Burn Like Fire (3 page)

Chapter 4

Rhonda held her breath as she watched
Anna walk past her, taking her time to glance over her shoulder at the paintings on the wall in Headmaster Morton’s office. Once Anna was down the hall that led to the dorm rooms, Rhonda allowed herself to breathe normally again.

Rhonda had been across the hallway in the girls’ bathroom, just to get away from her Stakeology class. There were so many students in there—so many
human
students—that she could barely control herself. They all smelled so delicious, and Rhonda was so hungry. It had only been a day since she had drank from one of the boys in his dorm room, but it didn’t matter. Rhonda was
always
hungry lately.

Right now, her hunger didn’t matter, though. The only thing she could think about was what she had just overheard Anna telling the Headmaster on her way back from the bathroom. When Rhonda had heard her name, she’d crept down behind a plush recliner outside the office and listened to the rest of their conversation.

The Headmaster was now onto Rhonda and the control she had over Gabe . . . all because Anna had opened her bitchy mouth. Rhonda found herself growing angry just thinking about what Lexi’s friend had done. How could Anna think it was okay for her to give away her secrets witho
ut there being any consequences?

A
s tempted as she was to follow Anna back to her dorm room and strangle the mortal girl until she took her last breath, Rhonda knew she couldn’t do that. It would only draw attention to herself, especially after everything Anna had just told the Headmaster.

No, there had to be a better way for Rhonda to get revenge on Anna without doing anything to implicate herself. There had to be another way to kill her . . .

And that’s when it hit her. Rhonda knew what she had to do. Now, it was only going to be the matter of actually doing it.

She stood up from her hiding place behind the recliner and began to walk down the hall. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching her, Rhonda went out the front door of the school and quickly walked across the grassy lawn that led to the street.

Just as Rhonda was about to leave school grounds, she noticed a tall, muscular guy walking towards her.

Shit. She had forgotten about the werewolves that guarded Huntington High.

Normally, the werewolves only tried to keep vampires from coming into the school, but since one of the students who went to Huntington High had been killed by one of the vampires from Briar Creek, they were very adamant about letting students leave school grounds lately, too.

As the werewolf, whose name she knew was Noah, approached her, he asked, “Are you planning to go somewhere?”

Rhonda glanced over at him, pretending that she had only noticed that he was there for the first time and nodded. “Yes, I am planning to leave. I hope you don’t mind.”

Noah hesitated. “I’m really not supposed to let anyone go anywhere without a written request from a staff member.” He sighed. “Where is it you’re planning to go?”

“I just need to go visit my mother for a little while. She’s agreed to meet me over in the next town for lunch. I hope that’s okay,” Rhonda said aloud. Staring into his eyes, she urged him to let her leave.
Please let me go, Noah, please.

Noah stared at her for a moment. Finally, he sighed relentlessly. “Fine, I’ll let you go. I’m afraid I might get in trouble, though, if something happens and I really can’t afford to lose my job right now. Would you mind if I came along with you?”

Rhonda considered this idea. It might seem suspicious to some of the other students or to the teachers to see Noah leaving, when they all knew that he normally manned the school grounds for most of the day until some of the other werewolves joined him at night. Even so, Rhonda knew she could use him . . .

“Yes, I would love for you to escort me,” Rhonda said aloud. She stared him in the eyes.
And you will do as I say without asking any questions. Now, take me to your car.

“Okay, well, why don’t I drive then?” Noah asked, a dazed, but compliant, look in his eyes. “Follow me to my car.”

“Perfect.” Rhonda smiled, pleased to know that her mind-control didn’t work only on other vampires and humans. It worked on werewolves, too.

She followed Noah to the white Buick that was parked in the back of the parking lot. Even though she tried to conceal her facial expression, Noah picked up on it, anyway. He raised his eyebrows at her. “Is something wrong?”

Rhonda shrugged. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just expected you to drive something a little better—something a little more masculine, like a Hummer or muscle car or something, maybe.”

Noah laughed. “Nope, a Buick is all I need. Hop in.”

Once they were inside the car, Rhonda glanced over at Noah. He was staring at her, so she licked her lips seductively.
Drive me to the closest liquor store
, she mentally encouraged him.

Noah’s eyes moved away from her, as he started the ignition. He pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the street. As he drove away from Huntington, Noah glanced over at her. “So, tell me, what’s it like being a vampire?”

“How did you know I’m a vampire?” Rhonda eyed him curiously. She hadn’t told him she was a vampire.

“Working here, I see vampires and humans alongside one another on a daily basis. Heck, my own cousin comes from a family of vampires. It’s easy to tell who the vampire women are—it’s always the ones who are the most beautiful, like yourself. Humans can’t even begin to compare.”

