Change of Fate (The Briar Creek Vampires Series #4)

by Unknown

  “Did you come to bring us back? Do the others know you’re here?”

  Mary-Kate laughed loudly. The sound of her laughter echoed into the air that surrounded Lexi and Dan. “You know, originally, that was what I had planned,” Mary-Kate said. “To bring you back.” From the emphasis that her half-sister had placed on ‘you’, Lexi could tell that she was talking about her specifically and not Dan. “And no, no one else knows I’m here. I was going to follow you right away, but my plans got interrupted. I had to track them down in Long Island before I could come after you.”

  Lexi swam closer to Mary-Kate, the water swirling around her. “Well, I’m so glad that you came! I’m so happy to see you.” Although she was a little disappointed that Mary-Kate had just interrupted her first kiss with Dan, Lexi really was excited to see her sister. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to kiss Dan right now, anyway. They should probably wait to see if they still wanted to kiss each other when they got back to the real world, and they weren’t involved in what felt almost like a fairytale.

  Mary-Kate laughed again. Lexi wasn’t sure, but it looked like her sister was also rolling her eyes at her. It was almost as though Lexi had done or said something to annoy her.

  “Is everything okay?” Lexi asked. “You seem . . . different.”

  “Am I okay? Am I okay?“ Mary-Kate scoffed before laughing again. “How can I seem different when you really don’t know me at all?” It didn’t seem like Mary-Kate was waiting for an answer – which was good because Lexi didn’t know how to respond to her. Mary-Kate continued. “At first, I have to admit, I was jealous of you, Lexi.”

  “Jealous? Why would you be jealous of me?” Lexi asked with wide eyes. She and her sister were polar opposites. She couldn’t even begin to imagine why Mary-Kate might be jealous of. Mary-Kate was the mayor’s daughter. She was one of the most popular girls in town. She had plenty of friends, lots of attention from guys, and she probably hadn’t worked a day in her life, yet she owned a whole wardrobe of designer clothes and handbags. Lexi was pretty sure that she didn’t have anything that her sister could be even remotely envious of.

  “Because you have everything that I have ever needed,” Mary-Kate said, her voice cracking. “When we were little, you had our father. Maybe not for long, but at least you had him at all. You got to know what he was like. He disappeared when I was just a baby so he could be with your mom and you.”

  “Well, I don’t have him either now,” Lexi stammered. “I haven’t seen him since I was a child.” She tried to imagine how Mary-Kate must feel. If the roles were reverse and their dad had left her and her mom so that he could with Mary-Kate and Mrs. Lawrence, would she hold it against her sister?

  “He’s out there right now trying to protect you right now, though!” Mary-Kate shot back at her. “Do you know what he did for me when the town wanted my blood? Not a damn thing!”

  Lexi felt the water moving behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to find that Dan was standing behind her protectively. He must have noticed that Mary-Kate seemed really angry, too.

  “Our father – if you can even call him a father – just allowed the people from the town to drink from me. Do you know how disgusting it was for some of those old men to drink my blood? It took me months to get my dad to agree to use vials to collect my blood instead of letting them suck from my neck. He was worried that allowing my blood to hit the air would make it less powerful.” Mary-Kate scoffed. “He didn’t even consider how it was affecting me emotionally. And I tried to get in touch with Ben, hoping that he would find a way to rescue me. Do you know what our ‘daddy’ did to help me?” She asked, making air quotes with her fingers, as she sarcastically rolled her eyes. “Nothing! He said it was out of his hands because I wasn’t his daughter because Greg adopted me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lexi whispered, unsure of what else she could say. It almost felt like Mary-Kate was blaming her for what their father had done, which really wasn’t fair. It’s not like Lexi had kept in touch with him all of these years – and even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything to sway his decision to help Mary-Kate.

  “Meanwhile, you were off living with a healthy mom in New Jersey, while I had to suffer living in Briar Creek,” Mary-Kate went on, her voice full of hatred. “Why is it that you were the one who was able to get out and not me?”

  Lexi didn’t say anything. She just looked down at her hands and ran them through the water. “I don’t know. It just happened that way, I guess. It’s not like it’s my fault.”

