by K. A. Tucker
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I can resist this,” he forced through gritted teeth.
“You can. Look at me.” His eyes cracked open, crimson swarming the whites. “You will not hurt anyone in this house tonight, Julian. You will resist,” I said evenly.
He visibly relaxed. Baby steps. That’s all this was. If he could handle this, then maybe Sofie was wrong. Maybe Julian and I could join in the fight in New York. We could be useful!
I walked into the living room, my feet soundless against the old wood floors. I scanned the collage of photos on the wall, learning what I could about the family whose life I was gambling with tonight. A couple and three boys, all in their teens, by the looks of it.
“Why are you smiling?” Julian’s eyes followed mine over the countless pictures of the boys on surfboards and skis.
I shrugged. I’d never so much as flirted with the law for all of my eighteen years. I was never a rule breaker or a thrill seeker as a human, but there was something exhilarating about this. Maybe it was because I couldn’t get caught; maybe it was because I couldn’t be punished. Or maybe it was just in my new nature to do risky, bad things.
That thought wiped the grin clear off my face.
“Come on.”
It was at the stairs that I felt the first soft thrum of a heartbeat. Slow and steady. Asleep. I sensed another one soon after that. And then another. As we climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms over the back of the house, I counted five people sleeping soundly, unaware that intruders lurked just outside their door.
I peered back at Julian. “You’ll be fine.” I wasn’t sure if I was assuring him or myself. “You won’t hurt anyone.” The fact that he hadn’t already bolted past me and attacked was a great sign.
When we reached the landing, I stopped in front of the first door on the left, covered with a poster of a snowboarder. One of the boys, obviously. A hint of wariness crept in now. What if Julian attacked a kid? I’d never forgive myself. But if he didn’t—if I proved to myself that I could compel a fledgling not to kill a human—then … this was something I needed to confirm. Just in case, I grabbed his hand before pushing the door open.
The light from a muted flat screen television flickered within the small bedroom, illuminating a wall of band posters and shelves of sports trophies. A boy of perhaps fifteen lay in his bed, one of his legs bound from thigh to ankle in a cast and propped on a pillow. Half a dozen pill bottles and a tall glass of water sat on his nightstand.
And he was watching us.
In the time that it took his heart to accelerate from relaxed to frightened and his jaw to drop open, I was across the room and gripping his mouth shut, drawing his baby blue eyes into mine. “You will not scream. You will not fight back. Stay exactly as you are.” Just as with that nurse at the hospital, the cloudy look filled his eyes. He nodded slowly.
I glanced over my shoulder to confirm that Julian was fine, his back pressed up against the wall, and then I focused my attention on the boy again. “What’s your name?”
“Dixon,” he said, his eyelids fluttering.
“You were supposed to be asleep, Dixon,” I said softly. I guess I’d have to learn the difference between a relaxed and unconscious heart rate. There was no mistaking it now, though. He was wide awake, and trembling. Despite being compelled, he was terrified.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Dixon said, his voice cracking. “My leg hurts.”
I looked down at the cast, my fingertip sliding over the top. “What happened?” I asked, sensing the weakness beneath my hand, like a sudden cold spot amidst warmth. “Your femur is broken,” I stated, the urge to wrap my hand around it sudden and irresistible.
“Yeah, a ski accident. I just got out of the hospital.”
“That sure does sound painful.”
One side of his face lifted in a boyish smirk as his eyes flickered on my hand. “I haven’t slept in days.” Deep bags hung beneath Dixon’s eyes.
My fascination with the boy’s injury had taken over my other reason for being here. The harder I focused on the break, the more I learned, the more I could imagine. But, was I imagining? “There are pins as well, aren’t there?” My fingers tingled with the cool touch of thin, sharp metal.
“Yeah.” His head dipped. “I’ll probably never ski again.” The air shifted, and an overwhelming sense of sadness slammed into me. His emotions. I was reading his emotions! This is what it felt like? Sofie had always said I was an open book as a human. Was this what it felt like to feel my pain, my sorrow, my happiness along with me? Because I was certain that it was my sadness overwhelming me, so acute.
