Destined to Die (The Briar Creek Vampires, #3) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (8 page)

Gabe continued to stare ahead of him,
completely emotionless, and didn’t answer her, as though he were in
a trance. His body quivered; it looked like he was shivering
because he was cold. His eyes had taken on a sunken hallow
appearance that Lexi had never seen before.

Lexi glanced over at Austin questioningly.
Austin shook his head, a worried expression on his face. “I don’t
know what’s going on. I’ve never seen him this way
before.”

Lexi took a deep breath and tried not to panic.
Everything’s going to be okay, she reminded herself. “Should we
call 911?”

Austin looked at her as if she had grown a
second head. “What’s a doctor going to do for him? He’s already
dead. The only doctor he could see would be a vampire doctor, but
then we would have to take him to Briar Creek and risk getting
caught.”

“Oh, right,” Lexi replied, feeling silly.
Whatever was wrong with Gabe, it couldn’t be that serious. He was a
vampire. He couldn’t die. Could he?

Lexi turned to Austin. “Does Gabe have Wilkins’
Syndrome?”

Austin shook his head. “No, he’s never told me
that he did. And even if he did, he would have gotten healthy again
as much as he drinks from Mary-Kate.”

Lexi shuddered at the thought of Gabe, the guy
who was practically her boyfriend but wasn’t quite yet, drinking
from her half-sister. She knew that Gabe had to drink from
Mary-Kate to survive, and she assumed that he had drank from her
the most before Lexi even came to Briar Creek. Still, she knew that
it was always going to bother her. “Well, what do we do?” Lexi
asked Austin. “If he’s not sick, what’s wrong with him?”

“Not...sick,” Gabe agreed in a mumbled,
monotone voice from the shower, as he continued to stare into the
faucet.

“Then, what’s wrong?” Lexi asked, trying,
unsuccessfully, to hide the worry in her voice.

“See,” Gabe mumbled again.

“See? What do we need to see?” Austin asked,
concerned. When Gabe didn’t respond, he went on. “Gabe, what are
you talking about? Are you okay? Tell us something
else.”

“I saw,” Gabe replied, still appearing to be in
a trance.

Lexi opened her mouth to ask him what he saw,
but before she could, Austin said, “He means that he had a
vision.”

Lexi glanced at Gabe, who was shaking
violently. “Gabe, tell me what you saw.”

“D-d-death,” Gabe stuttered. His skin and lips
were beginning to turn a shade of blue. Lexi had never noticed any
tint of color in his skin. It was normally a milky shade of white,
but he looked like he could play the role of Jack Frost right
now.

Lexi turned to Austin. “What’s happening to
him?”

Austin shook his head, staring at Gabe in
shock. “I don’t know, Lexi! I haven’t been a vampire long enough to
know what can happen to us.”

“Th-thirsty,” Gabe managed to sputter. “Weak.
I’m thirsty.”

“I’ll go get you a glass of water,” Lexi said,
backing out of the bathroom. Austin grabbed her arm. “No, Lexi.
He’s thirsty for blood.”

Lexi realized what she had to do. She motioned
towards the door and told Austin, “Give us some
privacy.”

When Gabe finished drinking from her, Lexi took
a step back and stared into his steel blue eyes. They had regained
their sparkly, human-like appearance, and he had stopped shaking so
bad.

It had been different when he drank from her
this time. It still felt good, but there was an obvious change in
his demeanor. It was hungrier, rougher, more desperate. Lexi
realized that this was what it was like when a malnourished vampire
needed blood.

What happened when a vampire’s nutrients just
ran out? She was pretty sure that they couldn’t die, but what
happened to them? Lexi would have to remember to ask Austin or Gabe
about that later. Gabe hadn’t spoken to her yet. She had managed to
coax him out of the shower, but he still wasn’t completely back to
normal.

Lexi was trying to decide if she should leave
him in the bathroom unattended to dry off when Austin knocked on
the door. “Lexi? Is everything okay in there?”

