by Unknown
“The last time I checked, he fell asleep in my bed, not yours,” Rhonda shot back. Who did this Veronica person think she was to come into her dorm room and threaten her like this? If Gabe really wanted to be with her, he would be. Actually, scratch that. Rhonda wouldn’t let him be with Veronica; she’d persuade him to be with her instead. . . . He just wouldn’t know it.
Veronica pulled something from behind her back. Rhonda couldn’t see what it was in the dark until she saw the spark that rose to a flame; it was a match.
Rhonda didn’t know much about being a vampire yet, but she did know one thing: fire could kill vampires. She pressed her head into her pillow, as Veronica waved the match in front of her face. “Listen, bitch. You do what I say or next time, you go up in flames,” Veronica said icily, as she blew out the flame from the match and tossed it onto Rhonda’s cheek, which she quickly brushed away.
Just as quickly as Veronica had come into the room, she was gone.
Rhonda lay in the bed, staring up at the flat ceiling, when the door opened again. “Leave me the hell alone, Veronica,” she blurted.
“I’m not Veronica.” Rhonda glanced up to see Gabe staring back at her, his dark hair illuminated by the glow of the moonlight that seeped into the window. His eyes sparkled as he came closer to her, sitting down on the bed. “Veronica was here?”
Rhonda nodded. “She told me to leave you alone or . . .” She trailed off.
“Or what?” Gabe asked.
You want to hold my hand, Rhonda commanded in her mind. Sure enough, Gabe reached for her hand, weaving his fingers in between hers. “Or she’ll kill me,” Rhonda whispered.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Gabe replied. “I’ll admit it. Veronica is kinda crazy. Hell, if she wasn’t crazy, I probably wouldn’t be a vampire in the first place.”
Rhonda raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you mean?”
“She pretty much tricked me into becoming a vampire,” Gabe said distantly, as though he were remembering back to when it had happened. “It doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is, even though she’s crazy, I doubt she’d actually hurt you.”
“It seems like a big risk to take,” Rhonda said, shaking her head. “This is my life we’re talking about.” She closed her eyes, thinking to herself. Did she really want to live if her life meant that she wouldn’t have Gabe in it, though? Not really. He was the only thing she knew that she really wanted in her life right now. Without him, she would be better off as dead. She had nothing else. No family. No friends she could call her own. The only thing she probably did have was an arrest warrant and police looking for her in Long Island.
As much as Rhonda hated to rely on someone else, the truth was that she needed Gabe in her life right now. Tell me that you’ll keep me safe, she commanded.
“I’ll protect you from Veronica. You’ll be safe. I won’t let her hurt you,” Gabe told her. Even though Rhonda would expect for Gabe’s voice to sound like he were in some sort of trance or like he were a robot when she fed him these lines to say back to her, his voice actually sounded honest and true. Rhonda knew that she was telling him what to say, but when it came down to it, she actually believed him.
Rhonda stared into his steel blue eyes. They looked so innocent and, for a minute, Rhonda convinced herself that he actually had feelings for her. She had gotten so good at the mind control that she had over him that she didn’t even have to command him to kiss her when he leaned into her and pressed his lips lightly against hers.
*
The next morning, there was a loud knock at Rhonda’s door. Climbing over Gabe and out of bed, Rhonda answered it. Anna stood staring back at her. She was wearing a hot pink and black striped sweater, a short lime green skirt, and black leggings with pink sparkly ballet flats. Her pink highlighted hair was pulled into a high ponytail on top of her head.
“Do you happen to know where Gabe might be?” Anna asked. “We’ve looked everywhere for him. He’s not in his dorm room.”
Rhonda turned back to the bed. “Gabe?”
He sat up in bed and looked over at Anna. “What’s going on?”
Rhonda felt Anna’s eyes on her. They were full of surprise – and another emotion that she couldn’t seem to identify. It looked like Anna was angry or upset to find that Gabe had spent the night in Rhonda’s dorm room.
Anna stood awkwardly before telling Gabe, “Ben said he wants to see us. He said he found something in the book that might be helpful.”
