Dead Awakenings

by Rebekah R. Ganiere

  He bent his head and kissed her on the forehead, the nose and the mouth. This time there was no force, no need, just him. He traced the line of her neck with his fingers, over the curve of her shoulder and down to her waist. His lips were soft and tender, his tongue languid and smooth. But the electricity between them rose like a lit candle flame, growing brighter and hotter with every passing moment. Before long Evaine found herself pressing her hips into him, her need to be consoled turning into something else. Fire bloomed in her chest as he kissed her deeper, his strong fingers digging into her hip bones, pulling her into him. His hard body pressed her roughly into the brick building. He lifted her off the ground and she wrapped her body around his. It had never been this way between her and Tristan. Tears leaked from her eyes as she thought about him. She needed this. She needed to bury the pain, to forget.

  Suddenly Luca released her in time to hear footsteps coming down the alley. He crouched in a defensive stance, pressing Evaine behind him. The smell of the newcomers hit Evaine before the sight of them did. The smell of rotting flesh and dead bodies. They were dirty, but not as filthy as she had expected them to be. Still, she stifled a cough. They drew closer, and Luca tensed, ready to pounce.

  The three of them stopped twenty feet away. The tallest, about six foot, stepped away from the two men behind him to speak.

  “I bring greetings from Damien.”

  Luca didn’t respond.

  The lead man glanced at the men behind him and then back again. “Damien wishes to speak with the newborn.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Luca spoke in an apologetic voice, not relaxing his stance for a moment. “She’s had a very tiring evening driving into the city, seeing old friends. You know how draining that can be for a newborn. I need to get her home.” Luca pushed his thoughts into her head. “Draw from my energy. In case there’s a fight, you’re going to need it.” She didn’t want to, but there were three of them and no matter how good Luca was, the Feeders would be stronger and faster. Her ability was the only chance they stood at getting away. She placed her hands on him and allowed his energy to flow into her.

  “Damien offers you the hospitality of lodging for the night and a meal tomorrow. Then you can be on your way.” The Feeder spoke a bit more forcefully.

  Evaine stepped from behind Luca to stand beside him. This was not the time to hide. Reaching down she took Luca’s hand in hers. His eyes flicked over to her face for a fraction of a second and then back to the three men. He smiled. Evaine had never seen him pretend to be gracious to someone before; it was strange.

  “Again, please thank Damien for us. We’ll be sure to tell Nate of this great sign of friendship.”

  The two men in the back of the group started to fidget. The man in the front looked as if he were trying to find something else to say.

  “We really must be going now,” Luca said. “Please give Damien our best.” He put his arm around Evaine and began to lead her out of the alley. The spokesman rushed up behind them. A split second before he would have been on them, Evaine spun around and used her ability to shove him. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to make him think twice. He glared at her menacingly, his teeth bared.

  Luca again stepped in front of her. The Feeder’s companions who had rushed forward at the spokesman’s advance stopped dead in their tracks.

  “Now that was rude,” Luca said without pretense. “I am left to wonder whether Damien’s offer truly was one of friendship. I’m afraid that I’ll have to take this as a hostile action by Damien against the Family. If you do not leave now you will have declared war between yourselves and the Haven Houses, Feeder.”

  The man wavered, and after a moment he took a step backward. “I apologize for the misunderstanding.” He sounded unrepentant.

  With that Luca backed up quickly into the street connected to the alleyway, pushing Evaine ever farther away from the would-be assailants. He had her by the arm and dragged her along like a small rag doll. At one point she thought that he was going to pick her up and carry her because she wasn’t moving fast enough, but he didn’t. They arrived at his SUV, two blocks behind Tristan’s building, and he opened her door, shoving her inside. Running over to the driver side he jumped in and started the engine. He peeled away from the curb and barely missed the car in front of them. Luca drove like a New York cabbie trying to get out of the city.

