“Honey, listen, I’m coming over,” Amelia said, jumping in while Zooey caught her breath. “I’ll be there in a minute. You call everyone else and tell them to come to your house. Tell them to hurry, okay?”
There was a raspy breathing silence, and then Zooey whispered, “Amelia, what’s happening?”
“Just call them, okay?” Amelia said in a rush. “I’m coming.” And then she ended the call, jamming her phone back in her pocket.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Josh growled from behind her, and Amelia rocketed up, startled. She spun, caught her breath, and fought against her racing heart.
“If you have in fact been watching me for months like you said, then you would know that telling me what I can and cannot do does not and will not work.” What was it about men giving her orders that got her back up?
Josh softened, and shoved his hands in his pockets, bashfully. “There are a lot of people here that need you.” He dropped his gaze to the ground, and then glanced up at her through hooded eyes.
Amelia wasn’t falling for it. “And there are people out there that need me.” She said it firmly, with an air that said her going was not up for discussion.
Josh shrugged. “They are not my problem.”
“Good thing I’m not asking you to come with me then.” She sighed, and then looked at Tyler and Megan and said, “Guys, Zooey is freaking, actually, a lot of the soulmates are, and I’m going to talk to them. They need to know what’s going on. Can you handle things here?”
“Yeah, sure,” Megan replied, looking between her and Josh with a big question mark on her face.
Amelia ignored it. “Thanks, I’ll try not to be long.” And then before anyone could stop her, she ran from the room.
CHAPTER 19
Amelia was right. Josh couldn’t deny it. He had had a fairly good idea as to what would happen when the bond was broken. The truth was, he had known all along that without the bond, linking the vamps to their souls and to humanity, they would be … unattached. Soulless demons. He guessed he could have dug deeper and reversed the original curse, giving their souls back, but he had wanted Amelia to see them as monsters. Josh had figured that when she saw those bloodsuckers for what they really were it would have changed her train of thought. She’d realize that they needed to die.
But of course, she didn’t. He figured he should have known. Over the last few months of surveillance, he had gotten a pretty clear idea of how stubborn she was and above that, how brave she had become.
Amelia had fought against Mitchell about everything, without even batting an eye. That fact alone had Josh certain that it was only the bond that kept her with him. He had been so sure that with the bond broken she would wake up and see what that vamp really was, but right now, he was beginning to believe there was more between them than the bond, and it made his stomach roll with disgust.
After she had stormed off, Josh had barricaded himself in the study. He needed to think. Figure out his next step and take it before she really started using her power on him. So far, she hadn’t given him many direct orders, but he knew the time would come when she figured it all out. And then, he would lose what little of an edge he had left.
Josh swung his feet up onto the oak desk and reclined back in the black, leather office-style chair. He ran his hand roughly over his face, and through his hair. The whole seduction idea really wasn’t working. He had really thought he would have been able to get over the idea of her being with a vamp, but right now that didn’t seem possible. The idea of touching her made him sick. That’s why he lost focus, and dropped the charm when Tyler barged in; he was sure of it. The whole time he was looking down at Amelia all he could see were Mitchell’s fangs sliding into her skin. He could hear her delighted moan, and see Mitchell’s dead hands roaming over her body.
Josh gagged as the image flooded over him. Amelia had been so perfect—pure. And now, all he could see was her sleeping with the dead.
I should have killed Mitchell at the fair, he told himself. He hadn’t even been able to shoot. It should have been him that had saved her, not Cole. Him. But the way that that monster pushed her away from the flames. Like he was trying to protect her. Like he actually cared. Josh had been too focused on not throwing up that he had missed his chance to let the arrow fly. He knew that it wasn’t possible for Mitchell to actually care. Mitchell had no soul, no humanity. He couldn’t care.
