She licked her lips and laughed at me when I tried to straighten up again. “You have a thing for brothers, don’t you Labreah? I mean you tried to change your own brother, didn’t you? Except he got away.”
I had a moment of satisfaction when her eyes flickered with pain. Her face twisted and I could tell that I had hit a nerve. Then she obliterated me, “he didn’t taste as good as your brother, Evie. Jackson was one of the best I had. Pity that I decided not to change him and ate him for dinner instead.” She smiled at my devastated expression, and licked her lips. “I’ve been thinking of doing the same to Jane, she’s turned out to be rather… disappointing.” She turned and opened the door, “have a good night, hon.”
I sank to the floor, sobbing and shaking from my grief. I had gotten involved in all of this for Jackson; to find and save my baby brother, and now I knew. It was a waste of time. It was all for nothing. I had been kidding myself the whole time. Jackson was dead. And me? Apparently I was one taste away from becoming just like the monster who killed him. I'd rather be dead.
Chapter Fifteen
It was getting close to nightfall and I wasn't sure if I was eager to see Sevren and Remy or if I was dreading it. Since Labreah had dropped that bomb on me, I had done nothing more than lay on the bed. My emotions alternated from anger to despair so quickly that I was shaking and crying almost continuously.
For the last hour or so, I'd been thinking about Mason and what would happen to me. I'd never admit it out loud, but Labreah scared me. I had the feeling that she would kill him just to prove that she could. She was the type of person who needed to dominate. She evoked fear in anyone who met her, and those who weren't scared of her, should be.
Even though it wasn't quite sunset, when the door opened, I expected to see either Remy or Sevren on the other side of it. So I was surprised when it was Jane. She held a finger up to her mouth, alerting me to stay quiet, she looked behind her making sure no one was there and then she shut the door behind her.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded, unsure of how I should be reacting to her. Then I saw the cuts across her cheek and neck. "Jane! What the hell happened to you?"
She winced at the volume of my voice, "shh, they'll hear you." She waited for a second with her head cocked to one side, but there was no one coming. I could of told her that.
She sunk down on the bed beside me. Up close I could see that the cuts were fresh, the blood still bright red and wet. My stomach grumbled. "What happened?" I whispered.
"Labreah."
Oh. I guess that she was being serious when she threatened me with Jane. "Are you okay?" There were tears in her eyes, but she nodded.
"I thought that she cared about me." The tears spilled over and she sniffed, laughing at her own emotions, "when you rejected me," she bit her lip, "she came to me and told me that she had seen me at that party and that I was beautiful." She looked up at me, wiping her eyes on the back of her arm, "I believed her."
"So what happened?" I knew the answer, but I wasn't sure what Labreah had told Jane.
"She's not a lesbian," she laughed bitterly. "She said it had all been a joke... an experiment."
I took a deep breath. "Are you sure that you are, Jane? I mean, we're really young and you've never really dated and..."
She shook her head, cutting me off, "I'm sure." She sighed, "none of that matters right now though. Right now we need to get the hell out of here, before she comes looking for me to finish me off."
I gulped, "what made her stop?"
"I think that Hallie went into labor."
I stood up and threw my arms in the air. "What? Shit! We need to help her!"
Jane shook her head, "we can't. Even if we could do anything about it, she wouldn't let us. Evie, she's totally fucked up in the head. Dan has been keeping just enough blood in her for that monster inside of her to grow. Her mind is pretty damaged."
I thought back to my most recent conversation with her, "no." I shook my head, "that's no entirely true. There's hope for her, we have to do something."
She closed her eyes and nodded, "fine. I know I won't be able to change your mind anyways."
I looked around. We were losing daylight fast so I knew we were running out of time. We needed a plan. "How do we get out of here?"
"There's a staircase, I know where it's at. It leads up to the bathrooms."
I nodded. It made sense. I had figured out the night before that the vampires lair was somewhere under the Willows. Now, remembering back again to that day and the smell of blood and rotten meat, I should have guessed all along.
"Okay, we need a distraction. There are a million tunnels here, let's cave some of them in."
Jane's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? You're going to get us killed."
I raised my eyebrows, "by the vampires or the cave in?"
She considered this, "I guess you are right, we are pretty much screwed either way. At least I am. No one would dare to hurt you, or they'd have to deal with Sevren and Remy." She shivered.
I thought about Dan and Labreah and their reactions to me as well as the way they treated me, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
I crept to the door and pressed my ear to its surface. There was total silence on the other end. We were alone. "Do you know which tunnels aren't being used?" If there were other people here, I didn't want to hurt them.
She nodded, "almost all of them are empty. There were a lot of kids here before, but now the ones that have turned into full fledged vampires have left and most of the rest have been killed."
I nodded slowly, the pain of knowing that Jackson and Piper had been amongst those that were killed was too fresh and I was trying everything I could do to get past it long enough to get everyone out of here safely.
The door opened slowly and I peeked around the edge. My gut told me to trust my instincts, but my brain was on high alert. I didn't know who I could trust anymore and my only thought was to get to my brother and make sure he was safe. I would not let Labreah touch him. Regardless of who her brother was, I'd kill her myself before I'd let that happen.
