Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (38 page)

I ran a hand through my knotted hair, still
tousled from sleeping. I glanced over at the bed. I would have given
anything for just one more peaceful night here alone with Rend. I
wanted nothing more than to be lost in his arms again.

“We have no choice,” I said. “Anything
else is too risky. If we leave the safety of this village, we're
vulnerable until we can get back to Venom. For all we know, the Devil
is already out there waiting for us to leave.”

Rend turned to me, his chest rising with each
labored breath. “Okay. We'll follow her through this secret
doorway of the crows, but at the first sign of trouble, we bail,”
he said. He moved toward me and put a hand on my cheek. “I
won't let anything happen to you, Franki.”

I wasn't sure it was entirely up to him, but I
wanted to believe he could keep me safe. I wanted to believe there
was a future for us, outside of this constant danger.

“I won't let anything happen to you either,”
I said with a smile.

Rend smiled and lowered his lips to mine. I
wrapped my arms around him, pressing my body tightly against his. Our
kiss deepened as we opened to each other. I dug my fingers into his
back, wanting him closer.

His hand slipped behind my head, tangling in my
hair. His other hand gripped my shirt into a fist, desire overcoming
us as our bodies went up in flames. Now that I'd had a taste of what
it was like to be with him, I wanted more.

But there was no time.

I groaned and pulled away, pressing my forehead
against his as we both panted and caught our breath.

“We have to go,” I said.

“I know,” he said. He pulled back and
locked his eyes on mine. “When
all this is over, we're going to finish this. I'll figure out a way
for us to be together, Franki.”

I blushed.
“We were pretty together last night,” I reminded him.

He bit his
lower lip and his eyes sparkled. “Yeah, but I was holding
back,” he said.

His words
made my stomach flip in a rush of desire and anticipation. If that
had been him holding back, dear God I wanted to know what it felt
like when he gave all of himself.

Someone began knocking furiously on the door of
the house and Rend groaned.

“Franki, we have to hurry,” Mom said.
“I think I saw movement outside.”

“I'll be right out,” I called.

I lifted onto my tiptoes and kissed Rend one more
time. As our lips met, I sent up a silent prayer that this would not
be the last kiss.

Mom sat on the top step of the porch, waiting. She
stood as we came out, her eyes full of fear.

“I think he's close,” she said. “We
need to get to that door as soon as we can.”

She took my hand and pulled me down the stairs.
Rend followed closely behind.

“Where is this door?” he asked.

“It's below the stone altar in the center of
the village,” she said. “The Mother Crow created it
decades ago. None of us were ever allowed inside without permission,
but I've been through the doorway once before, when I was younger.”

“Where will we go once we get inside?”
I held tightly to her hand, trying to remember the last time I had
actually held my mother's hand.

“There's another village similar to this one
that was set up about thirty years ago,” she said. “Some
of the other crows lived there for a while, but it's been abandoned
for the past ten years or so.”

“Wait,” I said, slowing. “How do
you know the rest of the crows aren't all living there now? Mary Anne
said they all disappeared after the Mother Crow's fight against
Harper here in Peachville.”

She shook her head and yanked on my arm, putting
all of her weight into it. “I just know,” she said. “The
Mother Crow wouldn't have gone anywhere Mary Anne and her friends
could go after her. She would have hidden somewhere new. I imagine
she's set up a new village somewhere, by now.”

My stomach knotted. Were we doing the right thing
trusting my mom?

I wasn't sure, but we couldn't stay here. Rend was
right, though, something didn't feel right about all of this. I
needed to know she could be trusted. I needed to know that, after all
this time, she was willing to tell me the truth.

I paused when we reached the stone altar. I took
my hand from hers and watched as she lifted the stone, revealing a
staircase that led down into the darkness.

“Come on,” she said, motioning for me
to follow her.

“Hold on.” My heart raced.

She had already started down the stairs, but she
stopped to look up at me. “Franki, there's no time for this.”

