Wisdom (My Blood Approves series)

by Amanda Hocking

  She cried a lot, and I’d never really seen her cry before. She apologized for always running away from us, and said she was a coward. Milo and I reminded her too much of Leif, and she’d been trying to out run the pain from that, but she never could.

  When Milo and I left, Leif was still there. By the way they were interacting, I doubted he’d leave any time soon. They had a lot of years to catch up on.

  That reunion made me feel a tad bit better about everything else going on. Jack still hadn’t talked to me much since he’d been on his business trip. He responded to a couple text messages, but never initiated them.

  Although, in that defense, he said the trip was really busy since he was doing it all by himself, and Ezra was supposed to be the one to handle it. But Ezra was busy taking care of Mae, and Peter was mourning in his own Peter way.

  I tried not to think about anything and went about putting the house in order. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to sell, or where we would go once it was sold, but I wanted to be prepared.

  As I was going through my clothes, sorting them out to pack and to get rid of, I opened my underwear drawer in the closet. I decided I had way too many, and I picked up a handful to throw away. I lifted them up, and something caught on the drawer.

  A diamond encrusted heart-shaped locket, Peter’s gift to me for my eighteenth birthday. I detangled it from the panties and my drawer, and I held it up, watching as it spun and light shone off the diamonds.

  It was very beautiful, and I loved it, even though I had no idea where I’d ever wear something that extravagant. I clasped it behind my neck and went over to the mirror to admire how the necklace looked on me. I’d never tried it on before, and it did look stunning, resting right above my cleavage.

  But I would never wear it. No matter how lovely it might be, it wasn’t for me. I unhooked the locket, and I set it with the stuff to get rid of.

  Peter hadn’t been taking Daisy’s death much better than Mae. He’d spent the whole time locked inside Ezra’s den with the lights off, listening to classical music.

  Bobby had a big art show opening at the college, and I made Peter go with me to get out of the house for a while. Bobby had done some really amazing charcoal sketches, and even Peter commented on his talent.

  But it wasn’t long before the crowd started getting to him. Not the blood, but all the chatter. Too many people talking too much. We stayed long enough to see Bobby’s work and tell him it was fantastic, then we left to let him and Milo deal with the crowds all night long.

  “It’s good to get out of the house sometimes,” I told Peter as we walked out of the college.

  “I guess,” he shrugged. “I prefer sitting in the den listen to Joseph Hadyn.”

  “You and Ezra are so much alike sometimes, it’s not even funny,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, we have lived together for nearly two-hundred years,” Peter pointed out. “We ought to have some things in common.”

  “Yeah,” I said and pressed my hand to my stomach. The strangest wave of nausea hit me, and I stopped, waiting a moment until it passed.

  “Are you okay?” Peter asked, pausing to wait for me.

  We stood in the middle of the sidewalk as art students and their friends and family brushed past us. Peter put a hand on my arm and ushered me off to the side so we weren’t blocking traffic so much.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I nodded.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted, and the queasiness had passed, so I thought I really might be.

  Twice more on the short drive home, I felt that same weird nausea pinching my stomach. I rolled down the windows, hoping the cold night air would help, and it did help, a little bit. Peter asked me about it, but I didn’t want to talk, so I turned up Julian Plenti on the stereo so I wouldn’t have to.

  As soon as he pulled into the garage, Peer jumped out of the car and ran around to help me out. I tried to brush him off, but I doubled over when I stood up. The nausea was so intense, I almost threw up all over his shoes.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter wrapped his arm around me and helped me hobble to the house.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It just… hit me. Maybe I have the flu.”

  “Vampires can’t get the flu,” he said and pulled open the door to the house. “Oh fuck.”

  “What?” I lifted my head, but when I saw the kitchen, I understood.

  The house had been ransacked. Broken appliances and a dining room chair were splintered all over. Blood stained the tiles, splattering red on everything.

  26

  I ran into the house, pushing past Peter, and I found the source of the blood lying in the corner of the kitchen. Matilda’s fur had been soaked red, and she whimpered up at me, thumping her tail on the floor. I wanted to crouch down next to her and tell her everything would be alright, but I couldn’t.

  “Ezra!” I shouted, holding my stomach to fight the pain growing inside me. “Mae!”

  “I’m looking!” Peter ran ahead, and I went after him.

  He went upstairs, and I searched the downstairs. Every room I went through looked like it had been demolished. But I never found anybody.

  “Nobody’s here,” Peter said, running down the stairs to me.

  “Maybe they weren’t here.” I ran a hand through my hair and tears stung my eyes.

  “I think their cars were gone in the garage,” Peter said, rushing back to the garage. He pushed open the door to check, but he paused there.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The Lexus is gone.” He looked back at me. “But the Delorean is here.”

  “Jack was supposed to come back tonight,” I remembered, and the pain in my stomach intensified. I put a hand over my mouth to keep the sob back. “Oh my god, Peter, what if he was here?”

  “Call him,” Peter commanded pulling out his own phone. “I’m calling Ezra. Maybe they went somewhere together.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and Matilda whined. Kneeling down next to her, I listened to the phone ringing in my ear over and over again. While I listened to Jack not answering his phone, I stroked her wet fur, trying to comfort her.