  Twenty miles later, not a word had been said between them. He finally pulled off the highway at a rest area. Luca’s tension was palpable. He was shaking from the rage he’d been fending off for the last half hour. He leaned back in his seat, gripping the steering wheel so hard she thought his bones would pop through his skin.

  She reached over tentatively and touched his arm, letting her fingers comfort him. She rubbed his cheek with her hand. He didn’t move or speak; he just sat there for a long time with his eyes closed.

  “What was that all about?” Her throat felt dry as Mars.

  “I’m not sure. Damien has never sent anyone to get one of us when we’ve been in town before. And never have any of us been given an invitation in that manner either.” He looked at her seriously. “‘Damien wants to have a word with the newborn.’ They wanted you.”

  “Why me?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe Damien heard about your powers.”

  “But that would mean that someone told them.”

  Luca knit his brows together and pursed his lips. “Yes, it would. And the only people who know about you and what you can do are family members.”

  “How did they find out I was even in the city?”

  Luca pushed a button on the Bluetooth that she hadn’t realized he was wearing till now. He called Nate, explained about the confrontation, and arranged for Evaine’s car to be picked up.

  “Luca,” Evaine said when he had gotten off the phone, “I can’t go back with you. I told myself that if I hurt anyone again that I would leave. And I did, I hurt you and the two other guys—”

  “Evaine, no one’s mad at you. They’re all mad at me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “For the same reason you were. Because I knew and didn’t tell you. Because I ran off to check out the competition and almost let you get killed during the testing. Because I’m a selfish jerk who’s only thinking of himself and what he wants.” He thought for a minute. “Yeah, that pretty much covers what they said.”

  “But I’m the one who hurts everyone.”

  “Yeah, and if I had told you the truth to begin with instead of having you find out the way that you did, none of this would have happened.”

  Evaine smiled at the thought. She’d never had people on her side before, besides Tristan. Not since…she didn’t want to think about the family who had almost adopted her.

  “OK,” she said finally. “But only on one condition. You let me help on the tactical team.” She held up her hand to stop his protests. “And I don’t mean stuck-in-the-back-opening-doors-for-people help, either. I mean really help. You let me do what I do.”

  He blew out a breath. “OK, but only on one of my conditions.”

  “See that’s not exactly how it’s supposed to work.”

  “It’s my condition or nothing.”

  “Do you always have to have the last word?”

  “If we’re going to do this, and I’m going to put you in the front with Victor—which, let me say, is going to be the biggest distraction in the world—” He held up her hand to stop her. “If I am going to let you do that, then when we are out on a mission, you have to keep your mental connection open to me at all times.”

  “Done.”

  “And, you have to do what I say. End of story. No debates. No thinking about it. If I say go, you go. You don’t stop, you don’t help, you don’t think about anything else. If I say go, you leave, no matter what.”

  She’d never leave him in a fight if she could help. But, if she agreed, he would be less jumpy on missions and more focused, knowing she would listen to hi
m. “Deal.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tristan sat at his computer again, staring at the monitor. He started on his Web site, updating the information with the latest sighting and different ways she could now look. Using Photoshop on one of her pictures, he gave white hair, changed her eyes to very light blue, and lastly changed her skin tone. An empty pit consumed his stomach. It looked so much like how he had seen her just an hour before. He uploaded the photos to the site and increased the reward to a million dollars.

  After he finished he Googled rave, goth, drugs, rave parties. Nothing. He searched for medical conditions that might have caused the physical changes and again got nothing. By 3:00 a.m. he was trying all kinds of weird possibilities. Abducted by aliens, government experiments, sudden onset albinism.

  Finally, he decided to try sightings of strange pale people with blue eyes. He got hits from all over. Stories poured in from the Northeast, the Southeast, California, and Canada. Most thought they were vampires. The stories all related similar disturbing accounts of seeing the white people attacking other humans. One specific account was from a man who had said he had lived through one of the attacks, but now, horribly scarred, he lived in his apartment completely shut off from the world. It all seemed too unreal. Tristan didn’t know what to believe.