“There's something I need to know before I
can follow you down there,” I said. I crossed my arms over my
chest, holding myself tightly, afraid even to ask for the truth after
all this time. I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear the answer. “I
need to know why the Devil is after me specifically,” I said.
“Out of all the witches in the world, why me?”

She shook her head and her eyes searched my face.
“We can discuss this later,” she said.

“No. We need to talk about it now,” I
said. I remembered my conversation with Mordecai on the ride down to
Peachville. He had said the secret to my unusual strength was not my
crow heritage. It was my father's. “I need to know who my
father is.”

Mom narrowed her eyes at me, her entire forehead
wrinkling. She leaned against the edge of the stone stairway. “I
don't understand—”

“My whole life you kept my powers a secret,”
I said. “You made me feel ashamed of myself for having these
abilities, always warning me not to use my power or to let anyone
know what I was capable of. Why? It was because of him, wasn't it?
Because of his darkness?”

She lifted a hand to her mouth and sat down on the
steps. “Franki, I just need you to come with me now,” she
said softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“You have to see this from my point of
view,” I said. “You abandon me without a word three years
ago and now you show up out of nowhere, asking me to trust you. If
you really want me to trust you, you have to give me this one thing.
This one truth.”

She shook her head and avoided my eyes. Her
shoulders shook with sobs. “Okay,” she said. When she
looked up, it was Rend's eyes she met, not mine. “You have to
understand that I didn't know who he was when I met him. You have to
know that I had no idea the things he was capable of.”

Rend's eyes darkened. “Who?”

She turned to me. “Your father was a
vampire,” she said. “A very powerful one by the name of
Solomon.”

Rend gasped and backed away from the altar.
“Solomon is Franki's father?”

My eyes widened. The name meant nothing to me, but
Rend's face said it all. He actually looked frightened.

“Who is Solomon?” I asked.

“One of the original founders of the
Brotherhood of Darkness,” Rend said. He met my eyes and I could
see the disbelief inside. “Solomon is the Devil's brother,
Franki.”

My mouth fell open and I brought a hand to my
heart. “What? You're telling me I'm related to the Devil?”

“Technically, he's your uncle,” Mom
said. “You have to see why I could never tell you about him.
You would have wanted to know more. You would have wanted to meet him
or find him, and I couldn't explain to you what had happened to him
or why you could never know him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Franki, I know you want answers, but if the
Devil comes through that door, none of us will leave here alive,”
she said. “I can explain everything to you once we get inside.”

I nodded, my hands numb from holding them in such
tight fists against my ribcage. My father was a demon. A vampire. The
darkness I had struggled with my entire life was his darkness.

Mom stood and reached for my hand.

I stared at it a moment, feeling that I finally
understood why she had kept all this from me. Maybe it was true that
I had been too hard on her. Maybe I had been seeing her from the
wrong eyes all this time.

I put my hand in hers and followed her down the
stairs, trusting her for the first time since I was a child.

The room beneath the altar was so dark I couldn't
see anything more than the outline of what looked to be furniture
arranged in rows.

Mom released my hand. “Wait here a second,”
she said. She descended the final steps and a few seconds later, lit
a match that sparked red in the darkness. She used the match to light
a small candle at the base of the stairs that illuminated the entire
room with a deep red glow.

“The Mother Crow put a series of traps in
place down here,” she said. “The candle disables them, so
it's safe to come down now.”

I looked around, seeing now that the furniture was
actually rows and rows of bookcases. “What is this place? A
library?”

“All the spells and history of the crows,”
she said. She moved toward the corner under the stairs. “The
door is this way.”

I glanced back at Rend and he nodded, but looked
worried. We were putting our lives in her hands, not even knowing
where we might end up next.

She led us to a wall that looked like solid stone.
No doorway in sight.