Jane motioned toward the tunnel ahead of us. "This one is empty."
I jogged about twenty feet into it, found a support beam and braced myself to push. It was like swatting at air. My strength, which had obviously intensified, distracted me so much that Jane had to grab me by the arm and run with me before I was buried alive. I managed to knock another beam in our escape and the sound of earth erupting and exploding behind us was satisfying.
She motioned me down another tunnel. This time she tried to move a beam. Even with her enhanced strength, she was struggling, so I moved her aside and took care of it myself. The ceiling started crumbling down and we ran back toward the main tunnel.
"Hallie's room is down that way," she pointed down a darker tunnel, but I didn't need her directions. You could already hear panicked cries coming from that way. "I'll keep working on taking down this place, you go and get her out of here. The stairs are right through there."
I nodded and hugged her tight. "Be careful," I whispered. She nodded and smiled.
I kept close to the wall, hoping that with all of the commotion, I could hide in the shadows. There were more people than I had expected running through the tunnels now. I saw Landon out of the corner of my eye, but he didn't notice me. There were a few more faces I recognized from the pictures at the diner, but they too, didn't stop their retreat. I wondered briefly which of them were vampires and which were just altered, enhanced like me.
There was a scream from Hallie's room. The door flew open and a body hit the wall opposite of it; hard. The walls shook from the impact and I was worried that just like the other tunnels, this one would soon been buried too. I needed to get Hallie out of there.
I jogged a few feet and stopped when I saw that the body that had hit the wall was Dan's. What the hell? More screams erupted and it took me a few seconds to realize that they were actually screamed words and not just screams. It took
me a few more seconds to process what was being said.
"I will kill you!"
The screaming distorted the voice slightly, but still, I was pretty sure it was Labreah. There were also small, whimpering, pain filled cries coming from the room and I guess that those were from Hallie. It was the other screaming voice that gave me hope.
"I've been waiting a long time to find you, little sister. You're evil, an aberration and I will destroy you!"
"Jake! Thank God!"
Jake turned when he heard me and Labreah took that as an opening to lunge at him. Hallie was lying on her bed. Her breathing was erratic and her eyes were wide with pain and fear.
Seeing Labreah as the bigger obstacle for the moment, I leapt on her. I wasn't a vampire, but the strength running through me was no joke. Jake wasn't even a match for me. I grabbed hold of Labreah's hair and we both went rolling on the floor, knocking into the baby furniture and destroying it.
"Evie! What the hell are you doing? I've got this under control!" Jake yelled.
"No!" I was panting, Labreah was shrieking at me, her nails raking across any piece of me she could reach. "Just get Hallie out of here! I can handle this."
He looked at as, rolling on the floor for a moment and then cursed. Without anymore hesitation, he ran to Hallie, grabbed her gently from off of the bed, and cradled her in his arms. I had just knocked Labreah back into the wall, dirt was beginning to crumble down from the ceiling.
"Come on, Evie! You have to get out of here."
I took one last look at Labreah and then nodded. As much as I would have loved to finish her off, I was more worried about getting out of here alive. Her eyes sparkled, triumphantly and she began laughing. It was the same maniacal laughter from before and it gave me chills to learn that it had been coming from her all along. How could she be so evil while her brother was so good?
"That's right, little princess, run away. Don't worry, I'll find you."
I clenched my fists, but Jake shook his head, "ignore her. We've got to get out of here."
We ran. Dan was just starting to stir outside of the room, but I didn't stop. I also didn't look back in fear that Labreah was right on our heels. I just wanted to get to the stairs and get the hell out of there.
I was hoping to see Jane when we got to the tunnel she had pointed out to me earlier, but she was no where to be seen. "You guys go first," I yelled at Jake when we reached the stairs.
He nodded and took them two at a time. Everything behind us was caving in. If there were any more people down there, there wasn't much hope for them. I could only pray that Labreah and Dan hadn't found another way out.
I turned back to the stairs and began racing up them. When I was halfway to the top, my head exploded in pain.
Evie!
I knew that it was a cry for my safety. I wanted to scream out that I was fine, that I had gotten to safety, but I was momentarily paralyzed. I sunk to my knees and pressed my hands against my skull trying to hold it together.
"Evie! Come on!"
I looked up at the opening and saw Jake staring down at me. He was holding out his hand, but I couldn't move. I whimpered. "Just go, take care of Hallie."
He frowned. "I'm not leaving without you."
Before I knew what was happening, he had ran back down the stairs and grabbed hold of me, pulling me to my feet. When he lifted me into his arms, I was too weak to protest and let him carry me the rest of the way up. Hallie was waiting for us in the bathroom. She was leaning up against the wall, holding her belly with tears streaming down her face. The sun had set.
"Evie, can you walk? I can't carry both of you." Jake lowered me to my feet and I nodded.
"I think so."
He studied me for a few minutes and then turned to grab Hallie. The floor was rumbling. "This whole area is going to cave in. I don't know how far the tunnels went, but we need to get out of here. Hallie needs to get to a hospital."
