Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles (2 page)

“Come on, Chloe,” he called.

I smiled and hurried to the truck and hopped
inside.

Drew said goodbye to his friends and slipped
behind the wheel. He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek,
which brought another smile to my face.

“So,” he asked, “what should we do
today?”

I was smart enough to realize he wasn't
talking about something a typical teenaged couple might do, like
grabbing a slice of pizza or heading to an arcade or mall. No, he
was talking about training. I would have loved to skip out on
training and go make out up at the falls, but he never missed our
training sessions. I was currently being taught martial arts,
because I sucked at hand-to-hand fighting. We would trade off
learning martial arts, training with weapons, and learning to
control my fire power.

“I don’t feel like getting my butt kicked.
Let’s do weapons,” I muttered. I slid to the center of the bench
seat instead of the far side by the door.

He started the truck, and the old beater
sputtered before it finally rumbled to life. I was surprised it
didn’t backfire, too. “You’re just saying that because you’re good
with weapons. That’s taking the easy way out.”

“It is not.” I pouted. “I want to learn
something new, like the sword. Alice is learning sword fighting,
and that looks like it would be fun.”

“It’s not fun.” Drew frowned. “It’s hard
work, and Alice is learning it because she's fairly good at it
already. Just like you’re gifted at marksmanship, she is gifted at
handling a sword.”

“But I still want to learn it,” I told
him.

He finally smiled. “If you’re sure you want
to learn, then I guess we can work on that.”

“Yay.”

“But don’t think this gets you out of
learning to fight.”

I crossed my arms. I knew it. You would
think having extra vampire strength and speed would help my
fighting skills. Well, not so much.

While we drove to the gym, I watched the
town pass. The New Year had just passed, and the Christmas
decorations still dominated the houses, streets, and storefronts.
Bright red bows and garlands of pine wrapped around almost every
streetlamp, pictures of Santa and his elves were painted onto many
windows, but the sparkling silver and gold decorations were always
my favorite to look at. I liked shiny things.

Smoke curled from the chimneys of most of
the houses. The whole town smelled of smoke during the winter and
fall months, and I loved it. It was a smell that reminded me of
home, my home before all the craziness.

We passed The Java Bean, and I saw a group
of people outside, gathered around one of the tables, talking and
laughing. I stared, seeing a dark-haired guy with his arm tossed
casually over the shoulders of a blonde girl, Sarah, who I vaguely
knew. He turned his head and met my gaze. My heart sank.

It was Gavin, one person I would have never
wanted to hurt for anything in the world, but who I had ended up
hurting anyway.

Drew pretended not to see his brother,
Gavin, and kept his eyes on the road. The fight with Trevor, my
father, on the road had not united Drew and Gavin, just like it
hadn't united Christina and me. They were hunters. They fought
alongside each other all the time, but that didn’t make them
friends, much less make them feel like the brothers they were.
Well, half-brothers, at least.

I had once thought Gavin and I would be
together, like… more than friends. We had dated, gone to a dance
together, and even shared a first kiss together. It wasn't that I
didn't like him. It was just that… well, Drew was different. There
was something special about him. As it turned out, I chose to be
with Drew, because he was the one who had come for me. He was the
one who had risked his life, no matter the cost, to come for
me.

I tore my gaze from Gavin and his piercing,
accusing green eyes. I wanted to shrink into the seat and
disappear. He had done nothing except like me, and I liked him,
too. Unfortunately, when things came down to it, I didn’t tell him
right away that I had chosen Drew. I hadn't wanted to hurt him, but
he ended up being hurt in the long run.

By the looks of him getting cozy with
blondie over there, it appeared, at the risk of sounding conceited,
that maybe he was getting over me. I was truly glad he was busy
with someone else, but I had to admit a tiny part of me had liked
the fact he pined over me.

The moment was gone. We had passed them
completely and were nearing the gym. After parking the truck in the
small dirt lot on the side of the building, we hopped out and
entered the gym. The gym hadn’t started to fill up with the
after-work crowd yet.

