by Melinda Metz
“That’s the same reason Luis did it to me,” Gabriel answered. “Tamara too.”
“No, she wanted vengeance. She was furious. She wanted to kill you because she thinks you killed Richard. She’s still seething, I can hear it in her voice.” Shay almost started kneading the steering wheel again, but she stopped her hands in time.
“In a way, I did kill Richard,” Gabriel told her.
“No, what you did was—,” Shay began.
“I didn’t save him,” Gabriel interrupted. “I let him sacrifice himself, when if I’d simply left you in the basement and gone to help Ernst, we most certainly would have killed Martin before he could detonate his bomb.”
“I know.” Shay reached over and took his hand. “I’d be dead if you hadn’t gotten me out of there, though. I hate that you had to make that choice.” She could feel the weight of it in him, and he already carried so much guilt and regret.
“It wasn’t a choice,” Gabriel said, his dark eyes intent on her face. “I couldn’t let you die. But that doesn’t mean Tamara’s wrong.”
“It was Martin’s fault,” Shay said. “Not yours.” But she tried to imagine how she’d feel if someone had let Gabriel die to save . . . anyone else’s life. Even thinking about it opened a well of icy blackness in her chest. “And now he’s dead,” she added.
“And we’re alive,” Gabriel said.
“Yeah.” It was hard to believe that they’d both survived that night. Her mother, too. Shay had so much to be thankful for, and yet . . .
“Thinking about Olivia?” Gabriel asked.
“Yeah,” Shay said. “The way she—”
Shay didn’t have time to finish before Tamara strode out of the house, her face hard with determination. Gabriel climbed out of the car and intercepted her. Shay followed him.
“We were just going to go in and talk to everybody about what we should do now,” Gabriel told his sister.
“You do that,” Tamara told him. “I’m gone.” She tried to step around Gabriel, but he blocked her.
“Tam, we’re still your family,” Gabriel said. “We still—”
“The only reason I joined the family was Richard, and he’s dead,” Tamara said, her eyes, cold and hard, flicking over to Shay. “I’m leaving.”
“Okay, fine. Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. She hesitated. “Look, just stay with us until you figure things out. It’s safer.”
“Safer? Are you delusional?” Tamara snapped. “She brought all this on us.” Tamara jerked her chin at Shay.
“And my mother and I saved your life,” Shay reminded her.
“After you led the killer to us. After he killed Richard,” Tamara shot back. She shoved her thick hair away from her face. “I understand that you saved me. It’s the only reason you and that human woman are still alive.” She turned back to Gabriel. “I won’t be around them another second. Them or you.”
This time when she started to circle around Gabriel, he let her. “Let’s go talk to the others,” he said to Shay.
“You okay?” Shay asked, even though she could feel through the communion that he wasn’t. Worry, and anger, and anxiety, and guilt were pulsing out of him.
“You’re with me. That’s all that matters.” Liar, Shay thought, but she smiled at him. Even though it wasn’t all that mattered, it was the most important thing. To both of them.
When they walked into the house, they found Luis, Millie, and Shay’s mother gathered in the living room. “We couldn’t stop her,” Luis said.
“It’s her choice,” Gabriel replied. “Now we have to figure out what the rest of us are going to do. I think we should leave for one of the other safe houses tonight. We can get to the ones farther west as long as we’re willing to risk staying in motels along the way. If we arrive at night and check in, we should be safe enough during the death sleeps. Once we’re at the safe house, we can regroup and make real plans.”
“I want to come,” Shay’s mom declared. “There’s nothing for me here anymore, and I’ll be the one who has to explain what happened to Martin. It’ll be easier for me to just disappear, frankly.”
It’s true, Shay realized. It’s not like she has friends here, not close ones, anyway. She’s lived her whole life for me for so long. I’m all she has.
“I’d like her to be with us,” Shay told the others. “I know I don’t really have the right to a vote or anything—”
“You have the same rights as any of us. You’re part of the family,” Gabriel said. “She’s part of the family,” he repeated, as though waiting to be contradicted. But Luis and Millie just nodded. “How do you feel about Emma joining us?”
“You could use me, you know,” Shay’s mom reminded them. “I can go out in the daytime and protect you during your death sleep. I can be your front person with other people. Humans. Human people,” she finished awkwardly.
Shay saw Luis’s mouth twist in a small smile.
“You’ve lost a father,” Mom added in a rush. “I think you could use a mother. Even if some of you are hundreds of years older than I am.”
Shay looked at Millie. She wasn’t sure about Luis, but she thought Millie would say yes.
“I shouldn’t have a say,” Millie replied. “I’m not going with you,” she added quickly, tears shimmering in her eyes.
“What?” Gabriel burst out.
“Mils, that’s crazy,” Luis said.
“I don’t want to hide anymore,” Millie explained. “I want to live in a city. A huge city. I want to do things. I want to do everything.”
“You’re not thinking of telling people the truth about yourself?” Gabriel gasped.
“It would be a horrible mistake,” Shay’s mom said. “They’d lock you away. They’d do unspeakable things. Just look at what Martin—”
Millie held up her hands. “I don’t mean I’m going to walk around telling people I’m a vampire,” she said. “I just don’t want to be so isolated anymore. Since I was a child, I’ve been hidden in caves and labs and houses in the middle of nowhere. I have been alive for ages, but my life has been so . . . small. I want to know more people.” She gave a teary smile at Gabriel and put her hand over Luis’s. “Not that I don’t love you guys.”
Shay nodded. She knew what it was like to live a life with so many restraints, expected to be cautious all the time.
“It’s way too risky,” Gabriel began.
“It’s her choice,” Shay said, cutting him short. “And I understand why you’d want that,” she added to Millie.
Gabriel didn’t look happy, and Shay could feel more worry in her communion with him, but he didn’t try to argue. He turned to Luis. “And you?”
“It’s not going to be the same,” Luis said.
“It’s not,” Gabriel agreed. “And I don’t want it to be. I want our family to be a place where there’s room for all kinds. I don’t want us to be so ruled by fear that we’re willing to kill each other to stay safe. Or what we believe is safe.”
“I’ve been part of a family, your family, as long as I can remember,” Luis said to Gabriel. “I don’t have even one memory of another life. But I feel like my family doesn’t exist anymore.”
“In a way, it doesn’t,” Shay said, wondering if she had the right to speak. “You’ve lost your father and a brother. Your sisters are going their own way. It isn’t the same family. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be yours. My family is different now too.”
“We have a lot to figure out,” Gabriel put in. “And we’ll do it together. Together we’ll figure out what our future can and should be.”
“Okay. I’m with you,” Luis said.
“Millie, you’ll always have a home with us. You know that. Or you can just come visit for holidays,” Shay’s mother said. She gave a little laugh. “Do we celebrate holidays?”
“Like Gabriel said, we’ll figure it out together.” Shay was filled with a rush of anticipation and hope, the emotions so powerful, they made her a little giddy. S
he was about to start planning her future. Her future. She used to believe her future would be short, and filled with sickness.
But now she had an eternity, an eternity with Gabriel, and her world was full of time. Time, and love.