Destined to Die (The Briar Creek Vampires, #3) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (5 page)

As he got up to walk away, Lexi said, “Wait.
Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that. Well, there are
only two bedrooms,” Austin replied hesitantly.

“You can sleep in my room,” Gabe offered. “I’ll
sleep on the couch.”

Lexi looked at him questioningly. “Are you
sure? I don’t mind sleeping in the living room.”

Gabe nodded. “Yes, I want you to be comfortable
while we live here. This couch sucks. Unlike you, I don’t actually
have to sleep, though.”

Lexi thought about telling Gabe that they could
share the bed, but after the night they had both just experienced,
it didn’t seem like a good idea. Earlier today, she hadn’t even
been sure if Gabe had been on her side or if she was working with
her aunt and uncle. It just seemed too soon to share any type of
intimacy with Gabe, whether it was sharing a bed or her blood with
him.

As Lexi walked down the hallway that led her to
the bedroom, she couldn’t help but feel a magnetic pull, as though
something was telling her to go back to the living room and step
into Gabe’s arms. Fighting to ignore the feeling, Lexi climbed into
the double-sized bed and dozed off to sleep.

The next morning, the sun poured through her
bedroom window, shining across her face and causing her to stir.
Lexi climbed out of the bed. She found Austin and Gabe sitting at
the kitchen table scarfing down plates of eggs, butter-slathered
toast, and greasy-looking bacon that made her stomach
growl.

“Good morning,” Lexi said.

Austin stood up and went over to the stove. He
piled scrambled eggs and bacon onto her plate. “Good morning.
There’s salsa in the fridge. I know that’s how you like your
eggs.”

Lexi tried to hide her grin. “How do you know
it’s still how I like my eggs?” she asked. She was happy that even
though she hadn’t been able to keep in touch with her cousin, he
still remembered some things about her.

“Just a wild guess,” Austin winked at her,
shrugging. “Some things never change.” He handed her the plate and
sat back down.

“Why are you guys eating? I thought that you
only eat in front of people to keep up with your act,” Lexi said,
as she grabbed the jar of salsa from the fridge. She remembered
that Gabe had once told her that vampires couldn’t digest their
food, so whatever they ate had to be brought up somehow.
Yuck.

“It keeps us in the routine,” Gabe replied.
“And we know that you need to eat, so there’s no sense in you
eating alone.”

“Yeah and besides, I’m having a hard time
giving up eating. Gabe’s old. He’s used to living off of blood. I
like food,” Austin said with a mouthful of toast. “So, we are
talking about our strategy.”

“Strategy?” Lexi raised an eyebrow. “Strategy
for what?”

Gabe met her eyes, causing goose bumps to form
over her arms. “A strategy for stopping the people in Briar
Creek.”

Lexi plopped down in the chair next to him. She
twirled her fork in between her fingers. “Have you come up with
anything?”

Austin shook his head. “Not really. We’re sort
of going off Gabe’s vision, but we don’t know what needs to happen
before we can get to that point. It’s weird because in his first
vision, he saw that everyone was dead and you were there . . . but
this time, it was different.”

Grabbing a piece of toast from the pile, Lexi
turned to Gabe. “What was your vision?”

Gabe gave Austin a look that said
you-just-had-to-open-your-mouth. “I can’t tell you everything right
now because I don’t want to freak you out, but it was sometime in
winter or possibly early spring. I only know because there was snow
on the ground. I actually didn’t see what year it was, but I assume
that it was this year. I could be wrong, though.” He paused. “You
looked the same as you do right now, but it might have been next
year. Anyway, we were all at the courtyard in front of Briar Creek
High School. The whole town was there.” He paused. “Everyone took
sides. I can’t really remember who else was on our side, but some
of them were. There were actually more people on our side than I
would have guessed, but there were still a lot of people, err,
vampires, against us. It was really chaotic. Basically, we just all
fought each other.”

“And what happened? Did we win? Did people
die?” Lexi asked.

Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know what happens. I
didn’t get to that point in my vision yet. I keep hoping that I’ll
have another vision so that I can find out what happens next. It
stopped as everyone lunged at each other and began
attacking.”

“Was I there?” Lexi asked quietly.

Gabe nodded. “Yes, you were there, front and
center.”

Lexi looked down at her paper plate and began
picking at the scrambled eggs with her fork. She didn’t want Austin
and Gabe to know that she was scared. In fact, scared was an
understatement for how she felt. Lexi was petrified.

Even if she had to be there, why did she need
to be in the front? She expected herself to be hovering somewhere
in the back so that no one could hurt her.

The entire town of Briar Creek was filled with
vampires – and not just normal vampires. These were vampires who
wanted her blood – who needed her blood so that they wouldn’t die.
If she was going to be surrounded by them and fighting against them
during the attack that Gabe had envisioned, how was she going to
survive? It didn’t make any sense. Unless she could be a match for
them . . .

“Gabe, can you turn me into a vampire?” she
asked quietly, looking over at him.

Gabe shook his head. “No. I can’t. I’m
sorry.”

“Well, that’s not fair. Here you make fun of
Edward Cullen and
Twilight
, but you’re acting just like him.
It’s not fair for you to tell me that I can’t become a vampire just
because you don’t want me to be one. I think I should be the one
who gets to decide if I can be a vampire or not. Right, Austin? You
were able to decide for yourself!”

“Unfortunately, you don’t have the same choice
I had,” Austin replied. “It’s not that Gabe doesn’t want to change
you into a vampire. Well, I don’t know if he wants to or not . . .
but he can’t because of the curse.”

Lexi had completely forgotten about that
stipulation. The witch who had put the curse on the vampires of
Briar Creek had also added another part to the curse; no one from
the Hunter bloodline would ever be able to become a vampire
again.

It really didn’t seem fair. Knowing that she
would never be able to become a vampire, even if she wanted to be
one, made Lexi feel empty inside. In seventy or eighty years from
now, Gabe would still be here . . . without her.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I forgot,” Lexi
replied, sadly poking at her scrambled eggs. She didn’t know how
Gabe and Austin were able to eat at a time like this. She knew her
own stomach couldn’t handle even the idea of food. It made her feel
bad because Austin had gone through the effort of cooking them for
her. Then again, he probably mostly cooked breakfast for himself.
He was scarfing down more bacon than Lexi realized a vampire could
eat, even if they wanted to.

A thought popped into her mind. “Austin, I’m
really confused about something,” Lexi said. “Shouldn’t you have
already been a vampire or a half vampire? Since Tommy and Violet
were both vampires, too, doesn’t it run in your genes or whatever?”
Gabe had explained the logistics of vampire children to Lexi when
she found out that her own father was a vampire. Children who were
born to vampire fathers and human mothers were half-vampires, or
dhampir. If a child had two vampire parents, they would be a
full-blooded vampire. Lexi realized that the whole entire concept
was similar to that of
Harry Potter
and wizards and Muggles
and mudbloods.

Austin shook his head. “No. You will only be a
dhampir if your father was a vampire when you were conceived. My
father wasn’t a vampire then. Actually, my mom wasn’t either. Both
of my parents became vampires long after I was already
born.”

Lexi felt her forehead wrinkling in confusion.
“I thought that everyone who lived in Briar Creek was a vampire.
Why weren’t your parents or my mom vampires?”

“Our family wasn’t originally from Briar
Creek,” Austin replied. “Grandma didn’t move there until after
Grandpa already died.”

Neither Lexi nor Austin had the chance to meet
their grandfather. He had died when Lexi’s mom was just a child. As
far as Lexi had known, her mom had grown up in the house that
Violet and Tommy still lived in. It made Lexi wonder if her
grandmother had ever found out that Briar Creek was filled with
vampires . . . or that her own daughter became one. Lexi wasn’t
sure if her grandma was still alive when that had happened. “So,
how did Aunt Violet and Uncle Tommy become vampires
then?”

“Well, you do know that my dad cheated on my
mom, right?” Austin asked.

