Crave 02 - Sacrifice (30 page)

“I’
M NOT SURE THIS IS SOMETHING
you want to do,” Gabriel said.

“Me either,” Shay admitted. They were parked outside Olivia’s house, where they’d been sitting for almost an hour. “But I’m going.” Still, she didn’t get out of the car. She wanted to explain to Olivia. Her best friend had truly come through for her, time after time, even though Shay knew she hadn’t deserved it. She’d never appreciated Olivia enough. Now that she did, she was afraid it was too late.

How could she expect her friend to understand? As many times as she’d tried to figure out a way to describe everything that had happened, she hadn’t come up with anything that felt even remotely right.

Olivia had seen Shay with her teeth planted in someone’s throat.
How does she rationalize that to herself?
Shay wondered for the millionth time. People with a full sanity tank didn’t believe in vampires. Not unless they were forced to. Maybe Liv thought Shay was some kind of crazy serial killer. Or that she’d gone on a drug-induced frenzy. She
had
been pretty twitchy that night, and both Olivia and Kaz had noticed.

“So . . . you’re going?” Gabriel prodded her.

“Yeah. Yes. Yep, I am,” Shay said, so nervous, she was using three times as many words as she needed. She didn’t reach for the door handle. “Really. In a couple of seconds. I just need something good first.”

She turned toward Gabriel and threaded her fingers into his curly hair. “Come here.” She gently tugged his head closer to hers. Not that he needed any urging to kiss her. Gabriel always wanted to kiss her. After everything that had happened, there were no barriers between them anymore. They’d gone through the most intense experience of their lives together, and they were bonded now, twined together forever.

There was something different about kissing someone you were in communion with, at least based on Shay’s vast experience of having kissed a whole two other guys besides Gabriel. But in addition to the feel of Gabriel’s lips, and the play of his tongue against hers, Shay was filled with his emotions, conscious every second of how much he loved her.

With a sigh, Shay forced herself to pull away from him. “Olivia,” she said.

“Olivia,” Gabriel repeated. “I could go with you.”

“That would make it worse. Two vampires standing on her front porch, especially after what she saw me do . . . No, I’ve got to go alone.” She kissed his cheek. “But thank you.” Shay put her hand on the door handle, and this time she opened it. She walked directly to Olivia’s front door and rang the bell before she had the chance to wimp out.

Olivia would be the one to answer the door. Or at least she was the only one home to do it. The scents that Shay was picking up from Olivia’s parents and younger brother weren’t fresh. They’d been gone for at least a couple of hours.

She’s coming,
Shay thought, hearing Olivia’s soft footsteps. Her stomach gave a slow roll as the door swung open. Olivia’s face paled as soon as she saw Shay, and Shay was intently aware of the change in her friend’s blood flow. It was pretty easy to fight down her bloodlust, though. Mom had stolen more blood from the hospital, and Shay had fed right before they left.

Olivia started to slam the door, but her human reflexes were no match for Shay’s vampire speed. Her human strength was no match for Shay’s vampire power either. Shay easily caught the door and held it open, even though Olivia was using all her weight to push it shut.

“I just want to talk to you for one second,” Shay said. “Please, Olivia. I’m still your friend. I’m still the person you’ve known forever, the person you love to boss around. I’m just me.”

“You ripped that woman’s throat out,” Olivia accused, her voice sharp with panic. “There’s nothing you can say. I saw you.”

“I didn’t rip it out. I didn’t even really hurt her. I drank from her, that’s all.”
That’s all.
Like the fact that Shay drank blood would reassure Olivia. “I . . . something happened to me, Olivia. Martin was giving me these transfusions and—”

“I’ll call the cops.” Olivia took her cell out of the front pocket of her hoodie. Shay could easily have snatched the phone away, but that wouldn’t calm Olivia down and get her to really listen.

“Let me explain first,” Shay begged.

“No. Leave now or I call,” Olivia insisted.

“Please. I’m not going to hurt you. I can explain—”

Olivia tried to dial, but her fingers were trembling too much to hit the buttons with any accuracy. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re not Shay. Get away from me. Now!” Her voice rose with each word, until she was screaming, her eyes wide and bright with hysteria.

