Blood Awakening (17 page)

“I love you,” he said after finally breaking our kiss. My lips were dying to feel his against them again, forever.

“I love you, too.” And I did. I truly, completely did. I loved him more than anyone else. I loved him so much that I was blinded to the truth behind his words; I couldn’t see the “but” hidden at the end of them.

“I can’t do this, Ava,” he said, slowly releasing his grip on me. My skin burned in the wake of his absence.

“Can’t do what? What are you saying?” I knew. I always knew. But I would deny it with everything I had in me.

“This.” He stepped back, his large, tear-filled eyes staring down at me. “Us.” There it was. The one word I knew he would eventually say. The one word I was praying I would never hear.

“No.” It was all I could muster through the pain.

“I’m sorry, Ava. I love you. More than you will ever know, I love you.”

“And I love you, too, Chance. I do.”

“I know you do. But not enough to come be with me. Not enough to spend eternity with me. And I don’t know why I even want that, you know? I don’t know why I want you to accept the vampire side of you instead of trying to save yourself, which is what I’ve always wanted for you. I don’t know why I want you to give up your fight, but I do. Only having half of you isn’t enough. And I need enough. I need all of you to love me.” He moved away from me, stepping around me and crossing the room to the door. “I have to save myself, even if that means not saving you.”

“I don’t understand this.” Tears cut into my cheeks as they fell from my eyes. “Chance, don’t. Please. Don’t.”

Pain streaked his face, brief but powerful. “I’m sorry, Ava. I have to.” He opened the door to walk out of my life for good, before turning back to me. “I’m keeping my promise that I’ll help Kayla find her dad, so I’ll go with you to Boston.” That unheard “but” again. “After that, I have to go. I have to. I’m sorry.” A brief pause, where US became me, then another “I love you,” before he pulled the door closed behind him and was gone.

Gone.

L
OOKING AHEAD

T
he trek back to Kayla’s after my time with Chance was a lonely one, to say the least. The entire way, my mind burned Chance’s words into my memory, making sure that I would never forget the pain I had ultimately brought on myself. I had lost him. All this time, he had been thinking that he was the one losing. But it was me. I lost him.

When I finally made it home, Kayla hugged me as I cried the last of my tears. She held back my hair when the pain of both Erik’s and Chance’s words made me physically sick, all the while telling me over and over that I would be okay. I realized then how ridiculous I must’ve sounded when I had repeated the same thing to Chance. Maybe that was the final straw that pushed him into leaving me, the fact that I could be so heartless and ignorant. It didn’t matter the reason, though. It was done. We were over.

And Erik wasn’t speaking to me, either, which hurt in a similar but different way. I had no idea what my feelings for him actually were, but they were there, painful and prominent. In a matter of a few hours, I had all but isolated myself from them both. Way to go, Ava.

“I’m sending Erik home,” Kayla said after helping me climb into my bed. My body felt like it had been torn apart and sewn back together by some mad scientist trying to create the perfect human specimen. Try again, doc.

“What?” I asked, sleep invading my words and making me sound groggy and drugged. “Why? We’re supposed to be leaving for Boston tonight.”

“Not happening,” she said, pulling the thick blanket up to my chin. It was like a sleep aid; my body began shutting down despite my resistance. “I’m in charge of this search, and I say we wait. You have too much going on to leave tonight. We all do.” Her eyes looked over my head, clearly lost in the memory of what had gone down between me and Chance and me and Erik. At least, I imagined that’s what she meant.

“But your dad—”

“—will still be missing in the morning.” She started to smile, but apparently my face made her stop. “Don’t look so shocked,” she said. “I told you, I’ve gotten past the obsession part of all this. I know that it’s gonna take time and planning and being smart to find him. I can’t let my emotions control me anymore.”

“Do me a favor,” I said, yawning. “Teach me how to do that, okay?”

She laughed. “You got it. Now, I’m going downstairs to tell Erik to get out, and I’m gonna text Chance and tell him we’ll regroup at school tomorrow or something, okay? I’m way too tired to try and leave tonight, anyway.” She faked a yawn to help convince me; didn’t work.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, feeling even worse knowing that I had once again failed my friend.

“Absolutely.” A tiny smile. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll be up in a bit.”

