The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (3 page)

I could see he was becoming emotional.

“I would love to train.” I caught his eye,
and held his teary gaze. “I’m going to get good, better than my
mother, even. I’m going to kill Trevor for having my mother
murdered.”

He nodded again and turned to leave.

“I swear it,” I whispered to myself when he
left the room.

I lay in bed for a long time without
sleeping. I kept thinking of the guy who called himself my
grandfather as ‘the old man.’ I didn’t want to call him ‘grandpa’,
but I didn’t know what his name was, so that only left ‘the old
man.’

The room they had put me in was a bedroom. It
was obviously a girl’s bedroom. There was a dark purple comforter
on the bed, and the curtains were the same color. A large dresser
pushed up against one wall had an old-fashioned oval mirror in the
corner beside it. I saw an open door on another wall that I assumed
was an attached bathroom.

The possibility of a bathroom almost
painfully reminded me that I hadn’t peed at all since I woke.
Slowly, I lifted myself into a sitting position. My arms screamed
out in pain and refused to support me. Pushing the covers aside, I
placed my bare feet on the hardwood floor and immediately wished I
had some socks. The floor was freezing.

After a slow shuffle to the door, I
discovered it was, indeed, a bathroom.
Thank goodness
.

On the way to the toilet, I had passed the
mirror and immediately wished I hadn’t looked. My image was
hideous. My eyes were all sunken in and dark underneath, my hair
was all matted and greasy, and the handprint bruises on my arms
were beginning to do that thing where they turned green and yellow.
I had several bruises on my legs too. I noticed them after I sat
down to pee.

When I came out, I decided to be nosy and
look around the rest of the bedroom. Maybe the dresser had some
socks in it. I opened one of the drawers and found a ton of socks
in various colors. I chose a plain white pair for myself and shut
the drawer.

One of the picture frames on top of the
dresser caught my eye. I picked it up to get a closer look. There,
sitting on a bench beside an older woman and staring at the camera,
was a girl about my age. As a matter of fact, she looked so much
like me that she could have
been
me.

My mother
.

I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears and
sobbed like a two year old. I rubbed my hand over the picture and
let my tears fall. I wanted to see her again so badly. Knowing that
was never going to happen was more than I could bear. My legs lost
their strength, and I fell onto my knees, still holding the
picture.

I hated those who had her killed. I can’t say
for sure I had ever really hated anyone before. Without a doubt, I
was going to avenge her and kill that man they all claimed was my
father. He would never have me on his side.

She died saving me.
How am I supposed to
live with that kind of guilt?

I missed her so much already.

The bedroom door opened. I didn’t want anyone
to see me sobbing on the floor. Crying was weak, and I didn’t think
any of these vampire hunters would be found crying on the floor of
their rooms. I quickly wiped away the tears.

“Are you okay?” asked a male voice from
behind me. “What are you doing on the floor?”

I tried to get up and fumbled because I was
still holding the picture. I felt warm hands gently circle my waist
to help lift me up.

“I dropped this picture off the dresser and
slid when I bent to pick it up,” I told him. I turned around and
found myself staring straight into those emerald eyes that had
saved me from Eli and those other goons.

He nodded. “Well, are you all right? You look
like you’re crying. Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, I’m okay. It’s just… these bruises, my…
uh, my whole body is kind of bruised.”

He turned his lips up into what almost looked
like a sneer. “Gotta get toughened up now. You're going to have a
lot more bruises than that after you start training.”

While I was busy looking surprised and
thinking he should have been a little bit more sympathetic, he gave
me a little push toward the bed to get me moving.

I climbed back in the bed, and he sat in the
chair that the old man had used. I still had the picture of my
mother in my hand, so I placed it on the nightstand next to the
lamp.

Finally, annoyed with this guy enough to
ignore his cuteness, I curtly asked him, “So are you going to tell
me who you are?”

He tilted the chair back a little bit and
rocked it. “My name is Drew.”

“Why are you here, Drew?”

“I live here.”

I shook my head in frustration. “No, I mean,
why you are here in this room?”

“Luke told me to come in here and talk to you
about where you are and what we do.”

“Well, start talking then.” It was painful,
but I defiantly crossed my arms over my chest.

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to be
rude.”

“Huh?” Against my will, my eyes widened. “You
were the one who was rude!”

“I did nothing rude.”

Ugh.
He was right. All he had done was
tell me I needed to get tough. I was just being a baby because I
felt sorry for myself.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m just having a
hard time right now.”

Again, he nodded. “Do you think you’re up for
taking a walk?”

