Thicker Than Water (The Briar Creek Vampires Book #2) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse

Thicker Than Water

by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse

Copyright © 2011 by Jayme Morse and Jody
Morse

Thicker Than Water is a work of fiction. The
names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are products
of the writers’ imaginations or have been used fictitiously. Any
similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events,
or locations is coincidental and not intended by the
authors.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank
you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, without permission in writing from Jayme Morse &
Jody Morse.

Connect with the authors at:

http://www.jaymemorse.com

http://www.jodymorse.com

****

Chapter 1

“Lexi, you have to leave.”

“Why? It’s so perfect here,” Lexi sighed
deeply. She could tell that her shoulders were getting sunburned,
but she didn’t care. The feeling of the warm waves breaking against
her knees and the gentle sea breeze blowing against her blonde wavy
hair and pale skin was enough to make up for it.

When her mom didn’t answer her, Lexi turned to
look at her. The area of water that she had been standing in just a
few moments ago was empty. Lexi calmly looked around the beach,
searching for her. The beach was empty, except for her cousin,
Austin, who was relaxing underneath the cool blue umbrella which
offered him plenty of shade. Lexi also spotted a few greedy
seagulls, snatching up some leftover French fries that beachgoers
must have left behind.

Her mom was gone.

Lexi started walking over to where Austin was
sitting on his blue Ninja Turtles beach towel, the water splashing
up at her as she walked to shore. His strawberry blonde hair was
messy and longer than Lexi had ever seen it before. Lying down on
her own hot pink seahorse beach towel next to him, she reached her
hands out and pressed them against the ground, raking her fingers
through the sand. The sand felt pleasantly hot against her
fingertips and the palms of her hands, and she could feel it
clumping onto the bottoms of her wet feet.

Being at the beach reminded her of the time
when she was eight years old, and she and her mom had gone to
Seaside Heights. They’d spent the whole entire morning building
sandcastles until Lexi got up and shouted, “I’ll race you to the
water!” Her mom had chased after her, and they’d collapsed into
laughter when a wave went over both of their heads.

Lexi wondered if her mom was going to come back
to sunbathe with her and Austin. She knew her mom loved the beach
just as much as she did. It had always been one of their favorite
pastimes.

Lexi could feel herself becoming increasingly
exhausted, like she had just swum a dozen laps in the swimming pool
while preparing for one of her high school swim team’s
competitions. She didn’t want to allow herself to take a nap until
her mom came back, but her drooping eyelids had a mind of their
own.

The sun shining in her eyes made it hard for
her to fall asleep. She tried to turn over, but she felt too weak
to. Lying perfectly still, Lexi listened to the peaceful sounds of
the roaring waves; they had always helped her sleep when she was a
kid – but no matter what she did, her eyes kept flying open,
inviting the sun to shine brightly into them.

“Austin,” Lexi mumbled, barely able to hear
herself over the wind and strong currents surrounding her. “Can you
give me my sunglasses? It’s so…bright.” Lexi clutched at her chest
with one hand as she felt a sharp pain shoot through her lungs. Her
breathing was becoming more difficult, and she could hear her
breaths turning into ragged gasps. Her lungs felt heavy, as if
something were pressing down onto her chest.

Lexi felt her sunglasses being placed into her
other hand and Austin’s face swam into her vision, blocking the
bright sunlight with his head. “Lexi, I don’t have much time. You
have to listen to me,” he spoke urgently. “Things are going to be
different from now on. Don’t let them fool you. You have to keep
everything you know a secret. There’s a curse, and you need to find
out all that you can about it before Halloween.”

“What? A curse? Austin, I’m so confused. My
head hurts.”

“I’ll come back for you.”

And then he was gone, the sun shining more
brightly into her eyes, blinding her vision. Lexi wanted her mom.
She tried to roll over on her beach towel, but it felt like she was
stuck.

“Lexi! Can you hear me?” a voice she didn’t
recognize asked. “You’ve been into a serious accident.” Lexi
squinted as a bright light was flashed in front of one of her
eyes.

“Do you remember anything that happened?”the
voice persisted.

Remembering the advice that Austin had given
her in her dream, she decided to play dumb. Lexi shook her head.
“What happened?” She knew exactly what had happened. There was no
way she could ever forget the events of that night, even though she
so desperately wanted to.

Dan Nichols, Austin’s best friend had attacked
her. Just as he had her pinned against the wall, Lexi was saved by
Gabe, the guy who lived across the street who she was sort of in
love with, but who her Aunt Violet and Uncle Tommy had also
forbidden her to see.

Lexi had gotten into Gabe’s car with him
because he promised her that they were going to run away together.
That plan had come to a screeching halt when Gabe crashed his car
with both of them inside. The way it had happened felt strange to
Lexi. Gabe had been speeding along the winding road and right
before a sharp turn, instead of keeping his eyes on the road, Gabe
had leaned over to the passenger’s side and kissed her, which had
caused him to crash his car into a tree.

Before the car had crashed and the airbag had
blown up in her face, knocking her unconscious, Gabe had told her
that he was a vampire and that he was actually over one hundred
years old.

