“What if we can’t? What if something has happened to her and it’s my fault for not doing something sooner to intervene?”
“Your sister makes her own choices; that’s not your fault.”
Abby bowed her head and nodded, but she knew he was wrong about this. If something happened to Vicky, it would be her fault. They were so much alike, but she was the more practical one, the levelheaded one who kept her crazier sister on track. She’d failed Vicky now.
“I was so mad at her for quitting and leaving me behind,” she muttered. “For putting me in this position with our parents, but she’s my sister, you know?”
“I do.” His siblings and parents may have been dead for years now, but he recalled what it had been like to try and keep their secrets. Recalled the love he’d had for them.
When she lifted her head to look at him again, she brushed back the hair clinging to her flushed cheeks. “I’m the responsible one. I always looked out for her, and I failed. Now, I have no idea where she is, what she’s doing, or if I can save her if we find her.”
Unable to resist the tears in her eyes anymore, Brian wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her close against him. A sigh of contentment escaped him when her head fell against his chest. He should push her away, shift into drive again, and find someplace where he could put some distance between them. Instead, he found his fingers sliding over her silken hair as he held her closer.
He waited for the inevitable guilt to slither through him as he tenderly stroked her. Vivian was dead, but she was still such an intricate part of him. She had given him their beautiful daughters; she had loved him and depended on him. She’d had such faith in him, and he’d failed to protect the three of them. He’d watched as they’d died.
Over his many years of wielding death to murderous rogue vampires, and unfortunately two human hunters who had been trying to kill him, he could barely see any difference between himself and the vampires who had changed him and stolen his family. He didn’t intentionally hunt and kill humans, but sometimes he wondered if he could become a monster without crossing that line, or worse, if he already had become one.
He was completely undeserving of any kindness or love in his life, not like he wanted anything like that again, but he’d avoided any kind of contact like this with another for nearly two centuries. Sex was one thing, but to hold and comfort someone seemed more intimate. However, the much-expected guilt never came.
Reluctantly, he pulled away from Abby. He would only taint her if he stayed close to her. It was inevitable, as he tainted or destroyed everything he touched.
CHAPTER 3
“Do you think she took off because she didn’t want to tell your parents about quitting school?” he asked.
Abby missed the heat of his body against hers; her skin felt icy from the loss of contact. “No. She was dreading telling them, they were going to be mad at her for not telling them sooner, but they would get over it and she knew that. No matter what, she still wouldn’t have taken off without telling me.”
“Do you have something of Vicky’s?” he asked.
He watched as she wiped at her eyes. Her sister, Isabelle, was striking in her beauty. Abby was far more delicate and innocent, more pretty than refined and elegant, but he could barely keep his eyes off her. She fascinated him in some odd way that had him fighting the urge to brush the hair away from her face so he could see her more clearly.
“Like what?” she asked as she twisted her hands in her lap.
“A picture, jewelry, clothing, anything.” He could use Abby herself, but he was better off not touching her again if he could help it.
Abby dug into her purse in search of her wallet. She tugged it out and flipped through the pictures of her family and friends before coming to one of Vicky and her from the beginning of the summer. The picture was taken near their home in Maine. They were sitting on the rocks on the beach with the ocean crashing around them. Her sister-in-law, Paige, had taken the picture and planned to turn it into a painting, but she had given Abby and Vicky each a copy of the photo.
Their heads were bent close to each other, their hands draped over their knees in identical positions. It appeared as if they were the only two people on Earth, and Abby recalled not even realizing Paige was there as she’d sat with Vicky, talking and listening to the ocean waves.
“Here.” She handed him the photo. She was about to point out which one was Vicky and which was her, when his thumb landed on Vicky. “That’s her.”
“I know,” he murmured as he closed his eyes.
Her eyebrows shot up as she stared at him. Her own parents got them confused sometimes, but he had unflinchingly chosen Vicky in the photo. It had either been luck, or his gift of finding people that allowed him to pick Vicky out in the picture. That made sense, she decided. She sat back to watch the headlights playing over his masculine beauty as the cars drove by.
She longed to touch his cheek, but she dug her fingers into the cloth seat and forced herself to show some restraint. She had no idea what he was doing, but his shoulders hunched up and he shuddered. His eyes flew open, and then he handed the picture back to her and shifted the truck into drive.
“Do you know where she is?” she asked anxiously.
“I know where she was recently. She may be there now, or she may have moved on, but we’ll find out when we get there.”
“How do you know? What did you do?”
He smiled at her, but it looked strained and there was a hollowness in his ice-colored eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I have my secrets, young Byrne.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“No.”
Abby opened her mouth to question him further, but she clamped it shut again. He was helping her, who was she to demand answers when he wasn’t willing to give them? “Did your ability tell you who Vicky was in this picture?” she inquired.
“No,” he said, as he clicked on his blinker and exited the Pike.
