by Unknown
Was he sleeping? Or . . . no. Lexi quickly shook the idea away. Dan couldn’t be dead, could he? Vampires couldn’t die unless someone put a stake through their hearts or they caught on fire. Lexi didn’t see any flames . . . and it didn’t look like Dan had a stake poking out of him.
Lexi shook him. “Dan? Wake up.” When he didn’t do anything, she shook him harder.
His eyelashes fluttered, and he looked back at her. Smiling sheepishly, he said, “Lexi. You’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive,” Lexi replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Those vampires,” Dan said quietly, looking up at the sky. “They took so much blood from you.”
Lexi remembered what she had seen during her dream-like blackout. If all three of the vampires had fed from her, they had undoubtedly taken a lot of blood. Surprisingly, she felt okay, though. Sure, she felt a little weak, but nothing remotely close to the last time she had been ganged up on by vampires. Maybe it was because she’d slept it off. “What about you? Are you okay? And where were you?”
Dan was quiet for a long time. Finally, he said, “I went to see if I could find you something to drink. I know you haven’t had anything to drink since early yesterday. When I came back, they were here and . . . and I got rid of them. Well, two of them, at least.”
“Got rid of them? Do you mean you killed them?” Lexi asked.
Dan nodded. “I killed the girl, and the guy with dark hair. The other one ran off. He threatened to come. He wants revenge.”
“Then, we better get the hell out of here,” Lexi said, pushing Dan off of her. “Let’s go.”
“Maybe we should stay here and kill him,” Dan said. “I don’t know. I’m in no shape to leave or fight.”
Lexi glanced at him. His skin, which naturally glowed, had taken on a paler shade than usual. He also had welts on his skin. “Are you hurt? Why does your skin look like that?”
Dan glanced down at his skin. “I’ve been out in the sun for too long.” He sighed. “The strength of the sunscreen back home was always enough to protect us but when you don’t have any . . . this is what happens.”
“Let’s move you to the shade then,” Lexi said. She knew that while sunscreen offered vampires some protection from the sun, it wasn’t always enough. The sun was powerful, and its rays could be deadly for vampires.
She let Dan lean against her as she carefully helped him walk over to the big boulder next to the river. He flinched when she touched his chest, which was covered in the swollen red welts.
Doing the only thing she could think of to relieve his pain, Lexi grabbed the dress she had been using as a blanket from the ground. She soaked it in the river’s water. Climbing back on the rock next to Dan, she wrapped the dress around his skin. “I hope this helps the pain.”
Dan glanced over at her and gave her a weak smile. “Thank you.”
Running a hand through his scruffy hair, Lexi asked, “So, what do you think we should do?”
“I think you need to ask the witch for the bat pendant as soon as you can,” Dan replied. “It will give us some protection at the very least. If the vampire comes back, we’ll kill him if we have to.”
Lexi sighed. “You know what confuses me? The witch said that we can’t change the past. But . . . aren’t we changing it right now? By killing these vampires? It makes no sense to me.”
“I think she means that if a person’s meant to die, they’re going to die, no matter what we try to do to stop it,” Dan explained. “She might be right . . . but she might be wrong, too. I don’t care what she said, we have to try to stop Zachary Wilkinson from turning Albert into a vampire if we can. That’s why we should stay here by the river.”
Lexi nodded. “Okay, it’s settled then. We’ll stay.” As she finished her statement, she glanced down at Dan. He was shivering uncontrollably. His lips were turning a shade of blue, and his eyes looked sunken in.
The only time she had ever seen a vampire shake like this before was when Gabe had a vision. A vision that had depleted his nutrients, which Lexi knew would have killed him if he hadn’t been able to replenish himself with her blood.
“Dan?” Lexi whispered. When he didn’t respond, she shook him. “Dan, focus on me. You have to drink from me, okay?” She leaned down next to him, so close to his lips that she could feel his labored breath against her skin. It sent shivers down her spine.
