Rapid Pulse (Violet Memory Book 1)

by Odette Michael

  “He hasn’t hurt anyone. He has changed his entire nature for you.”

  I folded my hands together. “Thank you, Thomas.”

  He put on a pair of sunglasses and left the house. I sat down, absent-mindedly rubbing Clover’s head.

  Why had I asked about Gabriel again when I had promised myself I wouldn’t? I hated Gabriel, so why did I miss him so much?

  ***

  That night was especially bad. I kept hearing noises outside the house although my dogs slept soundly. I called Inola, who in turn called Gabriel.

  Inola called me back after speaking to Gabriel. “There is no one out there.”

  “I’m telling you, I’m not being paranoid. I heard something,” I said, tightly gripping the stake I slept with.

  “Are you sure this is not just another excuse to check on Gabriel?” she asked coldly. She was getting snippier each time I saw or talked to her.

  “Of course not!” I replied indignantly.

  “He is on your roof, child. If someone were out there, he would know.”

  Butterflies flew throughout my stomach, my eyes going to the ceiling. “Really?” I whispered.

  “Goodnight, Kara,” she snapped before hanging up.

  I was extremely antsy and wired, not sleeping well at all. Despite my life being in omnipresent danger, all I could ever seem to think about was Gabriel being so close. I went to my bedroom window, craning my neck to see if I could catch just a glimpse of him; it was definitely not the first time I’d tried.

  But he remained true to our agreement; I had not seen even his shadow since we'd parted ways.

  The next morning, I pulled into the Lystelle cemetery and parked my faded Honda, grabbing the bouquet of flowers before exiting the car. As I walked down the worn path, it was natural for me to look over my shoulder constantly, especially since it was another cloudy day. Out in public, people stared at me oddly, and I didn’t blame them. Most probably thought I had an untreated mental disorder.

  I was also very wary of anyone wearing sunglasses; I’d noticed vampires watching me quite a few times. Now that I knew what to look for, I wondered how many times I’d seen them in ignorance. Ridiculously beautiful and pale, silent in their movements, they blended in poorly. They wore a violet pinned to their shirts, the sign from Gabriel to not be alarmed by their presence.

  I’d been studying in the library last week, and a woman with sunglasses had approached me. I’d been nervous despite the fact that she’d worn a violet. Vaguely, I’d recognized her as she’d dropped a piece of paper in front of me, continuing on her way without a word. It had been a warning that Emma was back and to be extra cautious. I’d texted Thomas, and he’d confirmed the information.

  Seeing there were only a few other people here, I relaxed as much as I could afford to and approached my parents’ grave.

  The names on the grave made my stomach drop each time I read them. Ralph Doug Deuel. Myra Alyne Deuel.

  I was getting better at coming here. . . . Last time, I hadn’t even cried.

  “Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom,” I said softly, setting the flowers down. “Sorry I didn’t come last week. I was getting behind on studying.”

  I always waited for a response, and for me, that was the worst part. I usually left when I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  “Grandma’s doing ok. I sent some of her favorite candy to her through some friends. And a letter, too.”

  Thunder was the only answer I received. I sat down.

  “Nelly got out of her tank last week; I must have left the top loose. She was trying to get into the fish tank, but I stopped her in time.”

  Silence.

  I wrapped my arms around my body, shaking slightly. “Mom . . . Dad . . . I need your help. I wish you were here. I’ve told you about what happened to me. I suppose I know what you would say. . . . Whoever would hurt your baby girl is a monster, and I should stay away from that person.

  “But what if that person wasn’t the same one who had hurt me? What if he had changed and was sorry? What if he was really, truly sorry, and I knew this because I’d felt his emotions? So strong . . . strong enough that it was like I couldn’t even breathe. Does that mean it’s ok to forgive him? Should I hate him for the rest of my life? Is that the right thing to do? Keep a hatred inside that would slowly destroy me?