“Okay,” Gabe said quietly. He waited for Anna to leave before turning to Rhonda. “I need to go see what’s going on. If you want to come, you can.”
“Of course I’m coming,” Rhonda said, as she pulled her pajamas off. She rummaged through her drawers and pulled out a low-cut V-neck red sweater and skinny jeans. Stepping into a pair of high heels, she added, “There’s no way you’re leaving me alone. You know, with Veronica wanting to kill me and all.”
Gabe nodded understandingly. “Come on then.”
*
Ben was sitting in the lounge waiting for them. As Gabe and Rhonda sat down on a loveseat across from him, Gabe could feel him giving him a funny look. Gabe knew exactly what Ben was thinking; he was supposed to be in love with Lexi, but he seemed a little too close to Rhonda lately.
The truth was, it didn’t even make sense to Gabe. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Rhonda. There was no denying that she was hot – really hot, in fact. Normally, he didn’t go for girls with the Jessica Rabbit look. Veronica was the only other girl who he had been interested in when they were younger who had that same appeal. There was just something about Rhonda that drew him to her, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. . . .
Gabe wondered if Veronica felt so threatened by Rhonda because she reminded her so much of herself. Veronica had seemed to feel threatened by Lexi, but she hadn’t gone to the extent of threatening to kill her – at least, Lexi hadn’t told him if she had. But he had the feeling that Veronica knew that Rhonda wasn’t going to just give up on Gabe or move onto someone else if she suspected that he was cheating on her like Lexi had.
Where did his feelings for Rhonda leave Lexi? Did he still love her? If he did, he wouldn’t even have to ask himself that question, would he? No, that wasn’t true. Gabe did love Lexi. He just wasn’t sure where they stood right now. For all he knew, she had already moved onto Craig . . . or someone else, for that matter. Wherever Lexi was, she might not even be thinking about him right now. In fact, she might not have thought about him the whole time she’d been gone.
Gabe knew that he did love Lexi. There was a bigger question that he didn’t really know the answer to. Was he in love with Lexi? All of the signs had been there from the get-go. She was the one person who he thought of in the morning, and the one person who he thought of late at night. He had been willing to try to have visions that could potentially save her from her enemies, even if it meant that he was going to be sacrificing his own health.
But he was beginning to feel different now. When he tried to think about Lexi, his mind filled with Rhonda’s face. Gabe suddenly felt compelled to touch Rhonda or kiss Rhonda. He even found himself thinking about making love to Rhonda. Even though it hadn’t happened yet and he wasn’t sure if it ever would, the point was that he found himself thinking about it. He shouldn’t be imagining these things or doing these things if he truly were in love with Lexi.
“Ahem.” Ben cleared his throat, interrupting Gabe’s thoughts. “Now that we’re all here, we can talk about what I found in the book.”
Gabe glanced next to him, realizing that Austin and Anna had taken seats on the other couch while he had been busy thinking about Rhonda and Lexi. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced over at Rhonda. She caught his gaze and placed her hand on his thigh. Gabe felt shivers run down his spine at her touch.
“What did you find?” Austin asked.
Gabe turned his attention back to Ben, who flipped through the book. “Except for the very top of
page ninety, it’s missing – so I can’t see what was written on page ninety-one. When you go to page ninety-two, though, it says, ‘possible for those who time travel to be returned to the future. The person or persons who have time traveled must wish to be returned to their home at the same exact moment in time someone from their home wishes for their return.’” Ben closed the book and glanced at each of them. “Understand?”
Anna nodded. “We have to wish for them to come back.”
“And hope that they wish the same thing at the same exact time,” Austin added. He let out a loud sigh. “It seems pretty hopeless if you ask me. What if they don’t even know that’s what needs to happen in order for them to get back?”
“The most we can do is hope. Even if they don’t know about it, they still might wish to come back home,” Ben said. He glanced over at Gabe. “I might not have seen my daughter in years, but if Lexi is exactly as you and Austin have been describing her, she’ll be wishing to come back so that she can be with you.”