  Rubbing his bleary eyes, he was about to shut down his computer for the night when a blog caught his attention. It was written by a guy who claimed to live in a city near where all the “white” people lived. The blogger said he knew for a fact that they were vampires. They only came out at night; they wore all black and drove dark SUVs with deeply tinted windows.

  The number of supporters and subscribers to his blog numbered in the thousands. Every week or two he would post new videos taken from the surveillance camera at the gas station where he worked the night shift. There were links to three video clips. Tristan punched the play button on the most recent, his heart pounding. The grainy black-and-white film showed a dark SUV pull up. A large man jumped out of the car, almost before the car had stopped, slammed his door, and walked to the back of the SUV leaning forward. He wore his long white hair pulled into a low ponytail. Something stirred inside Tristan’s head. The guy stood there for another few minutes and finally lifted his head and gazed up to the sky. Tristan’s blood froze. He paused the screen. It was the guy from the park.

  Why hadn’t he remembered? So stupid! His hair, his skin—they were just like Evaine’s. But not the eyes. His eyes had been orange and like a cat’s when he had jumped out of the tree, and hers had been blue. A shiver snaked down Tristan’s spine. This guy hadn’t been in the park by coincidence.

  The thought finally came to him. This man, with the orange eyes, had taken Evaine. He had done something to her. Tristan knew one thing perfectly clear. If he found the man with the orange eyes, he would find Evaine.

  Chapter Twenty

  The ride home had been emotional, but noneventful. Evaine started crying about an hour into the drive while Luca had stayed silent. When the tears began, she wasn’t quite sure what they were for, but as they flowed faster and heavier she realized that she cried for Tristan, for herself, for the Forgotten, and for all the others who had been taken.

  “I kept thinking that there had to be a way back.” Luca spoke softly. “If I could just find a way to be who I was, then Mya would come back to me. I would go to our apartment building every night and sit on the fire escape, watching her. For almost a month she sat up at night and cried. I wanted so badly to comfort her, but I knew I couldn’t. Then, slowly, she began sleeping again. Soon she got back to her routine. One day I went to the apartment and found her moving out. I followed her. He was handsome, the business type. But even on their wedding day I thought that if I just could get back to who I was, she would leave him for me. The day I saw her swollen belly, I knew it was over.”

  She read his pain. All of the unshed tears that he held inside. Seeing her go through this with Tristan must have made all of it fresh again in his mind. Rubbing her hand with his thumb, he held it close and kissed it as he drove. No further words were spoken. Just a calm silence as they comforted each other through their own private hells. Luca of all people knew more of what she was going through than anyone else. He allowed her tears. He didn’t judge, didn’t pry. He just lent her his silent support.

  As they rolled up the long drive and past the trees she could see a large group gathered on the porch. Everyone from the house waited for them. Even a couple of other people she didn’t recognize. Her fear rose the closer they got. The men were gathered on the stairs. Abbey, Cami, and another couple of women waited as well. Karen was conspicuously absent.

  Luca brought the vehicle around to a stop and killed the engine. For a moment they both sat in silence staring at the group. Luca reached for his door. She put out her hand to stop him.

  “There is nothing for you to worry about.” His voice rang with a false cheer. Luca was not the enthusiastic type. Cautious yes, brooding definitely, enthusiastic—no. Evaine gave him a dubious look.

  “Too much?”

  “A bit, yeah.” She tried not to laugh.

  Luca gave a weak smile and got out. Evaine sat staring at the faces on the porch. Like a panel of impartial judges, they were ready to pass sentence on her crimes. Luca held his hand out to help her. The idea of running again flashed into her mind. She stepped out of the car, resigned to her fate.

