by Jayme Morse
“What do you need to teach her a lesson over?” Anna asked, shooting him a sideways glance, as she pulled into the parking space. She was trying to figure out what Greg’s exact plan was; if she knew what he was planning to do to Lexi, maybe she could find a way to stop him from hurting her and still save Austin.
“I’m going to teach her that she shouldn’t be so god damn selfish,” Greg said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one up.
Anna cringed. She thought it was gross enough for humans to smoke cigarettes, but she couldn’t believe when vampires did it. Fire could kill them, if given enough time. Then again, a vampire’s body healed so quickly that it was probably safer for them to smoke than it was for humans.
Once Greg unbuckled his seatbelt, he turned to Anna. “Get out of the car, and don’t even think about running. You’re going to do exactly as I say, and when I say it, or your boyfriend’s toast. Do you understand?”
Anna nodded, hating how vulnerable she was in comparison to Greg. She didn’t like being told what to do and she hated being threatened, but she hadn’t been able to even grab a stake from her room at Westbrooke before she’d been forced to leave.
As she climbed out of the car, Anna scanned the area for something that she could possibly use to make a stake of her own. But there weren’t any tree branches or anything on the sidewalk or in the street that looked like it could kill a vampire, which only made Anna feel frustrated. She wanted to do something—anything—so this wouldn’t end badly.
“So, are you going to make that phone call?” Greg Lawrence asked as he stepped onto the sidewalk alongside her.
Anna glanced over at him. “Not yet,” she replied, meeting his gaze. She wanted to look away, but she knew that she couldn’t; looking directly into his eyes would prove that she wasn’t afraid of him. Or, at least, she hoped it would. Her trembling hands and her heart, which had to be beating louder than usual, were probably enough to let him know just how nervous she really was.
Greg grunted at her and narrowed his eyes. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Anna murmured quietly. She was trying to buy time, but what difference would it make? It was obvious that Greg wasn’t going to let her get away with not calling Lexi. Not if she wanted Austin to live. Glancing over at him, she asked, “How do I know you’re even telling me the truth?”
“Well, I’m an honest man, Anna,” Greg replied. “Why? What is it that you think I could be lying about?”
“I think you’re lying about the fact that you’ll let Austin go if I bring Lexi to you,” Anna said, twirling her ring around her finger nervously. “I think your plan is to kill both of them.”
Greg laughed, as he began to walk down the sidewalk, motioning for her to follow him. “I must admit that you are a wise one, Anna. It makes sense for you to doubt my motives. But I assure you, I have no reason to want to kill Austin. The only thing I can blame him for is lying to this whole town about being dead. Of course, it’s not his fault that his parents were going to kill him. As much as I despise the fact that he was protecting Lexi all along, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing as him if I were put in his shoes.”
“Then, why do you want to kill him? If you don’t hate him, there’s no reason to kill him,” Anna pointed out, surprised that the mayor didn’t hate Austin more than he claimed to.
"To teach you a lesson, of course," Greg said with an eye roll. "You see, Anna . . . it's the hardest lesson you'll ever learn, but you need to learn it at some point. When you love someone the way you love Austin, you need to put other people you care about at risk. Why do you think I've turned my back on the people I care about? Do you think I really wanted to kill Eileen Hunter? I used to love that woman when we were in high school and there was no doubt that I still cared about her, but I had to do what I did. Eileen was standing in the way of me curing my wife."
Anna narrowed her eyes at him. "And what about my mom?"
"What about her?" Greg asked, sneering. "The last time I checked, she's already gone, kiddo. No use in bargaining for her life."
“I meant why did you kill her?” Anna questioned him, her voice cracking with the desperation that she felt.
Greg glanced over at her, staring at her like she was pathetic for even asking. “Your mom got in my way, Anna. She was my donor, and I stupidly told her too much about what I planned to do to Lexi Hunter. She was always so fascinated about vampires and the way we live out our lives. I thought Annemarie would be happy about it—excited even—but I really underestimated her. She wasn’t happy for me. In fact, she planned to get in touch with Lexi to let her know what was going on.” Greg shook his head in disgust. “I should have known I couldn’t trust that bitch.”
