by Jayme Morse
Destined to Die
© 2011 by Jayme Morse and Jody Morse
Destined to Die is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are products of the writers’ imaginations or have been used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locations is coincidental and not intended by the authors.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Jayme Morse & Jody Morse.
Connect with the authors at:
http://www.jaymemorse.com
http://www.jodymorse.com
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Chapter 1
Lexi stood in the dark alley, the wind blowing against her bare legs, as she stared into the face of her dead cousin. She pinched herself on the wrist, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “Austin?” she finally managed to squeak. “Are you a ghost?”
Austin shook his head and gave her a small smile. “Nope, I’m still here. Now, hurry, we need to get to the car without anyone seeing us.”
Before Lexi could ask any questions, Austin was already opening the door of a sporty looking black coupe that was parked a few feet away from where they had been hiding from her Aunt Violet and Uncle Tommy. She wasn’t sure because it was dark out, but it looked like the windows were tinted.
Pressing her ear against the building that she was perched behind, Lexi listened to the quiet, empty street next to her. She was positive that the sound she heard was heels clanking against the pavement. It had to be Aunt Violet, coming back to make sure that Lexi really wasn’t on this side street.
Without thinking twice, Lexi ran over to Austin’s car. Being in the car with her cousin who she had thought was dead somehow seemed a lot safer than being caught by her aunt and uncle, who wanted her dead. Austin swung the car door open for her, and she climbed in.
Austin threw a ball of fabric into her lap. Glancing down at it, her jaw dropped open in shock. “Where did you get this?” Lexi demanded to know. It was the same rainbow-colored costume and wig that she had purchased at the party store weeks earlier.
Lexi had chosen the embarrassing clown costume to wear to the Briar Creek Halloween festival tonight. The costume had disappeared from her bedroom closet and had mysteriously been replaced by the white frilly costume that she was wearing right now instead.
“Where I got it isn’t important right now,” Austin replied hastily, covering his own face with the mask to the skeleton costume that he was wearing. “Just put it on. We need to get the hell out of here.”
Lexi took off the masquerade mask that she was wearing and peeled off the blonde curly wig, tossing then both to the backseat. “Isn’t someone going to be able to recognize your car?”
“No, it’s not mine. I borrowed it from someone,” Austin said, handing her a bag. “The clown nose and makeup is in here.”
“I can’t do clown makeup in the dark,” Lexi snapped at him, realizing that she sounded slightly meaner than she had meant to.
“Just put some on, okay? Make your face unrecognizable.”
Lexi froze. She had purchased the clown costume because someone had been stuffing anonymous letters into her locker at school and had been putting them on her bed. They had made it very clear that she needed to come to the Briar Creek Halloween festival in a costume that no one would recognize her in. Was Austin the one who had been leaving the notes for her? Lexi had considered who she thought might be sending her the letters, but never in a million years would Austin have crossed her mind. After all, he was supposed to be dead.
“Look, you’re going to need to hurry up with your makeup. We need to get out of here really fast.” Austin said impatiently, pointing at the time on the digital car clock. “We only have ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes ‘til what?”
“To get the hell out of here,” Austin replied.
Lexi grabbed the container of rainbow colored clown makeup out of the bag and used the sponge to dab some onto her face. She used the red lipstick to draw on clown lips and pulled the string that was attached to the red nose around her head. Reaching up to the ceiling of the car, Lexi turned on the interior light to examine her face in the car’s mirror.
“Lexi, what are you doing?” Austin hissed at her, snapping the light back off. “We can’t draw attention to ourselves like that!”
“Okay, God,” Lexi replied, throwing her hands in the air. Tears of frustration filled her eyes, and she tried to control her voice. “Look, you need to be nicer to me. I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t know why. I didn’t even know you were alive!”
“Yeah, I know,” Austin replied, his voice softening. “I have a lot that I need to explain to you. And I will, as soon as we get to our . . . destination. I’m going to pull out of the parking lot now, but you need to do me a favor and stay down as low as possible, okay?”
Lexi nodded and sunk down in her seat. Austin started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, hitting a huge pothole. Lexi felt her stomach lurch as he turned onto the street.
Looking out the window, Lexi realized that Austin was about to pull onto the street that the Briar Creek Halloween festival was being held on. Before she could ask him if he had completely lost his mind, Austin was already rolling down the window.
“We’re looking for a Ms. Lexi Hunter. Have you seen her?” a man’s nasally voice asked. Lexi tried not to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her.
“Nah, man,” Austin replied, attempting to mask his voice. “Just me and my sister in here.”
The man hesitated. “I don’t think I know you, and I’m pretty sure I know everyone in this here town.” The suspicion was obvious in his voice as he eyes Austin’s mask.
Lexi held her breath as she listened to the sound of her heart pounding. They were going to get caught. She could feel it.
