A memory of Emily and her mother arguing f lashed through her mind.
“Yeah, for those two. But not for you. You never tell anyone when they’re upsetting you or irritating you. You just keep it all bottled up inside.”
“It’s called keeping the peace,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, well, when you’re the only one who’s trying to do that, it’s never going to work. All it does is make you miserable. How do you expect anything to change if you don’t talk it out?” Not to mention how eating down all her anger instead of letting it out had nearly made her vamp out today.
Oh, like telling you my feelings worked out so well for us last time? she thought, then looked away, hating that I could read her every thought.
“Just because we had one argument doesn’t mean you should be afraid to say how you feel. Especially to me.”
She sighed. “Don’t you get it? It’s all this sharing of opinions and feelings that’s gotten everyone into this mess right now. Mom, Emily, you and me. Everyone is mad at everyone else because nobody can agree on anything. I just want everyone to stop fighting and get along already!”
And then she burst into tears.
Whoa. I turned and took the risk of gathering her to me. She surprised me by not fighting me and instead burrowed into me. I bent my head, resting my chin on her soft hair, its familiar lavender scent filling my nose.
Oh, yeah, the situation had definitely gone way, way too far. But at least it had finally gotten my girl back into my arms.
Silver linings.
Now if I could just find a way to keep her here…
I stroked her back until her sobs calmed down. “Sav, you’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. It’s not your fault that Emily and your mom aren’t trying harder to get along. And you and I are going to be fine, even if we argue sometimes.”
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore,” she said, her voice thick and muff led against my shirt. “I miss the way things used to be between us.”
I turned my head, resting my cheek against her hair and smiled. She’d finally come around. “I missed you, too.”
But she was listening to my thoughts instead of what I said. She stepped out of my arms with a frown. “I didn’t say I’d changed my mind about killing Mr. Williams.”
I scrambled to play mental catch-up. What had I missed? “I thought you said you missed me and don’t want to fight anymore—”
“I do miss you. And I don’t want to fight with you anymore. But that doesn’t mean I agree with you.” She quickly dragged her wrists over her cheeks to dry them as her frown deepened into a scowl.
Great. So we were still at square one on this. “Look, Sav, I told you killing him’s the only way out of all of this. Sick of Emily and your mom’s fighting? Tired of being stuck in a trailer with them in some RV park somewhere? The answer’s obvious. We have to kill Mr. Williams. It’s the only way.”
Growling, she turned around and started walking back up the hill toward the trailer, muttering things under her breath about how stubborn and reckless and suicidal I was. Not that the muttering kept me from hearing every word.
At the top of the hill, I said, “Look, disagree with me all you want about Mr. Williams. But you can’t disagree that we have to talk to those two women in there—” I nodded at the RV up ahead “—and fast, before they kill each other.”
She stopped walking and stared at the RV, silently debating. But at least she was still listening to me.
“Just talk to her about the dog for starters,” I said. “She doesn’t have to get rid of it completely. We could board it at a kennel or something. Think short-term solutions here.”
“She’ll never agree to it. She’d hate the idea of sticking that dog with a bunch of strangers who might mistreat it or starve it and never pet it or give it any exercise.”
“Well, what about somewhere else, like a foster family?”
She frowned. “It would have to be someone Mom knew and trusted.”
“What about one of your friends?”
“Maybe. I could call Anne and see what she thinks. I’m still not sure Mom would go for it, though, even if one of my friends could take Lucy. That dog is all she has now.”
I touched her chin, lifting it until she looked me in the eyes. “That’s not true, Savannah. She still has you, and if she loves you, then that’s what should matter the most.”
Everything inside me went still, leaving me confused and thrown off track by my own words.
Savannah’s soft half smile further derailed me. “I’m not sure she’ll see it quite that way.” She sighed. “But I do have to agree, life would be a whole lot better for everyone, including Lucy, if she went on a doggy vacay for a while.” Her glance f licked down the hill and across the creek, where her mother and the dog were strolling together. Something that felt an awful lot like dread drifted from her through the air between us. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do about the dog.” “Thanks, Sav.”
Still frowning, she turned and dug her phone out of her pocket. Dialing Anne’s number, she shot me a wish-megood-luck smile over her shoulder. Then Anne answered.
I stood there for a moment, watching Savannah fall into her usual habit of pacing around the campsite while listening to Anne rattle on and on about everything Savannah had missed in Jacksonville since their last conversation. I didn’t try to listen to either end of their discussion, though. I was too lost in my own thoughts.
I’d meant what I said about how having Savannah should be more important than anything else.
So why was I still holding on to my need to avenge my mother’s death?
Was I acting like Savannah’s mother and that dog, holding on to something even when it hurt everyone else around me?
Confused, I walked away, needing space to think. But even after I walked all the way down the hill to the bridge, across the creek and along its bank, I still hadn’t cleared the mess inside my head.
The trail distracted me for a moment as I hiked over rocks and in between towering boulders the creek cut through when its winter waters f looded a wider path. Now dry from the summer drought, part of the trail branched off and upward, and I followed it, climbing over rocks until I reached the top of one of the dark gray boulders and could look down at the creek below me.