“I just got back in bed.” I paused. “I don’t
have any clothes.”

“There should be clothes in the closet. Why
don’t you find something that fits you? I’ll wait outside the door.
I want to tell you about us, and it helps to be able to show you
what I am talking about.”

I nodded and waited until he left the room.
Why in the world did he let me get back in the bed in the first
place if he was just going to make me get out again? With an
enormous sigh and one last glance at my mother's picture, I lifted
myself out of bed.

I managed find a top that looked like it was
from this decade and a decent pair of jeans in the dresser. There
were also plenty of shoes in the bottom of the closet. How weird
that Mom had thrown her shoes on the floor of her closet too. I had
never known that about her. Maybe she stopped doing it when she
became a mom and had to be all responsible and tidy.

After I dressed, I cracked open the door and
peeked out.

“You ready?”

Startled, I jerked backward, but then I
realized it was Drew. Boy, I was jumpy.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

I stepped out into the hall and looked
around. The floors were a dark hardwood like in the bedroom, and
the walls were a creamy pinkish color. There were pictures on the
walls, everywhere, in those huge frames that hold, like, ten
different photos. While we walked down the hallway, I also noticed
that all the doors were shut on the top floor.

“Whose house is this?”

“It’s your grandfather’s, Luke’s,” he
answered.

“Oh.” I had kind of figured it was, but
thought it best to ask before assuming. Down the stairs we went and
onto the main floor. From my spot, at the base of the stairs, I
could see part of the kitchen and what looked like a living
room.

Drew saw me straining to see the rest of the
house. “Would you like to see the house first or take a look around
when you get back?”

I shrugged like I didn’t care. “I’ll just
explore after we get back. That’s fine.”

Drew opened the door and I followed him
outside. It was super chilly and broad daylight. I hadn’t realized
that when we were back in the bedroom. I wondered just how long I
had been sleeping and how long I had been here.

“See that?”

We stood at the railing on the covered porch
connected to the house. He pointed directly in front of us.

“I see that we aren’t in the city
anymore.”

He nodded. “We aren’t in the city, but we
aren’t out of it either. Our community is sort of like a suburb.
It’s gated. No one comes in or out, except mostly just the people
who live here.”

Wow
. They were a whole community of
just vampire hunters. That was wicked. “How many of you live
here?”

“There are about one hundred homes in this
community. We aren’t the only vampire hunter community. There are
many, many more all over the world.”

“Wow!” That time I said it out loud. I could
see the tops of many houses poking up through the trees. The view
was spectacular. In the distance, the lush green mountains rose
high into the clouds. I saw the tiniest bit of snow on the top of
the mountains, and the trees cascaded down into the valley where
they surrounded the houses.

I turned to look at Drew. “It’s beautiful
here.”

He simply nodded. “Let’s move on.”

We took a path through the woods instead of
the gravel driveway leading out to the road.

“This path is a shortcut into the main
village,” he told me while we walked.

I followed without saying anything. The path
was covered with leaves, so the only sound I heard was our
footsteps crunching over them. When we left the forest, we were on
a street. A few blocks more and we were on what I assumed was the
main drag of a small town. We passed a diner, a quickie mart, a
drug store, a video store. There was even a flower shop and a
bakery.

Nice
.

The street came to a split where we could
only go left or right. Drew veered us to the left. We passed a cute
little church with beautiful stained glass in the windows and
continued walking until we came to a large building that looked
like a giant shop. Drew held the door open for me, and I quickly
passed through it. Once inside, I stood in awe, with my mouth
hanging open.

It was a training area… a very big training
area.

Drew appeared beside me. “Most everyone who
lives in this community has training equipment and space in their
own homes, but this one is open for everyone.”

There were people using weight machines,
cardio equipment and sparring. On closer inspection, I realized
there were also children using the training equipment. Drew
followed my gaze to one particular little girl who had her hair in
a ponytail and was hacking away at a punching bag.

“We start early here. I have been training
for this since I could walk.” He paused. “And you probably would
have too, if your mother hadn’t taken you away.”

I jerked my head to face him. “What would you
know about that?”

He shrugged. “We all know about it. Trevor
has been attacking directly at us since your mother ran with you.
Obviously, we would have to know about you guys so we would know
why we were being attacked.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I whispered.

“I’ll help you.” Drew met my eyes with his
flashing green ones, and for a moment, I felt a strange connection
to him. With a jerk of his head, he tore his eyes from mine and
turned away. “Let’s go, we have more to see.”