Authors: Jennifer Knight
Tags: #Social Issues, #Love & Romance, #Vampires, #College Students, #Juvenile Fiction, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Werewolves, #Dating & Sex, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural
Blood Crave 2 (36 page)
So I let Derek drag me upstairs to his room where I spent the rest of the night crying.
I had class on Monday. I had track. I had a life to get back to. A life that now highlighted Lucas’s absence with every agonizing minute that passed. From the moment I opened my swollen eyes to Derek’s empty room to that last shuddering breath I took at night when I cried myself to sleep—I missed him. I missed his face in the morning and his voice in my ear before bed.
Living without him now was like trying to breathe with a hole in my lungs—impossible. But I forced myself through it. For two long, miserable weeks I made myself wake up, get dressed, go to class, come back, and slip into blissful silence with Derek at my side. I made myself live, because the alternative was not an option.
I would take to wallowing alone in my own room with
P.S. I Love You
and a bag of chocolates. And while there were times during the day when that sounded like the best idea in the world, if I let myself fall into that pattern, I’d never resurface.
P.S. I Love You
and a bag of chocolates. And while there were times during the day when that sounded like the best idea in the world, if I let myself fall into that pattern, I’d never resurface.
On the night of the full moon, when Derek went with Katie up to Gould, I’d called Heather again to keep me company, only to find out she was at Zydeco’s with her druggie friends. I’d been in contact with her throughout the past weeks, but she’d never mentioned her return to drugs. Or maybe I’d been too upset to notice it. Either way, she made it clear that nothing I said was going to stop her from hanging out with the blood bitches, so the best option I had left was to join her. Try to make sure she didn’t die.
So I began spending more and more time with her and her idiotic friends. It was both mind-numbingly stupid and euphoric at the same time. Convincing myself that I was somehow keeping Heather safe by being with them gave me a welcome distraction. So much so that I began hanging with them while Derek went to class.
When Derek returned from his classes, I left and said a small prayer that Heather could take care of herself. Derek and I did all of the old stuff together—late night TV, cold pizza, talking ourselves to sleep. Although he did most of the talking now.
The nights I spent with Derek healed the scorching hole in my heart, and I was okay until dawn. And then the daylight would break my heart all over again.
D
erek and I got a visit from Calvin a few weeks later.
erek and I got a visit from Calvin a few weeks later.
We had just gotten out of a midnight showing of some action movie Derek had been dying to see and were meandering our way back to his car parked outside a restaurant in Old Town. Derek was plotting out how to sneak back onto campus and cheat the curfew, and I was trying my best to act interested. The town had seemed to relax somewhat since there hadn’t been any murders in a few months, but the school had yet to lift that stupid curfew. I wouldn’t have cared much, except that it made hanging out with a nocturnal creature difficult.
It was early April, so the weather should have been warming, but winter seemed to be giving us one last shove before spring took over. Flurries swirled through the purple sky above our heads, and I remembered the way Lucas had looked, so long ago, in the early morning snow, after Vincent had attacked Derek and me. I’d never been so happy to see him, bare chested, snow in his hair, and grinning at me.
I actually stopped walking when my gut wrenched. Derek looked down at me.
“What is it?” he asked, putting his hand on my arm.
I was about to tell him it was nothing when a rush of ice-wind smacked my face. I looked over and Calvin was there. I should have screamed, but I was too stunned. I just stood there. Petrified.
Derek was the one with all the reactions. Without a word, he sprang forward and tried to pummel Calvin, but he dodged the blow and they began to fight. Not physically fight, but there was a lot of yelling. I couldn’t follow most of it because they did this annoying vampire thing where they talk ultrafast. Basically, Calvin tried to apologize and Derek told him to shove off.
For the first time in over a month, something other than pain and loss enveloped me. Relief. At least one thing had been accomplished by my suicide mission: Derek no longer wanted anything to do with vampires.
Calvin said something to Derek with a swift nod in my direction. I winced, watching Derek’s body begin to quake violently. His eyes faded to clear and he said slowly enough for me to hear, “Go now, Calvin, or I’ll show you the true meaning of death.”
Calvin’s perfect lips curled. “Big mistake, Turner. We’ve given you all the time you’ll receive to get over the incident on Keystone. Refusing us now will mean death on your hands.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
With a shake of his head, Calvin flitted away in another rush of wind.
Derek came to stand by me and put his arms around my waist, trying to comfort me. He murmured sweet things in my ear, telling me he’d never let anyone hurt me again.
I tried my best to believe him.
I
t was mid-April when I finally started feeling normal again, or at least seminormal. I still had a festering gaping wound in my heart where all the love I’d ever felt used to be, but you know, other than that.
t was mid-April when I finally started feeling normal again, or at least seminormal. I still had a festering gaping wound in my heart where all the love I’d ever felt used to be, but you know, other than that.
My grades were abysmal, I was probably going to fail my final coming up, and I’d never been so tired in my life, but at long last the beginnings of recovery were creeping in on me.
April, however, was also when the murders started up again. Big time. Calvin had warned us it would happen, and boy was he right.