I sat there for a while, listening to the gurgling f low of the water below, thinking about my mother and all the arguments we’d had over the years about football and Savannah and leading the Clann. I had loved my mother, of course. Who didn’t love their mother, even when she drove us nuts? And mine had definitely done her best to drive me crazy. Especially with that dream-blocking charm she had insisted on hiding in my bedroom somewhere so I couldn’t dream connect with Savannah for years.
But I’d also always known all of Mom’s arguments had come from one place…her love for me and her desire to protect me, however misguided she might have been. Maybe Savannah was right and even Mom’s casting me out of the Clann had been a way to protect me as well, though at the time it sure hadn’t felt like it.
Again, the questions haunted my mind… . What had Mom wanted to tell me at that dinner before she died? Had she planned to apologize? To tell me she still loved me in spite of what I’d become?
Because of Mr. Williams, I would never know.
And again, the anger rose within me. But now its heat felt more like a poison inside me, burning instead of warming me.
Was Savannah right? Was I letting my desire for revenge destroy me from the inside out?
At the very least, it was keeping me apart from Savannah.
I kept trying to tell myself that she would come around. That once Mr. Williams was dead and she saw I was still the same, she would understand. But what if I never found a way to get close enough to kill him? Already it had been months since my mother’s death. Two months of distance from Savannah, of not holding her hand or kissing her. Two months of not getting to listen to her laughter or her voice w
hispering through my mind. These two months without her had been pure hell, taking me right back to last year when we were broken up.
I had vowed back then that if I ever found a way for us to be together again, I would never allow anything to come between us.
But wasn’t that exactly what I was doing now by holding on to my need for revenge?
If I could ask my mother for advice, I knew what she would say. She would say that I had to go after Mr. Williams and never stop, no matter how much it might cost me, until he paid for what he’d done. Because that was how she had felt about the vampires who had killed her family when she was little. She had let that loss fill her with anger and fear and a need for revenge that had darkened every day of her life until its end.
And I was doing the exact same thing.
I was turning into my mother.
I buried my face in my hands and groaned. Savannah was right. I had felt an incredible amount of relief after learning Dylan was still alive after all, though at the time that relief had seemed shameful.
She was also right that for two months, I’d thought of nothing but ways to kill Mr. Williams. And in the process, I’d risked losing the one person who mattered the most in my life, even as she begged me to let go of all that darkness inside me and come back to her. I’d held on to my anger, thinking it somehow made me noble or more of a man, that only the weak would allow their family to be killed and not seek retribution for that crime. I had thought I would be like Maximus in that Gladiator movie, or Mad Max, the hero who would stop at nothing until the deaths of his loved ones were avenged.
But even after getting their revenge, what had those guys ended up with? Nothing but more death and loss and loneliness.
Did my need for revenge really matter more than my love for Savannah?
CHA P TER 17
SAVANNAH
I walked along the gravel road that wound through Palisades State Park. The summer sun’s heat was nice on my skin, warming me as nothing else did lately. But even the bright sun and gurgling creek—which to me seemed plenty big enough to be called a small river—weren’t enough to erase the dread growing inside me with every step I took.
How would Mom react when I told her we needed to find Lucy a new home for a while? Anne had called Michelle, and both Michelle and her mom were happy to take Lucy. And Mom had always liked Michelle.
But this was Mom’s dog we were talking about here. Lucy really was like a human child to her, and she never went anywhere without her.
Would Mom hate me for even suggesting this? Would she start to blame me for losing her job and the privacy of her home and her dog?
I really did not want to have this talk with my mother. At the end of the hill, I had to turn right and cross an
old-fashioned but well-maintained wood-and-metal bridge spanning the creek, which would lead me down to the f latter side of the brownish-green water’s shoreline where Mom and Lucy were hanging out.
Halfway across the bridge, I had to stop and admire the view. I could imagine a lot of couples taking their informal wedding photos here overlooking the dark gray boulders that rose up several hundred feet above the creek, carved from the cliff sides by the f lowing water and shaded by shallow woods. Unlike East Texas, however, these woods were made up of mostly hardwoods. So even here in the outdoors I was reminded of how far from home the Clann had forced us.
Sighing, I finished crossing the bridge, following the road again till it led me down past an open and f lat rocky area, and past that to a grassy, shaded area with several picnic tables and fire pits where fishermen liked to sit sometimes. Today I found only Mom and Lucy at the edge of the creek, watching mallard ducks that had f lown in to swim in the smoother parts of the creek.
I couldn’t believe Dad had been comfortable letting Mom go this far from our RV alone. Then I sensed his emotions, annoyance mixed with determination and that ever-present wariness, downwind somewhere nearby. I glanced around at the small wooded area to the right of the creek and spotted a slight shift in the shadows among the trees. Ah, there he was. I knew he’d never let her get so far out of his sight.
Repressing a smile at his protectiveness, I pretended I didn’t see him and instead called out to Mom to warn her of my approach so I wouldn’t scare her.