But then why did he tell me to take Amelia and run? Mitchell could have killed her, but he didn’t. He could have sent the vamps after them, but he told them to stand down. Was he playing with them? Maybe it had been too easy, and he liked the idea of the chase. But the way he looked at Amelia with those confused and haunted eyes …
Josh shook off the memory. He had to. If he kept seeing the way they looked at each other, with rampant passion, even after Mitchell had tried to drain her, he would lose his nerve. And he knew he couldn’t slip up again. Failure was not an option. He was going to kill that beast no matter what it took, and she was going to help him create more hybrids.
“Josh,” Cole said, creeping into the study and shutting the door. He stopped for a minute, glancing around and taking in all the research, photos, maps, everything that they had collected on the vamps before the first attack was displayed around the room. “It’s time to take her out.”
Josh groaned. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. His patience was wearing thin, and if Cole was saying what he thought he was, he was certain that what little bit of it he had left, which was right now hanging on by a thread, would indeed snap.
If Cole noticed, he didn’t care. “Amelia, if she dies, then we’ll at least have a fighting chance.” There was a nonchalant vibe in his tone. Even his posture was slack and uncaring. He ran a finger over Amelia’s picture, and then he traced the bold letters of recruit below.
“We can hold them off,” Josh said with more certainty than he felt.
Cole wandered over to another house plan, looking it over as if it was some priceless piece of art. “Josh, I’m really not asking you,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’re taking her out.”
“I think you’re forgetting,” he retorted, shocked at how brutal his own voice sounded. “You were never really in control, Cole. It was an act, and it’s over.” A frustrated huff slipped out before he could stop it. “Besides, neither of us is in a position to make that call anymore,” Josh lied. He got up and padded over to the window. The sun was already making its descent, streaking the sky with reds and oranges.
“She hasn’t given that order and you know it,” Cole retorted. “We have to act now before she does. You knew from the start that it might come to this.”
“We aren’t at that point yet,” he said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t really sure why Cole’s words were getting under his skin so much. But they were. His jaw clenched, he could feel the muscles twitching along his neck, and for a minute, he wondered why he even cared. It wasn’t as if he actually wanted to touch her now, and for a second, he wondered if she died and came back new, would he be able to get over it. Maybe.
“You know, we could always use Megan,” Cole said. “She’s not as strong as Amelia, and I’m sure I could get her to forget about the bloodsucker.” He walked over to the window, and leaned against the sill and folded his arms over his chest. He winked at Josh, a sly smile on his face, and then he said, “Or maybe you should step back and I could give Amelia a try.”
“She’s mine,” Josh growled, and he fought to keep his skin in place through the rush of red-hot rage that washed over him. “You will not touch her.”
Cole chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “Twenty-four hours. If you haven’t gotten her to cave, then I’m taking her out.”
CHAPTER 20
If Amelia had been worried about how the other soulmates would take the news, she hadn’t needed to.
Zooey and Greg’s house was only two houses down on the left from hers, and Amelia decided to run instead
of trying to fight her way down her crammed driveway with the Jeep. It took her just under five minutes to get there, but by the time she did, she was ready to hurl.
Her mind raced with all the possible scenarios, and each one was worse than the last. What if they blamed her? It would be justified, she realized. She was the one, in fact, who had started this whole chain reaction, but she didn’t think she could take any more hateful glares. She was certainly getting her fill of them from all the hunters. After that thought, they spiraled out of control. What if they were glad the bond was broken? What if they wanted to be free of the burden?
And then there was Josh’s idea plaguing her thoughts. What if she gave the vampires back their souls? Could she do that? Did she want to? Each time she thought about it her stomach twisted and tumbled as if there was a circus going on inside her. She knew she would need to use the same magic—black magic—to do it, and that scared the hell out of her. But what scared her even more was the fact that she was considering it at all. She had been so sure that she was past this. She had accepted the bond and Mitchell, but if that was true, then why did Josh’s idea actually seem like a solution to consider?
When she reached the beige stucco house, her nerves were on fire. She had to fight back the urge to run away, but all of her worries had been pointless and completely unnecessary.
