CHAPTER THREE
2097 Words
CHAPTER THREE
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Roane carried me to the roof of a building. When he set me back on my feet, he went to the edge and looked down. A red glow lit the sky from where Bennett had been and I grabbed his hand to help steady myself. My knees were shaking so loudly, I was surprised Roane didn’t hush them.
“I want to see who comes.” Roane gripped my hand.
Instead of Bennett, a fire burned in his place. “His body’s gone?” There was a citrus smell in the air that mixed with the fire. Both odors made my stomach churn.
A small smile flashed over his face, but it was gone quickly. His face contrasted in a myriad of shadows from the glow. The tops of his cheekbones and nose were highlighted, but everything else was dark. It gave him a supernatural look, but then again, he was a vampire.
“It burned faster than normal. He drank from someone who’d overdosed on h****n. It speeds everything up.”
“That explains the purple eyes.” I was about to ask more when Roane touched my shoulder and nodded at the quad below. I didn’t see anything, but he spoke in my head, “Let the Immortal see.”
Everything switched.
The fire felt like it was all around me and Roane’s inner tension lashed at me like a whip. I could taste the h****n from the human’s blood in Bennett. That was the citrusy feel in the air. Wrinkling my nose, I started to share how weird that was, but closed my mouth as I sensed movement from all corners of the quad. They were vampires. They moved at a slow synchronized pace and made sure no one could see them. With my human eye, I wouldn’t have. But as the Immortal, I knew what they thought and knew their arrogance. As I closed my eyes, I felt into them. They were used to doing what they wanted. They thought they were above everyone else, including other vampires.
“Who are they?”
Roane gripped my hand and shook his head.
And below us, they froze as one entity. Their black forms, masked from the shadows, melted backwards. They were gone in the next instant.
He expelled a deep breath.
I knew I messed up, but I had no idea how.
“You twitched when you asked me that. Your hand twitched.”
“They could see that?”
“They felt it.” He sounded disappointed.
“They felt my hand twitch, but they didn’t know we were here? How’s that possible?”
“They didn’t know we were here because as they move in, they blanket their surroundings.”
“We’re above them.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Roane sat on the edge. He dropped his head in his hands. “They have sonar that sends pulses all around them. They map the ground. One disturbance or change in their ‘map’ and they go away. It could be as little as a bird or a rock that fell. One movement, a hand twitch, and they leave.”
Talk about anal. “They’re scared of a bird?”
“They aren’t scared. They’re powerful, stronger than the hunters’ bloodline.”
“They’re vampires.” No one was stronger than the hunters.
“They’re more. They’re a different species of vampires.”
“You guys have species?!”
Roane chuckled and found my hand with his. “Each vampire is born from the bloodline of the vamp that turned him or her, but those guys are different. They were born as vampires. There’s magic in their blood that lets them reproduce. They give birth just like humans.”
“Baby vamps.” Holy crap.
“Baby vampires.” He nodded.
“How do they do their sonar stuff?”
“No one knows. They stick to their own. We don’t even know if they follow the decree. We know about them only because Lucan found a baby girl one time. He had a thing for anything unusual. My brother was obsessed with anything more powerful than us. It’s why we found Talia when she was so little.”
Every hair on my body stood upright. I shuddered. “How did you know they’d be here tonight?”
“I didn’t. I knew Bennett was obsessed with having you change Lucan.”
“You think Bennett knew where Lucan is?”
He shook his head. “I know he didn’t, but he knew where you were. I think Lucan found that girl and her line has taken him in. If I were him, I’d have them find you. You’re an unknown to him now. He thought he knew everything about the Immortal, but he now knows that he doesn’t. He didn’t take your power. You made him human instead. That’s never been in the lore. You’re going to become his new obsession now.”
And that was alarming on a whole other level. “They were following him to find me?”
He nodded and clenched his jaw.
My eyes got wide. “That’s why you killed Bennett, isn’t it?”
“As much as I’d love to follow them back, I won’t risk you.”
“How would you be able to follow them? It sounds like they’re living ghosts to the vampire community.”
Roane looked at me and tilted my head up. His hand cupped the side of my face and his thumb caressed my cheek. “I’d follow you, not them.”
There went my heart. It stopped its pitter pattering.
“I could follow you anywhere.”
Now it took off like a horse race.
His hand dropped and he stood up. “I drank from you before you fully became the Immortal. I can smell you from a continent away.”
My shoulders slumped down. The pitter patter race ground to a halt. “You know just what to say to a girl.”
“It’s the aroma. Your blood overwhelms me at times.”
My nose wrinkled. “So I’m smelly?”
He looked out over the quad and murmured, “Yes. Exactly.” Then he abruptly looked down. “No, not in a bad way. It’s a good way. We were lovers. It’s an intimate aroma, like perfume.”
“Were?”
Roane laughed and took my hand. He pulled me to my feet and then hugged me tightly. “We will be again. I’m hoping.” His eyes held mine captive and the Derby race started once more.
“I’d like that too.”
He rested his forehead against mine. “Bennett is dead.”
“Yeah. And the fire is gone already.” The burning smell and glow had both vanished.
“Don’t you want to check on your roommate?”
“What? Why?” Talk about curveballs.