Anna gritted her teeth. She wanted to hit him. Every ounce of her being wanted to hit him. Actually, that was an understatement. She didn't just want to hit him.
Anna wanted to kill him. She wanted to get her revenge, once and for all. She wanted Greg Lawrence to suffer for killing her mother; she wanted him to feel the same sort of pain that her mother had probably felt.
Anna knew that she couldn't try to do anything to hurt him, though. Not yet, at least. Not until she knew that Austin would be safe from harm.
If only she had never gone to Westbrooke without him. They would have never been in this predicament if she hadn't.
Chapter 18
Gabe sat in Mary-Kate’s car, staring stone-faced at the Nichols’ house. He turned to Mary-Kate and said, “I don’t see why it needs to be this way. I don’t get why you want to do this so badly. Lexi’s your sister.”
Mary-Kate rolled her eyes at him, obviously annoyed. “Because I need to cure my mom, Gabe. The last time I talked to my stepdad, he told me that she might only have a few days left if she doesn’t get treatment soon. Lexi might be the only one who could possibly save her, and if she can’t, it’s because she was too selfish early on. Why is all of this too hard for you to understand? Selfish people need to die.”
“It’s not hard to understand. It’s just that, they’re your family,” Gabe said, motioning over his shoulder to Erica and Connor, who were in the backseat. He wasn’t sure how much they understood about what was going on, but they had remained silent the whole car ride. That was probably a good thing; he had a feeling that Mary-Kate would have flipped out if they had said anything in protest to her. “Lexi’s their family, too. And as much as you might not want to admit it, for whatever reason, Lexi’s your family. She’s your half-sister.”
“Then that makes it even more perfect, doesn’t it? We’re due for a little family reunion,” Mary-Kate said with a wicked grin. Meeting his eyes, she said in a more serious tone, “I’ve already given you a little taste of what I can—and will—do to you if you disobey me. Do you really want to go through that again?”
Gabe shook his head. Being locked in that room and tortured by the smell of blood that he could never drink was the last thing he wanted.
“Then get out of the car and go get Lexi, Gabe, or that’s what will happen. It won’t just be a taste of what’s to come anymore. It will be your reality,” Mary-Kate warned.
With a loud sigh, Gabe hesitantly opened the door and climbed out of the car. He really didn’t want to leave Erica and Connor alone with Mary-Kate, but what he was doing was for their own benefit. A part of him feared that Mary-Kate might drive off with them, but he was pretty sure that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to leave without Lexi.
As much as he didn’t want to kidnap Lexi the way Mary-Kate was forcing him to do, he didn’t have much of a choice. Gabe knew that it was the only way he would be able to save Erica and Connor, which was his number one priority at that moment. And as much as it sucked, he knew that it was what Lexi would have wanted him to do. She would have wanted him to do everything he could to save her brother and sister, even if it meant putting her own life in danger.
Gabe had considered trying to get himself
and Connor and Erica out of the car, but he knew that could be even riskier than staying. All it would take was Mary-Kate lighting a single match and the car going up in flames to end all of their lives.
Once Gabe made it up to the circular driveway that led to the Nichols’ house, Gabe turned to look back at the car. The kids were peering out the window at him nervously, and Mary-Kate was watching him closely. There was no way he could even try to trick her when it was clear that she would be watching his every move from the car.
He was going to need to get inside the house and get this over with if there was any chance of him saving those kids.
Gabe glanced around for a way to get inside the house. It took him a few minutes, but he found a window that would work. It was barely cracked open and didn’t have a screen. It was an extremely lucky thing for him to find, considering it wasn’t even warm outside. In fact, there was still snow lingering on the ground.
Since there weren’t any trees or anything around for him to climb up, Gabe did the only thing he could think of doing. He willed his body into its bat form and flew up the side of the house until he was inside the window. When he changed back to his human form, his body fell noisily to the hardwood floor. Gabe cursed under his breath, hoping that no one had heard him.