  “Mom, Dad, I’m lonely. I had to give up Grandma and my friends. I know that should only fuel my hatred, and it does, and I know I have Thomas and Inola and my babies, but . . . I want something more. But I can only imagine having that something more with him. And I hate myself for it, and I hate him for it. . . .” I bowed my head.

  “I don’t know who the real enemy is anymore. I used to believe it was him. I think maybe I still do . . . but even after everything he has done to me . . . a part of me loves him. I actually love him. It took being away from him for so long to realize it. So doesn’t loving him make me insane after of all this?”

  I was so lost inside of myself that I didn’t realize I was no longer alone. And once I did, it was too late.

  As soon as I felt the hand on my shoulder, I aimed the stake gun, but the glowing, brown eyes stopped me before I could push the button.

  “Don’t,” Emma commanded. “Don’t move, and don’t speak.”

  I obeyed her Control. There was no choice.

  “Felicity is buying me time, feigning she saw Elias to distract your protectors. They took off, so it’s just you and me. Everything I am saying to you, you will forget I was the one who said it, but you will still do as I tell you. . . .”

  I blinked. I was alone.

  I got up and started walking toward the forest that surrounded the graveyard. Drops of blood dotted the ground, increasing in number as I got closer to the trees. Fear curled inside my stomach.

  “Kara . . . ,” a voice called from the woods.

  I entered the woods, my legs and arms moving mechanically. The trail of red became thicker.

  And then I saw my parents’ bodies. They were nearly unrecognizable, torn into shreds, blood splattered everywhere.

  I screamed silence into my hands before falling to the ground, heaving and vomiting. When there was nothing left to throw up, I crawled away from my parents, crying and unable to scream. Unable to stay with them.

  I was forced to keep moving, to stand up and walk. I saw Grandma. She was rocking back and forth on the ground, sobbing.

  “Kara, why have you left me? Why did you leave your grandmother? There’s nothing to live for, and there’s nobody to love. . . .”

  The tears were blinding. I kept walking. I had to keep walking.

  “Why are you leaving me, Kara? Why do you hate your poor Grandma? Kara, I’m going to die alone! Kara!”

  Her voice faded. I wiped away tears, but then I saw Thomas and Inola. Both of them were against a tree, hundreds of wooden stakes stabbed throughout their bodies. They dripped blood onto the blood-drained bodies of Lila and Miles. My old friends stared up at my new ones, their eyes blank and glassed over.

  I heaved again, but nothing came out.

  I tried to scream.

  I tried to stop following the trail of red.

  I stumbled through shrubbery, finally emerging to the place where the blood ran thickest. Gabriel was on the ground, stakes stabbed throughout his arms, his legs, his stomach. His heart.

  Something seemed to release me, giving me back control. I fell down next to his body, cradling his face.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. No heartbeat.

  “Gabriel!” I cried. “Please, no! Gabriel!”

  I yanked the stakes out of his body. He wasn’t healing. There was so much blood. . . .

  Blood. Could my blood heal him faster?

  I grabbed a small, sharp rock and jammed the edge into my wrist, slicing deeply. I put my bleeding wrist to his mouth. The liquid ran over his lips and down his face.

  He didn’t heal.

  “Gabriel,” I rasped. “Gabriel, don’t do this to me
! I can’t lose you. You are the one person I can’t . . .” I put my head against his chest and sobbed, the sounds coming out of my mouth animal-like.

  Gabriel was dead. Thomas and Inola were dead. Grandma was here, lost and alone. Someone had killed my parents. . . .

  Awareness trickled through me. My parents were already dead. Grandma rarely knew me anymore; she wouldn’t remember me well enough to say the things she had said. Gabriel had told me that vampires turned to ash when they died regardless of how they were killed.

  Thomas and Inola would have turned to ash. So would have Gabriel.

  Slowly, I raised my head, and silver eyes filled my vision.

  I looked back down. Gabriel was gone. The only blood present was my blood, dripping from my wrist in a slow stream.

  “Hello, little hummingbird. Did you enjoy your journey to me?” Elias smiled, his fangs flashing.

  I readied to press the button on the stake gun, but it was gone. So was the stake I kept inside my jacket. I froze in fear.