“It wouldn’t be right,” Dan mumbled. “Gabe.”
Gabe. Lexi knew that allowing Dan to drink from her was going to hurt Gabe, but she didn’t care. Dan’s life was in danger and that was more important than anything. She would deal with Gabe – and Craig, for that matter – when (and if) they ever got back to the 21st century.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lexi told Dan. “What wouldn’t be right would be for me to let you die when you already saved my life twice. And I don’t know if I can get home without you. I’m not brave enough. Now, drink.” She pushed her neck closer to Dan’s lips.
Hesitantly, Dan bit down and pierced her skin. He drank from her slowly, softly. It was different from the times Gabe drank from her. He felt less greedy – and less desperate. It still felt good, though, and at one point, Lexi was sure that a moan escaped her throat as she lost herself in the movements of Dan’s tongue as he drank her blood.
Dan pulled away from her. “Are you okay? You’ve lost a lot of blood. I shouldn’t have drunk anything from you.”
“I’m fine,” Lexi replied, but even as she said the words, she could feel her own body growing weaker. “Do you feel any better now?” She had noticed that he had stopped shivering, and his eyes seemed to be back to normal.
Dan gave her a weak smile. “A little bit. I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
“Your skin is going back to its natural color. Why is your skin tanner than other vampires?” Lexi blurted.
Dan looked up at her and, running a hand through her hair, laughed. “I had a darker skin tone before I was changed. Our skin gets paler over time. That’s why Gabe is paler than Austin.”
“Austin’s paler than you, though,” Lexi pointed out.
“Austin had very fair skin even before we changed him,” Dan said, sitting up.
“Who changed you?” Lexi asked. She realized, for the first time, that she didn’t know how Dan had become a vampire. For some reason, she had always assumed that he was born that way.
“It happened when I was working at the grocery store,” Dan replied, a distant look in his eyes, as though he were thinking back to that night. “It was my second night on the job, and I was working in the meat department. I guess that’s not the best place to work when you’re serving vampire customers only. A customer ordered a steak, and I didn’t get it to him in time and . . . he said he couldn’t wait anymore.” Dan shrugged. “He jumped over the counter and attacked me. I don’t remember him draining my blood, but the next thing I knew . . . I was a vampire.”
“Gabe always says that he wishes he didn’t become a vampire,” Lexi said, hoping that it wouldn’t be weird for her to mention Gabe. “Do you feel that way?”
Dan shook his head. “No, I don’t. The alternative would have been for me to die . . . and then I never would have met you.”
Lexi turned away from him to hide her blushing. And then it dawned on her. There was only one thing she wanted right now – and it would change everything about her entire fate. Suddenly, her mom’s voice filled her head. You must ask the witch if she can change the part of the curse that won’t allow a Hunter to become a vampire.
Chapter 16
****
Rhonda sat on the bed in the dark hotel room, seething. She had done it again; she’d lured a guy who had appeared weak to leave the bar with her so that she could drink his blood. Just thinking about what she had just done made her feel disgusted with herself.
Were things going to be this way for as long as she lived? Would she have this constant thirst that she would need to replenish every few days . . . even if it m
eant picking up random strangers and killing people if she had to?
Speaking of her whole life, how long was it going to last? Were vampires really immortals, or was she going to die eventually? These were all some of the questions that Rhonda wished she could ask Gabe. In fact, she should have asked him them already, but she hadn’t thought about them until now.
Rhonda wasn’t sure how to feel about Gabe. She wanted to be angry with him. After all, he had ruined her life. But . . . somehow, Rhonda couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him. There was something about Gabe that just made her stomach do twists and turns, like she was on a never-ending Tilt-a-Whirl ride that she didn’t want to get off of.
