Destined to Die (The Briar Creek Vampires, #3) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (6 page)

“They were so very grateful to the Lawrence’s,
which is probably why they formed an alliance with them. They seem
his as a saving grace, in a way. Thanks to the Greg and his wife,
my parents could be together for the rest of their lives thanks to
him. But he saw things differently. Ever since that day, Greg
Lawrence has made it pretty obvious that my parents were to be
forever in his debt.”

****

Chapter 4

That night, Lexi crawled into the soft bed and
pulled the big down comforter over herself. She wasn’t tired. It
was too difficult to be tired when she had so much on her
mind.

Flipping over to her stomach, Lexi inhaled the
scent of her pillow. She smelled something that was sweet, perfect,
and mysterious at the same time. Gabe.

His scent filled her nostrils, and it took her
back to the night he had drunk from her. He had only agreed to do
it because there was no way for them to tell whether she’d live
that night and despite that uncertainty, it had been one of the
most sensual nights of her life. She wondered if Gabe had thought
about it at all since then . . . and if he wanted to drink from her
again eventually.

There was a knock at her door, which she had
left open. Lexi glanced up.

Gabe’s eyes sparkled in the dim light of the
hallway.

“Hi,” Lexi whispered, sitting up in
bed.

“Hey,” Gabe smiled. He shut the door and sat
down at the foot of her bed. “I heard you call for me.”

Lexi felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment.
It made her glad that the lights were turned off. “Oh, no, I didn’t
call for you. I was just . . . thinking about you,” she admitted
bashfully.

“Oh, yeah? What about me?”

“Just . . . stuff,” Lexi replied. She quickly
changed the subject so she didn’t have to go into details. “Gabe,
how long are we going to stay here?”

Gabe grunted and shrugged his shoulders in the
darkness. “We haven’t really figured that out yet. Not forever,
obviously. We need to fight the vampires. It’s the only
way.”

“I’m afraid,” Lexi admitted out loud for the
first time. “I don’t know how I’m going to survive this
fight.”

Gabe took her hand, sandwiching it between both
of his. Lexi shivered at his touch. His skin felt icy cold against
the warmth of her own. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You
know that, right?”

Lexi sighed. “I believe that you’ll try, but .
. . you’re only one person, Gabe. What if something happens to you
while we’re out there?” She felt her eyes getting teary just
thinking about what could happen to Gabe. “There’s no way you can
be my protector if you’re trying to defend yourself,
too.”

Gabe shrugged. “We’ll work out the details
later, Lexi. I just want you to know that I will protect you. I’ll
protect you before I defend myself.”

Lexi sighed. “Still . . . there are hundreds of
vampires in Briar Creek who want my blood. Even if I don’t die the
night of the fight, it’s going to be hard for us to beat
them.”

Gabe leaned back onto the bed and pulled her
close to him, kissing her forehead. “I’m hoping that I’ll have
another vision soon . . . one that will tell me what we need to do
to beat them before they even have the chance to act. Don’t worry.
We’re going to get through this.”

Lexi smiled. She knew that Gabe was being
genuine, and he was probably right. They were going to get through
this, somehow.

*

When Lexi woke up early the next morning, she
was shivering. Her head was rested against Gabe’s bare chest. She
didn’t even remember falling asleep, but it wasn’t surprising; Lexi
loved to sleep when it was cold. Her mom always got upset when she
was younger because she would open the window during the middle of
a snow storm to help her fall asleep and ended up catching a cold.
Her physician mother never bought into the whole idea that the cold
and going outside with a wet head doesn’t make you sick.

Lexi heard the sound of the television on in
the living room. She glanced at Gabe, who had his eyes closed,
before climbing out of bed.

Austin was sitting on the couch, a mug of
coffee in hand. Lexi looked at the TV. “The news?” she asked. Lexi
could watch as much reality TV, cartoons, or Lifetime movies as the
next girl. Even Western movies didn’t bother her that much. She
couldn’t get into the news, though. It was just too depressing –
which was the last thing she needed to feel right now.

