his family, whom he had betrayed to save her.
And maybe Shay would be happier once she was released from the burden of communion with him.
At least she wasn’t in any immediate danger. Several hours before, he’d felt devastation and grief slicing through him. Shay’s devastation; Shay’s grief. But those feelings had subsided a little. Whatever had happened, she had survived it.
His mind drifted to Sam, and he wondered what had filled his brother’s thoughts as Sam waited for the family to begin his final blood ritual. Unlike Gabriel, Sam had had so much to live for—a woman who loved him passionately, a child soon to be born. He had been going wild inside, that much Gabriel knew from their communion.
He usually kept the memories of that night locked in a deep, dark place inside of him. But tonight the memories crashed down on him relentlessly. Sam had fought with all his strength to free himself from the family as they dragged him into the circle where the ritual would take place, screaming at them to release him. Screaming, then begging, with his eyes locked on Gabriel’s face. He’d continued to struggle until the last moment of the third night of the ritual, when the last of his life was drained away. When he’d forgiven them.
Why couldn’t he have died cursing Gabriel, damning him for what he’d done? After Gabriel had taken everything from Sam, betrayed him in the most awful way, how could his brother still have had the generosity of spirit to think of Gabriel’s suffering instead of his own?
Sam’s forgiveness has been the hardest burden to bear, he thought. At least I’ll be free of my guilt once I’m dead.
The smell of smoke permeated Gabriel’s room, pulling him from his thoughts, and for a moment memory and reality blurred and blended. That smell . . . it could have come from the night Sam was killed. The night Gabriel helped murder him. It took him a moment to realize that the smell of smoke was from the present, not the past. The circle for his ritual was being prepare
d down in the cellar. Not much time left. A blink, a sigh, compared to the years he’d already lived.
And what had he done in all those years? What had he accomplished?
I gave Shay life.
That was something. It was enough. And maybe, in its way, saving Sam’s daughter had partially made up for what he’d done to Sam. Not that anything could truly absolve him, not even Sam’s words.
Gabriel heard the lock click, and a second later the door swung open. Ernst stood there, face expressionless except for the look of steely determination in his eyes. Gabriel got up and went toward him, though neither of them spoke. When Gabriel reached him, Ernst turned and walked down the hall. Gabriel followed, Luis and Tamara falling into place, flanking him on either side.
Tamara was blazing with hatred. And anticipation. She wanted Gabriel dead and she was eager to see him suffer. Her fury ran through the entire communion. Luis’s grief over Richard’s death hadn’t turned to anger the way hers had. From Luis, Gabriel felt a deep sadness along with resignation.
The smell of smoke grew stronger as they moved through the old house. Silent as a funeral procession, as if Gabriel were already dead, they took the stairs from the kitchen to the cellar.
Gabriel wished that the blood ritual could take place outside. The moon was full, and it would illuminate the night. He would rather die in light than darkness, but it was not to be.
Ernst led the way across the empty space to a large perfect circle burned into the dirt floor, smooth gray stones rimming it.
Millie waited for them there inside the scorched ring. She bent and removed one of the stones, allowing them passage into the center of the circle. Her eyes were filled with grief as Gabriel passed her, and he could feel the same grief from her in the communion, but she placed the stone back in place without a word.
He had helped Ernst prepare the circle for Sam’s death, trying to harden his heart the entire time. Millie’s grief was simple and pure, but Gabriel’s had been twisted by his anger—at Sam for falling in love with a human, at all humans for taking yet another brother from him.
