by C. C. Hunter
Besides, burying all that raw pain had been hard, keeping it buried was going to be a bitch. Talking about it to her best friends would only make it harder. Heck, being around Chase would be tougher yet. But she would give it all she had. She had to. Her full-blown breakdown could come later. Commiserating with Miranda could come later. Natasha’s problem—facing death—made Della’s and her roommate’s issues look small. And that’s what Della needed to focus on, before it was too late.
* * *
Burnett informed them that Derek hadn’t found any pictures of either of the girls on any of the social media sites. Which seemed odd. And after a rule-spouting, one-sided conversation from Burnett about safety and making their eight o’clock curfew, Della followed Chase into the parking lot to a bright blue car. Burnett had insisted they travel in cars during the light of day. He must have told Chase when he called him, because this was the same car that had been parked at his cabin.
Chase hit the clicker to unlock the vehicle. Della noted the model of the car this time. Camaro. She slid into the soft leather front passenger seat that screamed “expensive” right along with the car’s name.
She almost stepped on a large bag on the floorboard.
“Sorry,” he said. “I brought my camera. I can put it in the back.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got plenty of foot room.”
When Chase settled behind the wheel, she stared straight ahead. Those words had been the first she’d spoken to him.
She hadn’t had a chance … the moment she’d walked into the office where Burnett and Chase were, Burnett had started talking. During the camp leader’s litany, she’d felt Chase studying her. She’d swallowed hard and tried to keep her face passive, hiding any remnants of pain.
She could still feel his gaze. He started the car. The engine came to life. She heard another soft vibrating noise and the car’s top started pulling back. A cool breeze tossed a few strands of hair in her face.
She cut her eyes to the driver’s side and reached deep for a subject as far removed from the pain pulsating just under her chest bone as she could find.
“Nice camera bag. Probably a nice camera inside,” she said, glancing to the floorboard. “Nice ride.” She looked up at the blue sky, filled with a few puffy white clouds. “Nice cabin earlier, too. Does the Vampire Council pay this well, or are you just independently wealthy?”
It appeared as if he wasn’t going to answer, but then he slid his hand down the steering wheel with male pride. “I paid for this car myself. The cabin, I’m just renting, but I’m considering buying it. The council doesn’t pay all that well.”
“So, independently wealthy, huh?”
He shrugged. “Not independently. My parents. Since, to the human world, I was dead, too, Jimmy, who found me, was able to finagle my father’s will. All his money and life insurance funds went to a clinical study my father was helping with. But when I turned eighteen, Jimmy handed it over to me.”
“Is Jimmy the one who took you in and raised you?” she asked. “The supernatural who isn’t registered with FRU?”
He nodded and she could swear he flinched as if he regretted having told her about Jimmy. And that just made her want to know more. What all was Chase hiding? And why?
“Did this Jimmy know your father?” she asked, determined to unearth all Chase’s secrets.
He drove out of the parking lot. His shoulders tightened. Was he not going to answer? Was he trying to come up with a lie?
“Yeah. They knew each other,” he finally said, his voice mingled with the sound of the engine.
The car picked up speed. Della’s hair whipped around her face. So she could see, and study his expression, she pulled it over her shoulder and held it bunched in her hand. If he lied, she might be able to detect it.
He looked at the road, but continued talking. She kept her eyes on his face and twisted her legs so she wouldn’t step on his camera.
“They knew each other for almost a year.” He didn’t blink and appeared not to flinch.
Did she believe him? Yes, for some reason, she did. “Did your dad know Jimmy was a vampire?” she asked, sensing if he answered one question, he might be inclined to answer more.
She saw his Adam’s apple shift as he swallowed. Was answering hard? If so, why?
“Jimmy worked part-time with my dad at a free clinic. He’d figured out that my dad was a carrier of the virus. He’d come clean to my dad.”
“And your dad believed him? I mean, Jimmy just says, ‘Hey, I’m a vampire and you’re a carrier of a virus that can turn you into a vampire.’ That’s doesn’t sound realistic.” How many times had she considered how she might tell her parents about herself?
Chase glanced at her and he almost smiled, before looking back to the road. “Jimmy said he could prove it. He had my dad drive them out on some dirt road. He took off flying, and when that didn’t work, he picked up my dad’s Porsche. That got my dad’s attention. Nobody messed with my dad’s car.”
The chuckle in Chase’s voice spoke of his admiration for his dad, and Della couldn’t help but wonder if that was why Chase had bought this car—because his dad would have liked it.
Chase focused on the street, making the turns and changing gears with ease. The engine purred. Della wasn’t into cars, but she had to admit she liked how this one moved. The power. How Chase looked driving it. His hair in the wind, his confidence in the way he sat in the driver’s seat and shifted gears.
“I’d love to have seen my dad’s expression,” Chase said, apparently still with his dad in his head. “It still took months before my dad agreed to have us tested.”
“Who got tested?” Della asked.
“My sister and I.” He stared at the road and his hands tightened on the wheel. “That’s where we had been coming from when the plane crashed.”
