Crave 02 - Sacrifice (23 page)

Fragments of memory from his long life competed with his family’s emotions for his attention. Watching Elena make flower chains at the orphanage. Playing poker with Sam. Sitting in a lecture hall, uneasy with the number of humans around him. Lying with Shay, her arms and legs wrapped around him.

Dizziness washed through him. Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was his or Millie’s or both. The memories continued to explode in his mind, some of moments in his life he’d long forgotten. Then, like a sucker punch, he was hit with the picture of him drinking from Sam, helping to kill him. Involuntarily, Gabriel gave a moan. Millie misinterpreted it and pulled away. “I can’t . . . Ernst, please.”

“Come away, Millie,” Ernst answered. “Luis?”

Luis nodded. He strode over and stretched out on the ground next to Gabriel, then slid his teeth into the largest vein in Gabriel’s wrist. As Luis drank, Gabriel wished for more of the sweet agony the memories of Shay gave him. Instead, he was blasted with a series of memories of Sam. All so good at the time. And so horrible to recall now that he believed with all his heart that the family shouldn’t have killed his brother. Why had Gabriel gone to Ernst with the information about Sam and Emma?

Because I thought it was my only choice. I believed that there was no
way for the rest of my family to be safe if Sam involved himself with a human.

The memories dimmed, and Gabriel’s body suddenly felt light. He felt as if he were floating up, up, up. Up past the wooden beams of the cellar ceiling, up through the old farmhouse, up into the night, into the brightness of the moon. The feeling shattered as the poison of his blood began to burn through Luis’s body, Gabriel experiencing the agony along with Luis.

“That’s enough for tonight, Luis,” Ernst finally said. “It’s Tamara’s turn now.”

Only seconds after Luis pulled away, Tamara dropped down on top of Gabriel and jabbed her teeth into his neck without hesitation. She sucked so viciously that Gabriel felt as if his blood were being scraped from his veins.

She uttered a growl as another memory of Shay from their one night together in the barn flashed through Gabriel’s mind. Gabriel wondered if Tamara realized where the rush of joy and rapture she was getting as she drank came from. Shay straddling him, kissing him. Gabriel gasped with the pain of that memory, its sweetness tempered by having lost Shay. But no matter how much pain it caused, he was grateful to experience that moment again before he died.

Gabriel’s stomach cramped as he absorbed Tamara’s feelings of nausea and, less powerfully, the nausea that still filled Millie and Luis. Pain exploded behind his eyes, and again he wasn’t sure if the sensation was directly from his own body or something that Tamara was experiencing as she sickened from his blood.

If the sensation was from Tamara, it wasn’t inhibiting her. She continued swallowing down Gabriel’s blood, as if she was planning
to take it all right then. That’s how badly she wanted him dead. The night of Sam’s ritual, she’d done what she needed to do, without pleasure or regret. But with him . . . He’d probably feel the same if the situation were reversed and Tamara’s actions had led to Shay’s death.

Gabriel realized his muscles had tensed and consciously relaxed them. This was what he wanted. “Forgive me, Tamara,” he said. Her only reply was to knot her fingers in his hair and drain his blood more desperately.

Then Tamara’s eyeteeth jerked out of his throat. He felt her body being lifted off of his. “Enough!” Ernst cried. “Are you trying to kill yourself? That’s not what Richard would want for you.” She began to sob. “Enough for tonight.” Ernst’s voice was gentle now, the voice of a concerned father. “You all did well, and you all need rest. It’s time to go back upstairs.”

Two more nights,
Gabriel told himself as they left him chained there, naked on the cellar floor.
Only two more nights.

He heard a shuffling sound from the top of the staircase. Ernst.

“You don’t have to stay there all night,” Gabriel called softly. “I’m too weak to break the chains, but if I could, I wouldn’t. Don’t you understand? This is what I want.” To go through what Sam had, for almost the same reason, for love, felt right, deserved, earned.

There was no reply from Ernst, but Gabriel knew he was still there.

“Shay despises me. I murdered Sam. I betrayed my family. And you hate me,” Gabriel burst out. “What is there to stay alive for?”

Again, there was no reply from Ernst.

S
HAY FINALLY SLOWED DOWN
as she entered Black River. No reason to risk a ticket when she was only a couple of miles from home. As if speeding was the worst of it. She’d stolen a car. Somehow she’d become the kind of girl who’d steal a car. Girl. She had to stop thinking of herself as a girl. She was a vampire. She did what she had to do to stay alive. Steal a car. Break into a motel. Drink human blood.

As she pulled to a stop at a red light, the nausea and dizziness she’d been feeling all night intensified. Because she was anxious about facing her mother and Martin? Because she couldn’t get Olivia’s expression of absolute revulsion out of her head?

Shay sighed. Maybe both those things were part of it, but she
knew that mostly the sensations were coming to her through her communion with Gabriel. There was something wrong with him, seriously wrong. He’d drained her of blood, and her blood was poison to him. Was he going to be able to survive it? Or was Gabriel dying?

I told him that transforming me might kill him,
Shay told herself, pushing down the emotions from him.
And, anyway, there’s nothing I can do. It’s not like I can save him. I have my own situation here, my own life. Or afterlife.

A horn blared behind her, and Shay realized that the light had turned green.
Okay, okay,
she thought as she stepped on the gas.
I can see you have someplace very important to be. So do I. I have to go tell my mother I’m a vampire.

That was the only plan she’d been able to come up with. She was going to ask her mother for help. And if Mom refused, if she turned on Shay immediately the way Olivia had, then Shay would go outside and let herself burn down to ash when the sun came up. She couldn’t handle this by herself, she just couldn’t. Olivia thought she was a monster, and Olivia was probably right. Mom had spoken of Gabriel as something less than human, so she’d probably think of Shay that way too. And what was the point of living if everyone she loved hated her? Hated her or was dead.

