Venom (The Reawakening Series Book 1) (17 page)

“
Tyler, please. Don’t go there.”

There is a look of hurt in his eyes. “I can smell him on you,” he says.

“
Don’t change the subject, Ty. Where is she and why did you take her?”

“
I can’t tell you that, Lex. You’ll have to trust me. Look, I’m exhausted. I’m going to take a hot shower and then we’ll talk okay?”

I close my eyes and nod.

Tyler walks toward me, kisses my forehead and goes into the bathroom.

I grab my phone and text Nicholas. I don’t know why I don’t go to Harvey first, but I don’t.

“
Tyler has her, but he won’t tell me anything. He just says she is safe.”

“
Where are you? I’ll get the bloody answers out of him.”

I sigh. “No, Nick. I will find her. I will text you when I know more.”

My phone rings… It’s Nick calling. I hit ignore and silence my phone.

He texts back. “Would you at least tell me what city you are in so I’m near you and Sarah?”

“
It’s best if you don’t know. I will text you when I know more. Later, Nick.”

I turn my phone off just as Tyler walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

He takes one good look at me then stares at my phone.

“
Let me get dressed and I will take you to her.”

“
You will?” I ask doubtful.

He nods. “But you’ll have to stay with her for a little while. That is the only way I will be able to tell you what’s going on.”

“
Okay,” I agree.

He gets dressed and we leave. He starts to drive and he doesn’t say much in the car. When he does, I wish he hadn’t.

“
Do I have anything to worry about in relation to you and Nicholas?”

“
No, you don’t and I don’t want to talk about him.”

We drive for a little over an hour until we get to a big house in Southampton.

He parks the car towards the back of the house where I notice security guards by the doors and windows.

“
What’s this place?” I ask.

“
Work.”

I give him a confused look but follow him inside, where we find more security. No one ever stops him or questions my being there.

Once inside, he takes me to a room with white couches and a lot of books. There is a two-way mirror in the room and on the other side Sarah lies asleep on a hospital bed.

“
She is just sleeping,” he says.

I take in the monitors and wires hooked up to her before I turn to face him.

“
What is happening, Tyler?”

He tries to hold my hand, but I pull it away.

“
Sit down, Lexi. I’ll explain everything.”

I take another look at Sarah before seating.

“
I didn’t lie to you. She is safe here. There is no telling what would’ve happened to her if she was out there and a vampire with poor control and little knowledge found her.

Sometime last year, I heard of this group of scientists who were working on something that could change everything for us. At the time, they were just asking for donations, but I knew I had more to offer them… an actual solution to what they were working toward.

Sarah’s case always drew my attention. You have angel blood and so does Nicholas, which gives you a few human perks like being able to sleep and dream, but Sarah… we all know her blood is special and that she needs to be protected, but I started to wonder if there is more good than bad to the situation.”

“
What does that mean, Tyler?”

“
It means that she could be the solution to everything. They are testing her blood now. Lexi, she could have the cure to vampirism running through her veins. She could be the solution for us having the life we’ve dreamed of.”

I shake my head. “Assuming that is true, you are talking about one little girl and an entire race of vampires. There will never be enough blood.”

“
Which is the reason why they are studying her and evaluating our options.”

“
If you knew of this possibility, how come you didn’t just drink from her in the car?”

He looks away. “I did. It didn’t work.”

“
You drank a child’s blood? What’s happened to you? You are one of the few vampires who managed to keep an ounce of humanity and you’re putting that at risk by trying to become human again. Do you know how ironic that is?”

“
If I hadn’t, someone else would.”

I look up at him, “Tyler, please let me just take her back to her home.”

He looks at me like he’s shocked by my request.

“
This cure, if there is one… I don’t want it. Not at this cost.”

“
Lexi, come on sweetheart. You’re upset because you know her. Once you see that she is not hurt—”

“
Stop—just stop. Do you really want to be human again?”

He nods.

“
Then you are not only choosing to go back to the way things should be. You’re choosing a life without me.”

“
So this is not something you want anymore?”

“
I never told you I wanted this, Ty. I’ve made peace with what I am.”

“
Then you are making the same choice… a choice of a life where we’ll eventually drift apart. Lexi, what we are… we are not meant to be. This is a chance to fix this for everyone who was turned against their wishes.”

There is no hope. It doesn’t matter how much he loves me. Tyler has always hated what we are more than anything. I sit and listen to him. All of this should be a good thing, it really should, but something about what’s happening here, feels incredibly wrong.

What I need is to find a way to get Sarah out of here.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

NICHOLAS

I’m on my way to the cabin to meet Harvey when I get Lexi’s text.

“
We’re in Southampton. I’m not sure of the address but I need your help. There is a lot of security here. Don’t reply to this message. I’m deleting any record of speaking with you. I will do what I can so that you can find me through the blood imprint.”

‘
Crap. She’ll have to be in danger for me to find her like that. She is going to do something stupid. Damn it.’

I speed the rest of the way until I get to the cabin.

