Shiver (Night Roamers) (28 page)

“Run, Gabriel,” barked the old man.

I grabbed the old man and surprising even myself, snapped his neck like a twig.

“Dad!”
screamed the younger man, rushing towards us as I dropped his father.

“Stop!” I demanded
, still stunned that I’d actually killed another human being so efforetlessly.

But Gabriel
grabbed me and punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground. “Demon!” he yelled. “I’m going to send you back to hell!”

“No!” I choked, standing up as he grabbed
for his gun. I was faster, however, and seconds later, I had him down on the bed.

He screamed and tried pushing me away as I lowered my mouth to his neck. I sunk my teeth
into his skin and began to drain the life out of him. Soon, he lay limp and I was able to finally relax my hold, savoring the sweet, tangy flavor of his blood. I felt the familiar heat spreading throughout my body and my thoughts returned, once again, to Ethan.

Ethan
.

I could see him out of the corner of my eye and I began to choke on the
other man’s blood. I pushed him away and moved closer to Ethan.

“
No,” I moaned, staring in horror at the damage the bullet had inflicted on his head. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I studied him. I knew he could recover from wounds, but this seemed beyond any kind of resurrection. I held his face to my chest and sobbed, hoping beyond hope for some kind of a miracle.

We
stayed that way for a long time and his skin grew so cool that I tried wrapping my body around him to offer heat. When that didn’t work, I tore open my wrist and pushed it towards his mouth, hoping it would somehow draw him out and that maybe he’d miraculously wake up. But he didn’t respond to that, either.

“Come back to me,” I w
ept, touching his face with my fingertips. “Please come back to me.”

I held him
in my arms for what seemed like hours. When the sun went down and he still didn’t wake up, I realized in horror that he really wasn’t coming back.

Releasing a ragged sigh, I went into the closet and
found a large pair of overalls and a white T-shirt. They practically fell off of my small frame, but I had no other choice.

“I will always love you, Ethan,” I whis
pered somberly, kissing his cheek, wishing he’d suddenly raise his head and give me one of his sexy little smiles. But he didn’t even twitch.

As a last resort, I ripped a piece of fabric from his shirt, tore open the old man’s throat and dipped it inside, smothering it with blood. I then pushed part of the wet fabric into
Ethan’s mouth and let it rest there. It was a hopeless gesture, but I didn’t know what else to do.

I walked to the door and turned back to look at him, one last time. “Goodbye,”
I whispered, before I eventually walked out of the room.

After cleaning some of the blood from my face and hair in the bathroom, I went outside and found an old truck parked next to the cabin, with the keys still in the ignition. I hopped inside and started the engine.

“Where the hell am I?” I mumbled, trying to find a way out.

The woods were dark but my eyes now seemed to adjust very well to nightfall. I quickly found the road and began driving, although I wasn’t sure where in the hell I was even going. After driving north for a good forty-five minutes, I found a gas station and went inside. The moment I entered, the smell of pot and bubblegum engulfed my senses.

“Can I help you?” asked the
stoned cashier who looked at me like I was some kind of freak.

I touched my face, wondering if I’d missed any blood. “Um, where am I?”

She smacked her gum and smiled. “You lost?”

I nodded.

She sighed and pushed a road map across the counter. “You’re in Wolf Creek.”

“Can I have this?”
I asked, holding the map up.

She nodded
. “Yeah, for five dollars.”

“
Well, can I at least just take a look at it?”

She shrugged.
“Suit yourself.”

I moved away from the counter and began studying the map. When I noticed I was only two hundred miles south of Shore Lake, I sighed in relief. I’d be home in less than three hours.

“Thanks,” I told the girl, handing her back the map.

“Um, just keep it,”
she replied with a grimace, pushing it back towards me.

I
t was then I noticed the blood smudged on the paper. “Oh, sorry,” I laughed weakly. “I… um hit a deer and had to push it off my vehicle. It was pretty gross.”

“Bummer,” she said, smacking her gum again. She
then returned to some fashion magazine she was reading.

When I go
t back into the truck, I looked at myself in the mirror and winced. I’d missed wiping the blood from my neck. I sighed and started driving.

***

When I finally made it back to Shore Lake, I went straight to the cabin, which had first appeared breathtakingly beautiful and serene but now appeared dangerously ominous. As I climbed out of the truck and approached the front porch, my stomach knotted up. My brother’s car was now, surprisingly, parked outside of the cabin and I had no idea what was waiting for me inside. The realization that he might already be dead wasn’t new to me, but it definitely was hard to swallow. I said a silent prayer and made my way up to the porch, trembling the whole way. As I got closer to the front door, I noticed it was slightly open.