  Peter called Ezra, and I heard him talk excitedly when Ezra answered. But Jack never answered. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew he wouldn’t.

  “Ezra and Mae are safe. They went to the headstone of her other child.” Peter hung up his phone, and then he saw my face. “Jack didn’t answer?”

  “No.” I swallowed hard and stood up. “Where is he?”

  The nausea hit me again, much harder this time, and it sent a shooting pain all over my body. I bent forward and collapsed on the ground on my knees. The pain had gotten too intense for me to stand.

  “Alice!” Peter crouched down next to me and put his hand on my back.

  “Oh, hell.” I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out.

  “When was the last time you bit Jack?” Peter asked me, and I shook my head.

  “I don’t know,” I managed when the pain subsided a bit. “What does it matter?”

  “That pain you’re feeling, do you think that could be Jack?”

  “What?” I looked up at Peter.

  “Maybe you can use it to track Jack.” He put his arm around my waist. “Come on.” He stood up, pulling me with him.

  “The pain?” I held my stomach. “That’s coming from Jack? He’s feeling that much pain?”

  “Don’t think about it.” Peter put his hands on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “If you wanna find Jack, you need to focus on him. You can tell where he’s coming from.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Think about him. Not the pain, him.”

  I closed my eyes and thought of Jack. The pain jolted through me again, and Peter squeezed my shoulders, keeping me here, in the moment. I thought of Jack, his smile, his laugh, and the tether that kept us connected… and then there it was. I could feel it – him – pulling me.

 
“I don’t know where he is, but I can take us there,” I opened my eyes. “We have to go.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  As we ran out the door, I promised Matilda we’d come back for her as soon as we could. I sat in the passenger seat of the Lamborghini, holding my stomach to keep from throwing up, and I told Peter where to turn. I couldn’t tell him directly where to go – it was just a pull in a certain direction.

  We were almost there when I realized we were going to the tunnels where Peter, Mae, and Daisy had stayed. Jack had been taken underground.

  “Do you know what he’s doing there?” I asked Peter as he pulled up next to the bridge.

  “No,” he shook his head. “There shouldn’t be anybody here at all. If Leif has been staying with your mother… The tunnel should be empty.”

  The pull and pain got stronger when we reached the tunnels, and I ran down them as fast as my legs would carry me. Peter called for me to slow down, to wait for him, but I couldn’t. I knew how much pain Jack was in, and I had to get to him.

  Before I reached the cavern where Peter had been staying, I could hear Jack’s screams echoing through the sewers. My skin crawled, and adrenaline pulsed through me. Something else, the animal part of me, started taking over, blocking out the way Jack felt. It even blotted out my connection to him, but I didn’t care. I needed to be strong to help him.

  I peered around the entrance of the cavern to see what I was up against, and it made my blood run cold. Thomas, Samantha, and Dane – the vampire hunters – had ransacked the cavern too. All of Peter and Mae’s things had been flipped over and torn apart.

  Samantha had cut open Mae’s mattress, and she dug through it. Dane stood at the edge of the cliff, holding a chain in his hands. The chain had been looped through an old pulley system in the ceiling, and Jack hung from the other end of it, right over the edge of the cliff. His hands were bound with chains, and he had blood all over his body. His head hung down, and his body was limp.

  Thomas stood off to the side of him, leaning on a walking cane. Or at first I thought it was a walking cane. Then I realized it was a long metal poker, and the end on the ground still glowed orange. They’d set fire to Leif’s books, and the smoke from it stung the air.

  “So, you’re still saying that you don’t know where the child is?” Thomas asked. He picked up the poker, twirling it in his hand like a baton.

  “No, I’ve already told you she’s dead,” Jack said, and Dane yanked on the chain, making Jack bounce up and down. He grimaced, and his shoulders had already been popped from their sockets. His wrists looked like they’d been crushed, and blood seeped down his arms.

  “We need to find the child,” Thomas said firmly. “I don’t think you understand how serious I am.”

  “No, I do… I just…” Jack closed his eyes and winced. “I can’t help you.”

  Thomas held the poker over the flame from the books, waiting until the end was glowing bright yellow, and he took it out. He stepped toward Jack, raising the poker, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Stop!” I shouted and ran inside.

  “Alice.” Jack looked at me, and his eyes were wide and terrified.

  “Well, well.” Thomas grinned and twirled the hot poker again. “Maybe she can tell us something.”

  “No!” Jack shouted. “She doesn’t know anything! Leave her alone!” He struggled against the chains, bucking so hard at them that it had to cause excruciating pain. “Alice! Get out of here!”

  “Do you have the child?” Samantha asked. She stood up from her task of butchering the mattress, still holding the knife in her hand, and stepped towards me.

  “No,” I said. “But I know where she is.”

  “Alice!” Jack yelled. “No, don’t listen to her! She doesn’t know anything! The child is dead!”

  “Oh, be quiet.” Thomas sounded bored. While looking at me, he jabbed the burning poker backwards, right into Jack’s abdomen, and he twisted it.