“Yeah, we’re fine . . . or better at least.
He’s drying off now, but he still hasn’t talked to me
yet.”

“I don’t want to scare you, but I thought you
should know that I just saw you on the news,” Austin
said.

“Me?” Lexi knew that her name had been
celebrity-status in the vampire world (or at least in Briar Creek),
but she hadn’t done anything to be considered newsworthy to the
human world lately. The only time she had ever even been in the
newspaper was when she had been on her high school swim team in New
Jersey.

“You’ve been reported as a missing person,”
Austin replied from the other side of the door. “But it’s even
worse than that.”

Lexi took a deep breath. She should have
expected that her crazy aunt and uncle would report her as missing.
Of course they wouldn’t make this easy for her. “How does it get
worse?”

“There are numerous witnesses who are reporting
that you murdered someone in Briar Creek.”

****

Chapter
6

“Why would they say I killed someone?” Lexi
asked Austin when they were sitting in the living room again. She
wanted to calm the anger that had built up inside her, but she was
trying to piece everything together first. Gabe was sitting on the
couch beside her, with his arm wrapped around her waist. His face
had returned to its natural color, but he still hadn’t been able to
say much yet.

Austin shrugged. “I can only assume that they
want to make sure that you get caught. Think about it. If people
see your face on TV, on the front page of the newspaper, or behind
the counter while they’re buying cigarettes, it’s going to be a lot
harder for you to stay hidden. Our society gets kind of obsessed
with criminals, so they’ll probably go crazy over this. And if you
were to get caught, the cops will turn you right over to the town
where it happened . . . the town that is offering a one hundred
thousand dollar reward to anyone who can turn you in.”

Lexi gulped. “They did this because they knew
I’d be more likely to get caught than if I was just a runaway. No
one cares about runaways, but this would me a . . . a . . .” She
tried to get the word ‘criminal’ out, but she couldn’t seem to say
it.

“A fugitive,” Austin said, filling the blank in
with another word that could describe her in this scenario. “This
means we need to try even harder to stay hidden. I was thinking
that we could go out to the next town over to do some grocery
shopping or something where no one will know who you are, but we
can’t do that now. At least, you can’t come with us. I think only I
can go because no one there will be looking for me. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they release Gabe’s picture and claim that he’s an
accessory to the murder or something.”

Lexi sighed. She really hated being stuck in
the house. Then again, it wasn’t much different from living at her
aunt and uncle’s house for the past few months. They had tried to
keep her under wraps and had grounded her just to make sure that
she couldn’t get away from them. It was just like them to find a
way to make it so she couldn’t even go out in public. “This feels
like a witch hunt or something.”

“Witch hunt?” Gabe said, more of a statement
than a question. Recognition flashed through his eyes and quickly
disappeared. He glanced up at Lexi. “The vision that I just had . .
. it was the same vision I had before. The vision that I had before
Halloween. The town sacrificed you.” Gabe looked down at his hands,
which were beginning to shake again. “I thought that running away
might change my vision, but this is the second time I’ve had it.”
He gulped. “So far, all of my visions have come true when I’ve had
the exact same vision more than once.”

“Well, there’s always a first time for
everything,” Lexi replied, trying to sound more enthusiastic than
she really felt. She knew that Gabe’s prophetic visions were
usually accurate, even though she hadn’t witnessed it
firsthand.

Actually, now that she thought about, Lexi
realized that his visions could be changed. The first time he had
the vision about her being sacrificed, it was supposed to take
place on the night of the Halloween festival. They had outsmarted
the people of Briar Creek, though, and Lexi was still alive.
“Technically, it is different this time, so maybe it’s your first
vision,” she pointed out. “It didn’t happen on the same day. We
just need to figure out when it’s supposed to happen, and then find
a way to outsmart them.”

“That’s going to be easier said than done,”
Austin said. “But I think we can do it.”

“As long as I don’t have too many more
visions,” Gabe replied. “Usually, they’re much more spaced out than
this. I only have a few really important visions every year, but
I’ve had about the same amount in the past couple of months. It’s
taking a lot out of me, which has never happened before. That’s why
I needed blood so bad. I felt like my body went into a coma, into
shock, and I was going to pass out.”