I rush in and Harvey places himself in front of Valerie, who curls up on the corner of the couch.

“
What?” I ask. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

He doesn’t move. “Any news?” he asks.

“
Yes. Lexi said they are in Southampton and she needs help getting Sarah out of where she is. I don’t know much more other than there is a lot of security.”

“
How exactly are we finding them?” he asks.

“
Blood imprint. I’ll find her.”

He sighs. “We need to find a safe place for Valerie to stay while we go after Lexi and Sarah. She is too young to go on a rescue mission, especially being that we don’t know what we are up against.”

“
She could stay here.” I say.

“
It is hours away. I need her close.”

“
Let’s just go. We’ll figure it out.”

We drive separate cars.

Lexi must have known that I would leave right away. She timed everything perfectly, and I can feel her through the blood imprint as soon as we get to Southampton.

Feeling that she is in danger hits me like a brick. Harvey knows to follow me and I follow the instincts that lead me to where she is. I want nothing more than to hurt whoever is hurting her. In a way, and for a moment, I hope it is Tyler. One of the reasons I did what I did was so the bloody fool would protect her and look where we are now.

Once we are close enough, we stop the car in front of one of the nearby mansions, contemplating whether to leave Valerie in one of the cars until we are done. We can’t exactly take her to a hotel, or anywhere near a high concentration of humans, and these streets are deserted. Being off-season, these houses will probably be empty for months.

I leave Harvey and Valerie for a few minutes so I can take a quick look around. Lexi wasn’t kidding about the security. There are damn vampires and humans everywhere and I keep my distance so they don’t sense me. I know that when we do act, we will have to act fast.

I get back to the car and tell Harvey about the security and that most of them are placed near doors and windows.

“
We should wait as long as we can,” says Harvey. “Wait for the right moment.”

“
What about Valerie?” I ask.

“
Don’t act like you are concerned. She is fine.”

I shake my head. “Let’s just take her inside that house.” I point toward the house closest to us. “They probably just have one person who works there caring for the house. Glamour that person, send him or her home, and keep Valerie there.”

“
Not a bad plan,” he says.

“
I know,” I say as I give him my best cocky smile.

“
Don’t let it go to your head.”

***

Dawn is approaching and we are talking about a possible plan when we notice security moving around.

“
Change in shifts,” says Harvey. “For the ones who can’t handle the sun.”

“
You know a lot about this.”

“
Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get going. This is the best opportunity we’ll get. You find Lexi. You have the connection. I will look for Sarah.”

I nod and as some of the vampires get in the car to leave, we move in. We approach the human security and glamour them into letting us in and keeping quiet, but not after asking when the next set of vampire guards come in. I have to keep myself from laughing when they say not until nighttime.

I move at a high speed until I get to the room where I know Lexi is inside.

“
What the—”

I find Lexi strapped to a chair, with one needle in each arm, hooked up to a machine that is doing something to her blood. Tyler sits next to her. He is reading her a book and she has her head down, like she is sleeping. When they hear me, her head snaps up and I see the bloody tears running down her face.

“
You sick bastard,” I rush toward Tyler, grabbing him by the neck. He drops the book as I shove him toward the wall.

“
I could rip your throat out right now. You are supposed to be protecting her!” I growl.

He laughs a sadistic laugh. “Like you protected her?”

I tighten my grip around his neck and try to decide what to do with this piece of trash when her voice stops me.

“
Don’t hurt him,” she begs.

I look back at her pleading eyes. How can she be so forgiving?

“
It’s her blood. It’s making him crazy.”

I cock my head to the side. “By ‘her’ blood, do you mean Sarah’s?”

She doesn’t answer me, but I know it is. “Please,” she begs again. “She is okay. Just please take me out of here,” she begs.

I ignore Tyler’s laughter as I look at her and stare into her eyes. She is hurt in more ways than I can see.

I nod once and look around the room for anything that can be used to restrain Tyler. There is nothing.

“
I have to drain his blood… just enough to weaken him.”

“
But his blood is contaminated. You could—”

I grin at her concern for me. I think of using the metal part of my belt to puncture a hole on his wrist and drain his blood. I use one hand to keep a hold of him and reach for my belt with my other hand, until I decide this is a horrible idea. It will either take a while to drain him or I could risk taking too much, and even though he deserves it, she doesn’t. Instead, I use his madness against him.

“
You sit on that chair and let me take Lexi away, and I will leave my sister behind. But you have to wait until we are gone before you leave this room.” I hope like hell that Harvey found her by now.

Tyler gives me a confused look but shrugs it off.

“
Okay,” he says.

“
He sits on the chair and doesn’t move while I kneel down and free Lexi from that seat. As soon as her hands are free, she moves them around my neck as she almost falls forward. I get up, picking her up as I do so. Without looking back, I cradle her in my arms and rush out of there. I need to get her away from here. If Harvey doesn’t have Sarah, I will come back for her.

I rush to the house next door. I don’t see Valerie anywhere and figure she is probably hiding from me. Harvey is not back, which is a hell of a bad sign.