Amaranth (24 page)

“Okay, you got it. Guess I’ll head to the kitchen and catch
up with Josh before we get going.” He smiled, stuffed his hands in his pockets
and darted for the door.

Laughing to myself as he shut the door behind him, I looked
around at the dresser and nightstands, searched for a pack of cigarettes and a
lighter, but had no luck. Thinking I might ask Josh, I cracked the bedroom door
to peek out into the kitchen. Gavin and Josh were at the table, sharing drinks
and laughs, apparently catching up. The conversation quickly turned solemn as
they began discussing Joel’s death, and then I couldn’t listen anymore.

I shut the door and continued my search. Finally noticing a
half-empty pack on the desk near the closet, I scooted out the room’s sliding
door to light up on the porch and shake off the awkward rejection. Once back
inside, I noticed my image in the dresser’s vanity mirror. I began plucking
leaves and muck from my damp hair. I looked like a cadaver who’d been tossed in
a swamp, left lying there for a few weeks. Longing for a hot shower, I leaned
over to rub some hardened mud from the corner of my eye. A gray blur appeared
behind me, sent chills down my arms before I even saw the fangs.

“You’ll be dead before you can scream, so don’t bother.”

“What do you want?” I stood still, stared at the woman
behind me in the mirror.

“Quiet. Now do as I tell you and I won’t have to hurt you.”

My only chance was to delay her until I could figure out a
way to call for Gavin and Josh without getting all of us killed or hurt. As
loud as I thought I could risk, I said, “Who are you? You look familiar.”

“I
said
be quiet.” She spoke
as she grabbed my arms and tied them behind my back. Opening a backpack, she
pulled out a roll of duct tape and began wrapping it around my head.

She was going to tape my mouth shut. In a second, maybe two,
I wouldn’t be able to call for help.

In my panic, I didn’t think of yelling out for Gavin, but
decided to plead with her. “Please, don’t do this—” I whimpered, begged her
with my eyes when she stood in front of me, placing the tape on my mouth. She
was shorter than me and quite round. Almost harmless looking, like a kind,
middle-aged kindergarten teacher.

If a kindergarten teacher had cold, hard eyes.

When she finished with the tape, she noticed and grabbed the
locket around my neck and peered at it, then glared up at me.

“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself in to, do
you?” Leaning in, she put her face to my ear and whispered. “She’ll be even
more furious now. You just made this harder on everyone, including your
precious friends. And sleeping with one of us? That’s suicide. Stupid girl.”

Shaking too hard to resist, I complied when she shoved me
forward, hoisted me out the sliding door toward the woods.

Flying through the trees, she landed us in a remote area not
far from the house, near a parked SUV. She opened the back door and slid me
onto the backseat, shoving my head down and out of sight and growling, “Stay
that way.” I looked around for a way out, plotted a way to untie my hands and
reach for the door handle. Still, I knew any move I made wouldn’t be fast
enough. I had to rely on Gavin, hope he’d notice my disappearance and be able
to pick up my scent in time.

The woman began rambling as she started the SUV’s engine and
sped away. “I hate her, you know. Curse the day I vowed to serve her. Sure, I’m
a monster, but I don’t want to do her dirty work. I don’t enjoy chasing down
mortals like you, you know. I can tell you’re a good one. You don’t mean any
harm,” she jerked the wheel, flustered, “but you had to go and get nosey now,
and look what I have to do. Stupid girl.
Tsk
, I don’t
even know why I’m telling you this. Don’t you
dare
tell her what I just told you.”

She looked at me frantically through the rearview mirror. I
made eye contact but broke it off, trying to remain calm. Whoever this woman
was, she was taking me to Samira like a lamb to be slaughtered, and there was
nothing I could do about it.

We drove for miles until nothing looked familiar anymore,
and we finally reached a tiny motel somewhere outside of New Orleans. “Stay
put,” she instructed, hurried inside the office to get the key. I laid still,
peered up and out the side window, searched for passersby. There were none. I rubbed
my face on my shoulder to wipe the tears and hair out of my eyes, then tried to
lift my head higher, to get someone’s attention. Kicking at the door with my
feet, I tried working the toe of my shoe underneath the groove of the door
handle to maneuver it.