Austin looked up at her from his place on the
couch and shrugged. “It’s the only way we can really keep in touch
with the real world right now. We’re kind of in the middle of
nowhere.”

“Except for Mary-Kate,” Lexi pointed out. When
Austin didn’t say anything, she asked, “Austin, umm . . . Mary-Kate
got really into character, I guess you could say, when she was
pretending that you were still dead. Were the two of you okay
before . . . all of this?”

Austin kept his eyes on the TV. “We were having
our differences.”

“What type of differences?” Lexi asked, trying
to make her voice more conversational than nosy or pushy. She had
been dying to know what was going on between Austin and Mary-Kate
before he had allegedly died, though. Now that he was alive, she
might be able to get some answers out of him . . . like what
Mary-Kate had been pressuring him to do.

“Just differences,” Austin replied. Lexi held
in a sigh. Her cousin obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She
was half-tempted to tell him that she had read everything in his
journal, but she knew that he probably wouldn’t be happy about
that. Then again, he had left it here with code words written
throughout so that she could find them, so he must have wanted her
to read it. “Gabe’s still asleep?”

“Guess so,” Lexi replied. “I’m a little
confused by that, actually. You even told me yourself that vampires
can’t sleep.”

“How did you know about that, anyway?” Austin
asked, looking up at her.

Lexi shrugged. “Sleeping just seems like
something that only humans would do. How can you sleep if you’re
dead?”

Austin chuckled. “Well, you’re right. Vampires
can’t really sleep. I’m just so used to calling it sleep. We get
into a sleeping position just to relax, like I said I was doing
last night. Gabe’s different, though. When he gets into a sleep
position and zones out, he’s more likely to have a vision. And then
there’s no disturbing him.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Lexi said. “So, when
do you think my dad – I mean, Ben – will be back?” It felt weird
calling Benjamin Hunter her dad. It had been years since she had
last seen him. She had a hard time remembering what he even looked
like without a picture in front of her. Once she did finally get to
see him in person, Lexi was sure that she still wouldn’t call him
‘dad’. She would just call him Ben or, more likely, she would find
a way to avoid addressing him at all so that it wouldn’t be an
issue.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Austin shrugged. “I’m no
psychic. Maybe Gabe will have a vision about it.”

“Something kind of confuses me,” Lexi said
slowly. “Did my dad know that Hunter blood was
powerful?”

Austin nodded. “Yeah, he knew. It was passed
down over the years from family member to family
member.”

“What confuses me about that though is why my
dad chose to move to Briar Creek,” Lexi said. “If he knew that his
blood was sought after, it seems sort of dumb to move to a town
where his blood is in high demand.”

Austin sighed. “I’ve wondered about that
myself. I don’t know the answer.”

Of course
, Lexi thought. It seemed like
no one ever had any of the answers to the most important
questions.

Lexi somehow convinced Austin to play video
games with her while they ate grilled cheese sandwiches instead of
watching the news. Hours passed and they were deeply involved in
Mario Kart when Gabe groggily stumbled into the living room.
“Morning,” he muttered.

“It’s afternoon,” Austin replied. “You slept
most of the day away.”

Lexi glanced at the clock on the wall. It was
three o’clock. The day had gone by so quickly. It felt good to be
around her cousin again. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in
years and it wouldn’t seem like they had much in common (he was a
high school quarter back, and she was basically a loner), not that
much really seemed to change between them. Thy still got along
really well with each other, just like they had when they were
kids. It felt comforting to her to feel like she had a family
again, no matter how small it might be right now.

“I know,” Gabe said, flopping down on the couch
next to Lexi. “I was trying to catch a vision, but it just wasn’t
happening today.”

“Damn.” Austin put his controller down and
switched off the Nintendo Wii. “I was hoping you would have one . .
. because of what we’re doing tonight.”