Rhonda wasn’t sure if she had felt this way about Gabe on the first night she had met him. There was no denying that she thought he was cute, and he had given her butterflies then, too, but now . . . she felt a sort of connection to him – one that she was sure wasn’t just because they now shared common ground. It was like he was a part of her . . . or was it that she was a part of him, since he had changed her? Either way, it made her feel happy they were bonded in this special way. It was sort of romantic, and Rhonda had never been one to believe in romance.
She’d been planning to seek revenge on Gabe, but maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted. Maybe she just wanted for them to be together. Didn’t he at least owe her that much? Since he had ruined her life, he should have to spend the rest of his life with her. It seemed like a fair enough deal to Rhonda.
That’s what Rhonda was going to do. She was going to give Gabe an option: either he would be with her or she would get back at him . . . even if that meant she had to kill him. If he was smart, which she liked to think he was, he would choose the option that benefited him the most.
Next to her, the guy – what was his name? Kevis or Kevin – who she had brought back to her hotel room stirred. His eyes cracked open and he looked up at her. A look of shock crossed his face – almost as though he didn’t remember that he had gone home with her. “Hi,” Rhonda whispered, leaning down and planting a kiss on his lips.
“Hi,” he muttered, the confusion still evident on his face. “Did you give me some kind of drug or something? I don’t remember anything. . . .”
Rhonda shook her head. “No? You wanted to come here, so we did.” Thinking back to the bar, Rhonda remembered something, though. She had had to work a little bit harder with this guy than Dennis. It almost felt like she had to beg him to get him to go home with her. Was it really begging that had worked, though, or something else?
Rhonda had found that, ever since she became a vampire, people did whatever she wanted – just like that guy, Manny, at the bed and breakfast. Waiters seemed to know her order even before she asked for it. Guys did whatever she wanted – which could have to do with the fact that ever since she had become a vampire, her appearance had slightly improved and she definitely had a more confident attitude, but it was most likely because she had this newfound power over people in general. They did whatever she wanted. Rhonda had forgotten to ask Gabe if this was part of being a vampire because she had somehow been so shocked by what he had told her, even though it was what she had been expecting him to say.
“No,” the guy said from next to her. “I definitely don’t remember coming here with you.” He stood up and walked over to the pile of clothes that he had left on the floor and began changing into them.
Rhonda felt the anger build up inside of her. This wasn’t the way the way she had been planning for things to go. Last night, Rhonda had been able to drink a little bit from the guy, whatever his name was, without him even knowing. It wasn’t enough to quench her thirst for the rest of the day, though. No. Rhonda wanted more than that. She needed more than that.
“No,” Rhonda commanded. “You’re not going anywhere.” She took a step toward the door, blocking the guy from leaving. “Not until I’m done with you.”
The guy glanced over at her. The look of surprise in his eyes told Rhonda that he hadn’t been expecting for her to be so bold and aggressive, but that he didn’t really mind it. The guy pulled off his pants and laid down on the bed, waiting for her.
Rhonda climbed on top of him, peeling off her shirt to make him believe that she was going where he thought she was going with this. She leaned over and kissed him. He kissed back, forcefully, running his fingers through her hair.
In one quick move, Rhonda cupped her hand over his mouth and sunk her teeth into his neck. “What are you doing?” the guy asked in a muffled voice. Rhonda guessed that his eyes were probably filled with horror, but there was no way she could look at him right now – not when her mouth was being filled with the bittersweet blood that poured from his veins and onto her tongue.
The guy gave into Rhonda’s needs quickly. He was soon moaning and breathing heavily as she drank from him. When she was done, Rhonda climbed off of him. His eyes were closed, and it looked like he was dead.
Rhonda reached over and grabbed the guy’s wrist. There was a pulse. He was alive, but probably in a sleepy state from all of the blood that she had just drained his body of. Now was the perfect time for her to leave without having to explain anything to him. Maybe the guy wouldn’t even remember her when he woke up from the state he was in.
As Rhonda pulled her shirt back over her head and went into the hallway, softly closing the door of the hotel room behind her, she felt her cell phone vibrating from inside her pocket. She glanced down at the name on the caller ID. It was her mom.
