Thicker Than Water (The Briar Creek Vampires Book #2) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (26 page)

She noticed that the text had been sent at
8:46pm, which was before she had overheard Violet, Tommy, and
Gabe’s conversation. She didn’t know why Gabe would let her know
that the plans had changed; they had never actually decided on a
final plan, but whatever his reasoning was, maybe it meant that he
was really on her side. She didn’t have time to think about it. If
she stayed in her hiding place, someone was bound to come across
her eventually. Who knew what her fate would be then? At least with
Gabe there was the possibility that he would still help her. And if
he didn’t, well…she had come up her own plan.

The first part of her plan was to get rid of
her cell phone. She held the power button down until the screen
dimmed and the phone buzzed, turning off. Violet had probably
turned her cell phone service back on just so that the police would
be able to track her location down if they hadn’t found her by
midnight.

“Would you like to have a seat?” the woman
asked. Lexi realized that the woman had probably been talking to
her the whole time she had been checking her text messages and
getting lost in her own thoughts.

Lexi nodded and took a seat across from the
woman.

“I’m not going to give you a tarot or palm
reading today, little one. I suspect that will take too long. I can
sense that you are in grave danger,” the woman said, staring back
at her with black eyes.

“Okay,” Lexi replied, unsure of what else to
say.

“You are facing a serious problem right now. I
sense that you are aware of a certain curse that is affecting a
large group of people,” the woman said. “What you need to
understand is that they are not the only ones who are cursed. To
break the spell, you must gain a better understanding of its
originator. You must go now. It’s no longer safe here for
you.”

“What do you mean by I’m not safe here? Am I
not safe in your home, or are you telling me to leave Briar
Creek?”

“The only safe place is the place where you
will become reunited with a lost one.”

Lexi shuddered. The only people who she had
lost were dead, (unless you counted Gabe) and she was not going to
give up her life that easily. If she had learned anything from
living in Briar Creek, it was that life was too precious to just
throw away – or let someone throw it away for you. As much as she
loved Gabe, she knew that if he ended up turning on her by the end
of the night, she would have to take matters into her own
hands.

She scanned the room, looking for anything that
she could use in the occasion that she had to defend herself. The
room had been decorated for Halloween, with little Pumpkin beaded
curtains that hung from the ceiling and rows of tiny pumpkins,
witch’s hats, and ghost décor covered the book shelves that lined
the walls on either side of the room.

On one of the shelves sat a glass case that
contained a piece of wood that had a pentagram on one end and a
sharp point on the other; it looked as if it were on display.
Deciding that she could use it as a stake, Lexi slid it out of the
box when the woman wasn’t looking. Feeling guilty, she slid it back
into its case. She wasn’t going to steal from one of the only
people in Briar Creek who had been kind to her.

One thing that nagged at her in the back of her
mind was what would happen if she had to fight a vampire. Months
ago, Lexi would have cowered at the thought of taking on a vampire,
but now, she wished she could try. The adrenaline raced through her
veins as she thought about what was to come. Gabe had told her how
powerful her bloodline was and everyone else had seemed intimidated
by powerful she was supposed to be – just how powerful had they
meant? Lexi scanned the crowd, looking for someone she could
practice on.

Just as she was about to sneak up on an
unsuspecting vampire girl that Lexi recognized from school, she
caught herself. Her necklace felt as if it were becoming cooler
around her neck. Lexi looked down and realized that it was glowing
an icy shade of blue.

Lexi stepped back. What was she thinking? Her
mother had always told her that she should never solve anything
with violence. It shouldn’t be any different in this situation,
even if they were technically dead already.

She had two options: stay where she was and
wait for someone to find her, or go to the Haunted House and hope
that Gabe wasn’t misleading her.

Lexi stepped onto the sidewalk that led to the
Haunted House .Taking a deep breath, she held her head high and
walked with the rest of the crowd, trying to blend in. She
attempted to appear calm even though her heart was racing. Lexi
headed towards the Haunted House, which was located in Crimson’s
Hair Salon.