  “No, maybe it’s not your fault. But you know what is your fault?” Mary-Kate asked.

  Lexi looked up at her, meeting her eyes, which had an icy glare to them that definitely wasn’t to block out the sun. “What?”

  “You have the potential to save hundreds of people. You could be their hero, and you’re choosing not to.” Mary-Kate shook her head, and Lexi got a look at her sister for the first time. Her chestnut brown hair, which was normally as straight as a pin, was disheveled. Her eyes were sunken in, and they were red and puffy like she’d been crying. “That is why I’m jealous of you. You’re so fortunate, and you don’t even realize it. Your blood is still powerful enough to save people!”

  “People who want to kill me!” Lexi protested. “Why would I want to save people who are willing to sacrifice me?”

  “Do you not understand the severity of their disease?” Mary-Kate asked, raising her voice. Without your blood, they’re going to die. That means they won’t be able to come back! Or are you such a selfish bitch that you feel the need to keep your precious blood all to yourself?”

  Lexi felt tears form behind her eyes, and she blinked them away. Where was all of this coming from? Mary-Kate had told her that she wanted them to go to college together and really be the sisters that they had never had the opportunity to be their whole lives. Now, she was just being really mean . . . almost as though Lexi had done something wrong. But she had been stuck in the 1800s for so long, how could she have done anything to hurt Mary-Kate?

  It wasn’t until Mary-Kate had jumped into the water and lunged at her, wrapping her hands around her throat, that Lexi realized that her half-sister wasn’t just upset with her. Her eyes were full with hatred.

  Chapter 29

  ****

  With Mary-Kate’s fingers clasped around her throat, Lexi couldn’t breathe. She felt her head being pushed under water, and she closed her eyes. All she could hear was the muffled sounds that came with being underwater, as she tried to hold her breath and fight her way out of Mary-Kate’s grip.

  Mary-Kate pushed her head even further under water, holding her down. Lexi wasn’t about to give up. She had lived through so much. She couldn’t let her half-sister kill her. She wasn’t ready to die yet.

  Scratching at Mary-Kate’s arms and swimming forward with all her might, Lexi managed to get away from her long enough to emerge from the water. As she gasped for air, her sister came closer to her. Lexi did the only thing she could think of: she kicked her sister hard in the stomach.

  A look of pain crossed Mary-Kate’s face. Her eyes flashed with anger and she screamed, “You bitch!” Mary-Kate splashed water at her angrily.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me!” Lexi yelled back at her. “I care about you! I thought you wanted to be sisters.”

  Mary-Kate scoffed. “You don’t care about anyone except yourself. You don’t care about me. If you did care, you wouldn’t be hurting me so bad.” Mary-Kate lunged at Lexi again, but this time, she didn’t have to defend herself. Dan grabbed Mary-Kate and held her arms behind her back. Lexi knew that Dan had probably been too shocked by all of this to stop Mary-Kate from attacking her the first time.

  “What are you talking about?” Lexi asked her sister. “What am I doing to hurt you?”

  “My mother is dying right now!” Mary-Kate screamed, splashing water with her feet as she fought to get away from Dan’s hold on her. “If you were a real sister, you would have o
ffered to give her your blood so that she could get better instead of just letting her die!”

  So, that’s what had sparked Mary-Kate’s outrage – her mother dying. “You should have asked me,” Lexi told her softly. “If you asked me, I probably would have tried to help her . . . but you didn’t even let me know that you were upset about this.”

  “I came here to bring you back so that I could force you to give her blood,” Mary-Kate said, spitting water out of her mouth. “But now, I know that I don’t need you to help me. I don’t need your blood to save her! There’s a better way that will let her live forever!”

  Lexi raised her eyebrows. She wanted to give her a sister hug and tell her that she completely understood what she was going through. She had lost her own mother, after all. But the look in her eyes told her this was a bad idea. So, instead, she just said, “I thought Hunter blood was the only cure for Wilkins’ Syndrome.”

  “Unless she becomes an immortal,” Mary-Kate said. Biting Dan in the arm and kicking him in the groin, she managed to get away from him and began swimming to the river bank.