When we got outside, the destruction that I saw left me breathless. The playground was almost completely gone, fallen into the ground in twisted heaps of metal and plastic. Trees had fallen over, branches stuck out from the earth, trenches and craters covered the once beautiful park.
The jeep was parked just off to the side of the main road. It was running and when he saw us, Mason jumped out of the drivers seat and ran to me. He pulled me into his arms and crushed me against him. He looked over my shoulder at Jake, "what's the plan?"
Jake motioned to the car where Emma was just getting out of the passengers side. "We need to get Hallie to a hospital. The baby is coming."
I pulled away from Mason, a horrific thought suddenly occurring to me. I pictured us all at the hospital. Doctors and nurses huddled into the small delivery room not knowing the horrors they were about to unleash. I imagined a monster erupting from inside of Hallie, blood spraying everywhere as it attacked anyone within reach.
"It may be a vampire," I blurted out.
Jake and Mason looked at each other and then at me, "what do you mean?" Jake asked, Hallie still cradled in his arms.
I pointed at her belly, "Dan was almost a full vampire when he got her pregnant, they don't know what it is."
Hallie looked up at us with big eyes, "please," she cried, "help us."
Jake gulped, but it was Mason who spoke, "we have to help her."
"What if it is a vampire and it gets away?" I asked. I was all for making sure everyone was okay, but I couldn't get the thought out of my head that the baby was going to turn into something awful.
"Evie, we don't have time to debate this, we have to get out of here." Jake looked back toward the bathrooms, there was no one around, but there was an eeriness surrounding us that made me feel like we were definitely not alone.
I chewed on my lower lip, but finally nodded. "I guess you guys are right, let's get her in the car."
I ran to Emma and she hugged me, "I'm so glad that you're okay!"
I pulled away. Her reaction surprised me, but in a good way. I felt like I could have my friend back. "Did you see Jane?"
I was sure she had come out ahead of us. I hadn't seen her in the tunnels anywhere, but when Emma shook her head, I was filled with dread. Jane would have had to run right past here if she had made it out. If Emma hadn't seen her, that must mean that she was still in the tunnels; what was left of them.
The door to the jeep slammed shut and Mason and Jake walked back around to the where we were standing. "We really need to get out of here. You guys are going to have to squeeze in somewhere. I have Hallie resting in the back."
"I'll sit in the back with Hallie," Emma volunteered. Mason nodded.
"Come on, Evie," Jake said, "you can sit up front with us."
I looked around one last time. Could it really be this easy to get away? I shivered, it felt like I was being watched, studied; but once again, there was no one around. The park felt deserted and if it didn't look like an earthquake had swallowed up half of the ground, I would have had a hard time believing it had happened at all.
We climbed into the car. Mason in the driver's seat, Emma perched next to Hallie, holding her hand, and me... on Jake's lap. There were butterflies in my stomach that had nothing to do with the experience we had just lived through. My skin tingled through the clothes anywhere that his hands touched me. When his breath tickled the side of my neck, my eyes drifted closed.
I moved my hand down from my lap and let my fingertips drift over his leg. His hand that was resting on my hip tightened and then moved down my leg, reaching for my hand and twining his fingers with mine.
We rode the rest of the way to the hospital that way. It felt so right in a way that wasn't confusing at all. I didn't feel like I had to be anything other than myself with Jake. Plus, unlike Remy and Sevren, I didn't have to worry about his trying to turn me into a milkshake. My blood was safe; at least for now.
Mason sped up to the Emergency room entrance. Almost like they had been alerted to our arrival, paramedics rushed outside. "She's in
labor, in the backseat," Mason told them.
They had Hallie sitting in a wheelchair in no time, and minutes later we were all in the elevator heading up to labor and delivery. It was when we were in the waiting room that Mason finally corner me.
"Did you find anything down there?"
I knew he was talking about Jackson and I wasn't ready to have this conversation with him. This night had been devastating enough without adding to his misery. So I shook my head, "no, nothing." I lied.
He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, "I guess it was pretty stupid to hope for anything different."
He walked away before I could say anything else and I frowned when he sat down next to Emma and grabbed hold of her hand.
"So..." Jake walked over to me and put his hands in his pockets awkwardly, "are you sure you're okay?"
I sighed, but nodded. "It's been a really, really long night," I told him.
"There's something different about you. What happened after you left here the other night?"
I laughed uncomfortably, "I don't think now is the time to really get in to that."
He reached out and grabbed hold of my hand, "I'm here for you, I hope that you know that."
I moved closer to him, "really? I figured that you'd move on, looking for your sister."
He looked down at our hands and cleared his throat, "well, things change."
"Jake, I..."
Evie.
I frowned.
"What? You what?" He asked.
I was saved when we heard feet pounding down the hallway. We both ran to the door of the waiting room and saw frantic doctors and nurses rushing into the delivery room. You didn't have to have enhanced hearing to hear Hallie's screams coming down the hallway.
Jake grabbed hold of an older nurse, "what's happening?"
She shook her head, "I really can't say."
"Please, ma'am, that's our friend in there."
She shook her head, "no. I mean, I'd tell you if I knew. There are complications with the delivery, but I don't know exactly what they are. I've never seen anything like it."
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