“I think they really are vampires…” Dad said under his breath.
I turned around and glared at him. Now? He was going to choose now to believe me? “Aww, thanks, Dad,” I said, my smile tight, not even trying to hide my sarcasm. “For finally believing in me.”
Iona picked up her jars and placed them inside another pot that was partially filled with water. It, too, was steaming, a roiling boil inside. “Yeah, so…” Iona said. “Why are you here, exactly? What was all of that about Draven?”
I was grateful that she had sealed the lids on the jars. The smell was becoming less prominent now that they were submerged in the simmering water. I wished she’d rinse out the pot in the sink, though. Seeing the blood dripping down the sides was reminding me way too much of a scene in The Strangers. At least no one was wearing a mask, but Iona’s house sure was remote enough.
“Draven’s crew showed up at Cassie’s house while we were eating dinner,” Mill said.
“Thanks for inviting me.” Iona’s face split into a smirk. “So... they know about you two?”
“Mill came over to tell my parents about the car accident that we were in,” I said. “With Lockwood. Pixies attacked us. I’ll tell you about that later. Anyway, while we were sitting there, someone lobbed a Molotov cocktail right through our dining room window, setting the whole place on fire.”
She paused as she placed a lid onto the pot of boiling water.
“This sounds awfully familiar,” she said. “Were they waiting for you when you got outside?”
“It wasn’t a highly original plan of attack, if that’s what you are implying,” I said.
Mom and Dad were standing squished together near the door and fresh air, and also easy escape, and Laura was staring closely at a shelf covered in old wine bottles.
“All right, everybody out,” Iona said, waving us away from the stove. “I may not be living anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get claustrophobic surrounded by mouth-breathing meat bags.”
“Gee, I wonder why we’re breathing through our mouths,” my mother muttered under her breath.
We made our way back into the living room, and I breathed in the fresh air flowing in through the front door. The smell of the blood had made me sick to my stomach, and I was glad to be out from under its stinking cloud.
Now that I knew that she was safe, it gave me a chance to really look at her living room. It was painted a pale blue, trimmed in white. There were windows on every wall, all of which were uncovered for the time being. A tropical ceiling fan hung in the middle of the room, spinning lazily.
Her collection of movies was impressive; she had both regular DVDs and Bluray discs, and I also saw a few VHS tapes tucked away on the end of one of the bookcases. I blinked; they were all the oversized white boxes indicating old Disney movies. She also had candles scattered around the room, all of which had been lit. She had a basket full of flipflops near the front door, all brightly colored.
Her walls were plastered with paintings of the beach, and of open fields bathed in golden sunlight. I imagined it would be easy to miss the sun when it was impossible to ever be near it again.
It looked like an ordinary teenager lived there. It was almost like Iona was trying to hold onto her humanity in her personal life. I smirked. Iona was actually an unironic hipster. She had Emily Dickenson and Douglas Adams side by side on the shelf together. Beanies hung beside a gorgeous sun hat tied with a pale blue ribbon on pegs next to the door. I saw a stack of vinyl records on the corner of her desk, and I recognized the wooden box beneath the window as a record player.
She had all of this stuff before it was cool.
Iona was untying her apron as she followed us into the living room.
“Don’t you get, like…swarmed with mosquitos?” I asked. “You’re so close to the river.”
“I don’t worry about mosquitos. They want human blood, not vampire. I just wanted a breeze,” she said. She looked around to us all. “Okay, everyone not in my kitchen? Good. Sit.”
“We don’t have time to sit,” I said. “That’s why we came here. We have to leave. You have to come with us.”
“Okay, but why?” she said. “They came to your house and attacked you. This is not my problem. Witness my house, still standing and not on fire.”
“You keep boiling that blood and someone’s going to have to burn it down just to get the smell out,” my mother said, opening her mouth and making a glottal stop sound, like a preface to retching.
“No way is she getting her security deposit back,” my dad said, and my mom nodded, sticking her finger under her nose.
I sighed. I really wished that she would just take my word for it and we could leave. I didn’t know how much time we had before they came to search her house, too. “Do you remember Jacquelyn?”
“From New York? The crazy one that hates you?” Iona paused in thought. “The one whose life you ruined?”
“You can remember her name, but you can’t remember mine?” Laura said quietly from off to the side. “Laura is five letters. Jacquelyn is like…sixteen.”
“Who taught you to count?” Iona asked. “Is this the Tampa educational system at ‘work’?” She made air quotes with her fingers.
Mom flared up at the same time. “How do all of these people know Jacquelyn?”
“Mom, not now,” I said. “Iona, Draven knows who I am now.”
Iona frowned slightly. “Then he knows that we’ve been helping you too.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s likely,” Mill said.
“I’m going to have to leave all this blood behind, aren’t I?” she asked.
I groaned in exasperation. “This is what you worry about? Yes. Yes, you will.”
She darted from the room and was back in less than a second with her car keys, a black jacket to cover up her Japanese cat shirt, and a pair of combat boots.
“Really?” I asked as she plonked down on her couch and started pulling them on.