The deep need to make this bone whole again consumed me, and I couldn’t ignore it.
Because somehow, intrinsically, I knew that I could fix it.
I stopped for a moment to consider the logic. I knew that I could likely bite him and inject him with venom. If I did, he could ski for the rest of his life. He could fall off a cliff and walk away, unscathed. There would be no “never” for him again.
I closed my eyes as need bubbled inside me, spurning my body forward. That energy I’d been carrying deep inside from the moment I woke up now pushed against its walls, as if ready to combust. I fought it. As it grew and expanded and absorbed, I fought to keep it down. Was this the unstoppable urge that Sofie warned me about? Was I about to do the very thing I had compelled Julian not to?
Maybe I couldn’t control myself at all.
Maybe I was different, but not that different.
Even with my eyes closed, I sensed the television flickering and heard the windowpane rattle. The entire time, I could not escape the need to mend this boy, to fix that which should not be broken.
Like a blown-up but untied balloon released into the air, the urge suddenly deflated from me. I opened my eyes, praying that they were normal—as normal as yellow eyes could be—to find Dixon’s faced flushed.
He peered down at his cast. Turning it this way and that, his frown deepened. “It stopped hurting.” The cloudy swirl in his eyes had vanished, leaving awe behind. “What did you do?” he whispered.
I hadn’t bitten him, that much I knew. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. I turned back to look at Julian, his brows high on his forehead. “What happened?” I mouthed.
Julian could only shrug.
“My leg doesn’t hurt anymore.” Dixon sat up, rolling it furiously, lifting it up and letting the cast bounce on the mattress.
Had I just healed Dixon’s broken bone?
No, that was impossible. I couldn’t do that, could I? Maybe I just compelled him to forget the pain but … “Could I have?” I said out loud, to no one, to everyone. Where was Sofie when I needed her?
“Julian?”
He stepped forward, still shaking his head. “Get the cast off and—”
The door swung open and a slight woman in her forties, eyes only half open, stepped through. Dixon’s mom, likely coming to check on him.
In all the excitement, we had somehow missed the heartbeat, the footsteps.
But now there was no missing it.
I guess the surprise was more than Julian could handle, even compelled. I knew it the moment I saw the whites of his eyes flooded with crimson.
“Julian, no!” I yelled, flying toward him. But it was too late.
Behind me, Dixon let out a high-pitched scream as Julian sank his teeth into the woman’s neck, the spectacle of his mother being attacked strong enough to break my spell over him.
Just like that, we’d gone from miraculous to disastrous.
I had to take care of this. First things first, Julian. I closed in on him, grabbing hold of the hair on top of his head, and jerked him upright to lock focus with those hideous eyes. “Julian, you will stop feeding on her right now. You will step away from her.”
He growled but otherwise didn’t move. The woman’s eyes began to loll. He was taking in too much, too fast, and urging him to stop wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t enough motivation. I
needed real motivation.
Behind me came a thud. I looked back and saw Dixon struggling to get out of bed. I turned back to Julian. A moment later, an object hit my back and tumbled to the floor, followed by a loud crash as Dixon lost his balance and fell.
I ignored him and the short-lived pain in my back as I tried a new approach. A dirty, desperate tactic, but I had no other choice. “Julian, Amelie is missing. She may be in danger. Stop feeding on this woman and we can go find her.”
The muscles in his jaw stopped moving. He pulled free from the woman’s neck and let go. I dove to catch her before she hit the ground. “What?” His brown eyes were back instantly. “She’s missing? How do you know?”
Approaching footsteps pounded outside. Several of them, people running. “Hold the door!” I demanded as I carried the woman’s limp body to the bed, her blood leaving a trail along the floor. Dixon had managed to get himself back up to a standing position by that point. “Dixon, I want you to lie back down in bed and say nothing,” I commanded.