  Lexi watched her sister for a minute, absorbing everything that had just happened, before she realized what she was doing. Dan must have realized the same thing, because he yelled at Lexi, “She’s going for the potion!”

  Lexi began swimming to the other side of the river. Thank God for all of those swimming lessons her mom had forced her into when she was a child and for all of the laps her swimming coach had forced her to do every day after school because she had one hell of a breast stroke. Lexi swam past Mary-Kate and was already on the bank of the river before her sister was even close.

  As she grabbed the jar of potion and pulled on her pants, Lexi tried to figure out what to do. Mary-Kate was swimming towards her faster now, even as Dan tried to pull her back. Doing the first thing that came to mind, Lexi started running.

  She ran towards Belinda’s house, still trying to decide what to do. She pounded on the front door, but no one answered. Figures, Lexi thought, as she spotted Mary-Kate coming towards her. She ran around to the side of the house, crouching down behind the bushes that she had hid behind when she’d first arrived. They were tall enough to shelter her from Mary-Kate’s sight . . . Lexi hoped.

  Mary-Kate ran around the corner of the house, scanning the backyard. Lexi held her breath, hoping that her half-sister wouldn’t hear her. When Mary-Kate didn’t see her, she turned back in the direction that she had come from.

  Continuing to hold her breath, Lexi stared at the potion in her hands. It felt like she was back to square one; back in Briar Creek, everyone was fighting her for her blood, and here, it seemed like Mary-Kate wasn’t going to give up without a fight over this bottle of potion. Lexi felt half-tempted to throw the jar on the ground, shattering its ability to make her or Mrs. Lawrence an immortal. She couldn’t do it, though. Her mom had told her that she had to do what Belinda said . . . which meant becoming an immortal, whether she liked it or not.

  Lexi still wasn’t sure if she wanted to drink the potion, but throwing it on the ground and smashing it would prevent her from being able to do so. Maybe once she got back to the 21st century, her mom would visit her again and explain why it was so necessary for her to become an immortal. She doubted it, though. Even though she knew that her mom tried to lead her in the right direction about what she should do, there were times when she couldn’t tell her everything. Somehow, her mom’s advice made it even more difficult to determine right from wrong.

  Something in the bushes rustled, and Lexi drew in her breath. She didn’t know what Mary-Kate had up her sleeve. For all Lexi knew, her sister was armed and ready to kill. She had been really close to drowning Lexi in the river, so why wouldn’t she have a weapon on her, ready to kill her now?

  Luckily, it was Dan’s face that appeared in front of her. “She thinks you ran back towards town. That’s where she’s headed,” he whispered to her, sitting down on the ground next to her, concealing himself behind the bush as well. “We have to figure out a way to get the hell out of here.”

  “You’re telling me,” Lexi whispered, taking his hand in hers. She felt so much safer when he was around. “I’m so glad you’re here with me. I don’t think I would have been able to do this alone.”

  Dan flashed her a smile. “I’m glad I’m with you, too. I would have been worried sick about you.”

  “I wonder how she got into the book,” Lexi said, shaking her head. “I wonder if she’s the one who had it the whole entire time.” When Dan stared back at her for an explanation, she continued. “You know how Gabe saw a vision of it in the Lawrence’s house? He thought Greg was the one who took it, but maybe it was Mary-Kate who had it all along. I wonder if Greg even knew it was there.”

  “Probably,” Dan replied, shrugging. “Mary-Kate’s a really manipulative person.”

  Lexi raised an eyebrow. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”

  “You never asked me. I don’t know why no one else told you. I’ve known it for awhile now,” Dan said, shrugging. “I always thought she held her blood over people’s heads . . . guys mostly. She usually didn’t let guys drink from her unless they took her on dates or bought her expensive gifts. I got forced into that a few times myself.”