Even though he had considered the possibility of telling Lexi about Mary-Kate’s plan to have him kidnap her, Gabe knew that the idea wasn’t a completely good one. Even though Lexi might have gone along with it, there was no way Dan would have let Lexi leave with Gabe without putting up a fight—especially if he knew that Mary-Kate’s plan was for her mom to drink from Lexi’s blood one last time, just to see if it could cure her, before killing Lexi.
Well, actually, that wasn’t completely true. Mary-Kate wanted Gabe to be the one to kill Lexi.
Of course, Gabe wasn’t going to actually kill Lexi, but he needed to make it seem like he was, just until he could come up with some other plan. He had to find a way to let her live, while making sure that Mary-Kate didn’t do something to hurt the kids. At the same time, he needed to make it seem like he was really kidnapping Lexi, too . . . which meant that he needed to get her alone. There was no way Dan would ever let Lexi be taken away from him, even if he had to die trying.
As Gabe rose to his feet and quietly crept out of the bedroom that he’d landed in, he heard Dan and Lexi’s voices coming from the bedroom that they had been staying in. It made him feel a sense of relief to know that they were home, so he could actually kidnap her tonight and get it over with.
Gabe poked his head in Austin’s bedroom as his continued his way down the hallway, hoping that Austin wouldn’t catch him in the house, but luckily, Austin wasn’t there. Or at least if he was there, he wasn’t in his room.
When Gabe reached Dan and Lexi’s room, he pressed his ear to the door and listened in on the conversation that they were having with one another. Mostly, he wanted to eavesdrop because he hoped that it would help him figure out where Caroline was. Gabe needed to know, for his own sanity, whether or not she was with Kevin.
“I don’t know, Dan,” Lexi was saying. “I just feel like Anna should have been here by now. She said she was going to be back by this afternoon, but it’s getting dark. I called her an hour ago, and she still hasn’t returned my call yet. I’m sure she’s not avoiding me. I’m really starting to get worried about her.”
“I’m sure Anna’s fine, Lexi,” Dan replied. “Nothing happened to her. Even if she came across a vampire, Anna knows how to defend herself against them better than most humans do. All of that time she spent training to be a vampire hunter at Huntington wasn’t a waste, I’m sure.”
Gabe wanted to blurt out that Dan was wrong . . . completely wrong. Didn’t he remember when Rhonda had forced Gabe to nearly drain Anna of all of her blood? If Lexi, Dan, and Austin hadn’t gotten there in time, Gabe probably would have killed Anna. Knowing that he had nearly killed Anna made Gabe feel like shit later on; it was just one more thing he hoped he could make up for if he ever made it out of this mess alive.
“I guess,” Lexi said with a sigh. “I just have a bad feeling about this right now. Maybe it’s because Darlene, Erica, and Connor are missing, too. I’m probably just being paranoid over this because I’m nervous about them.”
Gabe gulped. So Lexi and Dan did know that her stepmother and half-siblings were missing.
“Anyway,” Lexi went on. “Let’s just hope that Caroline can get Gabe to have a vision as soon as possible. That’s all I really care about.”
So, Caroline was with Kevin, Gabe realized. And the realization made him feel sort of sick inside. Even though Gabe had been expecting that it would make him feel so much more relieved to know where Caroline was—whether she was with Kevin or not—he suddenly felt a sense of dread knowing that she was with his twin brother. It made him want to walk out the door at the moment and find Caroline so that he could rescue her from Kevin, but he couldn’t.
Gabe had to worry about Erica and Connor first, before he could try to save anyone else.
“I hope so, too. The sooner Gabe figures out where your family is, the sooner we can kill him,” Dan told Lexi.
Gabe froze. Was Dan really talking about killing him, or did he mean someone else? As much as Gabe wanted to believe that they were talking about someone else, like maybe Greg Lawrence, he had a feeling that wasn’t the case. They were talking about him—about Gabe Marshall, or at least the person who they currently thought was Gabe Marshall.
