I ran, stumbling twice before I made it through the trees. Weakness wasn’t a joke. I gripped onto the tree trunks as I passed them. The wood splintered my hands as the touch offered brief moments of knowing I could absolutely stay upright.
But even that didn’t last very long.
I sank down finally next to a tree to catch my breath. Dizziness, my constant companion these days, swelled to a crescendo. I put my head between my legs.Everything eventually comes to an end.
This too will pass.
Maybe if I said it enough times in my head, I’d believe it.
“Don’t run. I doubt you could. Don’t try.” Gilbert spoke to me, and I gasped. Where had he come from? I dug my back into the tree, trying to stand. I didn’t want to be down on the ground, not at this moment, with him standing over me. He bent over, his eyes red-rimmed like all vampires, yet I didn’t see any of the hunger I’d gotten so used to identifying in the others.
“Just do it.” I didn’t know I was going to speak the words until I did. “I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me anyway. Why not just do it? They won’t care when they wake up. And Fredrick can just say he didn’t know because he won’t. You can do it. They won’t ask you. It’s not a lie. You can simply let it go. I’m just a girl. I didn’t mean to get in the middle of this. I spoke to them, and it all just happened. Please. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t deserve this. I didn’t tell them to take the guns. I didn’t even know…”
He knelt in front of me. “You are notjust a girl. And yes, you are tangled in this. Now is not the time for you to die. We all have a time when we die. Vampires do it twice. You are going to come back, and you are going to rest. There is no one who can save you in these woods right now. You’re not eighteen yet. It’s not time.”
I didn’t understand half of what he said to me. That was true for a lot of vampires, unfortunately. Their minds didn’t always run in the same direction as mine. They zigged, and I zagged. Some vampires were entirely mute. They didn’t seem to be able to speak at all. Ace’s dad was spurts and stops. Fine, I tried to interpret what had been said to me. The gist of it was that he wasn’t going to kill me. The whole bit about me turning eighteen? I didn’t know what that meant, not at all.
“I can die just as easily at seventeen.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t turn on until you’re eighteen, and I made a promise. A long time ago. A deal. So you will come with me now. Back to the compound, and you will rest. There is movement in the coffins.”
I stared at him. That last bit… I was pretty sure I understood it. “They’re waking up?”
He nodded. “Yes. They say the longer we sleep, the more powerful we are. That’s a falsehood. The truly powerful wake sooner.”
I didn’t give two shits about vampire power. My heart rate kicked up. “They’re all moving around in their coffins?”
“Yes. Just started. They’ll likely not be even aware of what’s happening yet. Then they’ll start to fight to get out. Days. Maybe a week. I don’t think you want to die without seeing them wake.” He took my hands and helped me get to my feet. “You need to rest. Tomorrow there are meetings. They will likely leave you alone.”
That was even worse. “When they don’t bite me, I go into withdrawal.”
He didn’t respond to that. “Come. Before anyone notices you left. They will hunt you then.”
“Why don’t you feed off of me?” That was something he could answer. The rest of it was going to remain a vampire mystery that I was stuck in the middle of, whether I wanted to or not.
“You are a child.” He looked away. “I have other arrangements.”
There it was. The vampire didn’t lie to me, but he didn’t tell me the truth, either. Did he have some kind of hidden paramour he saw sometimes? When he wasn’t feeding randomly off servants, just to make do? That was interesting. My head started to pound. That was fast. My running had probably brought the need for venom on more quickly.
We made it back to the compound, and he let me go. “Rest. That is my advice for you right now. Rest. Things will be changing.”
In the way that vampires glided, he took off.
“Hey.” Charlotte walked up behind me. “Where did this broom come from?” She held it up, and I stared at the broom like it was a foreign object. That was the one I’d grabbed. I guessed I dropped it and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Someone must have dropped it.” I was pulling a vampire and being vague.
She shrugged. “Come on. Let’s go back inside. You know what I heard? There’s movement in the coffins. Do you think that means they won’t be very strong?”
I widened my eyes and sucked in a breath as though this was the first time I’d heard of it. “Wow. I’m shocked. So soon. And…maybe they’re actually just so strong, they don’t need the extra time.”
“Anyway, it’s exciting. Whatever is going to happen, it will happen soon. After they go through the wild, animal-like raving need to eat and kill every human they see, of course.”
Certainly, after that. Gross.
Caesar’s father appeared before us, gliding into my view faster than any human ever could. He grabbed me, yanking my wrist to his mouth and biting without so much as a word spoken. I winced and looked away. It was always my arms. Paramours got the neck. I was lucky I didn’t have to put up with that.
My headache passed. Blissful nothingness overtook my body. Charlotte hadn’t moved, her gaze on the ground. Then it was over, blood pouring from my wound onto my hand and dripping onto the ground. I didn’t merit them making the effort to even lick the wound, which would close it and prevent the bleeding.