“Thanks.” Rhonda forced a smile, even though his comment wasn’t all that flattering. She knew she was more attractive than most of the other girls who went to Huntington, but it didn’t matter to her if Noah thought she was hot or not. There was only one guy whose interest she wanted . . . and that was Gabe.

Well, Rhonda
mostly
only wanted Gabe’s interest. There were times when she did wonder what Dan was like in bed. It still annoyed Rhonda that she couldn’t seem to grab his attention enough to co
ntrol his mind. It made Rhonda wonder what Dan saw in plain, boring,
human
Lexi that he didn’t see in her.

Part of the reason Rhonda wanted to grab Dan’s attention so much was to hurt Lexi. How was it fair for Lexi to get all of the attention? She got it all from Dan, and she needed Gabe’s attention, too? Didn’t Rhonda deserve some of the attention from at least one—if not both—of them? It was the only thing that made her angrier than what Anna had done.

“So, what’s it like?” Noah pressed, snapping her out of her thoughts and back to the present: him, sitting in the car next to her, wondering wh
at it was like to be a vampire.

Apparently, werewolves didn’t have blood, or at least not the same type as humans, because he didn’t smell tempting at all. What a bummer. Rhonda probably wouldn’t have been able to convince him to let her drink from him in a heartbeat.

“It’s . . . it’s amazing,” Rhonda replied, answering his question.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced.” She wasn’t even lying to him. Nothing in her life had ever made sense before now. She had never felt more powerful, or as well-accepted by society, as she did now that she was a beautiful vampire rather than an awkward college student with poor social skills and low self-esteem.

When Noah pulled into the parking lot at a local Wine & Spirits store, Rhonda looked him in the eyes and thought,
I want you to go inside the store and buy me a bottle of tequila.

“I’ll be back,” Noah mumbled, as he clambered out of the car.

Once Noah disappeared inside the liquor store without even glancing in her direction, Rhonda waited inside the car anxiously. She hoped that he would bring the bottle
back to her without any problems. Even though she knew it would have been easier for her to go inside the store and control the sales clerks’ minds long enough for them to not even question the fact that she was buying alcohol, Rhonda hadn’t wanted to risk anyone catching her on the store’s security camera.

The last thing she needed was for a security camera image of herself to somehow make it back to Long Island, where her
mom, Colette, was waiting for her to come back home. Her mom didn’t believe she was dead, but that’s what Rhonda was hoping everyone would start to believe soon.

It was easier for Rhonda to stay hidden in hopes that her mom would eventually think she had died than to tell her truth . . . which was that she was a monster.

When Noah came out of the liquor store about ten minutes later and nodded his head in her direction, Rhonda breathed a sigh of relief. Noah had
gotten the bottle of tequila.

Rhonda met his eyes.
Now, I need you to get me poison . . . any
thing that will kill a mortal.

Noah simply nodded and pulled out of the parking lot, in the direction of th
e closest place to buy poison.

Rhonda smiled to herself. This had been a piece of cake . . . even easier than she had expected it to be.

Now,
she just needed to get Gabe to go along with what she wanted.

And that was going to be a piece of cake.

*

When the door to his dorm room clicked open, Gabe sighed. Had it really been two hours since Rhonda had left? The time had passed by so quickly, and it had felt really good to have a few hours all to himself. It was something that he never got to have lately, and he really missed it.

When Rhonda approached his bed, Gabe sat up. He’d made his decision; he just needed to let Rhonda know.

He tried to ignore the way her copper waves fell against her breasts and the way she looked at him, her eyes full of lust. Even Gabe had to admit that Rhonda’s beauty was intensifying by the day; being a vampire was suiting her well, but that didn’t change what he was about to do.

Gabe cleared his throat. “Rhonda, I . . . I can’t do this anymore.”

“What do you mean, Gabe?” Rhonda asked, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. She sat down on the bed next to him. “Of course you can do this. I know things have been rough for you ever since Veronica died, but life will go on. There’s no reason for you to resort to ending your life.”

“No, that’s—that’s not what I was going to say. What I meant was,” Gabe started to say, but then, suddenly, he had a change of heart. For reasons he couldn’t explain at the moment, he suddenly wanted Rhonda more than anything in the world. He gently touched her hand,
caressing her soft skin. “Never
mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Rhonda leaned in and pressed her lips to his. When she pulled away, she looked into his eyes. “Actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” Gabe murmured, still enchanted by her beauty.

“I’m going to go see my father,” Rhonda explained. “I was wondering if you would be willing to come with me.”

Gabe didn’t seem to have a choice; his heart knew what his answer was right away. “Sure, should we leave right now?”