“Let’s go warm up.” Drew ran his fingers
over my dark hair.

I waved him off. “You go ahead and start. I
need to put my workout clothes on.”

He shrugged and walked toward the mats where
he could stretch. I hurried to the bathroom that had a couple sets
of lockers, so it was technically a locker room. I changed into my
black yoga pants and purple tank top, and then I pulled my long
black hair into a ponytail so it would stay out of my face.

I left my bag next to the bank of lockers
and hurried back into the gym. I scanned the mats, looked for Drew,
and spotted him in the corner of the gym beside one of the weapons
walls. Alice was with him. She was dressed in workout clothes and
wore an armored breastplate over her outfit. She held a long, thin
sword with a jeweled hilt.

Seeing Alice with her sword was strangely
akin to how I felt about my gun and my bow: Those weapons had
become an extension of me. I was proud to see her learning to
fight. There were other things she still needed to learn, however.
Lately, we had been discussing how to find out about her heritage.
Sostrate had told us Alice was a Child of the Earth, a witch, but
she hadn't known this because she didn’t know her family.

We had tried to make her understand we
needed to find her family. She refused, so we were left to search
the libraries to try to find any information we could on witches,
or the Wiccan spiritual path, to learn more about witches who were
born witches and practiced earthen magic.

On that note, there was more information
than we could possible go through in a lifetime on the subject.

Drew showed Alice how to do a move. He was
behind her, holding her hand with both of his and helping direct
her sword. An unexpected wave of jealously washed over me without
warning.

Ugh! No!

I didn’t want to be jealous. I didn’t care
what they were doing.

Oh, for crying out loud, yes I did. I didn’t
want him touching other girls like that. I started forward, when a
hand stopped me from descending upon them.

“Don’t,” Oscar whispered. “It’s
nothing.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t have even
tried. I saw the look on your face.”

Oscar removed his hand from my arm. I looked
at him; his blond hair had gotten longer since he’d been with us,
and he was also wearing workout clothes. Oscar really liked Alice.
He had since we’d been back at Trevor’s house together. I knew
Alice liked him, too, so I didn’t know why they didn’t just start
seeing each other. So strange. Maybe it was weird, because we all
lived together.

I moaned softly. “I hate feeling this
way.”

Oscar considered that for a moment. “You
have to trust. Think of it this way: Of all the people you know,
who is the person you trust most in this world, above all the
others?”

It was my turn to consider, but it took like
a millisecond for me to answer. “Drew.”

“Well, there you go.”

He was right, I had no reason whatsoever to
be jealous. Drew was my constant. No matter what happened, he was
there. Most of the time, it was him saving my butt.

I continued to watch Drew guide Alice
through some moves. He stepped back and motioned her to try it by
herself. She must have executed it perfectly because Drew smiled
and spread his hands as if to tell her, ‘See, you did it.’

Oscar nudged me forward. “Come on.” We
approached them.

Drew caught sight of us coming toward them.
“Oh, there you are. You still want to learn this, Chloe?”

Actually, I didn’t any more. I had more than
enough weapons to keep me occupied. “No, I’m good. I think I’m just
going to go use the weights for a bit, and then we can practice
kicks.”

“I’ll spot you.” He nodded. He was probably
happy I didn’t want to learn another new weapon any more.

“I’ll stay with Alice,” Oscar offered, “but
we are using the wooden ones.”

Alice laughed and sheathed her blade. “What,
are you afraid I might hurt you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Oscar said. He took two of the
practice swords off the rack. They had real practice swords, too.
They were swords with edges that weren’t sharp, but a bad slip and
someone could still get hurt with them. Alice liked to practice
with the live blade as much as she could, so she could get a feel
for the weight and balance of her own weapon.

We spent a few hours at the gym, while I
mostly tried to kick Drew in the chest, and he deflected by
throwing me to the ground. It sucked. I knew I needed to get better
at hand-to-hand combat, or I was certainly going to die at the
hands of a vampire.