Crap.

I placed my hand on the knob and took a couple of deep breaths before I finally had the courage to push it open. Of course it made a small creaking noise that seemed to echo more loudly than any gunshot I’d heard the past few days.

I stood in the entryway and was immediately met with an
entourage of magnified smells – cedar, Pine Sol, and stale fruit. Fortunately, I didn’t smell anything else, including blood.

I let out a sigh of relief and began searching the house. When I found nothing in the lower level, I walked upstairs to search the bedrooms and started with Nathan’s, which was a mess. Clothes were strewn all over the place, someone had emptied out most of his drawers, and his model cars were broken and scattered. Someo
ne had clearly done this in spite and anger. Seeing this mess added to my own rage.

I left his bedroom and searched my mother’s
, but didn’t find anything unusual. My room was still a horrific mess, but I didn’t seem to care about it anymore.

As I wa
lked by my dresser mirror, I was again surprised to find an actual reflection, which looked pretty horrible at the moment. I seriously needed to get out of the dreadful clothes and clean up. I decided to risk a quick shower and then head over to Caleb’s to see if I could find something that would lead me to my mother or Nathan.

I grabbed a towel and then jumped into the shower, washing my body as quickly as possible. As I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I thought of Etha
n and my eyes welled up again. I still couldn’t believe he was gone, killed by a simple shot to the head. I forced the image from my mind and finished up in the shower. When I was done, I wrapped the towel around my body and went back into my room.

“
You’re alive.”

“Duncan!” I gasped, tightening my
towel. “I thought you were dead!”

“Surprise, I’m not.”
He moved towards me and grabbed my arm. “Where is he?”

I shrugged him off. “Ethan?”

“Yeah, Ethan. Where’s that bastard?”

I glared at him. “He’s dead.”

He laughed. “Right.”

“He is dead!”

Duncan’s eyes softened a little as he stared into my eyes. “I really thought you were dead, too,” he murmured. “God, I was so worried about you.”

I raised my chin. “
Well, I almost died,
no
thanks to you.”

He frowned.
“I had nothing to do with you getting shot. In fact, Ethan is the one who put you in danger, so don’t blame me.”

“Ethan
is the one who saved my life. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”

His eyes moved to my
neck and his face fell. “No… he turned you?”

I looked away and nodded. I was still hav
ing trouble accepting the fact that I was now one of them. I hadn’t really wanted it, even if it had saved me from death.

He cleared his throat
. “Have you fed yet?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But don’t you see? These Roamers are the ones who’ve messed up all of our lives. Ethan dying is probably the best thing that could have happened.”

I pushed him backwards. “Don’t say that!”

He scowled. “He killed my father.”

I shook my head. “No, they were lying to you, Duncan. It was either Caleb or Faye. I swear to God.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” he said.

“I know that Faye is a
n evil, maniacal woman who will say or do anything to get her way.”

He turned around and walked over to the balcony.
“I guess I can’t really argue that.”

“Look,” I said. “I need to get dressed and look for my family.
I don’t even know if they’re still alive. Do you happen to know anything?”

Duncan turned around
. “I think they’re all in Vegas.”

My eyes widened. “Alive?”

“I hope.”

“
And Nathan, too?”

He nodded. “Celeste came for him.”

I released a sigh of relief. “Was he doing okay when she took him?”

“I think so
.”

I sat down on the edge of my bed
and put my head in my hands. It was the first good news I’d had in a while. “Thank God.”

“You have to get out of here,
Nikki,” he said. “Faye is still looking for you. If she finds you, she’ll kill you.”

I nodded. “Will you come with me to Vegas?”

He blew out a long breath and sat next to me on the bed. “I suppose. Someone’s got to take care of you.”

“Thank you
,” I said. “Wait for me downstairs?”

His eyes moved to my towel
. “Are you sure you don’t need help getting dressed?”

I sighed. “Duncan
...”

His lips tightened.
“You know, you should have been mine. We had something good going, and Ethan fucked it all up. Frankly, I’m glad he’s dead.” 

“Duncan,” I repeated
, putting my hand on his forearm. Part of me still had feelings for him, but I wasn’t ready to forget about Ethan. My blood still burned for him, even if he was gone. I couldn’t just bury those feelings and move on. “We’re good friends. Let’s just keep it that way. I mean, I’m just so confused about everything right now.”

He brushed my hand away
and stood up. “I’ll be downstairs.”