He’d never talked this much about himself, and she almost felt thirsty for the information, wanting more. “Is Jimmy a Reborn?”
Chase rolled his shoulders as if he was suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. “Yeah.” He cut his eyes to her. “In the glove compartment there’s some hair-band thingies for your hair.”
So you’ve had other girls in this car? She pushed that thought aside and went back to their conversation.
“Is he, the one who … are you bonded with Jimmy?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She let that thought run through her head. “How does that feel?”
“What?” he asked.
“Being bonded to two…” She glanced at the glove compartment and thought about one of those hair-band thingies. “How many people are you bonded to?”
He glanced at her, his smile different this time, almost as if he had read her mind. “Careful, you almost sound jealous.”
It wasn’t jealousy, she wanted to insist, but couldn’t think of how to explain what it was. Hell. She couldn’t explain because she didn’t understand it.
“I’m just curious how this works,” she spit out. The wind snatched a few strands of hair loose and slapped them against her cheek. She should be used to the hair in her face—but obviously, sitting still in the wind and flying in wind felt different.
Leaning forward, she opened the glove compartment. A brand new pack of three elastic hair bands sat at her fingertips.
“I picked them up on the way here when Burnett said we had to use the car. My sister hated it when my dad put his top down. And the day was too pretty to drive with it up.”
So, no girl? “Thanks,” she said, and then for some reason, wished she hadn’t. Being grateful to him felt wrong when she was hurting over … Not now! She needed to be thinking about Natasha.
Snatching one hair band from the pack, she shut the others back up and pulled back her hair. A new spray of fall sun peeked out from behind a white cloud and warmed Della’s face.
He glanced at her, his smile gone. “I’m only bonded to Jimmy and you.”
So many questions sat on the tip of her to
ngue. And not just to understand Chase, to unearth his secrets, but to understand what was happening to her. “How many can a vampire bond with? How many Reborns can we save?”
“It hasn’t really been proven,” he said, focusing solely on the road again.
“How many has this Jimmy bonded with?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, her question no doubt making him uneasy. She realized he was more comfortable talking about himself than Jimmy. Was he afraid she’d pass the info of an unregistered vampire to Burnett?
For a second, she wanted to tell him about her uncle, and how she hadn’t told Burnett because she, too, feared he might be unregistered, but she wasn’t ready to open up that much.
Face it, trust was earned. And Chase had yet to earn hers. But he was getting close, a voice inside her said. He was answering her questions.
“I wouldn’t … I don’t care if Jimmy is registered or not. I need to know all of this for me,” she assured him.
You need to figure out exactly what this bond thing is, and what it isn’t. Steve’s words echoed inside her.
“I need to know,” she repeated, again pushing back the pain.
He didn’t look at her, but his shoulders loosened. “Jimmy has bonded with three, but the last time he almost died. And…”
“And what?” she asked when Chase paused.
He inhaled. “Each time a Reborn bonds, you give away some of your power. Jimmy is almost back to being a regular vampire now. He can’t afford to do it again.”
Della digested that. “Did you … lose power when you bonded with me?”
“Some.” He leaned forward to see the freeway sign in the distance, then sped up and zipped past a car to enter the ramp.
So Chase had not only suffered, he’d given up power? And seeing him drive this car, she had a feeling power meant a lot to him.
He’d barely known her. Why had he done it?
“You shouldn’t have…” She dropped back in her seat. “I still think I might have made it on my own.”
“We all want to think that.” He cut his gaze to her again and she spotted emotion in his gaze. “I don’t regret it,” he said in a tender voice.
She didn’t want tender.
He shifted gears and she watched as he did it with ease.
“You know how to drive?” he asked, probably having seen her watching him.
“Of course.”
“Stick shift?”
“No.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“That’s okay,” she said, but she couldn’t deny it looked more fun that driving an automatic. “I wouldn’t want to wreck your car.”
“If you wrecked it, I’d just buy another one.”
“Stop,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Being nice.”
He laughed.
She lowered her attention away from Chase and his niceness to the files tucked tightly between the seats—the files with the addresses of both Natashas.
At least they’d have a last name soon. Would that help find her? For some reason the ghost seemed to think so. And Della could only hope.
Find Natasha.
Della flinched at the sound of the voice. This time she didn’t question if she’d really heard it or just conjured up the memory of the voice.
She’d heard it. Goose bumps tickled the back of her neck, as if the words brought on a chill.
The ghost was here.
Della cut her eyes to the tiny backseat. Empty. Maybe the ghost wasn’t actually in the car, just buried in her head.
The car’s engine roared louder. She glanced again at Chase. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles were white.
“You heard it, too, didn’t you?”
“Shit, yeah,” he said, completely understanding what she meant. Then the car shot forward.
As if trying to outrun the ghost.