  “Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop it or I won’t tell you where she’s at!”

  “Tell us where she is, or we’ll kill him,” Thomas countered.

  “I don’t think she knows anything,” Samantha sniffed. She stepped closer to me, cocking her head and breathing me in. “I think she’s lying.”

  “I think you’re a stupid bitch,” I said.

  Her eyes widened, which was probably the biggest reaction I would get out of her. I raised my right arm like I meant to hit her, and when she dodged to the side, I kicked her with my leg, connecting right in her stomach.

  As she went to the ground, Samantha tried to swipe out my legs from under me with her knife, but I jumped. She hit the concrete but did a backflip back up, landing on her feet.

  She kicked me in my hip, but I grabbed her leg, twisting her around. She jerked the knife back, stabbing me in the stomach, but I ignored that and grabbed her hair and yanked it back.

  “Fighting like a typical bitch,” Samantha grinned wickedly at me.

  “I’m just getting started.” I pulled the knife from stomach, and I sliced open her neck.

  I let go of her, and she wrapped a hand around her throat, trying to stop the blood flow. I turned the knife sideways, and while she held her throat, I stabbed the knife into her chest. It slid in between her ribs and right into her heart.

  She stared at me for a moment, and she didn’t fall, so I twisted the knife, making sure she was dead. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she fell back on the concrete.

  “That was unexpected,” Thomas said.

  I wiped her blood off my hand, trying to make it less slippery, and then I threw the knife at Dane. It only hit him in the shoulder, not enough to really hurt him, but it startled him into letting the chain go. I thought it might, so I started racing forward as soon as I threw the knife.

  When I got close to the edge, I jumped. One foot landed on Dane, and I used him as leverage to jump up higher. It also had the side effect of knocking Dane forward, and he fell over the side of the cliff. I heard him yelling as he fell, but I never heard him hit the bottom.

  I grabbed the end of the chain just before it slid through the last pulley, stopping it a split second before Jack plummeted down after Dane. The force of Jack falling pulled the chain hard, and it slammed me into the ceiling.

  I almost lost my grip, so I looped the chain around my wrist twice. I used my body as an anchor, preventing the chain from slipping through the pulley, and Jack from falling down the endless hole.

  Thomas didn’t get to stop us because Peter came in, and he started fighting with him. Thomas turned out to be a much better fighter than his friends, but Peter wasn’t too bad himself. He bounced off a wall to kick Thomas in the head, but Thomas recovered quickly.

  Bracing my feet against the ceiling, I tried pulling the chain up. Jack wasn’t that heavy, but I had one wrist bound to the chain, so I had to do it one-handed. Plus, I had to do it hanging upside down, and the angle I pulled it from made it hard to slide through.

  “Alice.” Jack stared up at me, his feet dangling over a black, bottomless pit.

  “Hold on, Jack. I’m getting you.” I strained on the chain.

  The chain cut into my wrist deep, making blood pour down over my arm and the chain. The chain was slick, and it began to slip through my hands. It would deglove my hand soon, and if it did that, the chain would slide free, off my hand, through the pulley, and Jack would fall down…

  “Alice, don’t!” Jack yelled.

  “No, I’ll get it!” But as soon as I said it, the chain slipped.

  I’d pulled Jack up higher, so when the chain slipped through my hand, he fell harder and faster. That put more pressure on my wrist when the chain pulled taut.

  The force of it slammed my hand into the pulley, and I heard Jack cry out. The chain had to be nearly tearing off his own hands and arms.

  “Alice, listen to me. You have to stop. You can’t pull me up, and if you try, you’ll just lose your hand and end up falling
down with me.”

  “I can save you,” I told him. “You have to trust me.”

  “No, you need to free your wrist and swing back on the cliff,” Jack said. “We both don’t need to die for this.”

  “No! If you die, I die! You asked me to spend forever with you, and I’m going to! “

  I strained harder, pulling the chain farther up. I only had to get it up far enough where Jack could swing over, and put his feet on the cliff, and that was only a few more feet. Peter was too busy fighting off Thomas to help, so I was left struggling with Jack on my own.

  I almost had him. His head was over the top of the cliff, but the chain slipped again. This time it was too much. The chain crushed my wrist. I heard the bones snap when it hit the pulley, and the chain pulled at my skin.

  I was losing blood, which only made me weaker, and the blood left the chain impossibly slippery. I couldn’t get a grip on it again. It didn’t matter how strong I was. The blood made it too slick, and the chain was going to slip off.

  “Alice,” Jack said, but I kept pulling at the chain. I couldn’t get any traction, and my hand kept slipping. I wasn’t moving him at all, but I kept trying to pull and pull as tears stung my eyes.

  “Jack, I love you, and I’m not giving up on you!” I hung upside right above him, my feet pressed to the ceiling and my wrist wedged in the chain against the pulley. He was looking right in my eyes, and he knew.

  “I’m sorry for everything I said to you the other night. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just trying to protect you,” Jack said, his voice thick. “I wasn’t even mad, and I can forgive you of anything. I always would. I love you. More than anything else in this world or the next.”