I don’t remember falling.
I opened my eyes to see a vision I was sure was a hallucination from the pain in my head and back. Through a fuzzy cloud that was reminiscent of a heat off the sidewalks in the summer, I watched Drew drop over the wall and sprint toward me in a full-out run. He drew his guns while he ran.
I closed my eyes again. The pain was horrendous. Throbbing and scorching in my head and back.
“Chloe!”
I opened my eyes again to see him there, bent down in front of me. His eyes were scaling over my body, and so were his hands.
“What are you doing?” I muttered.
“Checking you for breaks.”
I sighed and realized that I could actually feel his hands on me. “You’re real.”
“Yes, now let’s go. You have to get up.” He sounded just like Drew, always ordering me around.
“I’ve escaped,” I told him in a whisper.
“Chloe, you haven’t escaped yet. We have to get out of here, now!” He reached down, lifted me up and ran back toward the wall. I bounced around painfully in his arms while he ran. I wrapped my arms around him and clung to him.
“I have a six pack now,” I told him.
That was when the best sound I’d heard in almost a year rang out through the air: his laughter.
We made it to the wall and he set me down on my feet. “You have to stand. I’m going to climb over, then I’m going to reach down for you. Okay?”
I think I nodded because he began his ascent. I moved over and leaned against the wall where he was climbing and looked toward the house. I saw my clothes rope in a pile on the lawn. The sunlight reflected off the silver faucet, which was sitting on top of the clothes pile like a cherry topping on a hot fudge sundae.
Suddenly, Drew made some kind of gurgling sound and fell over the wall on the other side.
“Drew!” I screamed. Finally, the haze was lifting. Something was wrong. “Drew!”
I heard a strange voice say, “Over there.”
There was shuffling and pain pierced my shoulder. I looked down to see what had caused the pain and saw a dart sticking out of my bicep.
“What the…?” I lifted my hand to pull it out but never made it. Everything faded to black within seconds.
I woke slowly. The first thing I realized was that I was lying on a cold stone floor. I reached out and felt the floor. It was rough and damp. The darkness was thick and the air was musty. It smelled like dirty socks.
“Drew,” I whispered.
I heard him shift and crawl toward me. “I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to save you, but you met me half way.” He laughed a little. “I was just climbing over the wall when I saw a rope drop out through the siding followed by you climbing down. I thought I’d see if you got to the bottom before I ran over there. Then you fell, and I had to cross out into the open.” His voice lost its excitement. “They got us before we could get back over the wall.”
I felt myself nodding, remembering, “The dart.”
I sat up and felt around for him.
“Yeah, they tranquilized us.” He scooted toward me until we were sitting close together. “Any idea how to get out of here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know where we are,” I admitted.
I looked around now that my vision was finally clearing the fuzz. I could probably see better than Drew could, with my vampire vision. I saw bars.
“We’re in a cell.” I heard my voice waver with panic.
He sighed deeply. “Yes. Now let’s get to thinking of some kind of plan.
We heard a clang and footsteps echo, coming right toward us. I got up and went to the bars, trying to look out. Trevor stood there. He shook his head and made a slight tsking sound.
“I told you if you tried to escape the alternative would be far worse.”
All the panic I had felt vanished in an instant, replaced by waves of anger.
“Go to hell.” I told him, emphasizing each word, through clenched teeth. Without thinking, I lifted my hands and blasted him. His speed was faster than the fire, because when the flames withered out, he was far out of reach.
. “You will stay here now,” he told me and then flicked his head at Drew. “The hunter will die tonight.” With those final words, he turned and left, walking at a normal pace so we were forced to listen to the creepy echo of his footfalls again.
“Oh, my god. We are screwed!” I wrapped my hands around the bars and tried to shake them. “I hate you!” I screamed after Trevor.
I then did the most juvenile thing I think I’ve ever done: I had a fit, kicking the bars, throwing fire out into the hall on the other side of the bars, screaming curse words, and crying. I’m not sure how long I carried on, but Drew sat back and left me alone.
Maybe he was afraid of me.
Finally, my anger receded. I looked at Drew, who sat on the floor against the wall of the cell. His blond hair appeared almost luminescent against the darkness. He sat with his knees bent up, leaning forward with his head resting on his arms.
I paced the length of the cell, thinking. We needed to get out. If we didn’t, the rest of the community would come soon enough because Drew was here. It was one thing for me to be here; they thought I had come on my own. They would come after Drew for certain. I spun to face him.
“Why did you come here, Drew?
His head snapped up. “Are you kidding me? Seriously? Chloe, I came here for you!”
“Well, I didn’t need you to come. I would have gotten out of here on my own. Now we’re both stuck in here.”
“We’ll find a way out.”
Rage bubbled to the surface of what little composure I had left.
“Damn it!” I stomped my foot and spun to grab the bars again. “Let us out of here, you filthy scumbag!”