Lexi raised an eyebrow, even though she found
herself feeling slightly excited. She was getting tired of sitting
in the house doing nothing, even though it had only been a few days
since Austin and Gabe had brought her here. “What are we doing
tonight?”

“We’re going back to Briar Creek to get your
tote bag.” Lexi’s heart sank when she heard his reply and she felt
shivers creep up her spine. Suddenly, staying inside this cottage
for the next few weeks didn’t sound all that bad after
all.

*

“I don’t understand why we had to come at
night,” Lexi said out loud. She was sitting in the backseat of the
black car, which Austin told her he had borrowed from her father.
It was dark out, and the streets of Briar Creek were mostly empty.
“It makes more sense that they wouldn’t spot us in the
day.”

“It’s a myth that vampires stay in during the
day and go out more at night,” Austin replied, turning onto a back
street. “That’s what sunscreen is for. As long as you are wearing
your bat necklace, it should be fine. No one will smell you, and I
doubt we’ll bump into anyone.”

Lexi grasped the bat pendant that she wore
around her neck. The necklace, which her father had given her as a
child, was supposed to keep vampires from being able to smell that
she was a human. Lexi had already decided that there was no way she
was ever going to the pendant off, no matter what town they were
in, but she wasn’t sure how necessary it really was. “I thought
that they can’t smell me anyway because of Wilkins’ Syndrome,” Lexi
pointed out.

“It depends on how far the disease has already
progressed,” Gabe explained. “Most of them probably can’t smell
you, but you should still wear the necklace, just as a precaution.
You never know who is in town these days. There are also a few
vampires here . . . including Greg Lawrence . . . who have also
been cured by the disease, so they can smell you.”

Of all the vampires who had been saved, Greg
Lawrence had to be one of them. He was probably her biggest enemy
in Briar Creek. He intimidated her even more than Violet and Tommy,
mostly because he was the mayor and he had such authority over the
town. Greg Lawrence also hadn’t made things easy for her. The only
other time she had ever tried to escape from Briar Creek, he had
caught up with her and made her come back. He must have been able
to smell her that night.

“Okay, I think we’re ready to go find Lexi’s
tote bag,” Austin said. In the dim glow of the streetlamp, Lexi saw
her cousin turn to Gabe. “You’re sure that Dan said he’s
distracting them right now?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lexi interrupted, throwing
her hands up in the air. “
Dan
is in on this?” Dan had been
Austin’s best friend, who her aunt had also forced her to date in
an attempt to keep a close watch on her.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Gabe muttered.

“You’re just bitter because he likes Lexi,”
Austin teased. He turned to Lexi. “Sorry, but that’s the truth.
Dan’s a good guy. He’ll help us however he can.”

“I don’t trust him,” Lexi replied, unconvinced.
Since she had been in Briar Creek, Dan had the opportunity to show
her his true colors on multiple occasions. When he wasn’t busy
insisting that Lexi date him or trying to attack her, he was having
private conversations with Violet and Tommy that had Lexi convinced
that he was on their side. She trusted him about as much as she
trusted Gertie, the town busybody, to keep a secret: not at all. “I
mean, he did attack me that night, you know.”

Austin shook his head. “I know that must have
been really scary for you, Lexi, but I think you need to see it
from Dan’s perspective . . . from a vampire’s perspective. You
smell so good to vampires. It’s like waving a bottle of vanilla
vodka in front of an alcoholic. It’s hard for a vampire to resist,”
Austin said. “Dan didn’t attack you because he wanted to hurt you.
He was just having a really hard time controlling
himself.”

“That’s bullshit,” Gabe chimed in. “I was
around Lexi for a long time. I lived across the street from her,
for Christ’s sake. I definitely got a whiff of her scent, but you
didn’t see me attacking her for blood.”

Lexi glanced over at Gabe and thought she saw
the angry expression on his face in the moonlit. “No matter what
his intentions were, it was still really scary. I don’t trust him,
and I don’t think you should trust him either.”