“Thanks for this, Kayla.” I laid my hand on top of hers. “You’re my best friend.”

“I’m your only friend.” She laughed.

“Doesn’t matter.” I yawned, my eyes suddenly heavy. “I could have a thousand, you’d still be my best.”

She placed her other hand on top of mine and gave it a squeeze before standing up and heading toward the door. “You know,” she said once she turned off the light, bathing the entire room in moonlight-hazed darkness, “canceling our night excursion does come with some kind of bad news.”

“Huh? What bad news?”

“School tomorrow, that’s ‘what bad news.’” She smiled and left, pulling the door behind her. School had been the farthest thing from my mind, what with all the chaos that was my life, but just knowing that I would be stuck in classes tomorrow instead of scouring Boston looking for Kayla’s missing dad was enough to send me over the edge; I actually felt sick to my stomach. Sleep ultimately consumed me, and I let it.

Daylight didn’t produce new results, either, as the weight of all I had managed to screw up was still fresh on my mind. I thought I had slept reasonably well considering, but the dark circles under my eyes and the fact that I couldn’t stop yawning told otherwise. I gave a quick glance toward Kayla’s bed as I climbed from mine, half expecting to see her deep in sleep. But her bed was empty, made as though never slept in. Had she not come back to our room last night? Did she sleep downstairs? Did she sleep at all? I rushed into the hall, a tad nervous that something bad (well, worse) had happened last night. I heard laughter coming from the kitchen downstairs and felt huge relief. The last thing I needed was for something bad to happen to Kayla; I wouldn’t be able to handle that. Half smiling, I crossed the hall to the bathroom, hell-bent on making it through this day, even if it killed me.

As tended to happen to me lately, the horrible memories of last night kept me on edge as I mindlessly threw on clothes, brushed my teeth and ran a brush through my hair to get ready for school. By the time Kayla and I pulled into the parking lot, I was sick again.

“It’ll get better,” she said as she once again held back my hair in the girls’ bathroom. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it will.” I emptied my stomach of what few bites of Mrs. Harper’s omelet breakfast I’d managed to swallow and washed my face in the sink. Thankfully Kayla thought to bring a toothbrush and toothpaste with us, so I quietly cleaned the sick from my mouth yet again. “Trust me, Ava. You’ll survive this.”

“How do you know?” I asked, the threat of more tears and sobbing frighteningly imminent.

A hidden emotion swept over her face before she spoke. “You know how crappy you feel right now? How it feels like your world has been pulled out from under you, and you’re falling and falling, with nowhere to land?” Boy did I ever. I didn’t speak, just nodded. “Well, multiply that by a thousand, and that’s how I felt after my dad went missing.”

Of course. I was such an idiot sometimes. “Kayla, I’m sorry. I’m being so childish right now, worrying about something like this.”

“It’s not childish, Ava. It’s not. It hurts. I get it.” She used her hand to “comb” my hair; I could only imagine its state of disarray, given my lack of beauty skills. She must’ve deemed me somewhat presentable, because she forced me out of the bathroom and into the hall with the throngs of other teenagers. I was so out of it I barely noticed the sweet scents of blood swirling all around me. “It was months before I was ready to do anything other than try and find my dad,” Kayla continued once we were in the hall. “It consumed me, ruled my life. It was the only way to deal with the pain.” That same pain, and the memory attached to it, was evident on her face. “But…eventually I moved forward. Now, finding my dad doesn’t control me. It’s just as important as ever, just not all-consuming.”

“I know it is. And I know it had to hurt a lot more than what I’m going through.” I took a deep breath, forcing it and my sorrow from my lungs, as I followed her down the hall toward our first class. “I promise you, Kayla, I’m not gonna stop until I find your dad. And make the vampires who took him pay for it.”

She laughed. “Okay, Linda Hamilton, let’s not go all Terminator 2, okay?”

“Who?”

“Geesh. Forget it, doesn’t matter. Just relax, that’s all I’m saying.” I cut my eyes at her just as we made it to my classroom (yes, she was nice enough to walk me to my first class). She tugged on my arm before I went inside. “Listen,” she went on, “no one wants to find my dad more than me. And even more since that stupid note. But like Erik said”—I winced at the mention of his name—“we have to be smart. I wanna make sure that we don’t walk blindly into Sebastian’s trap.”