“That’s because we’re not from around here,” Austin replied coolly. “We just came for the festival.”
Lexi watched from out of the corner of her eye as the man nervously shifted from one foot to the other and tilted his head. “Oh, yeah? Where are you from?”
“Allentown,” Austin replied. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll be on our way.” Lexi felt a wave of motion sickness run through her body as Austin peeled out of the side street and turned onto the main road. Turning to look out the window, Lexi watched as the man stared dumbly after them.
Glancing at the scene that stood before her, Lexi noticed that the festival was calming down. Kids were reluctantly following their parents down the street with bags of candy in hand and, she assumed, going home. There were a crowd of adults standing in a circle shouting at each other. Violet and Tommy were standing in the center of the circle, waving their arms around in the air, looks of frustration covering their faces. Gregory Lawrence, the mayor of Briar Creek, was lingering close behind, his own face flushed with anger.
Austin must have seen them, too, because he muttered, “Shit.”
Lexi sat up abruptly. “Austin, we have to go back there.”
/> “Why would you want to go back?” Austin furrowed his brow, concentrating on his driving to avoid hitting any pedestrians.
“I left my tote bag. I didn’t want to carry it with me, so I left it in the bushes. I figured I would get it later on.”
“No. We can’t go back there now. It’s way too risky. We’ll go back for it some other time,” Austin replied.
“Okay,” Lexi said, shrugging. There were some pretty important things in her tote bag, including the things that Austin had left behind with his friend Anna from Huntington for her. At least, that’s what she had thought before she found out that he was still alive. What use would they be to her now?
Austin swiftly turned onto a side street that Lexi recognized immediately. It was the street that led to the graveyard.
She turned and looked at Austin. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” Austin responded vaguely, his voice completely emotionless.
Lexi felt a weird feeling form in the pit of her stomach. Something about this wasn’t right.
Austin parked the car next to the graveyard and climbed out onto the sidewalk. “Are you coming with me?”
Lexi hesitated. She wasn’t sure if it had been Austin or Gabe that she had seen in the graveyard earlier that night, since they had both been wearing the same exact Halloween costume. At the time, she thought that it was Gabe and that he was after her because he was on her aunt and uncle’s side, but now, she wasn’t so sure who was on their side and who wasn’t.
Just thinking about how Gabe had betrayed her sent the bile rising into her throat. How embarrassing would it be to ask her cousin, who she hadn’t seen in years, to pull over so that she could vomit? Or even worse, puke on him?
When she didn’t respond to Austin about if she was going to come with him, he slammed his door shut and began walking towards the cemetery. Deciding that staying in the car by herself tonight was only going to freak her out, Lexi reluctantly got out and ran to catch up to him.
Austin walked through the cemetery gate and began up the grassy path that led towards the rows of headstones in the graveyard. He turned around and motioned for her to follow him. Lexi paused, unsure if she should. It felt like she was trying to decide if she should walk towards a cliff; it would be okay if she played it safe, but there was that risk of falling down if she got too close.
When Austin continued walking, Lexi glanced around. The only street lamp was feet away from her. Anyone could come up to her at that moment and kidnap her without anyone even noticing. Not that it would really matter if anyone (besides Austin) did notice if she was abducted. The whole entire town was planning to sacrifice her tonight so that they could be cured from a fatal disease that had been cursed on all of the residents of Briar Creek by a witch in the hundreds of years ago.
Cautiously, Lexi followed Austin up the grassy hill. He came to a halt right in front of the pre-made gravestone that she had come across on her own about a month ago. The stone, which rested behind an open grave next to her mom’s tombstone, was inscribed with Lexi’s name and date of death: October 31st, 2011.
Today was October 31st, 2011.
Austin walked over and knelt down on the grass-covered ground in front of the open grave. “Gabe, I’ve got her.”
Lexi took a step backward. She really didn’t have a reason to trust Austin, but for some reason, she had just assumed that he was on her side – probably because he had made it seem like he was really trying to help her escape. Obviously, Lexi had been wrong.
Austin wasn’t on her side at all. He was the enemy. He had to be if he was talking to Gabe.
Gabe, who, as of tonight, was her former love interest, wanted her dead just as much as her aunt and uncle did.
It didn’t even make sense for Austin and Gabe to be speaking to each other after all the stories she had heard about them hating each other for the past few months. Then again, Gabe had hidden the fact that he was in alliance with her aunt and uncle, too. His awkward relationship with Austin was probably just another lie that she had been stupid enough to believe.
Lexi wondered if anything that Gabe had ever told her was even true – and if he had even had feelings for her at all.
Gabe poked his head out of the grave and looked up at her, his steel blue eyes piercing through her, before he glanced at Austin. Her heart skipped a beat. How could she have loved him this whole time without even knowing that he was out to get her, too? “Does she know why we brought her here yet?” Gabe asked.