“Sheila!” a man yelled, followed by screams of “Mom! Dixon!” from the two other boys. The wall rattled with a loud bang as they attempted to break down the door. Julian’s strength held it with ease, though a loud cracking told me they’d soon have a fist through the wood.
“Hurry up!” Julian bellowed, his face a contorted mask. Probably angry at me. I’d deal with that later, though.
The woman—Sheila—still had a heartbeat, but it was depressingly weak. Two ghastly puncture wounds over her jugular seeped blood, forming a pool all over Dixon’s bedspread. If she ever woke up, it would be to unanswerable questions and unimaginable explanations. I knew. I’d been there, once. So long ago now, it felt.
Unless I helped her, as I had helped Dixon.
That same urge began to bubble with the thought but it was distracted by the splintering door and flying wood. I looked up in time to see a man’s face pressed against the hole in the door, his eyes wide with alarm.
“Sheila!” the man cried. A brawny arm shoved through, roping around Julian’s neck.
Julian’s eyes began to morph. He was going to attack Dixon’s father.
“Julian, don’t!” I warned.
Shoving the man’s arm away, he snapped, “I’m not staying.”
And then he was gone, crashing through the second-story window and disappearing into the night.
“Shit.” I had to go after him. Glancing back at a shocked Dixon, I mumbled, “Sorry,” and dove for the window, just as the door flew open.
This time, I landed smoothly on my feet. I didn’t waste a second, taking off after Julian’s tracks in the snow. Either he was that much faster than me or that much more determined—I chased those tracks for miles, through towns, across valleys.
And then they just stopped.
“Shit!” I yelled, now in full panic mode. I lost Julian! Sofie was going to kill me! With frantic eyes, I scanned the shadows for fresh footprints leading somewhere, anywhere.
A hand landed on my bicep and whipped me around. “Are you lying about Amelie?” Julian growled, his tall frame looming over me.
I allowed myself a tiny exhale of relief before jerking my arm away. “I wish I were.”
Rage burned in his eyes. “You knew! You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?” A finger jabbed the air as he pointed back the way we’d come, toward the mountain. “Even up there, when you were telling me about Galen, when I was saying how much I missed Amelie, you knew!”
“How could I tell you?” I yelled back. “You would’ve taken off for the city. And you probably never would’ve made it, with all these distractions.” I gestured at the houses up ahead, full of people.
“Well, you sure picked a great time to finally share,” he snapped. I hadn’t seen him this angry since the day he blamed me for his parents’ deaths.
“I didn’t know what else to do. You were going to kill that woman in front of her son.” And now I had a better idea of exactly how well I could compel a vampire. Or, more importantly, how strong the urge to feed was. How right Caden and Sofie were to worry.
Julian could not go into a city full of people.
His head dropped at the reminder, the corners of his mouth downcast with guilt. “She surprised me. It was just …” Earnest brown eyes peered at me. “Do you think she’ll live?”
“I don’t know.” Could I have helped her, as I’d helped her son? Or thought I had helped her son?
Several long moments passed in silence. “Where do they think she is?” he finally asked.
I explained the little that Caden had shared. “They’re looking for her now, Julian. They’ll find her.”
“You don’t know that!” He erupted. Julian had always had a volatile temper. The transformation had certainly amplified that. He was yelling again. “And if they don’t? We have until sunrise. That’s what …,” he glanced at his watch, “like, five or six hours to find her before they blow up the city? With her in it!”
“Calm down,” I urged in a soft voice. Several dogs barked, disrupting the quiet of the neighborhood. “Sofie wouldn’t do that.”
I couldn’t blame him for panicking. What if they didn’t find her? Would Sofie proceed as planned, knowing Amelie could be in New York City? Would Amelie die along with everyone else? Though I was incapable of crying, the very thought of losing Amelie brought a burn to my eyes.
“They’ll find her. We need to go back to the—”
Julian bolted. He was heading southeast.
