She sighed and shook her head.
“I was lucky to even find them,” she said. “I’d been a solo hunter before that, and it had been lonely.”
“How did you meet them?”
“They were looking for a new roommate.”
“No, they were looking for a new fall guy.”
Silence.
“Kimberly, your roommates weren’t just vampire hunters like you. They were part of a group that slays vampires and harvests their hearts. No, scratch that: they harvest the heart and then let the vampire die. They wanted you around to take the fall if they were ever caught.”
“What?” She whispered, and despite being a vampire, she seemed to pale. Her already-fair skin grew even lighter as she seemed to realize what I was saying.
“Tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
She stared at me: her eyes wide.
“But I thought we were friends,” she said.
Fuck.
It didn’t feel very good to tell her this. That was the problem with making the “right” choice. People had this idea that if you make the right choice, it would feel really good. It didn’t, though. The right choices were always the ones that made you feel the worst, and I definitely felt fucking horrible.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Is that why you killed them?” She whispered. “Did they...did they take someone’s heart?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Whose?”
“They took Helena’s brother,” I finally said. “They took his heart, and then they ran away. She saw it happen, but she wasn’t fast enough to stop them.”
“But you were,” she whispered, realizing that I’d sent people to go kill them when Helena wasn’t able to.
“I was,” I agreed.
9.
Kimberly
AFTER HE TOLD ME WHAT had happened, we went to bed. The sex was rough and wild and wonderful, but I was distracted, and I think he was, too. We fed from each other before falling asleep, only I didn’t fall asleep. I just laid there.
They were dead.
They were all dead, but they deserved it.
How hadn’t I realized they were murderers?
It seemed like something I should have figured out long ago, and I kind of hated myself for not figuring it out sooner.
I couldn’t sleep, so I got up. Liam was so tired that he slept through me moving around the room. I dressed in the dark and then I went over to the door. The key was up high, but I was a vampire now. I leapt into the air and grabbed it. Then I landed softly on the floor. I glanced over at him to make sure he hadn’t seen or noticed, but he hadn’t, so I slipped out of the door and down the hall.
Nobody was around. The halls were completely empty. I went downstairs to the first floor and into the kitchen, where I grabbed a cupcake from the fridge and sat down at the counter.
“Can’t sleep?” A voice came from behind me and I turned. It was Lex. He was one of the other vampires who lived in the house. He seemed nice enough. He mostly kept to himself.