Lexi reached over and grabbed his hand. “What
happens if a vampire’s nutrients run out?”

“I’ve never heard of it happening before,” Gabe
replied. “A vampire will kill a random stranger for blood before
becoming malnourished. If it did happen . . . it would probably
something similar to what I just experienced until I
died.”

Lexi shuddered at thought. “I guess it’s a good
thing I was here. Imagine if it had happened when you were flying
back and forth to Briar Creek to see me.”

“Speaking of which,” Austin said, standing up,
“I’m going to go see Mary-Kate.”

“Isn’t that a really dangerous idea right now?”
Lexi asked. Even though no one would be looking for Austin because
they all thought he was dead, it still seemed like it could lead to
trouble if he wasn’t careful. What if somebody did see him? That
would be one of the worst things that they could happen.

“I’m not going to Briar Creek,” Austin replied.
“She’s agreed to meet me in Huntington.”

He opened the front door. Lexi heard
a soft crackling noise as his human form was replaced by the body
of a tiny bat, and he swiftly drifted away into the moonlit
sky.

*

Mary-Kate’s Jetta was idling next to Huntington
High, its headlights shining brightly through the dark night.
Austin flew towards the car and skirted in through the window that
Mary-Kate always left cracked open for him whenever they met. As he
made the change back to human, he hit his head on the dashboard.
“Ouch.”

“Austin!” Mary-Kate squealed, a wide smile
crossing over her face. “I have missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Austin replied,
planting a tiny kiss on her lips. He didn’t know why she was
wearing sunglasses at night, but he assumed it was so that no one
would notice who she was. “Do you have any news for me?”

Mary-Kate sat back in her seat, playing with
her keys. “Well, have you turned on the news lately? Lexi’s been
all over TV and in the papers.”

“Yeah, we’re aware of that,” Austin replied.
“Who’s going along with my parents on this? These so-called
witnesses of the murder she allegedly committed?”

“Believe it or not, your parents don’t have
anything to do with it. They didn’t even report her missing. It’s
my dad.”

Austin stared at her blankly. He knew that Greg
Lawrence had some dirty tricks up his sleeve, but he really thought
that his parents were responsible for this. “Why would he say
that?”

Mary-Kate shrugged. “Easy. My mom’s going to
die soon, probably within the next two months if she doesn’t get to
drink some of Lexi’s blood.”

“I’m sorry,” Austin murmured.

“Thanks,” Mary-Kate muttered, lowering her
head. “We’re just trying to make the best of the time that we have
left.”

Austin felt bad for Mary-Kate. He knew that in
the past, she and her mom had an awesome relationship with each
other, which had quickly deteriorated when Mrs. Lawrence was
diagnosed with Wilkins’ Syndrome. Something had snapped within Mrs.
Lawrence since then. When she found out that she had the disease,
she rarely agreed to come out of the house and spent most of her
days wallowing in her bedroom. Austin knew that Mrs. Lawrence had
it out for Lexi and Ben because she blamed them for her disease,
which was pretty insane. It’s not like they were even alive when
the witch had cast the spell on the people of Briar
Creek.

Austin shook away the thoughts that he had
about Mrs. Lawrence. He might feel bad for Mary-Kate, but she
definitely didn’t feel bad for her parents. “Is there anything else
new that I should know about? Did you tell them what I told you to
tell them?”

Mary-Kate nodded. “Yeah, I told them that Lexi
told me a few days before Halloween that she was thinking about
going to California. I said she had a friend from back home who
moved out there last year that she was planning to move in
with.”

“Did they buy it?” Austin asked.

“Oh, yeah, they bought it alright. My dad’s
really pissed off at me right now. He says that I should have told
him as soon as Lexi told me.” Mary-Kate lowered her sunglasses,
revealing the dark bruises underneath her eyes. “He hit me,
Austin.”