Maybe it was because they were already in the know, but not a single one of the soulmates batted an eye when Amelia had launched into the story. She told them about the curse, and explained that the legend, which they all knew, was actually about her and Mitchell. She recounted the burning and told them all about how in her next life she had blamed Mitchell for it and wanted him dead.
“After that, I kind of created vampire hunters to kill him,” Amelia said, wringing her hands nervously in her lap. “And then when Mitchell killed them all, I made Josh. He’s a cross between a witch and a hunter, and I made him for me.” She let the last words hang in the air, letting them all grasp onto the meaning of what she had done. Again, she was surprised that not a single one of them blamed her, or at least they didn’t give any indication of it if they did.
“Two days ago, Josh and Cole, well, they kidnapped Meg and me. Tristan …” Amelia stopped short, sorting through her thoughts and trying to pick what was relevant to the story. She still wasn’t entirely sure how Tristan fell into all this. When she continued, she dropped her gaze and began to fidget, wrapping a curl around her finger. “Josh used my power against me. He had thought that if he broke the bond, then everything would go back to before I placed the curse that took away the vamps’ souls. It didn’t work.”
“What are you trying to say?” one of them asked, and Amelia looked back up, trying to pinpoint who had spoken. All twenty-two of them sat in a semi-circle around her on the floor, staring at her with lost and confused eyes.
Amelia took a deep breath and counted to ten, bracing herself, and then she whispered, “Right now all of our soulmates are running around town without a soul, without any ties to humanity.”
The silence was loud, and Amelia felt as if an orchestra was playing in her ears as she watched everyone process her story. There were many blank faces, and a few nods of understanding, but there was one thing that Amelia saw that was the same for all of them. Emptiness. It was as if someone had come in and sucked out all of their insides, leaving only a shell behind.
“Where’s Lucy?” Zooey asked, breaking the silence.
“Erin changed her,” Amelia answered. “She’ll be okay.”
“You saw her?”
Amelia nodded. “Yes, I saw them all this morning. I went to the fair with the hunters. The vamps were there hunting. Mitchell …” she paused, biting back a sudden urge to let the building tears loose. She took a few deep breaths and pushed on, knowing that they all needed to hear this, and she was determined not to keep anything back. “He could have killed me. He used persuasion on me, and I walked right into his arms, but he let me go. He told me to run. He’s still in there, and I’m going to fix this, guys. I’ll figure it out and get them back. But right now, we all need to be careful. They remember us. I saw it with Mitch today, and Eric has shown signs of it with Megan, but that memory … I just don’t know how long it will last. Mitch … it was like he thought he owned me, as if I was a pet or a toy for his amusement.”
When Amelia finished, the glazed eyes and dampened cheeks of her audience didn’t go unnoticed. She wanted to cry with them, but before the flood could start, she rushed on. She had to be strong, for them, for Mitchell, for her family. “Josh, well, he had an idea,” she continued hesitantly. “I could try and just give our soulmates their souls back and get rid of the bond altogether.”
“What?” Zooey yelped, and jumped up to her feet. “You can’t do that! You can’t just take them away from us!” Tears streamed down her face in a heavy waterfall.
Amelia was stunned. She hadn’t expected that, not from one of the human soulmates. With all the pain the bond could cause, she had really thought that they would have at least considered the idea. “Zooey, it wouldn’t take them away,” Amelia said. “Greg would still be yours. You just wouldn’t have the bond or the pain.”
“But I love the bond,” Xara said. She got up and wrapped her arms around Zooey, who was crying uncontrollably, gasping and sobbing. She looked at Amelia with Zooey huddled under her arm, and a dreamy far off look clouded her face. “The connection … it’s amazing. The feelings, the love, the passion, it’s … it’s … like sunshine.” Her cheeks flushed, and she sneered. “You can’t just take that away. I thought you cared.”
