The Purity of Blood: Volume I (58 page)

Would I ever feel that way again?
 

With Daniel? …
With Ben? … With anyone?

I pulled out the
map I’d purchased in the station and plotted a route that would take me to Hopkinton
the fastest.
 
For a moment I wondered if
it would be more prudent to take a more circuitous route there, but since I
couldn’t imagine anyone would guess that was where I was heading, I didn’t see
the point.

Picking up my
cell phone, I saw a missed call from Tabitha.
 
I quickly texted her back saying I’d left school for a few weeks, but
would call her soon and explain.
 
I
wasn’t sure what I’d say.
 
Somehow saying
that a serial killer vampire was stalking me and I was trying to protect her by
going on the lam didn’t sound like a good thing to say.
 
Unfortunately, neither did telling her that
my ex-boyfriend was part of a vampire clan whose house I had just escaped
from.
 

I put all that
out of my mind and pulled back onto the highway.
 
I still had a ways to go and hoped to find a
place to get settled in before I lost the light.
 
As I merged into traffic, I put all my focus
on the road.
 
Emotional distractions were
a liability I couldn’t afford right now, so inhaling deeply I purposefully
exhaled them out.

“Remember who you are, Donnelly,” I muttered as I passed a
hundred and twenty miles an hour on the speedometer and zoomed towards the open
highway ahead.

A few hours later I pulled off of
Interstate 95 in Mystic.
 
It was just a
couple of exits before the Rhode Island border, but once you crossed over there
wasn’t much for a while except a lot of trees.
  

Looking for a
place to stay, I parked in front of a hotel I’d spotted coming down the exit
ramp.
 
It perched on a hill overlooking
the exit and a quaint shopping village across the street.
 
High
ground
, I thought to myself.
 
Always preferable
.

The Ferrari
drove great, but I was used to my
Aveo
and immediately
got out and stretched my back and shoulders.
 
I guess first class takes a bit of getting used to when you’re a coach
frequent flyer.
 
Either that or I was
just never meant for that life to begin with, which seemed more likely in my
opinion.
 

From my vantage
point here on top of the hill; I could just make out the aquarium down the
road.
 
I had fond memories of that
place.
 
My family had taken my brother
and I there numerous times when I was younger.
 
It had also been a popular destination for field trips when I was in grade
school.
 
Of course, back then half the
excitement had been the ferry ride over from Long Island.
 
I loved boats.
 
Maybe I should steal a sailboat and sail away
for a while.
 
That would be nice, almost
like a vacation.
 
Besides, I had to
imagine I’d be harder to track over water than on land.
 
It was a thought anyway.

I went inside
and got a room, again being careful not to use my credit card.
 
When I handed the cash over, the desk clerk
gave me something of a dirty look like no one paid cash anymore.
 
I guess maybe people didn’t much these days,
but I was raised to always have plenty of cash on hand for emergencies.
 
I’m just not sure this was what my father had
in mind when he used to say that.

After getting my
key, I pulled the Ferrari around back where it would be hidden from the view of
passing traffic, but still within sight of my window.
 
Before heading up to my room, I walked over
to the convenience store across the street and picked up something quick to
eat, then went up to my room to settle in for the night and decide what was to
be done next.

I sat on the bed
and looked at the sandwich I’d bought but couldn’t stomach food.
 
Instead I put it in the mini-fridge and
curled up in a ball on my side.
  
I still
couldn’t understand.
 
I really thought
he’d loved me.
 
How could I have been so wrong?
 

Maybe he did, maybe it was all a
misunderstanding.
 

No, the kiss I
saw was no misunderstanding.
 
Even if
Lucy did kiss him, he didn’t exactly push her away, he’d received her
kiss.
 
I’d seen it with my own eyes.
 
No, it wasn’t as steamy a kiss as ours had
been, but it definitely wasn’t a brother sister kiss either.

There in the
darkness of my hotel room, the tears finally came.
 
I didn’t try to stop them; I didn’t have the
strength left in me to even try.
 

“Oh, Daniel.” I
heard through my choked sobs into the pillow.
 
It kept repeating in my head and in my heart over and over again.
 
How was I supposed to let him go?
  

Time passed, an
hour or two I think.
 
It hurt in my soul
but somehow it felt a little better now that I wasn’t repressing it as I had
been since I’d discovered the truth.
 

When the tears
finally stopped, I crawled under the covers and texted my mother a quick hello
so she wouldn’t call the phone in my room at NPU looking for me.
 
The last thing I wanted was for Darcy and her
to compare notes.
 
Right after I hit
send, the phone rang in my hand.
 
I
instinctually answered it, cursing myself right after I said hello for being so
stupid.

“I didn’t see
you today.
 
I was hoping I would.”
 

It was Ben.
 
The sound of his voice was like a balm on my
soul.
 
I hadn’t realized how out of
control I’d felt until I heard his tranquil voice pulling me back to my safe
place.
 

“I’m so glad
it’s you,” I said thankfully.

“Not that I’m
not gratified to hear that but who did you think it would be?”
 

“I’ve just … had
a bad day is all.”

“You sound
exhausted.
 
Where are you?
 
I went by your room, but no one answered the
door.”

“I left town for
a bit.
 
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but
it came up kind of suddenly. – I may be gone for a while.”

“Is everything
alright?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

“It will be – I
hope.
 
