The Keeper's Vow (45 page)

“You know. I’m not going to kill her. Just
suffocate her, fuck her, and leave her for brain dead.” Eshmael
tightened the grip around her neck cutting off all her air
supply.

Katie twisted. Her body forced her to fight.
She scratched at Eshmael. He screamed and back handed her with the
gun. Her head exploded into pain. She couldn’t breathe. The
hysteria made her push through the pain to fight.

A frenzy filled Eshmael’s eyes and he hit
her again. Something in his eyes flicked like flames—burning
everything. Destroying everything.

“KATALINA.”

She tasted blood. Eshmael flexed, readying
himself for another hit. Had he changed his mind? Was he going to
beat her to death before she suffocated?

He let go and Katie dropped to the ground
coughing and choking on air. She hadn’t seen what made him let
go.

“You’re right on time brother. That’s a
first.” Eshmael began to straighten out his jacket. He sniffed and
wiped his red face.

Katie turned her pulsing head and saw Larry.
He faltered at her face. Did she look as bad as she felt? She could
hardly blink without pain rushing through her entire head.

“Let me explain, Brother. You see. I was
going to do to her what you let our father do to my mother. Do you
remember that day? How you only killed him
after
he’d taken
her from me?”

Larry was behind Katie. When had he moved
there? “Are you all right?”

Was he really asking her that?

“Kill him, Lawrence. Kill him.” Tristan’s
face was red and his voice was lethal. He was still pulling at the
chain. The wall began to crack. His wrist were bleeding.

“The boy’s right. If you don’t have plans to
kill me, you should just let me finish what I started.”

Larry pounced on his brother and squeezed
his hands around his neck.

“Just—like—you—used—to.” Eshmael choked out.
Katie dragged herself over to Tristan. She touched the chains and
they burned her hands. Iron.

That’s how they kept him here. It was slowly
draining him.

“Katalina, don’t. Don’t. I can do it—your
hands. Please, stop.” Tristan was begging her, but she couldn’t
leave him here chained up like that. She needed a key. It was all
locked. She rummaged the room and Larry started punching Eshmael.
Katie searched the draws of Eshmael’s desk and found it.

The Iron burned her skin as she moved the
chains to get to the lock. They started to fall off and Tristan
dropped to the ground. He grabbed her.

“Your face. Katalina, I’m sorry. I’m so
sorry.” He squeezed her in his arms. It hurt and she winced at the
pain. He let her go. “I’m sorry. He—he touched you.” Tristan moved
towards Eshmael and Larry. He picked up one of Katie’s fallen
knives and shoved Larry off Eshmael.

Tristan brought the blade down.

Katie will never remember how exactly it
happened. She’d been right behind Tristan. To do what? She didn’t
know. But when the blade came down, it was Larry who was underneath
it. Tristan twisted the blade and ripped it out before he could
stop himself.

“Why?” Tristan dropped the knife and backed
away from Larry.

Larry coughed up blood. Eshmael crawled from
underneath him. He grabbed his throat still choking.

“You can heal yourself,” Katie said,
kneeling down over Larry. It was amazing how fast her hands pressed
down over his bleeding chest.

He shook his head.

“I could do it.” She said it and she meant
it. She was his daughter. She could fix it. All she had to to
was—try. Tears clouded her vision and burned as the salt touched
her face.

He pushed her hands away and stared at his
brother. He shook his head.

Eshmael grabbed his own chest and gasped. He
stood up but fell back down. The bond. It was breaking. One brother
was dying and so was the other.

“Brother,” It came out a whisper, “don’t let
us die.” Eshmael shook in spasms. His eyes turned silver and his
body began to fade into darkness. “You made—me—who I am.”

Tristan knelt next to Larry. “You were there
that night. You let him live after he killed my father.
You let
him live
. He killed the woman you loved and you let him
live—you’re a coward.”

Larry blinked back tears and Katie held his
hand. Tristan was right. He let the guilt of what he’d done to his
brother hurt the people he loved. Larry squeezed her hand. He tried
to talk but only blood came out.

Katie shuddered. “Shhh.”

A tear escaped his eyes as they turned
bright silver. He was gone.

There was a final scream as Eshmael clutched
his chest. Both their silver eyes watching her.

Dead.

Tristan turned her away from them as she
cried.

It was over.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Katie and
Tristan climbed out of the room using the path Larry had created.
When they emerged out of the final hole, they must have looked like
death itself. Mercedes, Johnny, and Franco watched them like they
were wild animals. They asked what happened, but neither Tristan
nor Katie told them.

It was a silent ride back to The Pub.
Mercedes offered them one of the rooms above her bar.

They sat on the bed unmoving and quiet.

“I hate him.” Tristan’s voice broke. “He
left me in that house for eight years. It was a prison cell. I
wanted to know. What had I done to deserve that. And so far away
from you.”

Katie rubbed Tristan’s back with her bruised
hand. The one Larry’s bouncer stepped on. She was sure one of her
fingers was broken, but she was slowly starting to heal on her
own.

“He was hiding me. That stupid, coward was
hiding me from his brother.” Tristan turned away from her so she
wouldn’t see his tears.