“What?” she said. “You said Draven. I need to be ready.”
“Good movie choice,” Laura said with a grin, eyeing Mean Girls.
“Thanks, I guess,” Iona said, giving Laura a confused glance.
Aww, two teenage girls doing girl things.
She stopped when she caught sight of Laura’s car. “Yeah…I am not going to fit in there.” She counted all of us with the tip of her finger. “And it doesn’t look like you all will either.”
Mill and I exchanged a look.
“I can take someone else with me in my car, and just follow you,” Iona said.
“I think it’s safer if we all go together—” I said.
She held up her hands. “I am not getting into another trunk.”
I looked at Mom and Dad, and then back at Iona. They would be safe with Mill, and they could watch over Laura. “I’ll go with Iona,” I said.
“No, you will not,” Mom said. “Why don’t the vampires ride together?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. Did she actually just let the word vampire pass between her lips? I caught Iona and Mill glance at each other for a second, and then look away.
“That’s not gonna work,” Iona said.
“Why not?” Mom asked.
“It’s better if the vampires are split up—” Mill said in an even tone.
“I hate him,” Iona said.
I sighed heavily.
“I hate him like I hate the taste of fresh human food,” Iona said, “or like a dog hates a mailman. I hate him like General Patton hates the Germans. I hate him like Harvey Weinstein hates the word ‘no’. I hate him like—” Iona said.
“Okay, I get it, Lady Shakespeare,” Mom said, rolling her eyes. I could see the exhaustion in her shoulders and the lines near her eyes. “Fine. I’ll ride with you,” she said, suddenly timid, as if enacting a great sacrifice on my behalf. “I…I should be fine, right? It’s just a car ride, after all.”
“You’ll be fine,” Iona said. “I haven�
��t had a chance to boil your blood yet, after all.”
“Give it a car ride,” Mill muttered. “She’ll get you boiling on her personality alone.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, you’ll be fine. I’ve been hanging out with these two for months and they haven’t eaten me yet.”
Her eyes were wide as she stared at me.
That apparently was not the answer she wanted to hear.
Iona had already walked to her car, and the start of the ignition made Mom jump nearly a foot in the air.
“Mill?” I asked, turning to him. “What about Lockwood? Seeing how we’re reaching out to all of our battle-ready friends…”
“Already contacted him,” Mill said. “Where should I tell him go to?”
I hadn’t really thought about that. All of our houses were going to be off limits. Any place that I had frequented in the last few months was pretty much off limits, and that included places like the school and Xandra’s house.
Where could we go that would not only be big enough, but completely off Draven’s radar? It would have to be someplace safe for the vampires in the day time…
Then it hit me. A small, wicked sort of smile crept onto my face.
“I know just the place.”
Chapter 8
The mansion was just as gorgeous as I remembered it. A modern three-story building and at the end of a road that backed up right to Tampa Bay. Tall windows that overlooked the gorgeous view, balconies everywhere, and a garage big enough to run laps in. The yard was starting to look a little overgrown, but the flowers were thriving in the late spring heat. The magnolia tree was in full bloom.
The salty air from the bay surrounded me like a comforting blanket, but there was nothing here that could overpower the dread hanging over me. A wrought iron gate protected the front driveway, but I knew that it was likely unlocked.
After all. The owner was no longer living. Not that he had been living when I’d known him.
“Are you sure about this?” Mill asked.
I shrugged, hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt. “He only chased me across the city, stalked me, confessed his twisted love for me… and nearly killed me.” Another shrug. “I feel like I should get a house out of it.”
“How very ex-wife of you,” Iona said, and I gave her a scorching glare in reply.
“Are you serious?” Mom asked, lurking back a few steps. “You brought us here? Out of all the places you could have chosen? What, was the Four Seasons overbooked? Why here?”
“Because they’ll never see this coming,” I said.
Byron’s house really was the only place that I could think of that fit all of our needs. Not only had it likely been abandoned since I killed him, but Draven would never think to look here. I wasn’t even sure that Draven was aware of him or our… relationship.
I almost threw up in my mouth calling it that. What was a good way to describe the whole “stalker/victim” thing we had going?
Doing a quick look to make sure that none of the neighbors were paying attention, we squeezed in through the gate and wandered up the dark driveway to the front door.
Chills raced up my back, and I did a full-body shudder. The last time I had been here, I had been completely defenseless and weak. Some of that terror was returning now, like the echo of an image on the inside of my eyelids after a photo was taken.
I knew that there were people that did struggle with PTSD from traumatic events in their life. I had never imagined that I would be one of them. Forget counseling, though: Hi, yes, my name is Cassie and I was chased by a vampire. Unless there was such thing as a vampire counselor, I probably would just have to learn to deal with these fears on my own.
Hopefully, this was the last time I’d ever have to come back to this house.
I was trying really hard to put on a brave face, but the closer we walked to the house, the more intense the memories became.
It was daylight. My parents were gone. All that I had was a note. I was alone. I had no weapon. I had been reckless.