Two lefts, a right, and she was on her street, the perfectly manicured lawns and lovely McMansions gliding by. Shay felt like she’d drifted into a dream she used to have. When she pulled into the driveway, it didn’t feel like coming home.

Maybe because this house, this street were much more Martin’s than Shay’s or her mother’s. When he’d married Mom, he’d swept
them away into a bubble with every comfort money could buy. They hadn’t known that it was as much of an investment as anything else. Did he have any real feelings for her mom? Had he ever?

Shay turned off the engine and stared at the house. More questions she hadn’t allowed herself to think about flooded her. Would Martin be there? He’d answered the phone before. Did her mother know what Martin had done in Tennessee? Had she helped him plan his attack on the vampire family’s lab? She had helped him take Gabriel hostage, but that was to save Shay. Would her mother—

Shay shook her head, trying to stop the chatter in her brain. She should use her vampire senses—that would tell her all she needed to know. There was only one heartbeat inside the house. Shay pulled in a deep breath. The strongest scent was her mother’s, that mix of honeysuckle perfume and the chemicals of hair coloring, Tide detergent, aloe vera hand lotion, and, more faintly, under the powdery odor of deodorant, the pungent scent of fear sweat.

Mom’s alone. Just go in,
Shay ordered herself. It was almost six in the morning. There was only about an hour before sunrise. There wasn’t enough time for doubt. She stepped out of the car and shut the door softly. When she’d climbed the steps to the front porch, she took the spare key from the hanging pot filled with what her mother called hummingbird fodder—just a bunch of plants that hummingbirds liked.

She felt like a thief as she slid the key into the lock and silently opened the door.
I still live here,
she told herself. Mom would want her to come in. She’d be so excited to see Shay, and so relieved. At least at first. At least until she knew what Shay had become.
She loved Sam once,
Shay reminded herself.
Even though she knew what he was.

Shay started for the stairs, then hesitated as she heard a clicking sound from the kitchen. The sound was familiar, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

Oh. Of course,
she thought when she reached the kitchen doorway. The clicks were created when her mom shut one of the little plastic doors on Shay’s pill holder. Holders. She had two—one for morning, one for night. Wednesday—click. Thursday—click. Friday—

“Mom.”

The bottle of pills her mother had been holding flew out of her fingers. It landed with another click—a louder one—followed by the
ping, ping, ping
of some loose pills, pills Shay no longer had any use for.

“Shay!” Mom scrambled up from her chair. They met in the middle of the room. Shay had to remind herself not to hold her mother as tightly as she wanted to. She was still learning to control her strength, and she could crack one of her mother’s ribs if she wasn’t careful.

Again, Shay was struck by the realization that she was stronger than the people she kept turning to for protection. Kaz, Olivia, Mom. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here. But she hadn’t had anywhere else to go. And this way, no matter what, she’d at least be able to say good-bye to her mother.

“Are you okay?” her mom exclaimed as she released Shay, her eyes frantically searching Shay’s face. “You look—you look well. But we should get you checked out.”

“No,”
Shay said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“I’ve been frantic. After I talked to you, I came straight home from Miami,” Mom said. “I figured this was where you’d come if you wanted
me. How did you get here? Where were you? Is the—Is
he
with you?” Fear flickered in her eyes, and the smell of her fright intensified.

“No.
Gabriel
isn’t with me.” Her mother flinched at the way Shay had emphasized his name. “I meant what I said before, Mom. What you did to Gabriel . . . I know you did it for me.”

“I did! It was the only thing I could think of to save you. I—”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you took a person hostage for his blood.” Shay felt some of her old anger rising up. What Gabriel had done to her father was unforgivable. But it didn’t change the fact that he himself had been treated like a lab rat.

“We both know he isn’t a
person
,” her mother replied, then she pressed her fingers against her lips. “Let’s not do this, Shay. Let’s not fight. I was afraid I was never going to see you again.”

“Me too,” Shay admitted. “Mom, I have so much to tell you. But where’s Martin?” His scent was still strong in the house. He’d been there recently.

“He was gone when I got up,” her mother said with a shrug. “He’s been heading to his office insanely early and staying late. He’s going crazy trying to figure out where you are. He feels so responsible for what happened to you.”

“That’s because he is,” Shay snapped.

“We both are. I should have demanded that Martin stop the transfusions. I could see they were making you act recklessly. You never would’ve gone to Martin’s office . . . you never would’ve found that vampire if I’d just made Martin stop,” her mother said.

“If you’d made him stop, I’d be dead,” Shay argued. “It wasn’t the transfusions that—”

Mom put her hand on Shay’s arm, interrupting her. “I can’t
believe how good you look. Martin didn’t think you’d be able to live more than a few days.”

The fear flashed through her eyes again.
Does she know the truth?
Shay wondered.
She has to at least suspect. She knows I was with a vampire. And here I am looking completely healthy, when I shouldn’t even be able to keep myself on my feet.

“Well, you can’t believe anything Martin says,” Shay replied.

“Oh, sweetie, no. We were both so worried about you.”

“Martin doesn’t give a crap about me,” Shay said flatly. “He never has. He—”

“How can you say that?” her mother exclaimed. “Martin gave up his entire career to find a cure for you!”

God, she’s good at denial,
Shay thought.
I guess she had to be to survive having a terminally ill kid.

“Mom, come on. Martin saw me as a way to make one of those historic medical contributions he’s always talking about. I was going to be his artificial heart or polio vaccine or whatever. As soon as he figured out a way to use what I was—half human and half vampire.” Shay shook her head. “He was hoping he could come up with a cure for death, not for me.”