“Liv—,” Shay tried again.

“Got it!” Olivia cried. “It’s ringing. Go or I’m telling them to come get you.”

Shay held up both hands. “Okay, I’m going.”

“Don’t ever come back,” Olivia warned.

“I won’t,” Shay answered, tears stinging her eyes. She turned and ran back to the car. She jumped behind the wheel and slammed the door. Gabriel didn’t ask what had happened as she drove back to her house. He didn’t need to. He’d have been able to hear every word without a problem. And even if he couldn’t, their communion would tell him that it had gone very, very badly.

She thinks I’m a monster.
The word repeated itself over and over in Shay’s head as she drove.
Monster, monster.

“Most humans really are as scared and dangerous as Ernst thought they were,” Gabriel said quietly. “You and your mother are the exceptions. Most people . . . well, they assume that we’re evil. All of us.”

“I know,” Shay whispered. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”

He was silent for the rest of the drive, letting her cry.

“Do you think we need to be concerned that she’ll send the police here?” Gabriel asked when Shay pulled into her driveway and turned off the car.

She kneaded the steering wheel with her fingers, a habit she’d picked up from her mom without even realizing it. She made herself let go. “I don’t think so. I think she wants to forget it ever happened. And it’s not as if the police would have an easy time believing I tore someone’s throat out with my teeth. I’m still known around here as the sick girl.”

“There’s that,” Gabriel agreed. “But we still have to leave. We shouldn’t even stay another night. We’ve been here far too long already.” Shay’s mom had driven Shay, Gabriel, Tamara, Millie, and Luis home five days before, after the fire. They’d taken Martin’s van, since he’d already rigged it to keep the sunlight out. Mom’s Mercedes was too small to hold them all. They’d awoken at sunset in Shay’s garage—weak and shaky, with Tamara, Millie, and Luis still paralyzed and hawthorn-sick.

“That’s what they were talking about when we left,” Shay commented. Tamara had been urging Luis to leave with her, just go, right then. Even after Shay’s mother had saved her life, dragged her into the van, taken her to a safe place, and kept her out of the sun, Tamara was still filled with hatred and mistrust. The instant the hawthorn had begun to wear off, she’d wanted to leave.

“People are going to start asking questions about Martin soon,” Gabriel said. “A man like that, who’s been on the cover of
Time
magazine and everything, can’t disappear without a huge investigation.
We need to be far away when that happens. We’ll all get new identities, start a new life.”

Shay sighed. She didn’t need to be in communion with the other vampires to feel their confusion over what to do next. She felt the same confusion within herself.

“They’re really getting into it now,” Gabriel commented. For a moment they both listened to the argument going on inside. With their vampire senses, it was easy to hear the raised voices.

That was all he said, but Shay could feel his sadness—sadness and, underneath that, grief over Ernst’s death. “Do you think . . . It doesn’t sound like everyone wants to stay together. At least not Tamara,” Shay said. “Will they break up the family?”

“Do you want the family to stay together?” Gabriel asked her.

Shay started to answer, then hesitated. “How can you have a private conversation when you live with other vampires?”

“Privacy isn’t really a thing with us. With the communion, we’re all connected anyway. Or we were,” Gabriel replied. The communion only existed between him and Shay now. All the other family members had been hit with hawthorn darts during the attack at the farmhouse. “But right now they’re probably too busy with their own conversation to listen to ours.”

True. It was hard to talk to someone and listen in on a separate conversation at the same time. “I know how important your family is to you. It’s just that when I look at Tamara and Luis, all I see is them draining the blood out of you.”

“I did the same thing. To Sam. You know that,” Gabriel said.

They hadn’t talked about it since that night when he’d almost died in her arms. Shay fought down the image of Gabriel drinking
from her father, putting him to death. “You thought it was to keep your family safe. And we’ve both forgiven you—my father and me,” Shay reminded him. It was the truth. She believed it in her heart and her gut. She didn’t think she would have made the same choice, but then she hadn’t seen her family annihilated by a bunch of humans.

“That’s the same reason Luis did it to me,” Gabriel answered. “Tamara too.”

“No, she wanted vengeance. She was furious. She wanted to kill you because she thinks you killed Richard. She’s still seething, I can hear it in her voice.” Shay almost started kneading the steering wheel again, but she stopped her hands in time.

