“Oh, but we do. I have no reason to save someone who’s nothing more than a blood hoarder. Not when she didn’t try to save me. You would rather let me die from this disease,” Craig replied. His voice had suddenly taken on a cold, angry tone . . . and Lexi was reminded of the day she had learned that Mary-Kate was against her, too.
“But you didn’t tell me you needed saving. If you would have just told me, I would have tried to save you,” Lexi insisted, remembering the one and only time Craig had asked her if he could drink her blood. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Wilkins’ Syndrome, so she had been under the impression that he had only requested her blood for sexual reasons. It had seemed like he was really into her, and she knew that bloodlust was common among vampires who were attracted to humans.
Craig smirked, his lip curling in disdain. “So you say. We’ll never know that you would have saved me for sure.” His face hardened. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want sympathy from you—or anyone else, for that matter.”
He moved his face even closer to hers, and Lexi held her breath, wondering what he was going to do next. Had he brought her to this park just to kill her?
“You need to be punished for what you have done,” Craig told her, meeting her eyes. “I have already decided what your punishment is going to be. Are you ready to hear it?” There was an amused look on his face.
“Yes, tell me,” Lexi whispered, even though she didn’t want to know. If he was planning to kill her, she wished he would just do it and get it over with so she wouldn’t even know what hit her.
“I’m going to drink every drop of blood from your body,” Craig replied, excitedly. “And once I’ve finished, I will drink the potion just so that no one else can have it.” He pulled the tiny jar of potion out of his pocket and held it up for her to see it before setting it down next to him. Smiling, he asked, “What do you think of that? Sounds like a glorious plan, doesn’t it?”
Lexi gaped at him. The fact that he had just told her that he was going to kill her didn’t even phase her; it was what she had been expecting. Instead, she stared at the potion, which was within her reach—if only he didn’t have her wrist in a tight lock. “Where did you get the potion?” she whispered.
“Don’t be foolish, Lexi,” Craig replied with a chuckle. “I got it from your dorm room, of course. I tipped off some of the vampires from Briar Creek that you were in the area, so they came looking for you. I knew it would make the school go on lock down, which would give me the opportunity to steal the potion . . . and prevent you from going anywhere again. Don’t worry about those other vampires, though. I wasn’t about to tell them where you were exactly because I don’t want to share you with them. Your blood is all mine.” He smiled. “It’s too bad you left your door unlocked, isn’t it? Well, too bad for you, maybe. But it’s not too bad for me. Since you’re not an immortal, I can still get the same benefits from your blood.”
“I saved blood for that very reason,” Lexi said, hoping that knowing that she wanted to save people would convince him not to kill her. “I saved vials in case I wanted to cure anyone.”
“Where is it?” Craig asked.
Lexi hesitated. If she were to tell him, he might try to drink it . . . and that wasn’t what she wanted. Even if she didn’t live through this ordeal, her father would. If anyone he knew got sick, he would know how to save them.
“Where is it?!” Craig shrieked, his fingernails ripping through the skin on her wrists.
“It’s in the refrigerator in the basement at Huntington,” Lexi whispered. “Please don’t hurt me.”
Craig chuckled. “I’m going to do to you exactly what I did to Rose. Don’t worry. Rose didn’t feel too much pain, so neither will you.” He lowered his head to her neck, and she pushed him back.
“Wait, before you drink from me . . . who’s Rose?” Lexi questioned, hoping that talking to him would prolong things so that she could figure out what to do.
“Rose is the girl who changed me,” Craig replied.
“I thought you said that you didn’t know how she died,” Lexi pointed out, remembering the story he’d told her about how he had felt when the vampire who had changed him had died.
Craig laughed. “Oh, I know very well how she died. She died begging me to stop drinking from her. She begged until she became unconscious from so much blood loss.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling as he remembered Rose’s death. “I wanted to punish her, too. I wanted to punish her for changing me, so I killed her. I chose a way that would benefit us both, though. At least, I thought it would benefit me. I didn’t know that drinking her blood would make me get this disease.”