Look I don’t really want to talk
about it if that’s alright.
 
Do me a
favor?”

“Anything,
Sara.”

“I’m going to
lie down.
 
Can you just talk until I fall
asleep?”

He paused and
then started to tell me about his day.
 
He talked about the research he’d done on our project, of how Professor
Walker hadn’t shown up for class today and how terrible a substitute Rodney was
along with other odds and ends that had happened over the past few days.

“Sara, are you
still awake?”

I mumbled a
response.

“Please be careful,” was the last thing I remember him saying
before I lost my battle with unconsciousness.

When I woke it was still
early.
 
Needing to hear noise, I switched
the television on for company then went in to take a shower.
 
As I pulled off my shirt, I examined
myself.
 
My black and blues were only
faintly visible now and my shoulder, while still a little sore, probably
wouldn’t even be noticeable by the end of the day.
 
I’d never have admitted it to Thomas, but
he’d been right.
 
If past experiences
held true, I’d probably torn something in there and not simply popped it out of
joint.
 
But I could never admit it to
them the same way I couldn’t tell them how quickly I healed from almost any
injury.

I washed my hair
and toweled it dry while watching one of the morning shows.
 
After a while, I got up and turned it
off.
 
They were always a little too cheery
at this hour of the morning for my tastes.
  

Pulling back the
drapes, I looked out the window at the cloudless morning.
 
Daniel’s car was still where I’d parked it
yesterday.
 
I’m guessing he hadn’t
reported it stolen.
 
I half wondered if
he would.
 
It would be one way for him to
track me down if he hadn’t been able to follow me himself.
 
Since he hadn’t been sitting in the chair over
in the corner of the room when I’d woken up, I had to assume he wasn’t able to
yet.
 
Was he even trying?
 
Maybe he’d moved on already.
 

If he really
wanted to find me, I had the feeling he probably could, but that didn’t mean I
was going to make it any easier for him or the others.
 
All things considered, I had to think it was
for the best if I never saw him again.
 
Of course, that was the logical side of my brain thinking.
 
My heart, however, ached far too much to even
consider that as a possibility.

Eager to leave,
I quickly dressed and headed down to the car where I dropped my duffle in the
passenger seat.
 
When I closed the door,
my stomach started to growl so I walked over to the lobby and sat down to have
breakfast before heading over to Hopkinton.
 

As I pretended
to read the newspaper, I watched the movements of people in and out of the
lobby.
 
At the same time, I also kept an
eye out the front windows to see who was coming and going while I picked at the
waffles on my plate.
 
I half expected to
see Daniel or my shadowy hunter stride through the front doors, black cloak
flowing behind him as he strolled up to the desk and asked for me.
 

In my head, I
heard his raspy voice saying ‘
Stupid girl
’
over and over again.
 
If the New Paltz
vampires were to be believed, he’d been watching me for a while now.
 
Maybe the schnapps wasn’t the only thing he’d
been talking about.
 

I knew I had to
find a good place to lay low for a few days until I figured out what to do
next.
 
The question was, where?
 
If only I knew what the hunter was up to.
 
Had Professor Walker and the others gotten
rid of him?
 
After I left town had they
even bothered to try?
  
I wondered if
they’d figured – I was gone now, so the problem was solved since no blood would
be spilt on their territory.
 
It bothered
me to think they would react that way – that anyone could be so callous about
human life.
 
But they weren’t human, and
I wasn’t sure how they would react to anything really.
 
I knew they were probably glad I wasn’t
around anymore to stink up the house, but how far would that reaction extend?
 
Thomas and Lily seemed like nice – vampires,
like people I would have been friends with under different circumstances.
 
Was the kindness I saw in their eyes just a
layer to be peeled away to reveal their true personalities?
 
I hoped not.

And Daniel.
 
I didn’t know what to feel when it came to
him.
 
I passionately loved the Daniel I’d
known, but now he seemed like a person who’d never existed at all.
 
He’d been a figment of my over active
imagination, one that had pretended to love me for some sense of amusement
while he waited until he could be with Lucy again.
 

It might have
been easier if my rival had been Lily, who was a kind soul.
 
I would have understood him preferring her
over me.
 
But Lucy?
 
No, she was spiteful and vindictive, not the
one any woman wants to be replaced with.
 
Yet he chose her over me and that alone spoke volumes about his
character.

I turned my mind
back to the problem at hand; that I needed a place to hide that was secluded
and private.
 
I thought of a few places I
was familiar with, but none that I could be sure I wouldn’t be discovered at
eventually.
 
After a while I decided I’d
just drive around and see if I got any ideas once I got off the highway in
Hopkinton.

I definitely have to
hide this car quickly
, I thought as I backed out of the parking space and
noticed two guys standing about twenty yards away, eyeing the black Ferrari
with envy.
 
As I’d told Daniel before, it
wasn’t the best car if you were trying to hide in a crowd.
 
Ironically in this instance, I think I’d
picked it for the same reason he had.
 
It
was the fastest I could find at the time.

I was on Interstate 95 for less
than fifteen minutes when I started up the rise of Pendleton Hill, the last
rise before the descent down to the state line.
 
After passing the 0.6 mile marker, I got off at Exit One in Hopkinton,
Rhode Island, my ancestral home for about four hundred years or so.
 
That is until my mother left to marry my
father and moved to Wading River.