But if what Holiday and Kylie said about ghosts and their perseverance was true, Chase’s Camaro didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Sixteen
“That’s it.” Less than an hour later, Chase inched his car in front of a one-story, redbrick house with lots of windows. Located in a small town outside of Houston, it was off a dirt road, not in a subdivision. Larger than the house Della grew up in, it had a wraparound porch with a wicker swing that swayed ever so slightly in the afternoon breeze. A big live oak tree, twice as tall as the house, stood to the right of the property, and a tire swing dangled from a rope. It looked aged, as if it had been someone’s play toy and they’d outgrown it.
But something about the home spoke of family, a place where on lazy Sunday afternoons, people who loved each other gathered out front to eat homemade ice cream. Della remembered doing that on her parents’ back patio when she’d been part of a loving family. Or at her Aunt Miao’s when they’d go for dinners.
Pushing past that thought, she noted the untended gardens lining the front of the house. The sign of neglect hinted that all those loving times had somehow become lost.
Was this where Natasha had lived? Where her parents still lived and grieved for their daughter who they thought was dead? Who would be dead if Della and Chase couldn’t find her?
Tension filled Della chest. Was the sadness she felt from this place imagined, or was this somehow a clue?
She almost asked Chase if he felt it, but worried it sounded crazy.
The tires of Chase’s car slowly crunched over the gravel as he came to a complete stop. He cut off the engine and turned his head to the side just as she did, to see if they could catch any sounds inside the house.
“No one seems to be home,” she said.
“Maybe they’re at work,” Chase said. “Or maybe they’re just resting and not moving around. The car could be in the garage.” He dipped down a little and studied the attached garage.
Today had been one of those days that she’d lost track of time, so she pulled out her phone to see the hour. “It’s almost five.” Dropping the phone in her lap, she pulled out the files. “Is this the Owen or the Brian house?”
“The Owens,” Chase answered.
Della looked at the information they had on the file—basically names and the address of the parents, the name of the graveyard where a casket was placed in the ground to make her parents believe Natasha Owen was dead. It was the same graveyard Chan and other fresh turns held their fake funerals. The one where Chan’s body really was buried now. She looked up through the windshield at the lowering sun. The day was on its way out. The sky already had a dusky look to it.
“You want to knock on the door just in case?” he asked.
She glanced back at him. They hadn’t come up with a sure bet plan. She just wanted to check and see if one of the parents was Asian.
“I guess,” she said, her mind churning, still feeling the unexplainable sadness and loneliness. Was it because of this house, or were her emotions over Steve leaving finally sneaking out?
Chase’s gaze stayed on her eyes for a second longer than needed. He leaned in, bringing his face closer to hers … his mouth closer to hers. She jerked back, hitting her shoulder on the car door.
“I wasn’t…” Frowning, he turned to snatch something from the backseat. When he pulled back, he dropped some papers in her lap. “I was just getting this. I thought we could say we were selling magazines to help pay for a trip to Mexico to help build houses for the poor.”
Annoyed at her overreaction, she muttered, “Then maybe you should drive a few blocks up and hide the car.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because people who drive souped-up Camaros don’t sell magazines to help the poor.” Della inwardly flinched. Why was she being a bitch?
“Fine.” His frown deepened. He drove down the dirt road and around a curve so the car was hidden from the home’s view. When he parked, he looked back at her. “But you’re wrong. My sister and I did this twice a year. And you probably could have papered the whole state of Texas w
ith the amount of magazines my mom bought. Of course, she’d turn around and donate them to shelters. Most of them before she even opened them.”
“Sorry.” Now even more embarrassed, she got out of the car with the paperwork on selling magazines in her hand.
He did the same, and in the blink of an eye, he stood at her side. “I didn’t take you for the prejudiced type. What do you have against people with money?”
“I’m not … prejudiced. I apologized.” She shut his car door, and the sound seemed to echo through the semi-wooded area that surrounded them. Feeling almost watched, she looked around at the LOTS FOR SALE sign staked in the ground. A few large and beautiful trees had already been cut down and lay dead in the thick brush.
“So, it’s just me?” He stepped closer, and she took a tiny step back. Her backside came against the car.
“Yeah. It’s you.” She said the truth. “And all this. I’m on edge.”
“But you blame me, huh?” His closeness seemed to be a challenge. She didn’t move, not wanting him to know it disturbed her so much.
“Blame you for what?” She tilted up her chin and met his eyes.
“Steve leaving.”
She frowned. “How did you know?”
“Today, after I left Burnett’s office, I heard someone say Steve was leaving.”
Emotion—anger, hurt, and maybe even some guilt—worked its way from that place she’d buried it earlier. The realization that Steve had told everyone he was leaving before he’d told her did a real number on her heart. She hated that number. She swallowed a knot that appeared in her throat. But the damn thing wouldn’t go down. It just grew bigger.
“I’m sorry,” Chase said, so close his breath tickled her temple.
That’s all it took. His breath and two words to gather all the emotion rising inside her and target it right at him. “Don’t lie. You’re not sorry.” She hit his chest with the palm of her hand.
He didn’t budge. He kept staring at her, into her eyes, as if he could read her heart, her mind, and her pain. And for that one second, she didn’t think there were any secrets between them. He knew everything. More than he pretended to know. He knew all her failings, all her regrets.