I was sitting in Derek’s room, zonked out on the couch and staring blankly at the TV when the word
exsanguinated
filtered through my stupor. I sat up and hit the volume.
exsanguinated
filtered through my stupor. I sat up and hit the volume.
“Two more bodies were found,” the anchorman said, “in an alleyway in Old Town, Fort Collins. The victims were both twenty years old and attended the Colorado State University. The police still have no leads on the killer. If anyone knows anything about the murders, we urge you to call the crime stoppers hotline on your screen.”
I made a face at the TV.
Oh, right. I’ll just call 1-800-CRIMESTOPPERS and tell them that the killer is a lair full of vampires. That’ll go over well.
Oh, right. I’ll just call 1-800-CRIMESTOPPERS and tell them that the killer is a lair full of vampires. That’ll go over well.
The doorknob turned and Derek entered.
I clicked the TV off. “I thought you were picking up something to eat,” I said, a little crestfallen. I hadn’t eaten all day for lack of appetite, and now I was famished.
Derek grunted noncommittally as he locked the door behind him.
“You won’t believe what was on the news just now,” I said. “Two girls were murdered last night. Can you believe it?”
Derek swung around and cursed. “So much for ‘we can handle this matter ourselves.’ Stupid dogs.” He snorted and kicked a stray book across the room.
Derek had been feeding the pack false information for the past few weeks and facing a lot of heat for not getting closer to the vampires as he’d been instructed to do. The pack had enough spies around us to know he no longer went to their lair, but Derek claimed to still speak with them via phone. The pack wasn’t happy about this, but Derek refused to budge. He had offered to help find the lair in other ways, but they’d plainly refused him.
Majorly insulting.
It hurt his pride that the pack refused his help, and I totally got it. They’d refused me, too. I opened my arms for him, and he came to sit beside me on the couch, still brooding. I threw a blanket over us and cuddled into his side.
“They’re only doing this because of what I told Calvin,” he said. “You know that, right? It’s like some sick little incentive to get me to go back to them. If I join up again, they’ll stop killing. If not, people die. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
I bit my lip. Derek couldn’t go back to the vampires, not after everything I’d done to get him away from them.
“I guess we just have to trust the pack to take care of it,” I said. “They swear up and down they don’t need any help so . . .”
“So just sit around and pretend like it’s not happening?”
I shrugged. “You’ll get used to it.”
He growled low in his throat and punched his fist into a pillow. The stupid thing exploded like a feather bomb and coated us both with down. I looked up at him, trying to keep from laughing because I knew this was a serious situation, but the look on his face—I couldn’t help it.
I cracked up, crying with laughter like I hadn’t experienced in months, and pretty soon Derek joined in. He threw the pillow across the room and shook his head. “No wonder they don’t want my help. Derek Turner: Pillow Punisher.”
I snorted.
“You know, we don’t have to join up with the pack to help,” Derek said. “We could do something together.”
“Go all vigilante on their asses?”
Now he snorted. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Except we’re just as clueless as the pack is when it comes to locating the lair.”
“Not if I get the vampires to show me where it is.”
I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes. “That sounds dangerous.”
“What, did you think we’d skip through the daisies up to their house and offer them a basket of muffins in exchange for laying off the murders?”
I elbowed him in the side. “Since when are you Mr. Sarcastic?”
“Since I started spending so much time with you.”
I elbowed him again, only more lightly, since I’d hurt myself before. “I don’t want you anywhere near the vampires again,” I said. “That’s not something I’m willing to risk. Not after . . .” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “We’ll just trust the pack. They swore to protect us, and we’ll only end up getting in the way if we try to intervene.”
“Well, that’s very mature of you.”
“It’s called being smart. Try it sometime.” I gave him a sly look out of the corner of my eye, and he brushed an affectionate kiss on my cheek, effectively stunning me into silence.
“Wanna see what’s on?” he asked, flipping the remote in his hand.
“It’s not like there’s an uprising to thwart or anything.”
Ironically enough,
Dracula
was on the classic movie channel, and we couldn’t help but watch it given the circumstances. Halfway in, we were laughing at a corny bat-morphing scene when I said, “How sweet would that be?”
Dracula
was on the classic movie channel, and we couldn’t help but watch it given the circumstances. Halfway in, we were laughing at a corny bat-morphing scene when I said, “How sweet would that be?”
“What?” he said, still chuckling.
“If you could change into a bat, or something cool like that.”
“Wolves are cool.”
“Yeah, but bats can fly.” I turned and smiled up at him, one of the rare ones I saved only for him. “You could pick me up and fly me away somewhere.”
He bent and kissed my forehead. “Anytime, baby. Say the word and we’re gone.”
I looked away. “If only it was that simple.”
“It is. We get on a plane and go. I can sell that stupid car the vampires gave me, and we’d have money to live off of for a year.” He took my face, making me look at him. “Say the word and I’ll do it. We’ll get out of here, away from the vampires, the pack, Lucas.”
I winced and he smoothed his thumb over my cheeks, shushing me.
“The pain would stop,” he whispered. “You could move on.”
I swallowed back a rush of emotion. Such sweet, tempting words. . . . I wanted so badly to take him up on his offer. Derek and I could travel, I could start taking pictures again, and we could be happy—best friends forever. Maybe even more than that someday.
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