Amelia dropped her head back down, unable to look at them, and she suddenly felt sick. “I do care,” she whispered. Could she really be the only one who would consider life without the bond? She fought away the guilt and pushed aside pain, and she blurted, “Look, I have to go, but you guys need to stay inside. Lock the doors and don’t open them for anyone. Not even your soulmates. I’ll fix this, guys. I promise.”
It didn’t take much convincing for them to stay put. They decided they wanted to stay together, and Amelia spelled the house. Again, she was taken aback at how well everyone was just accepting this news. The townspeople didn’t seem surprised by the lockdown; the soulmates believed everything. It made Amelia wonder how many disasters had happened in this town before she came. Whether it was their willingness to accept it or that they had already been through a few of these calamities, their togetherness gave Amelia strength, but more importantly, it gave her hope. Warm and lustrous hope.
The hope died fast.
Back at home, Amelia looked around the crammed kitchen. Clearly, their house had turned into the official headquarters, a sanctuary for their side of the battle, even if she didn’t really know what their side was, especially with the random sparks of something, that Amelia thought resembled humanity, showing up in the vamps.
The house was in a state of havoc. And if the house was like this, what about the rest of the town and the rest of the world? Amelia wasn’t naive enough to think that the vampires weren’t hunting. They had seen the evidence on TV, and she knew that had been their plan at the fair. She had only counted thirteen then, fourteen including Mitchell, and she knew that the town held a little more than twice as many. They were everywhere, and right now, they were most likely killing recklessly, without so much as a thought for their victims. Or at least they would be sooner or later; she was sure of it.
In the kitchen, the tension was crushing. Tyler and Megan refused to work with Josh and Cole, not that Amelia blamed them since their only solution to the problem so far was killing the vamps. From what Sally had told her, Cole had made it clear that he planned to start with Eric. The unexplained burn marks, which shimmered slightly with the telltale signs of magic that dotted Cole’s shirt, showed Amelia exactly how Megan had handled his remarks.
Amelia glared at the four of them through narrowed eyes, with her hands on her hips. She guessed that her expression project
ed every bit of the anger she was feeling, because in seconds, the kitchen emptied, leaving Megan, Tyler, Josh, and Cole looking guilty, ashamed, and more than a little nervous.
“What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Amelia asked; her voice was thin but controlled.
Tyler shrugged his shoulders with a lazy lift, Megan’s jaw twitched, and Josh kept his eyes on the floor, studying the dark marble tiles with so much concentration, that Amelia figured he was counting the speckles.
“Josh, give her the note,” Tyler said, leaning against the island.
“What note?” she asked with a huff.
Josh didn’t look up from his floor inspection. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he grunted.
Tyler folded his arms over his puffed out chest and glared. “Just give it to her.” There was a smirk forming on his lips that Amelia knew well. It was the you’re in so much shit smirk that usually surfaced when Eric did something completely retarded.
“There’s no note,” Josh snapped, and then he smiled at Amelia. Cole chuckled, clearly enjoying Josh’s unease, or maybe it was the huge, flashing question mark that Amelia was certain was on her forehead. She glanced at Megan, who looked just as confused. Amelia didn’t say anything. There was something about Josh’s quick answers and snappy tone that made the hair on the back of her neck prickle and stand on end. She stuck out her right hand, palm up, and waited, tapping her foot on the floor impatiently.
Josh glanced at her hand quickly and then began to fidget, shuffling from one foot to the other. “It’s nothing, will you just drop it?”
“Give her the paper, man,” Tyler snickered, and stifled a laugh.
“Amelia,” Josh said, his voice pitched, and his eyes pleaded.
Amelia narrowed her eyes further. Clearly, he was hiding something. And by the look of him, it was something that he desperately didn’t want her to know. She racked her brain, trying to figure it out. Josh paled and grumbled something, and Amelia held her glare, gritting her teeth. After a second, he shoved his hand in his pocket, producing the wadded up ball of paper, placing it in the center of her palm. She unfolded it, flattened out the creases, and began to read.