Rhonda smiled. “You’re cute. I was thinking we could leave a little later tonight, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine. I guess I better start packing.” Gabe rose to his feet and opened his closet door. A feeling washed over his body that he could only compare to déjà vu; even though his body was reacting to what was going on around him, his mind felt confused and jumbled.

“Perfect,” Rhonda replied, smiling. “Be ready to leave around eight.”

Chapter 5

When Stakeology class had ended, Lexi followed Dan back to their dorm room, feeling accomplished. She was the only one in the whole class who had been able to shoot a stake through a vampire dummy’s heart from four feet away, and Professor Fleur was confident that she would be able to do it away from six or seven feet away if she tried.

As soon as Dan closed the dorm room door behind him, there was a loud knock. Lexi opened the door and found Anna staring back at her.

“Is everything okay?” Lexi questioned, noting the blank expression on Anna’s face.

“I-I need your help,” Anna blurted.

Lexi held the door open wider so that Anna could come inside the room. Once Anna had stepped inside, Lexi closed the door. “What is it?”

“Remember how I told you about the tip I got about my mom’s murderer?” Anna questioned.

“Yeah, I remember,” Lexi replied, recalling that Anna had mentioned that she had gotten the tip when she and Austin had gone to visit Anna’s dad in California for Christmas break. Anna hadn’t mentioned anything else about the tip again until now, though.

“Well, it was only
part
of a tip,” Anna explained. “I need to go to Ohio to find out the rest.”

“Ohio? What’s in Ohio?” Dan asked, narrowing his eyebrows.

Anna shrugged and nervously twirled a piece of pink highlighted hair around her finger. “I don’t actually know. I have an address I’m supposed to go to . . . and I’m supposed to let the person know I’m coming.”

Dan’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t know how much I trust this vampire—at least, I’m assuming it’s a vampire—who claims to know about your mom’s murder. It sounds really fishy to me. If they really knew what happened to your mom and they really wanted you to know the truth, don’t you think they would just give you the information willingly . . . and from afar? Why do you have to go somewhere to find out? It seems like a setup.”

“I don’t know.” Anna sighed, sitting down on the bed and running her petite fingers over the burgundy down comforter. Glancing up, she looked from Dan and to Lexi. “Look, this might turn out to be nothing, but . . . it could also be something. I won’t know for sure until I go to Ohio and find out.”

Lexi nodded, remembering how she had felt about her own mother’s murder. If someone had offered to give her a tip, even if she had to go a state away to meet some random stranger to get it, she would have taken it if there was a chance she would have been able to find out the truth. “So, what do you want us to do to help?”

“I talked to Chris Morton—the Headmaster of Huntington—about going to Ohio. I had to get her permission to leave so I would be able to pass my classes this semester. Well, she gave me her consent to go, but she strongly suggested that I take somebody with me. Will you guys come?”

“Of course we’ll come,” Lexi agreed right away, just as Dan asked, “Isn’t Austin going to go with you?”

Anna nodded. “Austin has already agreed to come with me, but Headmaster Morton thought it
would be better if there more than two of us. We’ll be safer if there are a larger number of hunters with us.” She eyed Dan with a look of confusion, and Lexi could tell that Anna was wondering if Dan was going to object to going to Ohio with her.

Dan glanced over at Lexi, searching her face with his sky blue eyes. Even though Lexi could tell that the idea of going to Ohio made Dan nervous, his face softened when he realized that Lexi really wanted to go. Glancing over at Anna, he grinned. “You can count us in.”

Anna’s lips stretched into a wide smile. “Thank you! You guys are the best. I’m going to start packing. Be ready to leave here around eight o’clock.”

“We will be,” Lexi replied, nodding. She watched as Anna left their dorm room before turning to Dan. Lowering her voice, she asked, “What was that all about?”

Dan shrugged. “I just don’t know if I feel comfortable about this whole thing. It seems too weird to me.”

“Well, I don’t know how I feel about it either, but it doesn’t matter. We have to help Anna. She’s been there for us when we needed her,” Lexi pointed out.

“I know,” Dan agreed. “That’s why I said we’re going with them.” He walked over to his dresser and began tossing clothes onto the bed to pile into his overnight bag.

Lexi turned to her own closet and began to pack some of her belongings. She tossed a few pairs of jeans, a few hooded sweatshirts, t-shirts, and underwear into her duffle bag.
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed her dad’s number. When he answered, she asked, “Dad? I need someone to watch Garth for a couple of days. Do you think you can do it?”

Her father’s voice sounded on the other end of the line. “I’m not going to have time to watch him right now, but I’m sure the kids would love to have a pet visitor for a few days, so I’ll take him back to my house later tonight. Hey, Lexi? Do you still have your bat pendant?”