Rocking gently back and forth, I played with the handle,
jumped when I saw a man’s shadow at the back window, looking in at me through
the tinted glass. I could barely see his face, but it seemed like he could see
me. He tried opening the door, stopped trying and pounded his fist through the
window, and unlocked it from the inside. Glass shattered all around me and warm
sunlight flooded in, momentarily blinding me. My eyes bulged when I saw Josh
leaning in to rip the tape from my mouth.

“You just don’t get a break, do you? Are you all right?”

“I am now. Hurry, she’s coming!”

A shrill scream rang from the direction of the motel office
as he helped me out of the car, and I saw the woman run away from the
frightened desk clerk and toward us. The coldness I’d seen in her eyes now had
dark vengeance added.

Gavin appeared from the corner of the motel, rushed to our
side to meet her head on.

“Don’t do this, Marie,” he warned as she approached us. She
crept forward, testing her boundaries. “There are two of us and one of you, and
we’re in a public place,” he said. “You’re not taking Camille, do you
understand?”

“No,
you
don’t understand.
I’ll do what I have to. You know this is the only way she’ll leave my son be.
Now get out of my way and give me the girl.”

“That’s all that I’m trying to do too, Marie. Please, think
of what Arianna means to Joel. That’s what Camille means to me, and I don’t
want to hurt you but I will if I have to.”

How did Gavin know this woman’s name? And why was he
bringing up Joel and Arianna? It must be a small world in the vampire realm, I
decided. Everybody knew everybody, apparently. Had the circumstances not been
so bizarre and dangerous, it would have been kind of cute.

“I’m sorry Gavin, but I have to think of my son,” she said.
“His safety and happiness with Arianna means too much to me. I’ll tell you one
last time. Give me the girl.”

Seeing that Marie wasn’t going to budge, Josh nodded at
Gavin and lunged toward her while Gavin lassoed and rushed me into the SUV. She
hissed at Josh as he came toward her, challenged him for a moment before
forfeiting. As Gavin reversed to drive off, she fled to the woods nearby, Josh
trailing after her.

“Are you hurt?” Gavin hit the gas.

“No, just a little shaky. What was that all about? How do
you know her?”

“She’s Joel’s mother. She doesn’t know.…”

“Oh my God.” I shook my head in disbelief as we drove off,
the guilt creeping up again.

“She’s one of Samira’s oldest servants,” he said, “she’s
just trying to look out for Joel. She still thinks he’s with Arianna.”

“I thought Arianna was in Amaranth.”

“She was.”

“How can someone
leave
Amaranth? I thought once you’re in, you’re in.”

“It’s a long story. What matters right now is she’s out
there, and she’ll keep coming back. We
really
need to get to Paris.” He checked the side and rearview mirrors. “I’m sorry it
took me so long to get to you. Josh and I stepped out for a cigarette, and I
didn’t sense anyone had been in the house until it was too late. He’s going to
chase her down, it’s okay now.”

Sitting there quietly, I wondered if this was what our life
was going to be like. I knew Gavin and I would have to run, but did I want to
be a restless nomad, wandering from place to place, never having a place to
call home? That was why I moved to Louisiana in the first place, after all. To
settle down and start over.

As if he read my mind, Gavin pulled over and parked on the
side of the road, and turned to look at me. One look was all I needed to be
reminded of the uselessness of contemplating what-if scenarios. Everything I
wanted was right here in this car.

“I need to know if this is what you really want Camille,
because this is going to be our life for a while.”

“I know it is.”

“It might never be easy again—carefree and simple.”

I thought of my mother and father, of two abusive
relationships, of my entire life before I met Gavin. “It never was.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to make this right, but it’s
going to take time. So I need to know.”

“You’re asking me if I’m sure I want to run with you.”

“Yes.”

I took a breath, let it out slowly. “Well, I
am
getting a tad tired of being kidnapped and chased
by monsters. It’s really starting to piss me off.”

It wasn’t a joke, and he knew it too. He looked away from
me, stared at the homes nearby. I stared, too. Pondered their dependable
simplicity.