“He nipped from her. That means she was under his spell. Now he’s dead—”
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that already. She’s going to be flipping out. She thought she was in love with him.” I surged upright and then stopped to glower. I used to hate vampires. Roane and a few others had redeemed them in my eyes, but now I remembered why I hated them so much. Their stupid little spells they could put on humans. “I have to get home right now. The abrupt break will be sending her off the deep end.”
Roane nodded and kissed my forehead. “I’ll be at the Alexander tonight.”
“Okay. I’ll come by after she’s calmed down.”
Roane walked me back to my dorm and left with one last kiss to my forehead. I watched him leave and sighed. I was glowing. How could I not? I just hoped my roommate wouldn’t notice.
When I walked into my room, Emily took one look and threw a book at me. I ducked, but the second one hit my chin. “Ouch!”
“What? Did you just see Adam? You’re happy!” Her chest heaved up and down. She was seething. Then she twisted her hands in her hair and pulled at it. “I’m going crazy, Davy! I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I did, but I wasn’t going to tell her. “Do you have your period?”
“I just had it.”
“There’s a full moon tonight. That makes people go crazy.”
She stopped pulling her hair and her hands dropped against her legs. “Really?”
I shrugged in my head. “Sure. Unless you really are going crazy.”
“No, no. It must be the full moon. It has to be. It came out of nowhere.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like my reason for living just died. I have no purpose anymore. I should kill myself.”
She answered so quickly, my eyes popped out. “Okay. You shouldn’t work at the hotline until this is gone.”
“Why?” she asked with a blank face.
“Because . . .” You’re crazy. “Trust me. It’s the full moon effect. You’re not normal right now.”
“Will this go away?” Desperation flashed over her face and her hands started to go for her hair again.
I rushed forward and caught her hands. “It will go away. Promise.”
“How long does the full moon last?” Her voice hitched on a hysterical note.
“There’s the pre moon stage and the post moon stage. Plus, you have the half moon and partial moon. I’m sure all of that makes it go longer.”
“Oh.” She sounded dejected as she sat on the couch. “What am I supposed to do? I felt like I lost my husband, like he was brutally murdered and slowly ripped to pieces.”
“Uh . . .” I saw some wine coolers in the corner and grabbed them. “Drink.”
She pushed it away. “That won’t help. It’ll make it worse.”
“Okay.” Then I sat beside her. “What can I do to help you?”
“I don’t know. Take my pain away.”
Oh no. I swallowed tightly. I knew Emily wasn’t serious. She didn’t know I was empathic and her request was an actual possibility, but I didn’t know if I wanted that madness in me. “How about a sleeping pill? You’ll sleep right through it and wake up refreshed for a month?”
I settled for a second best option.
“I don’t feel like that’s a healthy thing to do. I feel like I should go through this. I should feel this torment.”
“You’re crazy. Why would you want to do that? This isn’t your fault. You’re feeling this because of—” I clamped my mouth shut. “Because of the moon.”
“Yeah.”
I watched Emily and saw she was determined to feel this thing through. Sometimes she amazed me and other times she made my head spin around. Who would want to feel this type of madness? Emily would.
She hugged a blanket around her. Tears coursed down her cheeks and she sneezed a few times. I handed over a tissue box. “You’re determined to stay awake for this?”
“Yes.” She sounded determined, but I heard a waver in her voice.
It was all the permission I needed. “I’ll get you some juice.”
She looked at me with grateful tears in those eyes. “I’d appreciate it so much. Thank you, Davy.”
I grabbed one of the cups from our dirty bin and went to the door to wash it. Emily didn’t spare me a look as she huddled into the couch and I grabbed my purse. When I went to the bathroom, I cleaned the cup and pulled out some sleeping pills Kates gave me awhile ago.
I dumped three in Emily’s drink and stirred it so the powder dissolved. And when I handed over the juice to her trusting hands, I felt no guilt. I was drugging my roommate out of love. If I left her alone with the madness that came when a love bite was broken, she would have tried to commit suicide. I’d seen it before and I wasn’t going to let Emily do something stupid like that. “Drink all of it. Your body needs those vitamins.”
She guzzled it down and wiped at her chin. “Thanks, Davy. You’re the best roommate.”
Well . . . the jury’s out on that one. I popped in a movie, grabbed my blanket, and settled beside her. Emily’s eyes kept watering through the movie until I reached over and grabbed her hand. She would quiet right away and I allowed myself to pull some of that pain out of her. I felt the madness trying to get through my barrier, lashing at me, snarling, but I kept it at bay. Emily’s pain was pushed underneath the craziness and it streamed into me like a calm river. If I hadn’t been the Immortal, I couldn’t have separated the threads. An hour later, I opened my eyes and saw that she’d fallen asleep with both hands clenched on mine. There was a feel of desperation in her body.
When my eyelids started to feel heavy and drop, I realized some of the sleeping pills must’ve gotten into my system too. Roane was at the Alexander and I wanted to see him, but my eyelids refused to stay open. After five minutes, I gave up the fight and moved to my bed. It wasn’t long until I found myself dreaming of vampires with rabid purple eyes. And then a voice screamed in my head, “Davy! Wake up!”
I shot upright and banged my head on Emily’s bunk. I rubbed my head, expecting to see someone in my room. There was no one and I started to lie back down.
“Get up! Get up! You’re needed at the Alexander NOW!”
Alexander. Roane. Crap.
- Writer