Were they still mad at Gabe for killing Justin . . . or had something else happened since the day of the fire? Had Kevin done something that made them think that Gabe was bad and that he deserved to die?
Gabe didn’t know, but he had a feeling he was going to find out sooner or later. He heard Dan say that he was going to take a shower, and he knew that was his chance to take Lexi.
Gabe waited until he heard the sound of the water running before entering the room and standing in front of Lexi, who was nestled in bed watching I Love Lucy on TV.
Her eyes widened with what appeared to be a look of fear when she saw him, and she whispered, “Gabe? What are you doing here? Where’s Caroline?”
“I’m sorry, Lexi,” Gabe whispered back before clamping a hand down over her mouth and tossing her over his shoulder. He carried her out of the house and into the dark night to where Mary-Kate was watching. A smile crossed Mary-Kate’s face when she saw that Gabe had been successful in accomplishing what she’d wanted him to do.
Chapter 19
Austin looked around the room that he’d been left in. It was dark and the room was empty, but he could tell that the building was old. He wasn’t sure what had happened, or how he had even gotten there. All he knew was that he didn’t like it.
The last thing he could remember was going for a jog to clear his head after they had gotten back to the Nichols’ house from trying to help Benjamin Hunter find Darlene, Erica, and Connor. He had been running along the sidewalk when he’d heard someone call his name. Austin remembered turning around and then everything went black. The next thing he could remember was waking up in this room.
Austin brushed off his knees and rose to his feet. He heard someone mumble from the corner, “Oh, shit. He’s already awake.”
Austin turned and glanced over at a dark-haired man who stared back at him. “Who are you? And what am I doing here?”
“You’re here because Greg Lawrence wants you here. And that’s all you need to know,” the man barked at him.
“Why would Greg Lawrence want me here?” Austin questioned, knowing that he probably wouldn’t even get an answer out of the man.
“Something to do with your girlfriend,” the man replied with a shrug. “Annie, or whatever her name is.”
“Anna? Something happened to Anna?” Austin asked, running a hand over his strawberry blonde hair nervously. He hadn’t considered the possibility that, wherever Anna had been, she might not be safe. From what he knew, she was supposed to be comi
ng back to the Nichols’ house that afternoon, but when he’d left for his jog around four o’clock, she still hadn’t gotten there yet.
“I don’t really know, kid. All I know is that we’re supposed to kill you if your girlfriend doesn’t do the right thing.” The man’s lips tilted into a tight smile, and an evil look filled his eyes. “Guess you better hope she really loves you.”
Austin felt a knot twist inside his stomach. The truth was, he wasn’t sure if Anna did love him or not. He was still waiting to find out for sure.
*
“Call her,” Greg Lawrence growled, handing Anna her cell phone.
Anna glanced down at the phone in her hands. “How did you even get that?”
“I went through your purse. You might be interested to know that Lexi called you already,” Greg replied. Almost accusingly, he added, “Guess she wasn’t that busy, after all, huh?”
Anna sighed and found Lexi’s number in her cell phone. “Fine. You want me to call her? Then I’ll call her.” Even though Anna hadn’t thought about what to do to help make sure that Lexi stayed safe—since she couldn’t exactly give her a warning without Greg overhearing her—she knew that she had to do something. The longer she waited to contact Lexi, the greater the risk of Austin getting killed.
She pressed her ear to the phone and listened to the annoying sound of the ringing on the other end of the line. It rang five times before going to the automated voice message. “Hey, Lexi. It’s Anna. I need you to get in touch with me as soon as you can, okay? I need your help with something.” She hoped that the urgency was obvious in her voice, as she hit the ‘end’ button on her cell phone.
“Perfect. Smart of you to leave a message like that. It seemed innocent enough. Gullible little Lexi will believe that her dear friend Anna needs her help. I love it.” Greg rubbed his hands together excitedly. He glanced down at his watch. “I wonder how long it will take her to call you back, but in the meantime, we need to make a visit to see someone.”