Toward New York City.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit that a spark of excitement ignited inside me.
Now I had a really good excuse to find Caden and the others.
Chapter Eight – Sofie
“This way!” Lilly shouted, taking the lead. My legs moved of their own accord, my mind trying to blank out the reality of what I’d just done. Ahead of us, fledglings scattered, running down the streets, smashing through storefront windows. In every direction, they fled. The ones distracted by prey were the ones we targeted and even they were too numerous.
It would take twenty minutes for my magical reserves to rebuild, but until then, we had to resort to our hands and the blowtorches and lighters Galen had so smartly provided.
Galen … I couldn’t believe he was dead.
My attention waffled between the mayhem that had erupted in the streets of Manhattan and the shadows of every corner, every building, every alley, searching for a tall blond with blue eyes who had to be tailing us, who might still be following us now, waiting for the next opportunity to weaken our defenses. Without my magic, even I was vulnerable to him right now.
Up ahead, Mage stopped running, tossing the hearts of two fledglings onto the pavement. By the time I reached her, they were already in flames.
“We need to regroup and make a hard decision.” Shaking her head, she said the words that had started cycling on frantic repeat inside my head. “We can’t stop this.”
Chapter Nine – Evangeline
“You need to go back to the mine where you can’t attack anyone!” I grabbed onto his arm, ready to compel him.
“Evangeline,” Julian’s feet slowed and he turned to face me, “we’re surrounded by humans. I can feel their hearts beating and right now, I don’t care.”
I nodded, taking in the quiet residential neighborhood surrounding us. Perhaps, between my compelling and his desperate need to find Amelie, Julian had begun to evolve already, learning some control. “I just want to find Amelie. Please, Evie. Just … don’t fight me on this.” The pleading look in his eyes shattered my defenses.
“Fine.” This was most likely a terrible idea but if it were Caden missing, Julian would be chasing me through the streets of suburban New York. “But we can’t just charge in blind. We need to know what’s going on in the city.”
“Okay … we need a radio.” Julian marched toward a bungalow with a black Range Rover parked in the driveway. “I don’t suppose you know how to h
otwire a car, do you?” he asked as he peered through the tinted window.
“Not yet.” I imagined I’d be getting that lesson from Caden at some point. What else would there be to do?
Julian’s gaze shifted from the Rover to the house, and back to the Rover. “What are the odds that they have their keys on a hook by the front door?” Before I could answer, he had his fist through the glass panel of the front door to turn the deadbolt.
“Not again,” I groaned, running to catch up with him, ready to run interference. One day as a vampire and I was already racking up illegal activity like a teenager collecting points on a video game.
We quickly found out that this household was not as predictable as we’d hoped. The pristine foyer had vases and mirrors and an elaborately woven rattan chair but not a key hung on the wall or resting in a dish.
Above my head came a soft thumping sound, followed by light quick footsteps against tile. A dog, likely. Though better than a human, a dog could prove noisy. “Hurry! And try in there,” I whispered, shoving Julian toward the closed door on the left.
In seconds, I heard, “Got ’em!” just as a tiny Chihuahua in a studded collar and red sweater rounded the corner, its walnut-sized heart thumping rapidly.
“Come here,” I whispered, bending down on one knee. I held my hand out, palm down in a very unthreatening way, hoping it might come quietly. The urge to simply snap its scrawny neck should’ve been wired into my new DNA but I guess my transformation hadn’t changed that. Another oddity.
Still, I’d rather not have the owner alerted of the break-in and theft. The police would be called, a notice would be put out on their plates and, well … it would be easier if we could avoid all of that. There would already be enough activity going on with the attack at Dixon’s house and my visit to the hospital.
“Let’s go!” Julian reappeared from the mudroom. He stopped to regard the dog, who watched at us through bulging eyes, silent, his little body quaking.
“I think he’s afraid of us.” Could he sense what we truly were? Could he sense the danger he was in?