Rhonda debated not answering it. There was so much going on in her life that she really didn’t even have time to deal with her mother, too. Something, in the back of her mind, told her that she couldn’t just ignore her mom, though. Vampire or not, it was still her mother.
When Rhonda picked up the phone, her mom’s cheerful voice filled her ear. “Hi, honey! I’m in Long Island right now. Let’s meet up for lunch at the Brewer’s Inn. Is fifteen minutes good for you?”
Rhonda had barely been able to mumble yes into the phone before her mom had already hung up.
*
“So, anyway, Kat and I are planning on taking a weekend trip to Atlantic City in April. It should be around the same time as your spring break. Do you think you’d be interested in coming along?” Rhonda’s mom, Colette, asked from across the table.
Kat was Colette’s girlfriend. Colette had announced that she was bisexual when Rhonda was a high school senior, only six months after Rhonda’s father had died. Things had gotten really tense between Rhonda and her mom since then. Rhonda didn’t care that her mom was a lesbian; she was actually glad that her mom had found someone who could make her happy again. She hated the fact that her mom had gotten involved with someone so quick. It made Rhonda wonder if her mom had ever loved her dad at all.
The tensions with her mom were why she couldn’t wait to get out of her mother’s house. Living at the college dorms had been such an easy transition because it was way less awkward than living at home with her mom and Kat, who practically lived there, too. Going to Atlantic City with them was the last thing that Rhonda wanted to do – especially now, with so much other craziness going on in her life.
Rhonda shrugged. “I guess it just depends on how much homework I have.” She wasn’t about to tell her mom that she had decided to drop out of college for now. There was no way she could go back to live in those awful dorm rooms. Rhonda was afraid that she would do the same thing she had done to Michelle to someone else. Just the idea that she was capable of something so disturbing, something so deadly, sent shivers down her spine.
“Is everything okay?” Colette asked.
“I’m fine,” Rhonda replied, hoping that her mom wouldn’t catch her lie. Colette was always able to see through her daughter’s lies. Rhonda had always attributed it to the fact that her mom was one of the biggest liars she knew; liars could always detect a lie from a mile away.
Colette shook her head. “Something seems . . . off about you.”
�
�It does?” Rhonda asked, taking a big gulp of her raspberry tea.
Colette nodded, studying her face. When she realized that Rhonda wasn’t going to tell her anything and that she wasn’t going to figure it out on her own, she went on. “Anyway, did you hear about the murder at your school? I hear it was pretty brutal.”
Rhonda looked up, trying to hide the widened look in her eyes. News about the murder had already gotten out? Even though Rhonda knew that someone was going to realize what had happened to Michelle eventually, she had figured that it wasn’t going to happen right away. “I haven’t heard about it,” Rhonda lied, biting into a breadstick and trying to make herself seem as natural as possible.
“Apparently, she was murdered in her dorm shower. I can’t believe how dangerous this world is becoming. A girl can’t even shower in peace anymore,” Colette said, shaking her head. “Please be careful at night at that college, Rhonda. I’m sure that this incident involved drugs or something, but I don’t want you getting yourself caught up in a bad situation.”
“I’ll be careful,” Rhonda said, feeling a bit of remorse. If only her mom knew that the ‘incident’ she was speaking of didn’t involve drug deals – that it involved her own daughter, who was turning out to be nothing more than a vicious monster. Rhonda didn’t know Michelle that well since they’d only been sharing a dorm room since the beginning of the semester, but she knew that Michelle called her own mom every night before bedtime. Rhonda could only imagine what it had been like for Michelle’s mother on the night that she didn’t call. Her mom had probably been the one to tip off the police that something was wrong with her daughter.
Rhonda wished that she and her mom had shared this same type of closeness. Rhonda’s mom would probably never know if she went missing or was killed because they rarely spoke to each other. Her mom would only just assume that Rhonda didn’t want to talk to her anymore.