“Knock it off, Chloe. He isn’t going to let us out. Come sit down so we can try to come up with a plan.”
He was right, as always. I wasn’t doing any good standing there screaming when no one would hear me anyway. It was only wasting energy. I slid down the wall and sat next to him.
“But, why… why did you come after me. You knew I wanted to come here. And why did you come by yourself?”
Drew sighed but said nothing. I didn’t say anything either. Eventually, he reached out and grasped my hand in his.
Surprised, I reflexively tried to yank it out of his grip. But he only tightened his fingers around mine. “Chloe, I’m not sure what exactly I feel, or what it means, but I care about you. I can’t really place the feeling just yet, especially because you are young still, but I care about you different than I would care about a sister or something.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but couldn’t think of anything.
“I… I don’t know. What I do know is that I like you more than I should.”
I still couldn’t say anything, so I just sat there, letting him hold my hand. Could it be possible I felt this way too? It would explain that confusion of not knowing where to place Drew when I thought of friends and family. It would explain the jealousy when he was with Christina.
But then there was Gavin.
“That is why I came for you.” He gave my hand a squeeze.
I felt a tear escape from the corner of my eye and was suddenly grateful for the darkness that enveloped us. “I… I know I care about you too. But, I…I don’t know what it is either.”
I finally managed to choke out.
“Why didn’t Gavin come?” I couldn’t help it, I had to ask.
Drew pulled his hand back. I glanced over at him and saw his eyes had narrowed before he turned his head away from me.
“What…what is it?”
“It’s a long story. I could make him look bad and say he didn’t want to come, but that isn’t totally true.”
What? They planned to bust me out, and Gavin didn’t want to come.
“Tell me.”
Drew sighed
and settled back against the mossy wall. “He wanted to come. Since you left, there have been several meetings about coming to get you. It was vetoed three times because you left of your own accord. Even Luke wasn’t pushing for a rescue, until just recently.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Drew cut me off before I could get a word out. “Just let me talk for once.”
I nodded into the dark.
“Chloe, regardless of why you’re here, I know it’s not because you want to be. It’s because you think it’s going to keep all of us safe from your father. I’ve known this since I got your note, and you’re stupid if you think I would just sit back at home and let you sacrifice your life to that bloodsucker. I went to the only other person besides Luke who I figured would feel the same.”
I shifted on the floor and shivered. Then, after a second thought, I moved closer to Drew, pressing up against his side. It’s freakin’ cold, screw propriety. I just wanted to keep warm. He ignored me and let me lean up against him.
“Gavin did want to come and get you, but he wanted to do it organized. You know, a planned attack with lots of Hunters backing us. He wanted the same kind of rescue that the board had already vetoed three times. I begged him to come, and he said he would but that we had to plan it better. Dumb ass.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, we argued about it… a lot. He insisted we needed more Hunters to come with us, and I just wanted the two of us. It’s quieter that way, and we could infiltrate more places before anyone would have noticed we were here. He stood by his idea of convincing the board of a rescue. And, well…here I am.”
“Why would you come here by yourself? This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
“Well, even perfection makes mistakes.”
I could see pretty well in the dark, so his grin wasn’t hidden from me.
“Knock it off!” I slapped at him. “This isn’t a time for joking around. We have to get out of here. My birthday is in about a month!”
He shifted to face me better. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Well, apparently, I was bred to allow my father to become a day walker.”
Drew visibly startled. “What the hell?”
“Yeah, the only way a vampire can become a day walker is if he drinks the blood of a human who is half vampire and half vampire hunter. As you well know, those are kinda hard to come by, so my genius father decided he would just use my mother to make his own.”
“What the…are you freakin’ joking?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not joking one bit. I didn’t even get to the part where he has to drain my entire body of blood on the day of my sixteenth birthday for it to work.”
“Oh, god! Chloe! We have to get you out of here.”
“Yeah, you think?” I mumbled. “I’m more concerned about getting you out of here. He needs me alive, at least for another month, but you are expendable. Like he said, he wants to kill you tonight.”
He stood and paced, like I’d done before. “How the hell are we going to get out of here? We need the other Hunters.”
I nodded. “Luke will know. He always knows when I’m in trouble.” I watched him pace. “Is that Luke’s gift? Does he have some kind of psychic ability or something?”
He nodded, but continued his voyage from one end of the cell to the other. “Yeah, mostly it’s just like a strong feeling, but with people close to him, he has been known to have visions or dreams.”
I pretty much knew this, but it was nice to have confirmation.
“Drew, come sit down.”
“I can’t sit down; we have to get out.”
He went to the bars and tried to look down the dank hallway on the other side.
In an effort to get him to sit down so I could think for a moment, I said, “I need you to tell me why you hate Gavin so much.”
“Chloe, I don’t want to talk about that now.”
The outside of the cell had suddenly become important to him. He looked from side to side, up and down.