He drove through the Easy Pass lane and back onto the crowded and convoluted streets of Boston. She’d lived here almost full-time for three years now and still managed to get lost every once in a while, but he drove with unflinching certainty as he navigated the roads.
“Then how did you know it was her?” she asked.
“You’re very easy to tell apart.”
Abby did a double take; she somehow kept herself from sputtering at his words. “No one has ever said that to me before, not even my parents.”
He shrugged, but didn’t look at her again as he drove into a part of the city she’d never been to before. It was less crowded here; homes lined the streets instead of skyscrapers and businesses. As they parked outside a white house that had been converted into an apartment building, Abby craned her head to take in the three story building next to her.
“Do you think she’s here?” she asked eagerly.
“No,” Brian said as he studied the home. A residual aura enshrouded the place. One that had been strong enough to draw him here, but it wasn’t strong enough to indicate Vicky was still here now. Opening his door, he walked around the truck toward the passenger side. Before he could reach Abby’s door, she opened it herself and began to step out onto the curb. He rushed to her side and grabbed hold of her elbow to help her out.
She gave him a startled look, one that had nothing on the surprise that jolted through him at the gesture. He wasn’t a gentleman anymore; he didn’t have any chivalry left in him. That part of him had died when his human life ended. However, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from helping her.
You’d better start, a voice whispered in his head and he released her elbow.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome. Stay close to me.”
He led her to the back of the building and a set of stairs winding all the way to the third floor. Drawn onward, he climbed to the top with her close on his heels. The light on the top of the building did little to illuminate the night. His enha
nced vision picked out more than enough details to know the place could use a good painting, and these stairs wouldn’t last another five years as they creaked and groaned beneath their weight.
Opening the little gate on the back porch, he stepped inside and held the door open for Abby. The space was small, but a picnic table cluttered with ashtrays and beer bottles was set to the side. He didn’t expect anyone to answer, but he still knocked on the door. Each rap of his knuckles caused flecks of paint to fall on his hand from the aging doorframe above.
He bent to peer through the glass into the gloomy apartment beyond. “What are you doing?” Abby hissed when his hand fell to the knob and he turned it.
The door swung open to reveal a surprisingly filthy kitchen. The kitchen was the least used room in any vampire’s home. There was rarely ever a need to clean it, but this one had dirt and blood streaked over the linoleum and white cabinets. Half the cabinets were open; some of the others had no doors on them.
“Vicky would never stay in a place like this,” Abby said from behind him.
He didn’t look at her. “She was here.”
Wrapping her hands around her middle, she hugged herself. “My sister is far from Mrs. Clean, but she wouldn’t live in filth.”
“A lot of this mess is new,” he murmured, as his gaze lingered on the dry blood that couldn’t be more than a day or two old, judging by the strength of the coppery scent. Inhaling deeply again, his fangs pricked and lengthened when he realized this was human blood.
“Do you think there was a fight? Do you think someone dragged her from here?”
“No,” he replied. “This is human blood.”
Beside him, Abby shuddered and hugged herself. Turning away, his eyes scanned the porch as he searched for something he could use to further guide him. Bending down, he peered beneath the picnic table. Spotting a jacket, he pulled it forward and grasped it in his hand. He allowed his mind to open to the residual pathways on the clothing from the person who owned it.
Finding a new soul to lock onto through the jacket, he tossed it aside and took hold of Abby’s elbow. “Come.”
“Did you see her?”
“No, but I did see the other vamp who is staying here.”
Abby’s mind spun as she glanced back at the trashed apartment before stepping out of the gate. Brian kept hold of her arm as he led her down the stairs and back to the truck. Opening her door, he helped her climb inside before walking around to the driver’s side. Abby tried to keep the uneasiness gnawing her stomach at bay as he started the truck and pulled away from the curb.
Vicky would never take off without telling her. No matter how rebellious her sister had become, she never would have left without contacting her first. Abby had been trying to hang onto the small thread of hope that Vicky’s phone was broken, or she had become so busy she had forgotten about the three lunch dates she’d missed since Abby last saw her.
Vicky had never forgotten their lunch dates before, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. She loved Vicky, but responsibility and recalling times and dates had never been her strong suit. Abby was the one who had always handled remembering birthdays and getting presents for people. Vicky was attached to her phone, but she also went through a new one every three months. She was forever dropping them and destroying them. She’d even dropped one on the tracks of the T-line seconds before the train pulled into the station, but she’d still always found a way to contact Abby when something like that happened.
Now that hope was fading fast. Up to this point, she’d refused to give into her fear and admit to herself that something was terribly wrong. Now she could feel that fear threatening to take her over.
She was so focused on her misery, she didn’t realize what her surroundings were at first. Her eyes widened as they drove through seedier and seedier sections of the city. Places she’d never been before and had never intended to go.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as the row houses gave way to dilapidated and crumbling buildings. Plywood boarded some of the windows, graffiti streaked many walls, and more than a few looked as if they would collapse any second now. The main occupants of these forgotten structures were rats, stray animals, and lost souls.