  Lexi felt her jaw drop, but she quickly turned her head so that Dan wouldn’t see her shock, and closed it. When she had first met Dan, she’d seen a picture of him kissing Mary-Kate in a box she had found in Austin’s room. Lexi still didn’t know why Austin had that picture, but she’d later found out that Dan’s brother, Dave, had been on a date with Mary-Kate, even though he was dating her best friend, Julie. At the time, Lexi couldn’t understand why Dan didn’t have a problem with his brother being with a girl he’d kissed . . . or why he’d been kissing Mary-Kate himself, since she was supposed to be dating Austin at the time.

  Now it all made sense, though. Neither of them wanted to be with Mary-Kate because they’d liked her. They’d just wanted her blood, which was part of their own survival. Lexi felt silly now for wondering if Dan had really been Austin’s friend or if he had been betraying him the whole time.

  And she couldn’t even believe that Mary-Kate had done that to those guys. Here, she had been thinking that her sister had been this great person for allowing people to use her as a blood donor. It had seemed noble and brave. But really, she had her own selfish motives for doing it. Thinking about the fact that Mary-Kate had done this to Dan and probably Gabe and Craig, too, made her feel sick to her stomach. She wondered how far any of them had gone to please her sister enough to allow them to drink from her.

  “There was also this time when Mary-Kate kissed me,” Dan said quietly. When Lexi looked over at him, he didn’t meet her eyes. “She had someone take a picture of it, and then she sent it to Austin. It was around the time he wanted to break up with her.” Dan shrugged. “I guess she wanted to seem more desirable, and Austin even got mad at me over it for a while. He came to his senses and forgave me eventually . . . And I guess her little scheme worked because Austin never broke up with her.” Dan shook his head. “I’ve tried to warn him about her, but he doesn’t seem to want to listen. I guess he doesn’t believe me.”

  Lexi sighed. It was just like her cousin to look for the best in everyone. “Well, he’ll have to believe you now, after this. I’ll be here to back up your story.”

  Dan squeezed her hand. “That’s true. I don’t know how he’ll be able to deny it.”

  “I barely even fought back, I was in too much shock. I wanted Mary-Kate to be my family . . . I can’t believe I had been so wrong about her.” Lexi rested her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know what we should do. I guess we both just need to keep thinking about how we want to go back.”

  Dan nodded. “That’s all we can do. Do you think Belinda will let us sleep in her house tonight?”

  “She probably would, but to be honest, I feel sort of bad,” Lexi admitted. “I think she needs some time alon
e . . . with Albert and all.”

  “Ah, good ole Albert,” Dan said. “He should be waking up by now.”

  Lexi reached for her neck. “I’m wearing the bat pendant now, at least, so he won’t be able to smell me.”

  Dan glanced at her neck. She watched as his eyes drifted below her neckline, and for the first time since they’d been sitting behind the bushes, she realized that she was only wearing her bra. Thankfully, she hadn’t worn one of her ugly white or beige bras on the morning they’d time traveled and had, instead, worn a red lacy push-up bra that gave her small breasts the extra boost they needed for her to feel confident about herself. Otherwise, she would probably feel a little awkward right now.

  “Here,” Dan said, pulling his shirt over his head. “You can wear this.”

  “Thank you,” Lexi blushed, quickly sliding it over her head.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Dan said. “There’s always a good sister and a bad sister.”

  “I hope you’re trying to say I’m the good sister.”

  “I am.” Dan grinned at her.

  “Do you think Mary-Kate is all bad? She’s been through so much. Her mom is dying . . . everyone handles things differently.” Lexi hoped that Mary-Kate was just having a nervous breakdown and would be back to her normal self soon.

  “So is mine,” Dan said. “You don’t see me trying to kill you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lexi whispered. “I didn’t know that.”

  Dan shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It happens, I guess.”

  As Dan pulled her closer to him and she curled up against his cool body, she found herself, once again, not thinking about how she wanted to go back to Briar Creek. All she could think of was how she could make things better for Dan.

  Chapter 30

  ****

  Austin laid on the bed in Anna’s dorm room, trying to keep his mind off of Dan and Lexi. It was all he could think about ever since Ben had told them that there was nothing they could do to get them back. Where were they? Were they in danger? Had they stuck together, or had Lexi pushed Dan away, assuming, as usual, that he was out to hurt her?