“In a way, I did kill Richard,” Gabriel told her.

“No, what you did was—,” Shay began.

“I didn’t save him,” Gabriel interrupted. “I let him sacrifice himself, when if I’d simply left you in the basement and gone to help Ernst, we most certainly would have killed Martin before he could detonate his bomb.”

“I know.” Shay reached over and took his hand. “I’d be dead if you hadn’t gotten me out of there, though. I hate that you had to make that choice.” She could feel the weight of it in him, and he already carried so much guilt and regret.

“It wasn’t a choice,” Gabriel said, his dark eyes intent on her face. “I couldn’t let you die. But that doesn’t mean Tamara’s wrong.”

“It was Martin’s fault,” Shay said. “Not yours.” But she tried to imagine how she’d feel if someone had let Gabriel die to save . . . anyone else’s life. Even thinking about it opened a well of icy blackness in her chest. “And now he’s dead,” she added.

“And we’re alive,” Gabriel said.

“Yeah.” It was hard to believe that they’d both survived that night. Her mother, too. Shay had so much to be thankful for, and yet . . .

“Thinking about Olivia?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah,” Shay said. “The way she—”

Shay didn’t have time to finish before Tamara strode out of the house, her face hard with determination. Gabriel climbed out of the car and intercepted her. Shay followed him.

“We were just going to go in and talk to everybody about what we should do now,” Gabriel told his sister.

“You do that,” Tamara told him. “I’m gone.” She tried to step around Gabriel, but he blocked her.

“Tam, we’re still your family,” Gabriel said. “We still—”

“The only reason I joined the family was Richard, and he’s dead,” Tamara said, her eyes, cold and hard, flicking over to Shay. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay, fine. Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. She hesitated. “Look, just stay with us until you figure things out. It’s safer.”

“Safer? Are you delusional?” Tamara snapped. “She brought all this on us.” Tamara jerked her chin at Shay.

“And my mother and I saved your life,” Shay reminded her.

“After you led the killer to us. After he killed Richard,” Tamara shot back. She shoved her thick hair away from her face. “I understand that you saved me. It’s the only reason you and that human woman are still alive.” She turned back to Gabriel. “I won’t be around them another second. Them or you.”

This time when she started to circle around Gabriel, he let her. “Let’s go talk to the others,” he said to Shay.

“You okay?” Shay asked, even though she could feel through the communion that he wasn’t. Worry, and anger, and anxiety, and guilt were pulsing out of him.

“You’re with me. That’s all that matters.”
Liar,
Shay thought, but she smiled at him. Even though it wasn’t all that mattered, it was the most important thing. To both of them.

When they walked into the house, they found Luis, Millie, and Shay’s mother gathered in the living room. “We couldn’t stop her,” Luis said.

“It’s her choice,” Gabriel replied. “Now we have to figure out what the rest of us are going to do. I think we should leave for one of the other safe houses tonight. We can get to the ones farther west as long as we’re willing to risk staying in motels along the way. If we arrive at night and check in, we should be safe enough during the death sleeps. Once we’re at the safe house, we can regroup and make real plans.”

“I want to come,” Shay’s mom declared. “There’s nothing for me here anymore, and I’ll be the one who has to explain what happened to Martin. It’ll be easier for me to just disappear, frankly.”

It’s true,
Shay realized.
It’s not like she has friends here, not close ones, anyway. She’s lived her whole life for me for so long. I’m all she has.

“I’d like her to be with us,” Shay told the others. “I know I don’t really have the right to a vote or anything—”

“You have the same rights as any of us. You’re part of the family,” Gabriel said. “She’s part of the family,” he repeated, as though waiting to be contradicted. But Luis and Millie just nodded. “How do you feel about Emma joining us?”

“You could use me, you know,” Shay’s mom reminded them. “I can
go out in the daytime and protect you during your death sleep. I can be your front person with other people. Humans. Human people,” she finished awkwardly.

Shay saw Luis’s mouth twist in a small smile.

“You’ve lost a father,” Mom added in a rush. “I think you could use a mother. Even if some of you are hundreds of years older than I am.”