“What makes you think it was Sebastian?” I recalled the conversation he and I had in the woods. Though I believed him about as much as the reality TV shows Kayla forced me to watch, he did say he didn’t take Mr. Harper.

“Who else could it have been? Aldric?” I had never even thought of my Creator as the one behind Mr. Harper’s disappearance. I honestly didn’t think Aldric could do something so horrible and act like nothing was wrong… But he had been MIA since Chance showed up again. Maybe it was him? I highly doubted it, but anything was possible. “It has to be Sebastian,” Kayla went on. “He’s the only one evil enough to up and kidnap somebody for no reason.”

“That’s the real question,” I said. “Why would someone want your dad?” I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but now, it was the only thing I could think of. Why would Sebastian—or any other vampire—want an archaeologist-turned-vampire researcher? It made no sense. Which is why it fit perfectly in my life.

“I have no idea,” Kayla went on. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. The only thing I can come up with is that my dad must’ve found out something that Sebastian—or whoever—doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“Any clue what that could be?”

The bell sounded before she had time to answer, and as she scurried off down the hall, my stomach lurched at the realization that I was about to be in the same room with my barely-new-but-now-ex boyfriend.

Yippee.

I clutched my books tightly to my chest and walked into class, nervous at seeing Chance since last night’s blowup. I kept my eyes glued to the floor as I made my way to the back of the room and slid into my seat. I took a couple of deep breaths before looking over at him. Well, over at where he should be.

But he wasn’t there.

I scanned the room, thinking he had taken a different seat so he wouldn’t have to be near me (which wouldn’t have surprised me, but would have really hurt), but he wasn’t in class. At all. My mind kicked into overdrive, thinking something horrible must have happened after I left him last night. Maybe he was attacked by Sebastian or some of his coven, or maybe even Aldric? Or maybe the police came back to finally clean up the house and found him there, sad and undead, and took him in? Or worse…killed him? I was on the verge of leaping from the desk and sprinting from the room when the teacher’s voice freed my mind from its speculation.

“Good of you to join us, Mr. Caldon.” My eyes crossed the room and there he was, coming through the door, hurried and disheveled. Vampire or not, there was no denying his bad case of bedhead. “I’ve been more than lenient due to the circumstances, but one more tardy and it’s detention, understand?”

“Yes, Ms. Potter.” Chance glided down the aisle and took a seat—his usual one—across from me. I was happy he didn’t feel the need to steer clear of me. At least we could be civilized in public, even if he didn’t want to be with me anymore. I watched in silence as he pulled books from his backpack just as Ms. Potter began the day’s Literature lesson. Fittingly, we were discussing The Great Gatsby. Hello, Daisy.

The rest of the hour, my mind was busy trying to consume the lesson gleaned from Daisy and Jay and Tom, while simultaneously trying to will Chance into at least looking over at me. I needed to know that he was okay, that last night hadn’t destroyed him like it had me. If he was fine—surviving—then I would be, too. But no matter how much I wanted him to, he never even glanced in my direction. At least, not while I was looking his way. It was only after the bell rang that his eyes moved from Ms. Potter standing at the front of class. He studiously reloaded his bag, stood up from his desk, and left the room. I had to scurry like a scared rat to catch up to him.

“Since you dumped me, that means you can’t even say hi?” Wow. All hour, I was pining for him to just look at me. Now, I was being a bitch. I was something else.

“I never said that.” Chance moved down the hall with ease, kids darting out of his way like they had for Lacey and her clones on my second day of school. I almost laughed out loud at the similarity.

“You didn’t say hi, either,” I pointed out. Punishment? Meet glutton.

“I know.”

Guess I had that coming. “I thought you said you love me?”

Chance slammed his locker door. “You don’t get to do that, Ava. You don’t get to walk away from me and then turn around and try to guilt me into being at your side all the time.”

“I walked away from you?” Was he serious? “You’re the one who said you couldn’t be with me, Chance, not the other way around.”

“Only because you said you didn’t want to be with me.”

“I never said that!” A couple of kids glared at us as they strode past. Great, now the entire school would know we were fighting.