Shiver (Night Roamers) (23 page)

“
Oh, God…what am I going to do?” moaned my mom, sitting down on a chair. “He still expects me to go.”

“You need to get out of town,”
said Sonny. “You can’t stay in Shore Lake anymore. In fact, it’s not safe for you or Nikki. I’m going to make some calls and see if I can find a safe place for you.”

“Okay,” she answered
, nodding. “I’d appreciate any help you can give us.”

From the look on my mom’s face, I could tell she was
more than a little distraught. I grabbed her hand. “Mom, it’s going to work out.”

She nodded
in agreement but still looked pensive.

“Duncan? You okay?” asked Nathan.

I turned to stare at Duncan, who appeared to be sweating and shaky.

“I’m fine,” he murmured
, clenching and unclenching his fist.

From the way he was acting,
I knew exactly what was wrong with him. “You need to feed,” I said.

“I’ll be fine,” said Duncan, stumbling towards the hallway leading to
wards the bathroom.

I followed him. “Duncan?”

He closed the door and locked it.

I knocked. “Duncan?”

“Leave me alone,” he answered.

“What’s going on?” asked Sonny, standing next to me.

“He has to feed,” I said.

Sonny pounded on the door. “Son? You okay?”

I could hear Duncan groaning in the bathroom. “I’m fine, just leave me alone,” he said.

“What can I do for you?” asked Sonny.
“Just tell me.”

“Just leave me be,” growled Duncan.

“I’ll give him some blood,” I whispered. “It will help him.”

Sonny shook his head and began rolling up his sleeve
. “The hell you will. If anyone is going to volunteer, it will be me. I’m his father and I’ve got a lot more to spare then you, honey.”

“Go away,” demanded Duncan. “I won’t take it from either of you.”

“Duncan,” I pleaded. “You need to feed.”

The door
suddenly opened and Duncan stood staring at us, swaying slightly. “Excuse me.”

We moved out of the way
, and before either of us could blink, Duncan was gone and we could hear the front door slam.

“Jesus,” said Sonny. “How the hell can he move that fast?”

“He’s no longer human,” I said
, closing my eyes.

Sonny p
acked everyone into his Tahoe and proceeded to take us home around five-thirty that morning. My mom sat in front with him while Nathan and I rode in the back.

“I hope Duncan will be okay,”
said Sonny, rubbing his chin. “I feel so damn helpless. I can’t do anything for him except give him my support. It’s frustrating.”

“He’ll be okay,”
said mom. “Duncan’s a smart kid and I know he’ll do the right thing.”

“
He’s also not like the rest of them,” I said.  “He’d never take it from someone by force. In fact, he probably went to Nightshade; apparently they have very willing donors.”

“
It’s barbaric,” whispered my mom. “The more I think about it, the more it disturbs me.”

“You have no idea what barbaric is,” I
said, “Until you’ve walked into that sick place.”

I then told them about the things I’d seen in the club, leaving out the part of walking in on Ethan
having sex. It was still too painful to talk about.

“
The club isn’t always like that,” said Nathan.”

Mom turned around. “How would you know?”

He shrugged. “Celeste took me there before.”

She scowled.
“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“You’ve been too busy with Caleb,” I mumbled.

She sighed but didn’t say anything.

“I’m exhausted,” yawned Nathan. “
I could sleep for days.”

Before long
, we were back at the cabin and memories of what happened earlier came to mind.

“Great,” I mumbled, walking up the stairs towards my room. “Duncan and Ethan were in my bedroom earlier. I don’t even want to see the damage.”

“What?” asked mom.

“They were fighting over Nikki,” said Nathan.

Mom followed me to my bedroom and we both groaned in horror at the horrible mess. My bed was in shambles, my pictures and everything was knocked down from my dresser, and there was broken glass on the carpet.

“How in the world did they get blood on the ceiling?” cringed my mother.

“Don’t ask,” I said, picking up broken pieces of my alarm clock.

“This is going to take a long time to clean
,” she said. “Why don’t you just sleep in my room for now?”

I nodded. “Okay. I’m too tired to deal with this mess now
anyway.”

“I’ll be joining you in a few,” she said.
“I’ll see Sonny out and then be back up.”

I changed into a clean
T-shirt and shorts then shuffled into her room, exhausted. As I lay in my mom’s bed, I thought about Ethan and how he’d lied to me about everything. Nothing he’d done had made sense, and when I finally fell asleep, my dreams were troubled.

