Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (59 page)

I was trying to pay close attention and not freak out.

That night, I definitely got a taste of what Oliver did for a living. The experience did not reassure me. He could so easily be taken from her—from Laney. This knowledge only added to my already heavy level of stress.

“Stay vigilant,” Felix whispered, leading a group of us through one of the neighborhood streets of “Treeville.” We were silent as we followed. Staying in the shadows of the trees, and staying out of sight of civilian eyes.

Following Felix’s lead, and dressed in Oliver’s usual work attire—which was that of the entire coven: jeans and a black zipper-front sweatshirt with a hood—I crept around the side of a house.

Four other vamps were with us. In the dark cover between the house and the neighboring fence, they were making hand signals
and gesturing to each other like you see the sneaky tactical guys doing in the movies. I had no clue what their signals meant, and Felix knew it, so we kept in contact via our minds.

“Why don’t you keep in contact with the others like this?” I asked with my
thoughts.

“I cannot take the risk of letting just anyone into my head. Instead, I choose to use my ability with those I have a direct link or a connection to. For you, it is blood, being that we are related. With Oliver, it is my connection to him. I grew attached to him when he turned. He and his brother. If another has the same ability, we can learn to freely communicate with one another. Gwen had the ability. I had been teaching her to govern her gift before she was taken from us. Isaac and I have grown close, but he does not like for me to communicate with him in this way, unless it is unavoidable,” he responded telepathically.

“And Hayden?” I questioned.

“Because of her family line, the connection is there.” He was peering around the backside of the house, not looking at me, but staying in constant contact. Mentally.

“What about Laney?”

His head snapped toward mine
—his eyes catching the light from the window above me, giving them a very creepy look. “I cannot speak of my connection to her,” his mental voice had an air of anger to it.

“What?”

“Say no more,” he said, and like that, the conversation was over.

Although that comment was hard to ignore, I did my best and focused on our task. Or mission, as the other vamps had referred to it.

I gave myself a chill in that moment, because it was then that I realized, I too was a vampire. Or at least, I was being housed in a vamp. Even the fact I’d been drinking blood, having trouble keeping Oliver’s fangs under control, and all the other super awesome vampire stuff that came with being Oliver, I still hadn’t actually put it together that I was one.

Felix hissed my name in my mind, and I quickly brought myself back to the present moment.

It took me a few minutes to realize where we were. It was the cat lady’s house. The six of us were slowly making our way to her backyard.

“The cat lady?” I mentally questioned.

“She is on our side, though she would never admit to it.” Felix’s voice boomed in my head. Well, in Oliver’s head, but my mind.

The cat lady was having a meeting with the slayers. Somehow the slayers and their meeting with the cat lady was related to Ashton getting his ass beat. I couldn’t see how, but I felt there was a lot more than just this information that I was missing…

The Paul dude Laney told me about, the guy we’d seen with Ashton and Professor Morgan a while back, was sitting at the cat lady’s kitchen table with her and three others. That is what one of my fellow BHV relayed to us as he hurried back around to where we were waiting, in the darkness, on the side of the house.

He’d snuck undetected to the
back door and was able to peer in and listen. This particular Brookehaven Vamp was small, quick, and kinda spastic—twitching and jittery like the guy had way too much energy. But he was thorough and loyal according to Felix. Ironically enough, they called him Spaz. His real name was Ibraham. Yeah, I’d go by Spaz too.

Felix quietly gave each one us our orders. Mine
was to catch anyone who escaped from the front of the house. Seemed simple, but the information he neglected to tell me was that vamp slayers were ruthless. They fought dirty, and they always used a vampire-debilitating item.

One other vamp was stationed with me out front, while one waited in the backyard, and the other three busted in through the
back door, Felix being one who was going inside.

While I waited, I bounced where I stood. I was super freaking nervous.

I heard the others bust through the back of the house, and the Slayers tried to scatter. The Paul dude, in his long, leather trench coat, was the first out the front door. I was on him in a heartbeat. My partner was on the next slayer to exit the front of the house.

I chased Paul into the neighboring backyard. For an older dude, he sure could haul ass!

He was almost at the back fence as I sprinted across the yard. I think he was going to attempt jumping over it, but I tackled him to the ground before he could give it a go. Unfortunately, that’s when he whipped out a very sharp and very long dragon claw. He got me across the palm of my hand. It burned like a son-of-a-bitch. I jerked my hand back which only gave him more space to slash at me again. This time he got me across the shoulder, tearing right through the fabric on my sweatshirt.

I let out a cry of pain this time—my senses were just too raw. I could feel his anger and his hatred for me, and along with the pain I was in, it was too much.

I pushed away from him, shoving him back while I tried to get to my feet.

He took advantage of my vulnerability. He slashed the claw at me again, slicing the sweatshirt and the tee beneath it right through to reveal the bare skin of my chest. And with another swipe, he got me.

I let out a painful cry, a loud one.

I was bleeding, badly. I staggered as I got to my feet. I was hugging myself, trying to keep the blood in Oliver’s body when Paul came at me again. Thankfully the scream I’d let loose had alerted the others. Spaz busted through the side of the yard, fence boards splintering and raining down on me as he rushed to my aid. Just as Paul came at me again, I stumbled back and away from him. Spaz tackled him, knocking Paul to the ground so hard I heard the air knock out of that slayer bastard. Spaz was quick to flip Paul onto his face and dig a knee into the bastard’s back.

The back porch light came on, lighting the yard we were in. Someone opened the back door and called out, “Who’s out there?”