“It’s not your fault,” Lexi whispered. “You couldn’t have known. I don’t blame you for getting revenge on Rose. I would have done the same thing. She deserved it after what she did to you. It wasn’t your fault at all,” Lexi told him, trying to make him think she was on his side.
“You’re right, it’s not my fault. It’s your fault. Well, your family’s fault,” Craig replied, shaking his head. “Once I started to get sick, all the other vampires talked about was the Hunter curse. They kept telling me that there was this girl named Mary-Kate who could cure me. So, I started drinking from her on a regular basis. What I didn’t know was that her blood had already expired and that past the age of eighteen, her blood was useless to me.”
Pausing, he moved his hand that was on her throat to pin down her other wrist. “When I first saw you that day at the college, all I could think about was how delectable you smelled to me. I knew, right away, that you were the other Hunter girl, and I knew that I had to have you if I wanted to cure this disease. So, I gave you my number, remember? I waited for you to call, but you never did.
“So, I waited some more. I waited for you to come around when I was your teacher. I wanted to take you away on what you would have thought was a romantic getaway for the weekend so that I could devour you there and dispose of your body before anyone even realized what had happened. But that plan didn’t work out and when you disappeared from school, I wasn’t sure when I would see you again. So, imagine my surprise—my pleasant surprise—when you ended up at Huntington, too. I knew that if I played my cards right, I could make you fall for me. I think you started to develop feelings for me, too, didn’t you?” Craig smiled at her.
“A little,” Lexi whispered.
“A little? You were practically throwing yourself at me! I suppose I have Gabe to thank for that more than anyone else. If he hadn’t cheated on you with Veronica Hart, you might never have given me the chance. You might not have come to trust me as much as you do now.” Craig smiled. “Thank goodness for cheating boyfriends. And thank goodness you care so much about that asshole, Gabe, enough to come here to try to save him.” He laughed. “I knew it would be the easiest way to get you to come here with me, no questions asked.”
Lexi gulped. How could she have been so stupid? She should have taken Justin’s warnings to not be so trusting a little more seriously.
Then again, she never thought in a million years that Craig would have turned on her. It seemed like—of all the people in her life—he had no reason to. If anything, she was sort of expecting the traitor in her life to be Gabe. He was the one who had tried to kill her in a car accident once, after all. Her mom had assured her that she should trust him, but Lexi still found herself wondering, to this day, how he could have tried to kill someone who he supposedly loved. She might not be here right now if it weren’t for Mary-Kate pulling her from the wreckage—and even then, the only reason her half-sister had done that was because she wanted Lexi to save Mrs. Lawrence from Wilkins’ Syndrome, too. It felt like everyone was only out for her blood. She was getting sick of it.
“Can’t you just spare me?” Lexi whispered.
“Spare you?” Craig laughed. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
“So I can save other people with Wilkins’ Syndrome,” Lexi replied. “If you want, you can still drink that potion. Just l
et me go. Please.”
Craig laughed. “I have no reason to spare you. You’re a selfish little bitch. You know, you could start a blood bank and made good money off your blood. People would pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars just to drink from you.” Sneering, he added, “I thought about doing that myself, you know. Kidnapping you and forcing you to give blood daily and profit off of you. But then, I realized this would be a lot more fun. I have no reason to want to share you. I don’t want to save anyone. Why should I help any other vampire? No one around here has ever helped me. No, I only want to drink from you and save myself. I’m the only one who deserves you.”
Lexi could feel her whole entire body begin to shake. There was no way she was going to be able to talk him out of this. And with no stakes nearby, she couldn’t kill him. With her wrists pinned down by his strong vampire body, there was no way she would have been able to escape to grab a stake even if there were one around.
Remembering the last time she had nearly died from blood loss, she decided that if she had to die, this was probably the kindest death she could have been given. First, she would feel good as the blood poured out of her veins, and then she would black out and feel nothing once he drank too much.
