Time Will Tell (15 page)

Caroline nodded understandingly. “I get what you mean. I don’t think I’ll take you for granted, either. I used to hate knowing that I’m eighteen years old and I’ve never fallen in love yet, but . . . maybe the reason I never met the right person to fall in love with is because this whole time, I was waiting for you. I just didn’t know I was waiting for
you, if that makes any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.” Gabe smiled, feeling pleased about the way this conversation was going. Caroline was taking the news way better than he’d expected, and he also had a feeling
that they had a bright future.

“Why didn’t my parents approve of you in my last life?” Caroline questioned with a frown.

“They knew I was a vampire,” Gabe replied, running a hand over his hair. “Your father was a little bit stricter than most of the people back then because he was our town’s reverend. But, back then, people used to hunt vampires the same way they used to hunt witches. Eventually, people started to think that vampires and witches don’t exist, but everyone in Briar Creek always knew the truth. Well, almost everyone.”

“I wish my parents back then hadn’t been that way. And I wish my parents now were more accepting of the whole vampire thing. I feel so bad that they don’t want Danny around.” Caroline glanced over at Gabe. “If things work out between us, I want to become a vampi
re one day. Just so you know.”

Gabe hesitated. He hadn’t wanted Lexi to become a vampire because he didn’t want her to have to go through the experience of an eternal life. Sometimes, he wished that he hadn’t been turned into a vampire himself. He’d spent half of his life hating Veronica Hart, and he hadn’t wanted Lexi to go
through the same type of pain.

But now that Caroline was telling him that she wanted to become a vampire, Gabe felt differently about it. Aside from the fact that he already knew that there was no telling the new and improved Caroline what to do, Gabe also couldn’t stand the idea of losing her again. “I’ll do that for you. I’ll change you into a vampire—when and if you’re e
ver ready to make that change.”

Caroline beamed at him. Her skin glowed and her eyes twinkled, and it made him happy to know that he
finally had his Caroline back.

“So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” Gabe
asked.

Caroline frowned. “Well, I feel weird asking about this now, but I need to know the truth. When I asked if you killed Lexi’s ex-boyfriend, I thought I was asking you, but I was really asking Kevin. He made me think you killed her ex-boyfriend on accident, but now I need to know . . .
did
you kill him?”

Gabe felt a knot tighten in his stomach. He should have known that Caroline would ask him about this, eventually. Why wouldn’t she ask? It was the truth . . . and the truth made him look like a cold-hearted monster.
“I did kill him,” Gabe said. 

A look of horror crossed Caroline’s face.
“It wasn’t just an accident?”

“No, Caroline . . . I tried to kill Justin,” Gabe admitted. When Caroline stared back at him blankly, he explained, “It will probably be hard for you to understand, but . . . . I was jealous of him. There was a point in time when I really thought I was in love with Lexi—or meant to love Lexi, at least—and I felt very protective of her. I felt like Justin would get in the way of me bei
ng with her.”

Caroline darted her blue eyes away from him. “I see.
”

Gabe searched his head for a way to help her understand, for a way to make her see that they could still be together, even though he had killed Justin. “It’s something I have to regret every day of my life, Caroline. I might not be in love with Lexi anymore—in fact, I’m not sure that I ever was truly in love with her at all—but now I have to live with the fact that I really hurt someone who I care about. And I have to liv
e knowing that I killed an innocent bystander in all of this. I would never kill someone for the same reason again.”

Caroline glanced over at him, studying his face with her light blue eyes. It looked like she was trying to gauge his emotions, to see if he was telling
her the truth. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

“You’ll just have to trust me on this,” Gabe said. “If you trust me, I promise I’ll prove to you eventuall
y that I’m telling the truth.”

Caroline hesitated for a few more moments before smiling.
“Okay, Gabriel. I trust you.”

“I love when you call me Gabriel. No one has ever really called me that before—no one except for you in your past li
fe.”

Caroline smiled. “I hope it sounds just as good in this life, too, because you’re going to be hearing it
a lot
from now on.”

Chapter 32

Austin sat on the bed next to Anna, holding her hands. It had been an hour since he’d changed her—or since he had
tried
to change her, at least—but she still hadn’t woken up yet. Her chest didn’t move up and down like it would if she was breathing, but Austin knew that it wouldn’t anyway. Vampires didn’t breathe; they merely existed.

Of course, that was assuming that Anna had even really changed. What if she hadn’t made it . . . or if Austin had done something wrong? If that was the case, if she was really dead, that would only mean one thing: he would have been the one who had killed her. It would be no one’s fault except for his . . . and he would never be able to forgive himself.

Austin’s palms shook as he pulled away from Anna. He didn’t want to leave her alone, not even for a minute, but he had to get someone else in the room with them—someone who was familiar with the process of changing a human into a vampire.

When Austin reached Gabe’s room, he found him rummaging through his duffel bag. He pulled a few things out and then stuffed even more things inside, rearranging everything so that it would fit. It
looked like Gabe was leaving.

“Are you going somewhere?” Austin asked when Gabe looked up at him. 

“Yeah, I am. Well, not right now, but sometime within the next two days,” Gabe answered, glancing over at him. He looked happy—happier than Austin had ever seen him, in fact. “Caroline asked me to go back to stay with her while she goes to Juilliard. The real me, this time, instead of Kevin. So, I’m going to go with her.”