Silently, she placed both her palms on the smooth
stone, her eyes closed. In an instant, the outline of a door
appeared, the wing of a crow carved into its center.

I gasped, reaching forward to run my fingers along
the wing. It looked nearly identical to the one carved on the doorway
in the hall at Venom. The door there had been made of wood, but the
symbol was the same. I wondered if they led to the same place, but
before I could ask, Mom pushed on the stone and it gave way,
revealing a small dark hallway.

She took my hand and pulled me through.

I stepped around her and peered into the darkness.
Rather than a long hall of nearly endless doorways, there was only a
handful here, just as she had said.

I turned back just as Rend approached the doorway.
He stepped forward, but slammed against an invisible barrier. His
forehead wrinkled and he pushed his hands against the spot where the
door had been. Again, they hit a barrier like glass, completely
see-through, but very real.

Horror flashed in his eyes and he reared back,
ramming the barrier with all his might. He shifted to smoke and tried
again, but the door would not let him through.

I reached for him, thinking that maybe it was like
the entrance to the crow village. Maybe I had to be holding his hand
to pull him through.

But my mother pushed me backwards with such
strength, it took my breath away. My body slammed against the wall
behind me, stars exploding in my vision as my head hit stone. I
screamed as the realization of betrayal finally dawned on me.

I ran toward the door, knowing in that moment,
that I had made a very terrible mistake trusting my mother.

I watched as my mother's face drew up into a
horrible smile.

She slammed the door closed before I could get
there, closing me off from Rend. And locking me inside with her.

I pounded my fist against the stone.

“What have you done?” I shouted. “We
have to go back.”

My mother placed her hand on my chest and pushed
me again. Where had she gotten such strength? She stepped in front of
the door, that evil smile still plastered on her face. I wanted to
rip it off her.

“Get out of my way,” I said. A fierce
wind blew her back against the door.

She raised her eyebrows. “You always had
such a temper,” she said. “I'm glad to see your power has
been growing. It's going to come in handy when you die.”

Fury consumed me and I reached back, gathering my
power in my hands. I threw it back at her in a rage, the power of it
knocking her to her knees. I walked over and lifted my foot to her
shoulder, kicking as hard as I could. She cried out and fell to the
ground beside the door.

I searched for a handle, but the door was smooth
except for the cracks that outlined its shape. I placed my palms flat
against the wall like I'd seen her do inside and to my relief, it
opened toward me.

I stepped out of the way of the moving door,
prepared to rush through to Rend on the other side.

Only, it wasn't Rend who stood there.

The crow library had been replaced by a room made
of deep gray stones. There, just on the other side of the opening,
stood the Devil, his eyes red and hungry.

I stepped back and reached for the edge of the
door, but it was too late.

He grabbed my arm with one hand and placed the
other on my forehead. I struggled against him, but he was too
powerful. Too strong.

“Sleep,” he said.

A bright light flashed across my vision. My knees
gave out and my body went limp. The Devil's arms encircled me, and
even though I fought it with everything I had inside, sleep
beckoned—its call too strong to resist.

The last thing I saw before darkness consumed me
was the image of my mother's satisfied smile of betrayal.

The moment my body slammed against the invisible
barrier, I knew I had lost her.

I had never felt so powerless. Or so consumed by
rage.

I pushed, clawed, and drove every ounce of my
power toward that doorway, but there was no breaking through. That
witch had known exactly what she was doing, and we had played into it
like blind children.

The stone door slammed closed, cutting Franki off
from me entirely. The door's outline disappeared, leaving nothing
more than a smooth stone wall. Without Crow blood in my veins, there
was no way to make the door reopen. A roar escaped from me, shaking
the books from their cases.

How could I have let this happen?

I had promised to protect her. I never should have
let her go through the door first. What was I thinking?

My gut had told me not to trust her mother.
Something had felt off about her behavior from the moment she stepped
into the crow village. I should have trusted that, but I had let
myself be ruled by fear and desperation.