As the Vampire Queen closed in on my sister, Elliott, and Aaron, I watched through my boyfriend’s IAC. Brandon pulled the SUV to a screeching halt at the end of the alleyway. “Dad! Come on!” Brandon shouted through the open passenger side window. The four of them were in the SUV in a half-second, and Brandon was pulling away. I don’t know if Cadence was aware that Holland had just entered the alleyway from the other end as the SUV’s tires smoked down the road.
“What do I do?” Brandon asked me.
I could see that there was no way he could get out without running over a few Vampires. The ranks had closed in tightly, and there’d be no going around. “You have a line of Vampires in the road ahead of you. Do you see them?”
“Yeah. How do I go around?”
“You don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. Can&rsqu
I closed my eyes and focused in on Holland. She was back in her fortress now, though I couldn’t tell where that was. She was so upset that she didn’t have the full capacity to block me. I could see her lying on a bed, her head buried in her hands, crying out for Perses, cursing my sister’s name, vowing vengeance. The rest of her forces were scattered around the city, some of them hunting for us, some of them searching for innocents to turn. Things could get messy; I tried to see if I could contact any of them, to send them home.I realized after about fifteen minutes of deep concentration that my sister and Brandon were nearby. I vaguely recalled having waved her away earlier. I felt bad about it, but I hadn’t done it on purpose.Cadence had a questioning expression on her face, and I realized she wanted an update. “She’s done for the night. I see her lying on a bed covered in red silk, crying. She’s inconsolable, but also outr
In the following weeks, the Leadership team did a lot to plan the upcoming attack. My sister was calling it Annihilation, and I knew they intended to take out every Vampire, regardless of official status or what they had or hadn’t done. It was a sort of “let’s get them before they get us.” Holland was aware of it, too, and she and Hines were doing everything they could to try to figure out how a Vampire could kill a Guardian. I saw their experiments through Hines’s head. Sometimes he knew I was there. Other times he didn’t. He thought he had something at one point but had no way of testing it. I’d told my sister, and everyone was on high alert so no one else was taken.The Guardians from Roatán were amazing to watch. Dr. Levi Morrow, the man who had been working with Christian on the Guardian Retransformation serum, was a genius, and I liked to spend time in the lab just watching him work on projects with Christian, though the
Nothing can ruin an otherwise lovely early-spring/late-winter day like a funeral. Don’t get me wrong, funerals stink any time of the year. I should know. I’ve been to a lot of them recently. But this one was even worse because it was so lovely outside. The flowers were budding, birds were singing, and the grass was green and freshly cut, giving off that pleasant scent that makes you think of baseball and bike rides. Not standing by, helplessly watching one of your best friends in the world cry her eyes out because they’re lowering her daddy six feet into the ground.I sort of tuned out all of the wonderful things friends and family members had to say about Dave Burk. I knew him pretty much my whole life, and I totally agree. He was an amazing man. He was funny and let us get away with way more than my parents did. Not to mention he had a law practice that made great money and provided a mansion-esque home for his family. (Not that Lucy’s mom didn&rsquo
Elliott Sanderson, Brandon’s dad and one of my best friends, opened the back passenger-side door for me, and I thanked him quietly. Brandon went around, and Elliott hopped into the driver’s seat. My sister and Aaron had driven separately with my parents as passengers. We waited just a second for Jamie Joplin, our resident Healer, to finish talking to my sister and head over. It seemed a little odd that the rest of my family was in the other SUV together, but then, the guys in this vehicle were basically my family now.“Well, that was depressing,” Elliott muttered as he followed a long stream of cars out of the cemetery toward the Sullivan house. “Tell ya what, if I ever die again, just skip that, okay?”“You can’t die again,” I said, knowing he was trying to lighten the mood but also remembering how devastated I was sitting at his funeral not even a year ago. “Even if it were possible for you to die again, you
The usual chatty Lucy wasn’t talking now. When she walked into the house a few minutes after me, her expression was solemn. There was a lot more hugging. And when our friends from school, Milo and Wes, whom I hadn’t had a chance to see since I’d come back but was hoping to speak to, came in after Lucy and wrapped their arms around her, she started bawling again. Her boyfriend Jason is sort of aloof, and he just stood off to the side. Brandon went over to speak to him since they’d met a few months ago, and I took deep breaths, wishing my way back to our house.“She looks really said,” Emma said over my shoulder. “I wish I could make her feel better.”“Me, too,” I replied. I’d gotten to spend a little bit of time with Emma and Lucy the day before after we’d gotten in, but not enough. I’d missed them both so much since I’d moved to Kansas City. We’d done plenty of FaceTime and textin
“I’m ready to join LIGHTS,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s hard to describe, Emma. Even though technically I didn’t start the Transformation process the other night, something changed in me. Something I can’t quite describe.”“What about Jason?” I whispered.Lucy shrugged. “We’ve been dating for a while now, you know. But it’s not like I’m in love with him. He graduates in two months, and then he’s planning on going to Nebraska to play football. I doubt I’d see much of him anyway.”It sounded similar to when Jack and Cadence had broken up because he was going to Nebraska to play baseball, and she had chosen to go to University of Iowa instead. My mind naturally flickered over the guys in my training group, and there were a couple I thought Lucy might like, though the idea of her looking to date right now was absurd. I took another deep breath. “Well, is your mom
Lucy flew back to Kansas City with us. The second my mom started to nod her head—not a full-fledged “yes” but just that initial, “I’m thinking about saying yes but haven’t quite gotten there yet” approval—Lucy was thanking her. So she really didn’t have much of a choice.Luce said next to nothing the entire flight, which wasn’t that long, but I didn’t know if I should try to carry on a conversation or just let her absorb everything. Her whole life had changed in a matter of seconds. I do know the feeling. When this world was revealed to me initially, it was a little slower than that. But when I woke up in Philadelphia to discover I was a half-Vampire, half-Hunter Hybrid, it seemed like I’d taken a ride on a rollercoaster with no safety harness of any kind. I got it. And I didn’t want to overwhelm her. So we sat next to each other, and she stared out the window at the tiny towns and farmland, and I t
After a quick lunch of tuna salad sandwiches and chips, we headed across campus. Tara was actually in her apartment, and she said she’d call Dax over before we arrived. Brandon was in the gym but promised he’d come over later. I think he was trying to give me some time with Luce without being in the way, which I appreciated, even though he wouldn’t have been in the way, and I would rather have had him with me. At least he was always in my head.Tara flung the door open before I could even knock, a huge smile on her face. “Oh, my gosh! It’s so nice to meet you!” she exclaimed, zipping over to Lucy and wrapping her arms around her like they were old friends. Then, I heard her whisper quietly into Lucy’s ear, “I am so very sorry about your dad. He must’ve loved you very much to sacrifice himself for you. What an amazing person he must’ve been.”Lucy didn’t say anything in return, but I could tell imme