“You are?” Dan’s voice came from behind them. “Were either of you planning to tell me about this?”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah, Caroline and I were going to come to your room to let you know soon. I know you haven’t trusted me in the past and you have every reason not to, but I assure you, I will take good care of your sister. I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but I really feel like I’m falling in love with her.”

“Falling in love?
” Lexi asked from behind them.

Austin turned to look at his cousin. Even though he expected to hear a note of jealousy in her voice, Lexi actually seemed to look happy for Gabe. Austin was glad. After what Gabe had done for all of them, Austin hoped t
hat Gabe would find happiness.

“Yeah, falling in love
,” Gabe said with a wide grin.

Dan hesitated. “Well, the past is the past for a reason, right? I think you’ve more than earned my forgiveness at this point.” He narrowed his eyes at Gabe. “If you hurt my sister emotionally, though,
I will need to kick your ass.”

Gabe nodded. “Quite understandable.”

“Okay, while I’m happy you guys are making up, I have a problem I need
your
help with,” Austin said, motioning to Gabe.

“What is it, Austin?” Lexi asked, her voic
e filled with obvious concern.

“I tried to change Anna into a vampire,” Austin explained, running a hand over his strawberry blonde hair nervously. “The problem is I’m not sure if it even worked. It’s been an hour,
and she hasn’t woken up yet.”

Gabe gave him a concerned look. “She didn’t move
at all
in the past hour?”

Austin shook his head. “No. Is that bad?” He wasn’t even sure why he was asking; from the look on Gabe’s face, he could tell that it definitely wasn’t a good thing that An
na hadn’t been responsive yet.

“Yes, come on,” Gabe said, hurrying out of the room and leading the rest of them down the hallway to the room tha
t Austin had been staying in.

When Gabe opened the door, Austin noticed that nothing had changed. Anna was still lying on the bed, her eyes closed and her chest
not moving at all.

A feeling of dread formed in the pit of Austin’s stomach. He had a feeling tha
t this was bad . . . very bad.

Gabe stepped forward and knelt down on the floor beside the edge of the bed. He took Anna’s hand in h
is own and felt for her pulse.

“Of course she’s not going to have a pulse. Whether she’s a vampire or dead, she doesn’t have a bea
ting heart anymore,” Dan said.

Austin glared at him. “Do you hav
e to put it so insensitively?”

“Yeah, seriously, Dan,” Lexi said, rolling her eyes. “Something might
be wrong with Anna.”

“Actually, guys, she
does
have a pulse,” Gabe said, pressing his ear to her chest. He listened for a few moments before saying, “Her heart’s beating really slowly, but it is still beating.” Gabe glanced over at Austin. “This is worrisome to me, though, because I’ve never known a human’s heart to take this long to stop beating when they change into a vampire. It normally happens much quicker than this.”

“So, what could it mean?” Austin asked, unsure if he should feel hopeful because a heartbeat—even a slow one—meant that Anna was still alive, or if he should worry because what s
he was going through was rare.

Gabe shook his head. “I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is that her body is still trying to hang onto its mortality
, for some reason.”

“Well, how do we make her let go?” Austin asked. “How do
we hurry this whole thing up?”

No one said anything for a long while. Finally, Lexi spoke
up. “I think I have an idea.”

Austin glanced over his shoulder at her, waiting for her to explain, but she shook her head. “I’ll be right back
.”

As she ran out of the room and down the hallway, Dan gave him a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, Austin. I have an idea of what Lexi is planning to d
o, and I think it might work.”

“Let’s hope so,” Gabe said, his hand still on Anna’s wrist. “It feels like her pulse is getting even slower than it was before, but I’m not sure if it’s
a good thing or a bad thing.”

As Austin waited anxiously for Lexi to come back, he stared down at Anna’s limp body. Even though he couldn’t see her breathing, it made him feel reassured to know that she was still alive.
He hadn’t lost her . . . yet.

Dropping to his knees in front of her, Austin did the only thing he could think to do. “Come back to me, Anna,” he pleaded
with her. “Please come back.”

*

Lexi paced back and forth in the room that she shared with Dan, trying to focus. She knew that a spell was the only thing she could do to help to bring Anna back from the state she was in and encourage her body to make the change to vampirism quicker—or at all.

If only Lexi could figure out the right spell. That was why she’d left the room. She needed to clear her mind and gather any supp
lies, if she could think of what she needed.

She glanced over at her spell book, which she left on the dresser. Even though she felt tempted to flip through it, she had a feeling that Belinda never would have given her a spell to help turn someone into a vampire, since she was so against them. It just didn’t make any sense. If Lexi was going to do this, she was going to need to come up with a spell all on her own, a spell that came from her heart.

Once the spell came to her, she grabbed the candles and matches that she’d placed in the nightstand, just in case she ever needed them, and headed out of the room and back down the hall.

When she reached the room where everyone was huddled around Anna, Lexi placed one red candle and one white candle on the dresser. She pulled a match out of the box and lit their wicks, which glowed in the dim lig
hting of the room.

Turning to the bed that Anna was lying on, Lexi pushed Austin out of the way and knelt down on the hardwood floor beside her. She took Anna’s wrists in her hands and found her pulse before saying, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, make Anna neither dead nor alive. Make her mortal blood stop flowing and her immortal life start going. Make her thirst for blood and burn at the sun’s touch. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, don’t let her give up without a fight, make Anna transition
to a creature of the night.” 

Lexi and the others waited in darkness to see what would happen.