Austin shook his head. “No, and we don’t have time to tell her right now. We need to get this over with.”
Lexi gulped. Over with? Were they talking about killing her? Or were they trying to become the town heroes by handing her over to the townspeople who were out for her blood? Either way, it didn’t sound good. She had to find a way to get away from them before something really bad happened.
Backing away from Austin and Gabe, she ran down the grassy hill and through the open cemetery gate. Her shoes clacked against the sidewalk as she ran for her life. Trying to pick up a better pace, Lexi stumbled. It was hard enough to run when she was nervous, but it was even worse when she was wearing the heels that had come with the masquerader costume. They were definitely slowing her down.
“There she is!” a sing song voice that Lexi immediately recognized as Violet’s shrieked. “Get her!”
Lexi looked over her shoulder to see Violet, linked arm-in-arm with Tommy, hurrying towards her. She began running faster. Lexi knew that if she didn’t get away from them, they were going to get what they wanted. If they caught up to her, she was going to die tonight.
It seemed inevitable.
As Lexi turned the street corner, she heard the sound of a car pulling up on the concrete alongside her. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized that it was the escape car. Austin was driving, and Gabe was sitting in the passenger’s seat. Austin rolled down his window. “Lexi, get in the car!” he hissed at her.
Lexi hesitated. Was Austin on her side or her aunt’s side? Was he just trying to lure her into the car so that he could take her someplace where the whole town could sacrifice her or was he really trying to help her make it through tonight?
When Lexi saw Violet round the corner and point her out to Tommy, she did the first thing that came to mind. She dove into the backseat of Austin’s car and quickly slammed the door shut. If her aunt and uncle caught up to her, she was destined to die. If Austin was bad, Lexi would figure out her escape route later. Right now, she was just going to have to risk it.
****
Chapter 2
“Where are we going?” Lexi asked, pulling off the clown wig and running her fingers through her long blonde hair. A sheet of nervous sweat had coated her forehead, occasionally dripping her clown makeup into her eyes; it was burning her eyes, but Lexi knew that the tears that were threatening to pour down her cheeks were mostly out of fear, not because she was in pain. Lexi blinked the tears back, determined to stay strong throughout her ordeal. She needed to come up with a plan. Lexi had been in the car with Austin and Gabe for over an hour, and neither of them had said a single word to her or to each other. The silence was far scarier to her than their words could be.
Austin glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “We’re almost there. We’ll tell you all about it soon enough.”
“Almost where?” Lexi pressed, ignoring how whiny she sounded.
Austin turned to Gabe. “Is she always this annoying?”
Gabe shrugged and muttered something under his breath that Lexi didn’t pick up on.
“Annoying?” Lexi scoffed. “Let’s think about this for a minute. I thought you were dead, Austin. I went to your funeral! And Gabe, you knew that he was alive and you just stood there at his funeral, like nothing was strange about the situation? And Austin, you show up here on the day I’m supposed to die just to ‘save me’? From your parents, no less! I don’t even know if you’re on my side or Violet’s
side right now because you’ve explained absolutely nothing to me. I have no idea what’s going on. But I’m the annoying one.” She laughed a loud, sarcastic laugh.
Austin looked over at Gabe, as though he was seeking his approval, before he said, “Look, I’ll tell you everything there is to know when we get to where we’re going. And for the record, yes, I am on your side. Why do you think I went through the effort of sending you all of those letters to force you to go to the festival tonight? I wanted to make sure that you didn’t die today. Now, shush. Question time is over right now.”
“Okay, but … I have one more question.” Over the sound of Austin’s groans, she added, “Then I’ll shut up until we get to wherever it is that we’re going and wait for you to tell me everything.”
“Fine,” Austin muttered, throwing one hand up in the air.
“Why is Gabe here if he’s not on my side?”
Gabe groaned and turned to Austin. “I told you this was going to happen. I knew that’s what she was going to think.”
Austin ignored him. “Gabe is on your side, but let’s not talk about that right now,” Austin replied, nervously tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he waited for the traffic light to turn green.
Lexi sighed. Gabe glanced at her in the backseat, and she rolled her eyes at him. She really, really hated not knowing what was going on. She also hated the silence that had filled the car. Austin hadn’t even turned the radio on to give her something to listen to. Unsure of what else she should do to keep herself occupied, Lexi rested her head against cool glass of the car window and drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up, Austin was shaking her arm. “Lexi, we’re here.”
Lexi cracked one eye open and glanced around. They were parked in front of a tiny stone cottage. It was so cute that it looked like it belonged in a children’s fairytale. Half expecting the witch from Hansel and Gretel to come out and greet them with a plate of gingerbread cookies, Lexi groggily climbed out of the car. Her legs hurt from whatever position she had been sleeping in, and even though the sky was still dark, she couldn’t seem to get a sense of how long they had been in the car.