“The people who can’t tell you two apart don’t know what to look for,” Brian said randomly as he made a right-hand turn onto a dark roadway.
Abby pulled her attention away from the buildings and back to him, as he’d hoped when he’d spoken. He could sense her anguish and had been trying to think of a way to distract her from her morose thoughts.
“And what is that?” she asked around the lump in her throat.
“Life. It radiates from everyone differently, especially you.”
What an odd statement for anyone to make, she thought. “But it was only a photo.”
“Don’t you know the camera steals a piece of your soul?” The wink he gave her tugged at her heart.
“That’s true?” she blurted.
“Who knows?”
He was the most enigmatic, confusing, and complicated man she’d ever met. She found she actually kind of liked it.
CHAPTER 4
Abby hadn’t realized he’d pulled to the side of the road until he put the truck in park. “Why do you think life radiates differently from me?” she asked.
He turned toward her, his hand only inches from her shoulder, but he didn’t touch her again no matter how badly he wanted to. “That’s the way it is with some,” he replied. “This is it.”
He pointed out the window behind her. Abby’s gaze remained riveted on him for a minute more as she tried to bolster her courage before turning to look out the window. Her heart sank at the sight of the building he’d pointed to. Its roof sloped downward in the middle, as the process of falling in on itself was well underway.
Boards and plywood covered all the windows and the front door, which was partially ajar and sagged on its hinges. The Addams family would have run away screaming from this place, but her notoriously meticulous sister had been here, or was at least associated with someone who had been. Vicky could spend hours in front of a mirror doing her hair and trying to decide on an outfit. If there was a mirror in this place, it wasn’t used for primping.
Before college, Abby had been much the same way as Vicky, but when school started, studies and friends had taken her focus instead of styled hair and a perfect tan. The same couldn’t be said of her twin though. Vicky had always maintained her tan, never had a chip in her nail polish, her hair was perfectly styled, and her clothes were always immaculate. Abby berated herself for not paying closer attention to what was going on in her sister’s life.
“Did Vicky ever come here?” she croaked out.
“I don’t know,” Brian said. “It could be someone else, a friend or an associate perhaps, who owned the jacket and came here. What did she say about her boyfriend?”
“Just that his name is Duke and he’s a lot of fun to be around. It was full daylight the one time I saw him, so he wasn’t a killer, and Vicky never would have dated him if he smelled like garbage the way other killer vampires do, like you did the first time we met…”
Brian winced at the reminder of what her first impression of him had been. At her tender age, she’d most likely believed him to be a monster. She might still believe him to be a monster. It had been years since he’d killed those human hunters, but he didn’t know if the smell lingered on him or if it had faded away with time. Only born vampires like Abby could scent a vampire who killed humans. It was one of the many traits turned vampires didn’t possess.
“But he wasn’t right,” she finished.
“Is anyone?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I hated the way he stood on the curb across the street, waiting for her while we finished our drinks. She didn’t go running out to him, Vicky doesn’t run anywhere, but I could tell he expected her to drop everything to join him.”
Brian studied Abby’s delicate features as she stared at what
could only be described as a crack house. Judging by the smells wafting from it, more than crack had been going on in there. He glanced around the quiet street. He didn’t want to take Abby into that building, but leaving her in the truck wasn’t exactly a great option either.
He scented the air. His ears strained to detect any hint of noise from somewhere, but the night remained eerily quiet, except for what was going on in that house. Leaving her here may just be the lesser of the two evils, he decided.
“Stay here,” he said.
He climbed out of the truck but before he could shut his door, she was already out of the vehicle. He stalked around the front of the truck to join her. Taking hold of her elbow, he tried to steer her back into the truck, but she resisted him.
Abby thrust out her chin as she stubbornly dug her heels in. “If Vicky is in there, then I’m going inside and you can’t stop me.”
“She’s not in there.”
“If anyone she’s ever met is in there, I’m going.”
He stared down at her resolute expression before glancing at the dilapidated house once more. He cast a glance over his shoulder, noting the shadows coalescing over the street as the moon slipped out from behind the clouds. Nothing moved, but this wasn’t a place where normal humans walked the family dog at night, at least not if they were expecting to live for long.
Turning back to her, he noted she was five shades paler than she had been. She took a step away from him, but he kept hold of her elbow, drawing her back against his side. “I’m going—”
“I know,” he replied. “But you will be standing by my side as you do.”
He gritted his teeth against his need to take her away from this place. If he did, she would only come back here the first chance she got, and she would leave his ass behind in order to do so. He could call Stefan and tell him what was going on. Her brother-in-law would come, drag her away, and Brian could continue his search for Vicky without the temptation of Abby and the risk to her life. She would be safe if he handed her over to her family, but she would likely hate him and would definitely turn against him.
Undone (Vampire Awakenings, Book 5) Page 3