Spaz, who was still holding a verbally angry Paul facedown to the ground, shouted back, “Get back inside, sir.” He also said something about police business.

Porch Dude was quick to slam and lock his door. But he’d left the light on.

Not that I wouldn’t have been able to see it in the dark, but with the porch light on, it almost illuminated what I was seeing.
Looking down at the front of myself, which was the front of Oliver’s body, I saw that the fabric hanging open over my chest was soaked in dark blood. I was starting to feel cold.

I heard Spaz call Oliver’s name. My attention moved to the vamp
who had just saved my ass. I watched him zip tie Paul’s hands behind his back and effortlessly pull the vampire slayer to his feet.

Spaz said something to me, but he sounded far away.
Really
far away. And when I tried to focus on him as he said something else, he looked like he was being sucked up by a black tunnel.

It hurt even more when I fell to my knees. Then everything was black.

The Dreaded Call

I was having trouble sleeping. I had so much on my mind. All that stuff about my dad, about Amber, Felix, Levi, and even Phoenix… I was still trying to piece it together, or tear it apart.

Had Carter not been there when
I’d gotten home, I might have questioned Oliver. I wondered if he could answer me since he wasn’t in his own body. I figured he couldn’t. I imagined a magical contract covered many aspects, especially the consciousness of the mind…

To top things off, my mind was also consumed by
thoughts of our situation. It had been three long days of this nightmare. Would it ever end? What if it didn’t?

As I lay there in the dark of my bedroom, facing Oliver’s side of the bed, a figure appeared in the doorway. It was Oliver’s body. Carter watched me “sleep” for a few minutes before he left. It was kind of weird, but so was every part of my life at the moment.

I wondered where Carter was going so late at night and with Felix. I heard Felix’s voice as “Oliver” was leaving.

I got that Carter was pretending to be Oliver, but the real Oliver was supposed to be on light duty. He wasn’t supposed to be getting called out in the middle of the night. Maybe Felix had found something. Maybe our nightmare would soon be over.

I tried to fall back to sleep, but I was anxious. I was worried about him, about Carter.

What if Felix hadn’t found anything, and they were just going out on Brookehaven business? I couldn’t imagine Felix would put him in danger, but I still worried.

Carter was impulsive. He might try something he shouldn’t. Like trying to actually
be
Oliver. I always worried about Oliver every time he was called out, but this was different. This was Carter, and he wasn’t Oliver. He didn’t have the experience Oliver had.

Eventually, my eyelids grew heavy. I was teetering between dreaming and reality when a sound pulled me to the reality side.

I didn’t move. I had my back to the window—the window I made sure was locked before getting into bed. A sudden gust of the cold night air hit my back as I heard the window to my bedroom slide open. I was frozen with fear.

A moment later the window was closed and my bedside lamp was turned on, casting a familiar shadow on the wall. Then the mattress moved as that someone sat on it just behind me.

With a mental reminder of what happened the last time this particular someone had snuck into my room and paid me a visit, I let out the loudest scream I could muster before even looking at Oliver’s brother. It was a good thing I did, because as soon as the scream started, it was ended by a familiar and unwelcomed hand.

Oscar had me pinned to the bed in a second—one hand over my mouth, the forearm of his other pinned across my chest. It did me no good to struggle beneath him, he seemed to enjoy it, so I stopped. A moment later, he released me and got off the bed, a satisfied smile on his face.

I scrambled to Oliver’s side of the bed and pressed my back against the headboard.

Oliver, in Carter’s body and nothing but a pair of boxers, was in the doorway a moment later. It seemed to take him a second to realize what was going on.

Oscar had Oliver’s picture in his hand. He’d taken it from Oliver’s dresser. It was the picture of Oscar, Oliver, and Olivia as kids. Oscar was gazing down at the picture. His smile was gone.

This was when Oliver made a mistake.

“That’s mine,” Oliver growled. Realizing what he’d just done, I saw it immediately register across his face.

“Oh, is it?” Oscar said, a wicked smile forming as he looked up from the photo to “Carter.”

Oliver didn’t say another word. His body was tight, his hands were balled into fists. He was ready to attack.

I was terrified by what the outcome might be. I was afraid things might not favor our side. My eyes shot to Oscar as he spoke.

“I wondered if you were home,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met.”

A moment later, Oliver launched himself across the room at Oscar.

I jumped off the bed and ran from the room as they started punching each other and slamming the other into the nearest wall or piece of furniture.

I searched the front room for my phone and soon realized it was on my nightstand in my bedroom. I ran for Carter’s room hoping his phone was in there.

With no luck, I hurried back to the front door. If I had to, I would go to the neighbors and pound on their door until they let me use their phone. I didn’t know Felix’s number by heart, but I’d call 911 at this point.

The sound of glass shattering pulled me away from the front door. I stayed where I was and listened.

It was too quiet.

Carter’s body wasn’t as strong as Oliver’s. He wouldn’t be able to take as much from Oscar, not like Oliver could.

With fear in my heart, I ran for my room.

A staggering Carter/Oliver was just getting to his feet. He was right in front of our shattered bedroom window. He was holding the back of his head with one hand. When he pulled his hand away to look at it, it was covered in blood.

I rushed forward, but he held out his other hand to stop me.

“Stay back, there’s glass everywhere. I’m alright, Laney,” he added, trying to reassure me. Bright blue eyes held mine. Apparently Carter’s body had put up a good fight. Oscar had been so desperate to get away, he’d busted the bedroom window to escape.

Carefully, Oliver made his way to me.

I got him seated at the kitchen table, then I hurried to the bathroom for a towel. There was no doubt he
needed stitches.