Unfortunately, I was also upwind to Lucy, so the dog immediately started barking before I even reached them.
Mom saw me, smiled and raised her hand, waving her entire forearm side to side in greeting.
“Hey!” Mom said as I joined her, and the dog went wild at the end of her leash. “Isn’t this weather wonderful?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, bracing myself for what had to be said. It’s for the good of the team, I reminded myself. “You know, Lucy’s not looking too good lately.”
Mom frowned at her. “I know. Her hair’s starting to fall out. Poor thing. She’s not eating much, either. That’s why I’ve been taking her out for all these walks, to give her more exercise so she’ll start eating again.”
I couldn’t help but wince this time. “Um, I don’t think it’s the lack of exercise that’s the problem. I think it’s me and Tristan and Emily’s baby. We’re freaking Lucy out.”
Mom sighed. “I was hoping she’d get used to you guys.”
“Mom, it’s been weeks. She’s getting worse, not better.”
So was the situation inside the trailer.
Thank heavens Mom couldn’t read my thoughts.
She stared at Lucy, who was peeing down her own legs, the dog’s entire body shaking as she fought to get at my ankles with her teeth. More tufts of hair f loated out from Lucy into the air, caught a breeze and were carried over the broad greenish-brown creek.
“I think we need to find her a place to stay. Just for a little while,” I added, already hating how my words would hurt my mother. But this had to be done, for Lucy’s sake as much as everyone else’s.
Mom’s face fell, her lower lip sticking out, and I had a glimpse of what she must have looked like as a little girl. “But she’s my baby! Normally she’s so sweet and cuddly….”
“I know. But she’s just so stressed out right now. And it would be temporary, like a vacation from the vamps for her. She could be somewhere she felt safe again, like Michelle’s house. I know she’d love to dog-sit, and I’m sure her mother wouldn’t mind.”
Mom bent down and scooped up her dog, cradling Lucy against her chest near her face.
“Mom,” I murmured, hating this whole situation. “The stress is making her sick. I don’t know how much longer she can take it.”
Mom closed her eyes, rubbed her cheek against the top of Lucy’s quivering head, then whispered, “Fine.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat, my eyes stinging. Today I was one of the worst daughters on the planet. What kind of person took away their parent’s cherished pet?
We walked back to the RV in silence, Dad following at such a long distance that I could barely make out his emotions. We took our time, none of us eager to return to the confines of our prison on wheels. A prison that had once been Mom’s home. I wanted to reach out to my mother, put an arm around her, comfort her in some way. But Lucy was there and would have bit me if I got too close to her owner. And there wasn’t anything I could think of to say to make Mom feel better. The fact of the matter was this whole situation sucked.
When we returned to the RV, Tristan was nowhere to be seen. Emily was on the couch with a bag of Harvest Cheddarf lavored Sun Chips, my favorite kind before my vamp side had developed too much for me to be able to keep human food down. She stiffened but didn’t look at us as we entered the trailer.
Mom froze, scowled, then muttered “Good night” to me and shambled off to her own room with her dog, her door softly clicking shut behind them.
I started to go to bed. But the room was too empty and quiet, and it was still early.
Emily noticed me wavering in the bunk room’s doorway. “Want to watch a movie with me?”
> “What are you watching?” Too late, I realized it was the same thing I’d asked her brother earlier today.
“P.S. I Love You. It’s awful. Her soul mate dies.”
A snort escaped me. “Sounds great.” I f lopped down on the dinette bench, twisting around to look over its curved back where it attached to the couch so I could see the movie, while Emily cranked up the volume to cover the barking from Mom’s bedroom.
Emily restarted the movie at the beginning, reminding me again of her brother. Thinking about him hurt too much, though. I forced myself to focus on the movie instead, grateful for the distraction from the distance still keeping Tristan and me apart. And within minutes, I was sucked in.
The movie’s beginning reminded me of Tristan and me… the couple’s initial fight, the way they loved each other so much, how the heroine feared losing the hero.
And then the hero died, just like I was scared Tristan would. But unlike Tristan and me, the movie’s heroine had no ability to turn him and save him, so he was just gone forever.
Like Tristan would be if Mr. Williams or one of his people managed to stake Tristan or set him on fire with a spell or decapitate him. Which the Keepers were more than powerful enough to do with one swipe of their huge clawed paws when they were shifted into panther form.
How could Tristan not be afraid of dying? Did he really think vampires were invincible, despite all Dad’s and my warnings and even seeing several vamps, including Gowin, die at the Clann’s hands? Even Tristan’s combination of Clann and vamp abilities wouldn’t be enough to protect him against an entire army of descendants and Keepers.
I could hardly stand to watch the movie’s heroine as she struggled to deal with the loss of her soul mate. That would be me, if Tristan went after Mr. Williams.
For the second time today, tears poured down my cheeks. I swiped at them and tried to blink fast to keep more from forming. Then I realized I wasn’t the only one crying.
Emily was hunched over on the couch as much as her huge belly would allow, her face buried in her hands as her shoulders heaved in time with her sobbing, which was getting more intense by the second.