  “Don’t worry. My instructions to my little helper were thorough. But you and I don’t have much time, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Judging by your reaction to what you thought was a dead Gabriel, I am going to assume you are indeed in love with him. But how about a little more Control just to be sure?”

  No matter how much I’d tried to prepare myself for this moment, my reflexes were just too slow compared to a vampire’s. I sprinted maybe ten feet away before Elias grabbed my jacket and made me face him. His other hand squeezed my arm painfully.

  “Are you in love with Gabriel?” His gaze bore into mine, almost hurting in its intensity.

  “Yes,” I replied, the word coming out of me without my permission.

  He smiled before darkness entered his eyes. One of his hands went to my throat. He picked me up off the ground, and I struggled to breathe.

  “You know, you’ve pissed me off enough that I want to kill you right now. Oh, but we are not done yet. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, would you? You’ve been Controlled to forget what’s going to happen next. Stubborn girl. All this trouble just because you’re too prideful to admit your feelings to him. You bided yourself some time, I’ll give you that. But I’ve waited long enough, and it’s time to escalate things.”

  Black dots spotted the world.

  His head tilted. “I hear them in the graveyard. They’ll smell your blood and come to you. Our time is up, little hummingbird. We’ll meet again soon.”

  He threw me to the ground and disappeared. I coughed, my hands going to my throat. Air felt like sandpaper inside my esophagus, and the sounds coming from me were broken and distorted. I couldn’t even make myself move to go to whoever had come for me.

  I heard them calling my name. Inola and Thomas. Him . . .

  Inola and Thomas were suddenly on the ground with me. Inola put her arms around me, trying to calm me as I fought to breathe regularly through my bruised throat.

  Thomas grabbed my bleeding wrist. “Kara, what happened?” he asked urgently.

  I tried to speak. Only dry sobs came out.

  “Are you all right?” Gabriel asked, his voice more strained and angry than I had ever heard it before. His voice had come from behind me. Right behind me. It took everything I had not to turn around to the one hidden from my sight, and I couldn’t believe he was actually respecting my wishes at a time like this.

  “Kara, why are you bleeding? The blood connection only let me feel your fear. We came as soon as I felt it.”

  Gabriel’s voice seemed to give me strength. “Elias,” I choked out.

  “Thomas, find him! I can’t leave her like this,” Gabriel begged.

  Thomas blurred and was gone.

  “I cut myself because I tried to heal Gabriel. I saw my parents and Gabriel and Thomas all dead. . . .”

  Inola stroked my hair. “It’s ok, it’s ok. We are all right, and you’re all right.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Elias just wanted to see if I loved Gabriel. He said he wasn’t done with me, that I’ve been Controlled to forget what’s going to happen next! But it wasn’t him that Controlled me to see what I saw,” I said, my words throaty and painful.

  “Who Controlled you?” Inola asked.

  “I don’t know. Whoever it was must have made me forget it was them.”

  My hair flew around my face, and a loud crack sounded throughout the area. Wood splinters filled the air; Gabriel must have punched a tree.

  “Felicity was only sending us on a wild goose chase. I’m going to kill her, and before I kill her, I will find out what she knows. It was Emma who Controlled Kara. I know it.”

  “You can’t hurt either one of them without knowing for sure. Be careful, Gabriel,” Inola warned.

  “I am not in the mood for coven laws right now!”

  I fought for air, dizzy and sick from what I had seen. “Can’t you Control me to tell you who Controlled me in the first place so we can find out what else is going to happen?”

  Inola shook her head. “It will not work. Only your death or the vampire who Controlled you can undo it. The death of the vampire who Controlled you would also work, but . . .”

  “Kara, how badly are you hurt?” Gabriel asked worriedly. I could hear he was fighting the urge to come to me.

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  “Do you want me?” he asked.

  Now my breathing was difficult for a different reason. I heard the double-meaning in his question. I knew what I wanted to say. More than anything, I wanted him. But once again, the pride inside my heart reminded me whose fault it really was why I was in the situation I was in.