“Tomorrow, we're going hiking,” Drew told me
on the way home.

“But tomorrow’s Saturday. I thought we were
going to spend the day at the library.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Hiking
instead.”

“Great,” I told him in a grumpy voice.

I cuddled up into his side while he drove us
home.

At home, Luke was in the kitchen preparing
dinner. It looked like he was making some kind of salad and a
chicken dish. We strolled into the kitchen, and Alice and Oscar
were right behind us.

Luke looked up and wrinkled his nose and
pointed his giant spoon at us. “You all need to go take showers.
Every single one of you. You stink! No one sits at my table who
isn’t clean. Now go!”

With mock moaning and groaning, we filed out
of the room and up the stairs to bathe. It wasn’t as easy as it
sounded. We only had two bathrooms, so two of us had to wait for
the other two to get out. We also had to be conscious of the length
of the shower to save hot water for the next person.

Apparently everyone was hungry, because
showers didn’t take long. Alice wasn’t in the room when I came out
of the bathroom, so I headed down the stairs and found everyone
waiting for me at the table. All but Luke had wet hair and clean
clothes on.

I pulled out my chair, situated between Drew
and Alice, and sat. “Sorry. You guys didn’t have to wait for
me.”

Luke waved it off. “Of course, we were going
to wait for you. Now, let’s eat.”

I dug into my chicken with fervor. I hadn’t
realized I was so hungry. It must have been all the training I’d
been doing lately and not eating much during the day.

For a few minutes, there was nothing but the
sound of scraping forks and chewing. Finally, Alice started the
conversation. “Has there been any word from the board about a plan
of action?”

We all knew she was referring to the vampire
war.

Luke finished chewing, swallowed and said,
“Not yet. They don’t appear to be very concerned about the warnings
and insist on concentrating on the current missions.”

I sat back in my chair. “That’s ridiculous!
We can’t just sit around and wait to be attacked. We need to be
ready…. to prepare!”

“They don’t believe us, do they?” Oscar
asked quietly.

Luke lowered his head and then looked away
from our penetrating eyes. “No, they don’t.”

I was shocked and threw my fork down onto my
plate. “But we all saw Sostrate. It isn’t possible that all of us
could have hallucinated that. We would never make something like
that up. What good would that do?”

I could tell Luke felt bad, but I was mad. I
didn’t understand how they could just blow us off like that.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. There is
nothing I can do. We have brought it before the board, and they
have dismissed it.”

“But we had a warning! We need to prepare!”
I felt Drew’s hand on my leg.

“If the board says no, there's probably
nothing we can do to convince them,” Drew told me softly.

“That’s bull,” I muttered in response.

Luke finally met my eyes. “The board’s
decision does not mean that
we
should not prepare. We must
keep doing what we are doing so far. You all are progressing
wonderfully.”

He nodded at Alice and Oscar, and I could
see that he was, indeed, happy with their training progress.

“I fully intend to hatch a plan,” I
declared. “I am not going to wait to be attacked. We have to be
ready, or even move first.”

“If we move first, then we are starting the
war,” Drew countered.

“No.” I didn’t know what else to say. He was
right, but I didn’t want him to be.

“Yes.” He removed his hand from my knee, and
I saw his green eyes sparkle while he stabbed a piece of lettuce.
“It would be on us.”

I thought about that for a minute. Maybe it
wouldn’t be so bad if it was on us. Heck, my ancestor, the warrior
angel, was sent to rid the world of vampires. That was our job,
too. Our work as hunters would never be done as long as vampires
plagued the earth, so we needed to get rid of all of them.

I figured there was no better way to start
than by taking out the Talon Building, where the vampires regularly
met with each other, where large numbers of them congregated.

Everyone had moved on to conversation about
the new vampire practice targets we had down at the range while I
had been thinking. That was good. I needed some time to get my plan
in order, especially if I was going to get anyone on board with me.
I didn’t want to do it alone, but I would if I had to.