Gabe felt Rhonda’s grasp on his thigh tighten. Was she angry by the idea that Lexi might be wishing to come back to him? If Rhonda was angry, he would understand. If one of her ex boyfriends tried to come here to be with her, he would be a little jealous himself.
Gabe closed his eyes. He shouldn’t feel this way. It wasn’t fair to Lexi. How could he convince her that he hadn’t cheated on her with Veronica when he found himself wanting to cheat on her – if it was even cheating, at this point – with Rhonda?
“So, what do we do now? Just sit around hoping all day?” Austin asked.
Ben nodded. “Yes, I want all of us to be hoping for Lexi to return. And hope for Dan, too. He might wish to come home even before Lexi does for all we know.”
Gabe scoffed. “I am not wishing for Dan to come home. I can’t stand the guy. He can stay wherever they are for all I care.”
“Dude, cut Dan some slack,” Austin shot back at him. “He’s probably helping Lexi right now as we speak.”
“Maybe. Or he might be trying to kill her,” Gabe muttered. Or even worse, Lexi might be falling for Dan wherever they were. Even if Gabe wasn’t in love with Lexi – if he really wanted to be with Rhonda – the last person he would ever want her to be with was Dan.
Chapter 33
****
Staring up at the stars that shone brightly in the night sky, Lexi gnawed on a cucumber that Dan had picked her from Belinda’s garden. She had already eaten a handful of cherry tomatoes and a bell pepper. Once she got back to Huntington, Lexi was going to pig out on the most fattening foods she could image – macaroni and cheese, pizza, and doughnuts. If they ever got back. . . .
Lexi was a little worried about Belinda. Albert had drunk her blood three times since he had woken up in his state of blood thirst. Things had been quiet in the house for the past few hours, but Lexi was pretty sure that Belinda had to have been drained of a lot of blood. Hopefully, she would know that she needed to replenish her nutrients if Albert was going to continue drinking from her so often.
Once she was finished with the cucumber, Dan said, “Come on. We need to go to the river.”
“Why?” Lexi asked. Was Dan trying to tell her that she needed to wash off again? Did she smell or something?
“I need you to do that thing you did with my sunburn again,” Dan explained. He rolled up his sleeves to show her his arms. Lexi couldn’t see what it looked like through the darkness. She reached out to touch it, and as her fingers brushed against the puffy, inflamed skin, Dan flinched.
Lexi met Dan’s eyes, which glimmered in the moonlight. “It looks painful,” she murmured. “Do you think Mary-Kate will think we might go back to the river at some point? Could she be waiting for us there?”
“Nah, I don’t think so,” Dan replied, shaking his head. “Besides, Mary-Kate’s afraid of the dark. She’s not going to come out tonight.”
“She’s afraid of the dark?” Lexi asked, laughing aloud. “Wow, there is so much I don’t know about my sister.”
“Well, she has good reason to be afraid of the dark,” Dan explained. “She used to have to worry about vampires chasing after her when they were in bat form. For her blood, obviously.” He paused. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
Lexi burst out laughing. “You remind me of that Nickelodeon show. No, I’m not afraid of the dark itself. What I’m afraid of is what could be lurking in the dark. Like, right now, for instance, Mary-Kate.”
“Don’t worry. Even if something does happen, I won’t let her hurt you,” Dan said before standing up and pulling her to her feet. “Come on.”
Making sure that she still had her bottle of potion, Lexi followed Dan down the tiny mound in the back of Belinda’s house that led to the river bank. She heard the sound of something rustling behind them and whirled around. A raccoon stared back at them with wide eyes, and Lexi breathed a sigh of relief. She was definitely being paranoid right now. If Mary-Kate was as afraid of the dark as Dan said, she had probably found some sort of shelter.
“So, what else don’t I know about my sister?” Lexi asked Dan as he sat down on his rock. In the moonlight, she could see him shrug his shoulders. “Did you know she shoplifted once?” Dan asked.
“No. Why would she do that? I thought Greg had money.”