A half hour later, I woke up to the sounds of screams.

“No!” screamed my mother from somewhere down below.

I leaped out of bed a
nd rushed down the steps. When I made it to the main floor, I noticed she was nowhere to be found but the front door was wide open.

“What’s going on?” hollered Nathan, coming up behind me.

“It’s mom,” I said. “She was screaming.”

He bolted
around me and I followed him outside.

“Mom!” he yelled.

We stepped off of the porch and walked around the deck, towards the lake. It was then that we both froze in shock.

“Sonny!” screamed Nath
an in anguish.

“Oh
, my God!” I choked.

Sonny’s body lay broken and twisted near the boat launch, his eyes staring blindly up into the early morning light. We ran
to his body and crouched down, trying to find a pulse.

“Who
could have done this?” I cried.

Nathan scowled. “Probably Ethan or Caleb.”

I stared at him in horror. “Or Faye?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Nathan, where’s mom?” I whispered, looking around.

He stood up and wiped the tears from his face. “Mom!”

“Mom!” I yelled, getting back to my feet. “Mom!”

We started walking back towards the house, calling frantically f
or her, but she didn’t answer.

“I just heard her screaming!” I cried. “She can’t be too far.”

“Caleb must have taken her. We have to go and search for her.”

I nodded.
“I think he knew something was wrong when he brought you back to Sonny’s.”

“Let’s go back into the house and get dressed. We’ll need some weap
ons or something. Shit!” he hollered, frantically running a hand through his hair. “What the hell can we even use against these things?”

I was already running up the stairs. “I don’t know
, but let’s find something sharp!”

I
quickly got dressed and then went back downstairs, where I grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen.

“We need Duncan,” said Nathan, coming up behind me. He grabbed his cell phone from the counter and
tried calling his number.

“He’s going to be wrecked,” I moaned, thinking about how much he loved his father. “Poor Duncan.”

Nathan closed his eyes and nodded. “Come on,” he said into the phone. “Pick up, bro.”

When Duncan didn’t
answer, Nathan slammed his phone down on the counter.

“Don’
t! You’ll break it and then she won’t be able to contact you.”

He picked it back up and reached for
his own knife from the butcher block. Then we drove back to Duncan’s house and as I kind of expected, he wasn’t home.

“Should we check the club?” I asked nervously, although the last thing in the world I wanted to see was him with another girl, even if he was just feeding.

“We don’t have time,” said Nathan. “Let’s go get mom before Caleb does something disgusting and irreversible to her.”

I nodded in agreement.

When we arrived at Caleb’s mansion, it was eerily quiet.

“
Well, Caleb’s squad car is here,” said Nathan, gripping his knife firmly. “And there,” he pointed, “is his Jeep.”

I noticed t
here were two other cars parked in front of the house, but I didn’t recognize either of them.

“Should we knock?” I whispered
as we stepped onto the porch, both weapons in hand. I really didn’t think we’d have much chance with the weapons, but it gave me extra courage.

He licked his lips and shook his head. “No, let’s just go in.
Chances are they know we’re here anyway.”

My heart was
pounding as he turned the knob and I half expected Celeste to greet us like she did the day before, this time, however, as an enemy. Fortunately, I was wrong.

“What are we going to do if he won’t let us see her?” I whispered.

“He has to. I won’t take no for an answer,” snapped Nathan.

We searched the lower level first, but found no signs of anyone.

“I’m sure they’re upstairs,” he whispered. “Resting or whatever it is they do.”

I nodded and followed him. As we crept upstairs, I could hear myself breathing heavily with fear.

Suddenly Nathan stopped and I slammed into him. “Listen,” he whispered, turning to glance at me. “If this doesn’t go the way we’d planned, I just want to say sorry for doubting you these past few months, and…I love you, Twerp.”

“Me too,” I whispered.

He released a shaky sigh. “I hope this plan works and we don’t end up as bat food.”

“Nathan
, I don’t think these particular vampires turn into bats.”

“Whatever. Let’s just have each other’s backs at all costs.”

I nodded and continued to follow him.

After inspecting three bedrooms on the second level and
finding nothing, we went up to the third and final level.

“
I’ve been up here before. This is where Ethan’s room was.”

“I hope he’s back so I can slice his throat,” mumbled
Nathan.

We proceeded to check
each of the bedrooms and found they were also empty.

“What’s going on?” I whispered angrily. “Where the hell is everyone?”