  My head bowed. “No,” I answered.

  I thought I heard a sharp intake of breath, a small glimpse of the pain my answer had caused, but I couldn’t be sure if I’d imagined the sound or not.

  Inola grabbed my arm and picked me up, black eyes blazing. “I’ll see Kara home safely.”

  I looked over my shoulder at least twenty times as Inola practically dragged me through the woods and into the graveyard.

  “Looking for Elias? Or for Gabriel?” Inola asked icily, opening the driver door. “Give me your keys.”

  I folded my arms. “I can drive.”

  “Give me the keys, Kara!”

  I threw them at her and got inside. She started the car, and the tires screeched, shooting us forward.

  “Take it easy,” I rasped. “This car is old.”

  Inola looked like she wanted to slap me. “Be quiet! I am not in the mood for your bratty attitude right now.”

  “I was just Controlled to see the people I love dead! That includes you, by the way! And then I was strangled, so give me a break!”

  “You know what? I’m sick of this. I’m sick of waiting around for Elias to kill you. But you know what I’m really sick of? You breaking my son’s heart!”

  “What?”

  She stared daggers at me. “Don’t you dare pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about. Where do I even begin? You aren’t just looking over your shoulder all the time for Elias—you’re looking for Gabriel! Don’t even get me started on all the pine needle candles. You’re constantly asking about him, and at night you cry for him. You say his name, Kara! You think Gabriel can’t hear you? He can feel you. Your thoughts are consumed with him. He has not slept once since he took you home; he has no time for rest due to protecting you, and he’s beyond mentally exhausted. Not only is he constantly guarding you, he’s making sure others are as well because he can’t kill Elias, but he doesn’t trust many people when it comes to your safety, so that means Thomas and I are almost always following you.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Whatever lies you’re going to spout off at me, just don’t! Gabriel is no longer the same person who attacked you that night. Why can’t you see that? And had you not cut your arm on the window you broke, you would not have lost enough blood to put your life in danger.”

  “Oh, so it’s my
fault?” I yelled as best as I could. “He had left me alive enough, so what he did wasn't wrong?”

  “He didn’t love you when he hurt you!”

  “So it’s ok to hurt someone as long as you don’t love them?”

  “Kara, he’s a vampire, not a fairy princess! What I’m telling you is that he is different now. You should know that—you used to feel what he felt!”

  I kicked the dashboard in frustration.

  “That’s right, show your maturity. Remember your temper tantrum in the kitchen when you broke everything in sight? You know, it’s not you who deserves better than Gabriel—it’s Gabriel who deserves better than you!”

  My throat hurt too much to argue anymore. The car ride went on forever. When she pulled up in front of my house, her words were less heated, but her eyes still fumed.

  “Listen, Kara. Had you really wanted to forget about Gabriel, you wouldn’t have just asked him to Control away your ability to feel the blood connection. You also would have asked him to Control away your memories.”

  I stared at the cut on my wrist. I couldn’t deny her words. They were the truth.

  “Which is why I am going to give you a week. If you don’t ask Gabriel to come to you by the end of seven days, I’m going to erase your memories. I will Control you to forget everything that has happened to you since the night Gabriel took you.”

  Shock sliced coldly through me. I stared at her in horror.

  Inola’s eyes finally lost their edge. “Kara, I love you. But I love Gabriel more. Vampires cannot have children, but Gabriel is my son. I may not have given birth to him, but he is my son. Do you understand? I can’t stand to see him hurting like this anymore. He’ll hate me for it, but maybe if he sees you moving on, he can move on one day, too. Thomas and I won’t mind protecting you in his stead.”

  I couldn’t speak. I got out of the car and went into the house. I closed the door and slid down the wood.

  A week. A week until I lost Gabriel forever.

  Chapter 16 Blood Share

  I couldn’t stop pacing. The only time my legs halted was when I saw my reflection in the hallway mirror. Something about my eyes had changed. It wasn’t their color or anything like that—it was something deeper. You could tell I had seen things no human was meant to see.