Deciding that she didn’t have a fighting chance, Lexi decided to give in. “Fine. Kill me,” she whispered. “Get it over with.”
“Don’t worry, Lexi,” Craig said with a wide grin. “I’ll make this as painless for you as I possibly can. All you’ll feel is the pleasure you so enjoy when vampires drink your blood.” He leaned in closer to her and opened his mouth to sink his teeth into her neck.
Chapter 18
Before Anna even parked the car, Dan opened the door and darted down the path that led to the hill that he and his father had gone to when he was a child. He hoped that he was right, that Lexi was really here and not at some other park that he didn’t know about. The idea that she was in some sort of danger scared him, but he knew that had to be strong if he was going to help her.
“Dan, wait!” Austin called. “Wait for us!”
“There’s no time! I have to find Lexi!” Dan began to trot up the gravelly hill that led to the top of the slope, hoping that he would find her on the side. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, but he felt slowed down.
When he finally reached the top, all he saw was blackness. And that’s when he heard it—the sound of Lexi moaning softly. He had heard that same sound several times before, back when they were in the 1800s, when he had drank from her.
Someone was drinking from her at that very moment . . . probably Craig Lindstrom.
Gripping the stake that he had grabbed from the backseat of Anna’s car, Dan followed the familiar sound until he was near the edge of the hill, which overlooked a small stream that he and his father used to throw pebbles across and fish in when he was little. He knew the whole park like the palm of his hand. Dan even knew that the reason it was called Bear Cliff State Park wasn’t because the area was heavily populated with bears, but because the cliffs were shaped in a bear formation.
When he got closer to them, he heard a male voice say, “Don’t worry, Lexi. I promise this won’t hurt at all. You won’t even realize that you’re dying. Rose didn’t realize it, and you won’t either.”
The moon reflected on Craig Lindstrom’s back. Dan could tell that he was hovering over Lexi, his body pressed against her; her legs looked lifeless and limp. Dan hoped that he wasn’t too late.
Stepping forward and holding the stake over his head, he brought it down quickly, aiming for Craig’s heart. But Craig must have seen his shadow as it moved over him because he whirled around and shoved him out of his way.
Dan shoved him back, leaving Craig lying flat on the ground. Neither of them said a word. Dan held the stake over his head, prepared to launch it through Craig’s heart, when he got up off the ground and before Dan could even do anything, he felt his arm being twisted behind his back.
Craig forced Dan’s arm closer to his own chest; he was positive that the stake was going to go through his own heart.
Struggling, Dan untwisted his arm, just as he was punched in the face. “You’re not gonna kill me,” Craig told him. “So you should just give up now.”
Deciding that Craig wasn’t worthy of a response, Dan pushed him forward and jabbed the stake through his heart.
He watched, in horror, as Craig’s body began to smoke, as though it were on fire. He’d seen a vampire die before, but each time it happened disturbed him just as much as the previous time. The expression on his face resembled one that Dan would expect to see on someone who was being electrocuted, and a tortured sound escaped his lips, as his body convulsed in pain.
Within seconds, his eyes fluttered shut, and he slumped over onto the ground.
Dan breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Lexi, who was lying on the ground. He wasn’t sure if she was conscious, either.
“Lexi?” he asked, kneeling down on the ground beside her. “Are you awake?”
Chapter 19
Lexi was lying on the ground, but Craig wasn’t drinking from her any more. She felt relief, but she wasn’t sure where he had gone or if he would be back. Her head was beginning to hurt, and she felt really dizzy from all of the blood that she had lost.
When she cracked one eye open, she saw Dan kneeling beside her, staring into her face. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but when she reached out for him, she knew that she was alive. The realization somehow made her feel better; it gave her strength, and suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad anymore.
“Dan?” she whispered.
He nodded. “It’s me, Lexi. Are you okay?”