She could hear the screams emerging from the
open doorway. Glancing inside, she noticed the fake cobwebbed,
grimy-looking walls. A layer of oozing green slime was in a
bubbling cauldron that a man with a noose around his neck was
hanging over. Lexi shuddered, remembering how much she hated
haunted houses. She hadn’t been in one in a long time, but all of
the attractions that she had gone to since she had arrived in Briar
Creek had scared the crap out of her.

When she walked through the haunted house, she
began walking from room to room. In the first room, there was a
crouching form of a werewolf in the center of the room. With the
darkness of the room, and the strategically placed strobe lights,
it looked like the wolf was grinning at her menacingly. A man with
a chainsaw stood at the exit to that room. Deciding that he was
another statue, Lexi came to the conclusion that the haunted house
wasn’t as scary as she had been anticipating. As she walked past
him, she heard the ragged whirring of the chainsaw being turned on.
She yelped in surprise, running towards the next room.

Remembering the real reason she was at the
haunted house, Lexi allowed herself to think about Gabe. She had
gotten the text message earlier from Justin’s phone. If Gabe was
really on her side, then he would come to the haunted house again
to carry out whatever plan he had for saving her. Lexi wished that
he had told her the plan beforehand, so that she could be more
prepared. She realized that even though they had talked endlessly
over many options, they had never actually agreed on what they were
going to do tonight .Lexi had mostly been counting her the
anonymous note sender to devise a plan, but that didn’t seem like
it was going to happen.

As she turned the corner, a few people in
costumes began following her. She stumbled along the pitch black
hallway and carefully made her way to the closest exit sign. As she
got closer to it, a creepy laugh filled the room from the speaker
above her head.

Before she walked through the door, she felt
something grab her hand. Shrieking in fear, Lexi turned around
quickly. She realized that she was staring back into Gabe’s green
glowing skeleton mask-covered face.

“Oh my God, Gabe. You scared me,” Lexi said,
trying to calm herself down. “Okay, tell me the truth. Are you
helping me or are you against me? I have a right to
know.”

Lexi watched as his head tilted down towards
the floor. He didn’t say a word.

“Well, I’ll take that as a sign that you’re
against me then,” Lexi shouted over the sound of screaming from the
haunted house’s dungeon room behind them.

When Gabe didn’t answer her again, she pulled
him by the arm and stepped out of the exit of the haunted house and
into the empty street behind the hair salon.

“Okay, Gabe, I can’t
believe that everything you told me was a lie. You really did try
to kill me and it wasn’t because you had my best intentions in
mind. Did you even love me or was that a lie, too?” Lexi blurted.
She knew that her voice sounded emotional, but she didn’t care. The
tears formed behind her eyes and all of her frustration of the
night of the car accident that had been building up the past few
weeks was finally able to be released.

Gabe covered her
mouth with his hand and looked
up and down the street that they were on.

“No,
yo
u answer me!” Lexi jerked
her head away from him. “I’m going to die tonight, whether I like
it or not, and I deserve to know how you could do this to me and
why you would do this to me! I trusted you with everything, but
you’re just out to kill me, too? I can’t believe you. I would have
never betrayed you like that! Was anything that you ever told me
the truth?” the words came flying out of her mouth before she knew
what she was saying.

He frantically shook
his head and pulled her into the alleyway behind where they were
standing.

Lexi heard her aunt and
uncle’s voices coming towards them. Gabe raised a finger to his
mouth, motioning for her to be quiet.

When Violet and
Tommy had wal
ked past them,
not noticing that they were standing just a few feet away from
them, Lexi whispered to Gabe, “If you’re still hiding me from them
instead of letting them know that I’m here…” Lexi trailed off.
“Tell me what’s going on.”

He didn’t answer her,
yet again.

Ang
ry that he was still
ignoring her questions, she reached over and pulled his mask off,
uncovering his face.

Lexi gasped. She
hadn’t seen him in years except for in pictures,
b
ut she would have recognized
his strawberry blonde hair and crystal blue eyes from a mile away.
Feeling like she had just seen a ghost, Lexi felt her stomach
lurch.

“Hi, Lexi,” Austin
said, smiling sheepishly.

**

Jayme Morse & Jody
Morse are sisters that reside in the Poconos. They write young
adult paranormal fiction and thrillers.

http://www.jaymemorse.com

http://www.jodymorse.com