“You will never want to talk about it unless I hassle you. Get over here.”
His hands dropped to his side, and he turned to face me. “Fine.”
I patted the hard stone floor, offering him his spot back. “Besides, I need you over here to keep me warm.”
“Can’t you warm yourself up with your fire?”
“Uh, no, it doesn’t really work that way.”
He slid back down the wall beside me.
“All right, now spill it, mister.”
Drew was silent for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, I suppose. He leaned forward and wrapped his hands around his knees. “Gavin is my brother.”
“What!” I knew something was up with them, but I never suspected they were brothers.
“He is my half-brother. My mother is also his mother. Right after I was born, my mother left my father for Gavin’s father. She left me too. She had been having an affair with Gavin’s father. When I was six months old, she found out she was pregnant again. This time the baby wasn’t my father’s. My father kicked her out and told her never to come near him or me again.”
“She just left you? Her baby?” I was having a really hard time believing a woman could do that.
“Yes, she just left me. I think she knew my dad would have fought for me, physically, if he had to.” He closed his eyes. “She probably figured that she had another baby coming, so she would be able to replace me anyway.”
“But… you all live in the community, how is it that you never see her?”
“I don’t know. She avoids me, I think. I pretty much hate her for screwing around on my dad and leaving us, so I’m okay with not seeing her.”
“She never tried to talk to you?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“And Gavin… how is it his fault that your mom did this to you?”
“It’s not. He has tried to be my friend over the years, get to know me or whatever, but I don’t want to be his friend, and I especially don’t want to try to be brothers.”
“That is just stupid, Drew! Why not?”
Suddenly he slammed his fist into the floor and I flinched in surprise, the thud resonated throughout the cell. “Because! He is the reason my mother isn’t my mother! He is the reason she left. If he had never been…then my mom would have gotten over that damned affair and would have stayed with us.”
“Oh...” My heart ached for him. I couldn’t imagine going through that. “I’m so sorry.”
He was quiet, head turned away from me.
“Drew?” I placed my hand on his arm and tried to turn him toward me. When he resisted, I only tried harder. Still, he didn’t want to turn toward me, so I crawled around until I was in front of him. I knelt and took his face in both my hands and stared into his now watery green eyes. “I know it hurts. I know that you don’t want it to hurt, but hating Gavin isn’t going to make the hurt go away.”
Suddenly, without warning, he grabbed my arms and yanked me forward until I was kneeling between his legs and our chests were touching.
And then… he kissed me.
He kissed me better than Gavin had kissed me, I’ll admit that. Drew’s kiss felt like he had been waiting a hundred years for our lips to finally meet. I placed my arm on his shoulder, around the back of his neck and kissed him back, not wanting it to end.
All too soon, he pushed me away.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, almost under his breath.
I shook my head. “Why are you sorry?”
“I just had to do it, just once.” He caught my eyes with his.
“I don’t understand. Why only once?”
For some reason I felt the tears starting again. Damned tears always showed up when I didn’t want them.
“Chloe, I’m not about to be second choice for anyone. I care about you, but you want to be with Gavin. If that’s what you want… fine. I just don’t want to
be a choice you made because he wasn’t available to you at the moment.”
Now the tears were really rolling.
“Gavin and I are friends, Drew.” I sniffed. “Don’t ruin this.”
“Ruin what? We are stuck in a freakin’ dungeon!”
“Ugh! You can be so frustrating.” We’d just had our first kiss and he was ruining the moment with every word that came out of his mouth. “Drew…”
He held up his hand in the dark. “Stop, I know what you’re going to say, but I’m simply telling you not to make any decisions right now. I don’t want to hear that I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t want to hear that it was wrong, and I don’t even want to hear that it was right! Let’s just figure out how to get the hell out of here.”
I kept my mouth shut and only nodded. I don’t know what kind of decisions he was talking about anyway, him or Gavin, I guess. He was right. After a kiss like that and Gavin not being here, especially after hearing he didn’t want to join Drew on the rescue, I was feeling drawn more to Drew than ever before.
I heard a door clang somewhere in the distance and sat straight up. “Did you hear that?”
“No, what is it?”
“I heard a clang. Someone’s coming.”
“I didn’t hear anything.” He got to his feet and held his hand out to help me up.
“I can hear it because I’ve got vampire gifts, too.”
He nodded, trying to listen. “I forgot about that,” he whispered.
“They’re coming,” I told him.
“I hear them now. It sounds like more than one.”
I moved forward toward the bars that enclosed us into the tiny dank cell. Whoever was coming down the hall way was being extremely careful and quiet.
“Who’s there?” I called out.
“Chloe!” Drew chastised me in a loud whisper at the same time as Alice popped into my line of vision. She held her finger to her lips, shushing me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. I was so ticked off at her for what she had done..
Drew joined me by the bars.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“It’s Alice, and she’s no one,” I told him.
The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Complete Collection Page 17