Lexi squinted, allowing her eyes to adjust to
the lighting of the room she was in. The white walls that
surrounded her seemed brighter than they should have been, probably
because she had been out of it for what she assumed had been hours.
Her body ached, and her hand was tingly and sore. Glancing down at
her hand, Lexi realized that she was firmly squeezing her bat
pendant, with the silver chain dangling from it. She wasn’t sure
how it had even gotten off her neck. She didn’t remember taking it
off. Lexi tried to sit up, though she found that she
couldn’t.

Reaching her hands up to her neck, Lexi
realized that she was too sore to put the necklace back on by
herself. Instead, she wrapped the chain several times around her
wrist. The bat pendant was the one thing that she had left from her
father, who had abandoned her as a child; there was no way that she
was going to lose it now.

“It’s best if you just relax for now, Lexi,” a
caramel-skinned nurse said, fluffing Lexi’s pillow. “You’ll have
plenty of time to find out all of the details about what happened
later. The good news is that you are going to recover from this.
You should consider yourself a very lucky girl.” Lexi wasn’t sure
if the nurse was talking really slow or if it just seemed like she
was because Lexi was so out of it. “Your body has gone through a
lot of trauma in the past few hours. We’re going to give you
something for the pain. It’s going to make you want to sleep for
awhile.”

*

“Lexi, you have to get out of here.”

For the second time that night, Lexi awoke with
a start. Dreams of her mother’s death, of Justin’s death, all came
swarming back to her like a mob of angry bees.

Each dream was worse than the one she had
before it. She wasn’t sure which type of dream upset her more;
seeing the people who she loved die over and over again without
being able to do anything to stop it from happening, or in the
other dream, not understanding what she should do with the advice
they were trying to give her. Lexi knew that there was no way to
really know if the people that she had lost were really trying to
communicate with her through her dreams, but after she had seen and
talked to her mom, who left residue in the room when she left, Lexi
definitely believed in ghosts.

She didn’t know why Gabe had done what he had
done to her. She could only guess that he had caused the accident
on purpose. Why, though? Maybe he wanted her to die so he could
drink her blood. No, that wasn’t it. As much as she was confused by
what Gabe had done, she knew that he wasn’t a bad person (or
vampire). Maybe he had been so tempted by drinking her blood that
he had just lost control of the car. It didn’t seem like that was
the case either, though. It definitely felt like Gabe had crashed
the car on purpose, and Lexi really wanted to know why.

Lexi didn’t know if she was going to be able to
ask him that question, though. She didn’t even know if Gabe was
even alive.

****

Chapter 2

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” Mrs. Collins,
Justin’s mom, walked in and sat down on Lexi’s hospital bed. “They
told me you were in the car with him when it happened.”

“No, I—” Lexi started to tell Justin’s mom that
she hadn’t been in the same accident as Justin, but she stopped
when she saw the pained expression on the woman’s face. She
realized that she and Mrs. Collins had a lot in common now that
Justin was gone. Like Lexi, Justin was the only family who Mrs.
Collins really had. She was married, but Justin had told Lexi that
his father traveled for weeks at a time and he was pretty sure that
his dad was cheating on his mom. Mrs. Collins had no other
children, and both of her parents had passed away the year before,
within months of one another. “I’m so sorry,” Lexi said, a tear
rolling down her cheek. “I wish this didn’t happen. I wish I could
bring him back.”

Justin’s mom nodded sadly, her eyes red and
puffy. Lexi thought that it looked like she had been crying
non-stop for hours. “I know. It’s hard for me to accept that he’s
not going to be coming home. I keep thinking he’s on one of his
hockey trips. I know you’ve been through so much already, first
losing your boyfriend and now having to be in this dreary place,
but would you mind coming with me to see him? I think I need to say
goodbye,” his mom said, pulling a tissue out of her pocket and
wiping away the tears that fell from her eyes.

“Boyfriend?” Lexi asked confusedly. So,
Justin’s mom knew that Gabe had left.

“He was very fond of you, Lexi. You meant the
world to him. You made him want to change for the better and, for
that, we are extremely grateful.”

Oh, she meant Justin.

“I nearly forgot,” Mrs. Collins said, unzipping
her purse and pulling something out. “They found this in the car on
the day of the accident. I assume that it belonged to you.” Mrs.
Collins handed her a tiny Cross earring. Deciding that she wouldn’t
tell Mrs. Collins that she hadn’t actually been in the car at the
time of the accident because it might seem reassuring for his mom
to know that he had died while he was with someone he cared about,
she took the earring from her. Lexi realized that she was wearing
her favorite pair of light blue pajamas that her aunt must have
brought from home. She slid the earring into the back pocket. It
was strange that she hadn’t actually seen her aunt yet, but it also
wasn’t surprising. Her aunt had acted like a control freak all
summer longer, forcing Lexi to date Dan. For all Lexi knew, Violet
was probably mad at
her
for running away from Dan when he
attacked her, which she was sure that Dan had already told her aunt
about.

Lexi tentatively followed Mrs. Collins down the
long corridor that led to the hospital’s morgue. Her legs felt
stiff; she wasn’t sure how long she had been lying in the hospital
bed, but it was long enough to make her feel uncomfortable walking.
She hadn’t been told much about her injuries, though, so her legs
may have been hurt during the accident.