Mercedes came in a little later with packets
of blood. Tristan chugged two packets before Katie finished one.
Mercedes made faces as they drunk and offered a few jokes. When
that didn’t work, she told Tristan how Katie shot the guy who would
have killed Mercedes. Katie frowned, but Mercedes smiled and told
her she hated owing people.

Katie washed up in Mercedes’ bathroom while
Tristan used the one in the room. Her face horrified her. The
swelling was going down, but the bruises were what made her jump at
her own reflection. She washed the dirt and blood off her and
borrowed a tank top and pair of shorts from Mercedes.

“You should probably call your parents,”
Mercedes said. Holding out a bag for Katie’s dirty clothes. She was
right. Katie called her dad then Lucinda. They each screamed and
demanded to know where she was, but she only told them that she was
safe and would be home soon, with Tristan. She didn’t want to deal
with the drama. Not after watching Larry choke on his own blood. He
wanted to tell her something. She’d never know.

Tristan was out of the shower when she
walked back into the room. He watched her with red eyes. He looked
better after his shower. He was still bruised and cut, but he
looked better. At least he was looking at her now. But she couldn’t
read his expression or his thoughts. He was blank. Maybe he still
hated her.

“I can go,” Katie said. He was safe. That
was all that mattered. “I came looking for you because I wanted to
say sorry. I was selfish. You were right, everything you said about
me was right.”

“You had no right coming down here,” Tristan
said, not looking at her.

“I’m—I’m sorry—but I’m glad I did.”

Tristan sat in silence. He opened up and let
her feel his thoughts, but it was just confusion. His and hers.

Was this it. Were they going to say goodbye
forever? What were they supposed to do when the future felt no
farther than the seconds they spent in this silence.

The thought gripped her heart and she wanted
to fall. Katie grabbed onto the doorknob. If this was it, she
wanted to leave with everything right between them. She promised
herself to wait until she was far away before she’d let herself
feel anything.

She breathed in deep and turned the knob.
Goodbye.
She couldn’t say it out loud. Not if she wanted to
keep her other promise.

She felt the panic rising up both their
throats before she felt his arms around her.

“—I love you,” he said, squeezing the breath
out of her.

She hugged him back. “I love you too.”

“I’m sorry, Katalina. I’ll never lie about
it again. Not to myself or you. I love you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Katie went back
home. She walked into her room with her dad threatening to ground
her and closed the door in his face. She wasn’t a kid anymore.
She’d killed two men and held the hand of a dying one. Life wasn’t
about cutting corners in school so she could sleep in. She wasn’t a
girl anymore—and she wasn’t half-vampire.

She was a new Katie Watts. Someone who
realized how important it was to protect the people she loved and
not be afraid. There were scarier things than death. Watching
Eshmael point a gun at the boy she loved showed her that.

Katie looked around her room. It wasn’t hers
anymore. The empty gerbil cage, the clay pots she’d never painted,
the books on cinema that she never read, the basket of yarn left
over after she’d only knitted one ratty hat. Her infamous hobbies.
All along she’d been trying to find herself and she never bothered
to look in the mirror.

Katie waited for her dad to go to sleep
before going to the garage and collecting a few boxes. She spent
hours going through her room and filling them.

Last was her torn Peter Pan book. She could
never read it. Katie tried to see if she could fix it, but the
spine of the book was broken. She wrapped it in paper and put it in
her last box, tapping it up to go away with the rest of her
incomplete things.

“What are you doing Katie?” her dad said,
walking in her room in the early hours of the morning. She finished
tapping the box.

“I’m putting some stuff away. Not
everything, just a few things that I don’t need anymore.”

“Look. I don’t know what happened to you,
but you just can’t come home after being missing for a day then
throw away all your stuff.” He was starting to stumble over his
words. He was afraid. He was afraid he was losing her.

Katie put the tape down and hugged her dad.
This was going to be her job now, to help the people around her
stop running. “I’m here, Dad. I can’t be the old Katie anymore. I
have to be who I’m meant to be. I have to be me.”

“What the hell happened? It’s him, every
time he comes into our lives, you suffer. No more.” He was shaking
his head.

“Dad. For once stop blaming him for the
things he’s suffered from. He was a boy. We were the same age. If
you can’t accept what he is, then you can’t accept me.”

“Katie, there are people out there who will
damn you for what you are. You don’t understand the world we live
in.”

“Let them. It’s not going to stop me from
being who I am. I am not a coward. I’m not going to hide
anymore.”

They both stopped hiding, Katie and Tristan.
Katie made it a point that she supported Tristan, and if anyone
asked she was just like him. They finished out the last month of
school being ostracized by everyone except Allison and those to
ignorant to care what they were. None of the teachers treated them
differently to their faces, and Traci argued that she had her
suspicions.
“I may be bad with a gun, but I’m not stupid. Not as
stupid as everyone else at least.”

Traci helped her and Tristan study for their
exams. During the final exams, they even got a meeting with the
members of The Board in the guidance counselors office. Jim Heckler
and Henrietta Sterling—it seemed Will’s position had not been
filled yet.