My memories were melding with reality as I stepped up to the front door. The metal handle was just as cold as I remembered it being. It gave easily, too, revealing the interior, beckoning us inward.
I was the first one inside, and it was just as I left it. There was still a broken vase on the floor of the circular foyer, which must have been from when Byron tumbled from the second floor after I had pushed him over the banister. Some of the crystals had been knocked loose from the golden chandelier overhead and were scattered across the wide planks of the wooden floor like shards of glass. I could still hear the thud in my mind as Byron had slammed against the floor. There were drops of dried blood on the white carpeted stairs that circled up to the second and third floors. The roses that had filled every table and every vase were all dead, wilted and brown, their petals littering the floor. The dozens of pieces of the stake that he had taken from me and broken were there, too, among the crystals and petals.
My stomach lurched, and I had to grab onto Mill to steady myself.
“Someone lived in luxury,” Laura said, stepping into the house, unaware of my fast-encroaching panic attack. “Even if it looks like the housekeeper got deported.”
“Come on,” I said through gritted teeth. “We need to make sure that we're actually alone here. Make sure that no one else has been squatting.”
“I assume that if someone was here, they would have come running when we opened the door,” Mill said.
Mom and Dad had followed us inside, but it was obvious from the looks on their faces that they would have rather been anywhere else. It must have been just as torturous for them to be here as it was for me. After all, last time they'd been here it had been as kidnap victims.
Iona stared up at the crystal chandelier overhead and frowned. “Figures Byron would be so grossly materialistic.”
“Wait until you see the pool,” I said. “And the bathroom.”
I was the one who was spearheading the search, since I was the only one who had actually been inside. The only one who had ran for their life in there.
It was like the house was trapped in a time loop. Everything was just as it was when Mom, Dad, and I fled from it. Everything. The door to the wine cooler was open, blasting cold air out into the hallway. There was a moldy pot of coffee in the kitchen. I remembered that Byron had put that pot on to welcome me in, put me at ease.
My stomach churned.
Mom and Dad were pale, looking around like Byron was about to pop out from some hidden place at any second.
My heart was beating against my ear drums as I drew closer to the dining room. I swallowed nervously as Mill and I approached it.
Mom, who was already there, hovered near the door, staring inside at what I knew was a complete and utter mess.
“What happened in here?” she asked. “The table is destroyed, broken picture frames… and what is that black…thing…in the middle of the room?”
I didn’t even want to look. “That’s Byron.”
And I just kept walking. I didn’t have the strength to look in there.
“Wait, what?” she said. “Why is he like…that?”
“Didn’t you see the vampires back at the house?” I asked, still walking, trying to keep my stomach from rebelling inside of me. “I staked him.”
I peered into one of the bathrooms. It was deserted. As was the kitchen, and study. I even found some rooms that I hadn’t seen the last time I was here.
It was harder than I imagined, being back inside this place. It was eerie. The quiet was putting me on edge, and every small sound made me twitch. I knew Byron was dead. I had killed him myself. But my mind was still reacting as if he were creeping just around the corner, just out of my sight. I could almost hear his low, deep laugh, see the heavy-lidded eyes just over my shoulder in the reflection of the mirrors. He didn’t have a reflection, of course, but his animalistic gaze was imprinted on my memory forever, projected onto every mirror I passed like some physical manif
estation of unease ripping its way out of my subconscious mind.
Mill must have noticed the tension, because he took my hand in his and tried to remind me constantly that he was there with me.
At one point, I found Laura in one of the bedrooms upstairs. It must have been Byron’s, because the scent of his cologne hit me when I walked in. I wrinkled my nose, and the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The closet door stood open as if it had been left open, as if its owner in a hurry. A bath towel lay in a wad on the floor just outside the bathroom door.
“Vampires really live the high life, don’t they?” Laura said, pushing things around in one of the drawers of the desk beneath the window. “There are just wads of cash in here,” she said, lifting out a stack easily two inches thick.
I sighed. “When you live forever, money probably means very little eventually.”
Laura looked at me, dropping the money back into the drawer as if it were contaminated. “Being here…it’s giving me flashbacks of Roxy and Benjy and all of them…”
“I get it,” I said. “I’ve got this pit in my stomach, looking at everything here.”
Laura frowned. “I was really hoping that I was over all of this vampire stuff after Roxy was killed,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. “I thought I could move past it like it was a bad dream.”
“I understand,” I said. “That’s how I felt when the vamps came after you. 'No way, not again'…” I shook my head. “Ever since Byron showed up in my life…it’s just been in upheaval for months now.”
Laura gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“I’m sorry you got dragged into it again,” I said. “I don’t know what would have happened if you and Gregory hadn’t come to help.”
She gave me a smile, and I could see why everyone thought she was the prettiest, nicest girl at school. “I couldn’t leave you out there all alone, Cassie. That’s not what friends do.”
Friends. I wasn’t aware that we had reached that milestone together. I gave her a small smile. “I appreciated your help. I don’t think I’ve actually thanked you for it.”
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