“No,” Lexi replied, shaking her head. It really
didn’t surprise her, though. Tommy wasn’t a good person, and it had
always seemed like Violet was almost
too
attached to him.
Maybe that was why she had done the things she had done and was
completely crazy ; Violet had lost Tommy once already, and she
didn’t want it to happen again – even if that meant she had to
sacrifice her own son’s life in the process. It was scary to think
that Violet knew and accepted the fact that she was responsible for
her own son’s death.

“My dad had an affair with this woman named
Linda Kerensky,” Austin began. “They met while he and my mom were
having . . . problems. Linda was the sister of one of his
co-workers at the time, and he was completely smitten with her
beauty. I don’t know if you know this, but vampire women are very
beautiful. It makes them very powerful creatures because it makes
harder for both vampires and humans to resist them.”

Lexi thought about all of the vampire girls and
women who she had met since she had come to Briar Creek. She knew
that beauty was in the eye of the beholder, but none of the people
who she knew were vampires seemed strikingly beautiful. “Why isn’t
your mom that pretty then, if she’s a vampire?” Lexi blurted before
she could stop herself.

“It’s the disease,” Austin replied. “The
further it progresses, the more it diminishes their beauty. Anyway,
back to the story. My dad’s relationship with Linda didn’t work
out. After a few months, he decided that he still wanted to be with
my mom. He didn’t love Linda the way he loved my mom. So, he ended
the relationship, hoping that it would be the last that he would
ever hear from her. Linda wasn’t about to let it go that easy,
though. I’m not sure if she was in love with him, or if she was
just obsessed with him. She vowed to find a way to make him choose
her instead of my mom.

“Months passed, and my dad didn’t hear a word
from Linda. He and my mom began working on their problems and were
at a point in their relationship where they were happy again. He
never told my mom about the affair until one day when Linda showed
up at their house, accompanied by three vampire men. Using her
beauty as a weapon, Linda lured my dad out of the house. She had
the vampire guys who she brought with her pin him down, and she
turned him into a vampire without his consent.”

Lexi stared at Austin, unsure of what to say.
She figured that some vampires probably had interesting stories
about how they were changed, but she hadn’t expected anything like
this. It made her feel a twinge of resentment towards Tommy,
though. If it weren’t for him, she might not be involved in this
mess as she was. Or, she would at least have her own family on her
side. Finally, Lexi managed to ask, “Why didn’t Tommy end up with
Linda, if she was a vampire and Violet wasn’t?”

“Why wouldn’t a vampire want to stay with a
human?” Austin smirked. “It’s the easiest way to find a willing
blood donor.”

Lexi laughed. As she glanced at Gabe, she found
herself blushing. Just thinking about the way he had drank her
blood two nights ago made her heart flutter and her insides feel
warm. “You know what I mean. Why didn’t Linda get her
way?”

“At first, my dad wasn’t even sure what Linda
had done to him,” Austin replied. “He knew something had made him
different, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Young vampires
can be feisty, and he ended up leaving for awhile. I guess his
senses hadn’t developed enough yet, because eventually, he ended up
attacking a woman in a parking lot for her blood – only to find out
that she, too, was a vampire. That was when he began to develop
Wilkins’ Syndrome, but he didn’t know it yet.

“When he came home, my mom was in the process
of packing her bags, ready to leave him and take me with her. The
first thing that he did was drink from her. That’s when she found
out that vampires were real. She had heard the rumors that they
existed, but she didn’t really believe them until then, not that I
blame her. But my mom made a decision that night: she wanted to be
a vampire, too.”

“So, Tommy turned her into a vampire?” Lexi
asked.

Austin shook his head. “He didn’t know how.
That’s when Greg Lawrence reached out to them. He could smell that
Tommy was no longer a human, and Mrs. Lawrence heard my mom
thinking about it in person once at some party or something. They
told Tommy how to change my mom into a vampire: he had to drain all
the blood from her body, and let her drink his own blood. So, he
changed her into a vamp after that.