“But I’ll run with you. Under one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Don’t ever leave me again.
Ever
.”

“Not unless you want me to.”

“And all of the circumstances aside, let’s start over. Let’s
be together the way we would’ve before all this happened. I love you regardless
of what you are, so promise me—even if you stay this way, you’ll never leave
me.”

He smirked, turned the ignition off. “Technically, that’s
more than
one
condition.”

“Promise.”

Earnest again, he tossed the loose duct tape in the back
seat. “Do you really want to put yourself through this? Is loving me really
enough to endure everything you have to just to be with me?”

Meeting his fiery gaze, I ran my fingers through his hair,
kissed him gently before I attempted to set us both free. “It will always be
enough.”

With the many uncertainties, of one thing I was sure. I
could not escape love, the very thing that had kept me mobile since the day I
realized I was capable of giving and receiving it.

The brisk fall day welcomed us as we landed at Charles De
Gaulle. We caught a cab to Gavin’s sister’s apartment, and when we arrived, he
led me to her door, held my hand with an affectionate and eager smile, a single
suitcase in the other hand.

“You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He was nervous, I was too; she was the
first real relative of his, maybe the only relative, I would meet.

The lock turned on the other side of the door and I took a
deep breath to calm my nerves. When the door gently opened, it revealed a tall,
romantic-looking girl with dark eyes and a Victorian face. Her long, curly
blonde hair fell past her shoulders, her pale skin adding to the allure of her
dark eyes. She looked nothing like Gavin, aside from her skin tone and the same
faint glimmer in her irises when she smiled. But I recognized her.

“Gavin,” she beamed, wrapped him up like a teddy bear,
quickly kissed him on the cheek. “Thank God, I’m so glad to see you!”

“Me too, sis. Thanks for having us,”

“Of course, you know you’re welcome anytime. And this must
be Camille,” she squealed, leaned forward to hug me.

“Hi, Arianna. Gavin’s told me so much about you.”

 
“I’ve heard a lot
about you, too. Come on in.”

“You have?” I found it hard to believe, considering Gavin
just sprung his sister’s identity on me just days ago. Knowing I felt
responsible for losing Joel in Amaranth, he said he couldn’t bring himself to
tell me right away. I appreciated the concern, but that didn’t make meeting her
any easier. Especially since he hadn’t told her about Joel’s death yet.

I followed Gavin inside and into the living room.

“Shame on you for not telling Camille about me sooner,” she
said when she returned from putting our suitcase in the side bedroom. “I’ve
been wanting to meet her, you know.” She joined us on the couch.

 
“We only met a few
months ago,” he replied. “I haven’t exactly had time to bring her to Paris to
meet you.”

“Yeah, but the way he talks about you, it’s as if you’ve
been together for years and he’s just hidden you away from me all this time.”
She looked over at me, glowing. “What’s that all about, anyway?” She turned
back to him and fixed curious eyes on him. “Why
haven’t
you told her about me until just now?”

“Let’s just say the past few months have been hectic, that’s
all. We have a lot to catch up on.”

“It seems we do,” she replied curtly, suddenly eyeing the
locket around my neck. “Well Camille, it’s nice to officially meet you.” She
extended her hand and gave me a wary smile.

“You too, thanks.”

“Camille, you must be starving after that long flight, I
have roast chicken in the oven. Are you tired? You’re welcome to lie down, just
make yourself at home, whatever you need.” She stood and headed toward a door
that appeared to lead to the kitchen.

“Thanks sis,” he said. “Camille slept most of the flight, so
I’m sure she’s hungry.”

“I hope I’m not putting you out, you didn’t have to cook for
me,” I chimed in, uncomfortable I needed human food.

“Don’t be silly. I prepared when I knew you were coming. ”

“Oh, okay then. Cool, thanks.”

“Oh brother
dear
, why don’t
you go see my newest additions to the record collection while Camille and I
hang out in the kitchen?” She batted her eyelashes.

“I haven’t seen you in months and you’re already trying to
get rid of me?” He winked at me then headed off toward the piano, leaving us
alone.