“I think I’ll live,” she muttered, rubbing both of her eyes. “Wait, you’re back?”
“Yep, I’m back,” he replied with a smile.
“Oh, Dan!” Lexi cried, allowing herself to fall into his arms as he sat down beside her and held her close. He wiped her tears away with the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirts. “I don’t know how you’re back, but I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I don’t know how I’m back, either,” he admitted, brushing back his sandy blonde hair. “But I’m glad, too.”
“What happened?” Lexi asked, sitting up. “After I left?”
“I waited for you to bring me back. I thought that when you got back to the future, you forgot about me . . . and that you forgot to wish for me to come back, and about everything that happened between us when we were in the past,” Dan admitted, looking down at the ground.
Lexi took his chin in her hands and moved her face closer to his. “Don’t be silly, Dan Nichols. I could never forget you.” She pushed her mouth against his and, coaxing his lips to part, met his tongue.
Their kiss felt different from any other kiss she had ever felt before; it felt like her body was on fire, but his cold mouth felt icy against her own. Goose bumps shot up and down her arms, as Dan pulled her in closer to him, running his hands through her hair.
When he pulled away from her, after what felt like an eternity, he whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
Lexi stared into his sky blue eyes, which glimmered in the moonlight. She could feel her heart thump against her chest. “Me, too,” she replied.
“Lexi!” someone called, and she turned to see Austin and Anna bounding over towards them.
“Austin! Anna!” Lexi replied excitedly. She had seen both of them earlier that day, so their reunion wasn’t as surprising as her reunion with Dan was; on the other hand, she hadn’t thought for a second that she was going to get out of Bear Cliff State Park. She was positive that Craig was going to kill her, and that’s when the realization hit her.
Lexi turned to Dan. “What happened to Craig?”
“I killed him,” he replied quietly. Judging from the way he looked down at the ground, Lexi could tell that he wasn’t proud of what he had done. “I put a stake through his heart, and he’s gone.”
“Thank you,” she whispere
d, pressing her hands against his chest and standing on her tiptoes to press another small kiss against his lips. “I owe you for saving my life yet another time. If there’s anything I can ever do to repay you, please let me know. If it weren’t for you, I would have died here tonight.”
“I’m just glad I got to you in time,” Dan replied, shaking his head. “We were worried we wouldn’t make it.”
“How did you even know where to find me?” Lexi asked, realizing that she hadn’t told anybody where she was going. Unless Karla had gotten in touch with them, it didn’t make any sense how they would know to look for her here.
“Gabe had a vision,” Austin explained. “He saw you were at a park, and judging from the description, Dan knew it was this park.”
“Gabe?” Lexi asked, her body tensing. “I’m surprised he didn’t come, too, then.”
“He couldn’t,” Anna explained. “Rhonda wouldn’t let him.”
“Oh, God.” Lexi rolled her eyes. She had forgotten all about Rhonda and the crazy hold that she had over Gabe. “Oh, guys, I almost forgot to tell you. Rhonda isn’t the one who stole the potion.”
“Really?” Austin asked, his face full of surprise. “Who did?”
“Craig.” She walked over to where she had just been lying and searched the ground. Picking it up, she showed them the jar. “Greg and whatever vampires were outside the school didn’t know the truth about Huntington. They just thought I was somewhere nearby. Craig tipped them off so that they would raise a security alert so that I wouldn’t go anywhere—and so he would get inside our dorm room without us realizing it.”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “Wow, I thought for sure it was Rhonda. So, wait, why did Craig do all of this? Was he just nutty or something? He always seemed so nice. I’m sort of in shock.”
Lexi shook her head. “He had Wilkins’ Syndrome. He was mad at me because I didn’t agree to let him drink my blood a while ago, before Dan and I got trapped inside the book, but he never told me he had the disease. I would have done something to help him if I had known because I really did care about him. He was a good friend,” she added, when Dan shifted uncomfortably beside her.
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