  “We could still run away,” she whispered. Luca chuckled lightly and pulled her to her feet. Putting his arm around her waist he led her to the group. Luca nodded to Nate; Nate nodded back stiffly. Everyone stared in silence for a minute before Abbey and Cami pushed through the crowd down to the bottom of the porch. Victor put his arm out to stop Cami as she passed. She looked down at his hand and then up at his face. Cami flashed him her beautiful smile and he withdrew his hand, pushing it across his temple instead. Evaine had the distinct feeling there were images flying through his head that he was not enjoying. Cami continued forward, catching up to Abbey, who had reached the bottom step near Nate.

  “You’re scaring the poor girl to death. Let me do it,” Abbey said.

  Nate nodded.

  The women stepped down to where Evaine stood. They both reached out at the same time and hugged Evaine. Luca let go as she was swooped up. Evaine was so shocked by the motion that she wasn’t sure what to say. Girls had never hugged her before. Girls had never even liked her before. Frozen on the spot, staring at Luca, Evaine let them hug her.

  “We were so worried when you left. I’d only just found out what had been going on behind my back.” Abbey gave an unkind look to both Luca and Nate. “I had no idea. And when Luca told us you didn’t want to come home we were even more worried. We had a family council and everyone voted. We’ve come to offer you a permanent place in the house as a member of the family.”

  “Yeah!” Cami finally chimed in. “So what do you say? Want to be sisters?”

  Evaine’s eyes teared up for the millionth time. She was beginning to feel like a faucet. A family? She’d never had a family. She glanced around at the men. Nate smiled, Luca too. Bobby Lee gave her the thumbs up, and Ronan winked. Everyone waited for her to say something. Her throat was so tight that she couldn’t produce words, so she simply nodded her head.

  The two women led her to the house. She heard the murmur of Luca’s voice. He was having a not so pleasant exchange with Nate, while Victor made his way down the steps to join them. As Evaine passed the other women at the top of the stairs Abbey introduced her to Shandy and MJ.

  Evaine said a polite hello, and the women shook her hand. Shandy was tall and thin with unruly white spiky hair tipped with pink highlights. It stuck out all over her head like a punk hedgehog. MJ was also very tall with light brown-colored skin, as if someone hadn’t quite put enough cocoa in the milk. Small braids hung all over her head. She had large, wide-set almond-shaped eyes and full, pouty lips. If MJ had still been alive, she would have been a beautiful supe
r model.

  “Hey, Chicka,” MJ said. “Nice to meet you. Heard you’ve had a rough go of it so far. Don’t worry, Shandy and I’ll make sure you start havin’ some fun around here.”

  “Yeah, there’s always a party when MJ’s around.” Shandy laughed.

  “Hell yeah! And let me tell you those kids in the California Haven House really know how to liven things up. The first night we were there—”

  “Let’s get Evaine inside.” Abbey broke into the well-meaning chatter. Evaine dropped her gaze so no one would see how their attention affected her.

  Everyone chatted around her about MJ’s trip as they walked to the elevator. No one had attempted a trip that far away from the house in the human world since the California Haven had been set up. Even then they had gone by RV, not by plane. MJ told about how exciting it was. The rave scene was huge out there, and the Haven members didn’t have to do as much to hide or try to blend in as they did out here in the upper East Coast.

  The elevator opened, and Shandy and MJ offered to wait for the next ride so that Cami and Abbey could take Evaine down alone. When the doors opened the three made their way down the hallway to the fork. Evaine turned to go down to her cell but Abbey grabbed her by the hand and pulled her the other way. Evaine couldn’t help but glance over guilty toward the wall in the kitchen. There was a dent where Luca had hit when she had thrown him. Passing the first room, which was Luca’s, to the second room in the dorm wing.

  The room had been painted in a neutral cream color. The bed was done in blacks and whites with small red accent pillows. A large bookshelf swelled with books. An iPod with an iPod stereo sat on top of a metal desk with an ergonomic black chair positioned beside it.

  “Do you like it?” Cami bounced. “We’ve been working on it for a week. I figured you for a red person, but Abbey said I couldn’t overdo it or you would never be able to get any sleep.”