Lexi clutched the bat pendant that she still wore around her neck, even though she didn’t actually need it anymore. It was the pendant that had once protected her from the vampires who were after her blood; it masked the alluring scent of her blood, which was superior to other human blood because she was a Hunter.

Now that she was an immortal, though, the bat pendant was no longer necessary. Ever since she had become an immortal, her blood no longer had the same scent. It wouldn’t attract vampires—or save them—like it once had.

“Yeah, I do still wear it,” Lexi said into the phone. “Why do you ask?”

Her father laughed nervously. “Oh, it’s . . . it’s nothing. I was just curious to know if you still wore it. I know you don’t need to anymore, but I just wondered if you’ve still been wearing it. I haven’t noticed lately.”

“I plan to wear it always.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Lexi smiled. It was nice to know that her dad thought of the pendant in the same way she did; it had some sort of sentimental value for him, too. “I need to get going now, but I’ll talk to you soon.”

As she
hung up the phone, she
started to
pack her makeup and hair brush. T
here was a loud knock at the door.

“Come in!” Lexi called, assuming it was Anna again, coming back to tell them something she’d forgotten about the trip they would be leaving for in just a few hours.

So, when Rhonda stepped inside the dorm room, tossing her long, wavy hair over her shoulders, Lexi froze.

Something about Rhonda really creeped Lexi out, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Gabe had been acting differently ever since she’d been around and while Anna had mentioned a theory about Rhonda being able to control his mind, Lexi wasn’t so sure. She thought that Rhonda was just a manipulative person . . . and Gabe was just that easy to persuade.

“Hi, Lexi!” Rhonda chirped. Glancing over at Dan’s turned back, she smiled. “Hi, Dan.”

“Hey,” Dan mumble
d, not even bothering to turn t
o look at her.

Rhonda focused her attention on Lexi. “I just wanted to come and say goodbye to the two of you.”

“Goodbye? You’re leaving Huntington?” Lexi asked, eyeing her curiously and hoping that she didn’t sound too happy about the prospect.

“Well, just for a few days,” Rhonda replied, rolling her eyes as though that tidbit of information should have been obvious. “Gabe is accompanying me to go visit my father. He lives in Boston.”

“Okay,” Lexi replied aloud. To herself, she wondered,
why are you telling me this?

“I just wanted to let you know in case you wondered where we went. In case you needed anything or if you missed us while we were gone. You know, just being neighborly.” Rhonda’s lips twisted into a smile, as she glared at Lexi.

“Well, thanks for letting us know,” Dan said, finally turning to face her. “We’re going to be going away too, though, so I don’t think we’ll miss you too much.”

Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Well, I hope the two of you have a great trip . . . and that you find whatever it is you’re looking for.” She whirled around and bolted out of the dorm room, swiftly
closing the door behind her.

Lexi turned to Dan. “What the hell was that all about?”

Dan shrugged. “Seems to me like she just wanted to rub it in your face that she and Gabe are going to Boston together.” He sat down on the bed and glanced up at Lexi. “It didn’t bother you . . .
did it
?”

From the nervous tone in Dan’s voice, Lexi knew right away that he was afraid that she would be upset about Rhonda and Gabe traveling together. She felt her own face soften, and she sat down on the bed next to him.

“Of course it didn’t bother me. Gabe’s my past. You’re my present.” She sighed loudly. “I just don’t like that girl. There’s something about her that really bothers me.”

“Don’t let her,” Dan said. “I know everyone seems to think she’s this crazy, manipulative person, but . . . I think she’s just a troubled girl. I mean, imagine having your life turned upside down by some guy who just decides, one day, to turn you into a vampire without even asking. It’s not fun. Trust me.”

Lexi recalled Dan’s own story about how he’d became a vampire. Someone had attacked and changed him when he was working behind a meat counter. If he hadn’t been working at the grocery store that day, he might never have changed. She glanced over at him. “Do you ever wonder how your life would be different? If you didn’t change?”

Dan shrugged. “Not really. I try not to think about it too much. It would never change the fact that things aren’t different.”

Lexi nodded. “I know what you mean. I used to wonder how things would have been different if my mom had lived, but . . . I just accept everything for what it is now.”

“It’s easier to accept things now that I have you,” Dan said, running a hand through her hair. He leaned in closer to her and pressed his lips against her own.

As she kissed him back, Lexi’s whole body tingled at his touch. Ever since she had found out that they were soul mates, just touching him sent a wave of fireworks over her body.

There was a knock at the door, and they separated themselves from one another.

Rolling her eyes, Lexi groaned. “What does Rhonda want now?”

Dan shrugged and gave her a sympathetic look before calling, “Come in!”

Lexi was surprised to find that it wasn’t Rhonda who entered their dorm room this time.

It was Austin, and he looked more nervous than Lexi had ever seen him.