“He does. I think she did it for attention, mostly,” Dan replied. “We were in the eighth grade. Here’s the worst part, though. She let this other girl, Shay, take the fall for her.”
“You mean, she blamed someone else?” Lexi asked.
“Yup. She wanted the thrill of shoplifting, but she didn’t want the consequences that came with it.”
Lexi shook her head as she soaked the dress in the water. The more she learned about Mary-Kate, the more she couldn’t believe she had ever trusted her in the first place. Her sister sounded like a real bitch – like the type of person you definitely didn’t want to cross. “Did she ever let girls drink from her?” Lexi asked. She had never really thought about it, but if there were male vampires in Briar Creek, there had to be at least some female vampires, too, didn’t there?
“Yeah,” Dan said, pausing. “Don’t even get me started on what she used to make them do in exchange for her blood.”
“Oh, no,” Lexi said, laughing. “You can’t say that and not tell me! I’m dying to know.”
“Well, for starters, she would force them to let her go out with their boyfriends if she liked them enough,” Dan said. “I remember this one guy, Jake, who she had her eyes on for years. When his girlfriend, Leslie, came to Mary-Kate desperate for blood . . . a date with Jake was her compromise.”
Lexi scoffed. “That’s horrible. And what if they didn’t have boyfriends?”
“Then she would make them do whatever she wanted. Say she wanted her history paper done by tomorrow morning. If you asked her for blood that day, guess what you had to do?”
“Her history paper,” Lexi muttered. She climbed on top of the rock and covered Dan’s arms with the dress. “I can’t believe I fell for her act. I thought she was so nice. She seemed like she really cared about me. It was all a lie.”
“Don’t feel bad. That’s how Mary-Kate works,” Dan said, shrugging. “Hey, did I ever tell you about that day at the corn maze?”
“You never showed up,” Lexi said, remembering that Dan told her he was supposed to go with some girl whose name she couldn’t recall. She hadn’t seen him there at all, though.
“Yes, I was,” Dan said. “You just didn’t know who I was because I was in costume.”
“Costume?” Lexi asked. “You mean, you were one of the people who was working there?”
“Oh, come on, Lexi. You saw me. I was wearing a skeleton costume.”
“That was you?” Lexi asked. The person in the corn maze had been wearing the same costume that Gabe and Austin had both worn to the Briar Creek Halloween Festival on the night she was supposed to die. After they’d escaped, she found out that it hadn’t been one of them who had worn the co
stume, though. She’d totally forgotten about it until now.
Dan nodded. “See, I knew you were going to the maze with Mary-Kate and her friends. I just . . . I didn’t trust her to be around you.” He flinched as Lexi wrung some of the cool water onto one of his welts. “I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling she had some sort of ulterior motive. I know I sorta freaked you out that day, but . . . I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
Lexi let go of the dress and looked into his eyes. They were honest and true. Dan really had been trying to keep her safe that day, even though she didn’t trust him at all during that time. It made her feel foolish now to think that she had been so busy loathing someone who was actually trying to help her. “Thank you for that,” she whispered, looking away.
“I sometimes wonder,” Dan began, “if you would have felt differently about me back then if Violet and Tom hadn’t tried to force me on you.”
“I think I would have,” Lexi said. Even though she had wondered the same thing and had even talked to Dan about it before, this was the first time that she had ever admitted that there might have been something between them if her aunt and uncle hadn’t tried so hard to force them to be together. “Why did they want me to be with you so bad, anyway?”
“They didn’t trust Gabe,” Dan replied. “They thought he was going to help you run away from them. Not that they were wrong about him. They just didn’t know that, if given the opportunity, I would have done the same exact thing.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to,” Lexi said. “You had too much going on for you . . . football and everything. I wouldn’t have wanted you to risk it for me.”
Dan pressed his hand against the small of her back. “I would have wanted to. You’re worth it.”
Lexi felt the butterflies in her stomach again, and she looked down at his chest. She seemed to be getting them a lot lately. Changing the subject, she asked, “Umm, are your arms starting to feel better?”