Burn Like Fire (4 page)

Chapter 6

Austin watched as Lexi’s eyes filled with a genuine look of concern when she registered him standing at the door to the dorm room she shared with Dan. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

Austin stepped into the dorm room and closed the door behind him so that no one could hear them talking from the hallway. “I . . . I don’t know. Everything’s okay, I guess, but . . . I want to ask Anna to become a vampire. Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No, of course I don’t think it’s a bad idea for Anna to become a vampire. You obviously love each other. It only makes sense that eventually Anna would become a vampire, too, so that the two of you can be together forever.” Lexi sighed, a dreamy look in her eyes. When she saw Dan shoot her a confused glance, she explained, “It’s like a romance movie or something.”

Dan rolled his eyes and shot Austin a look that said, “
Girls.”

“That’s not what I was asking,” Austin said. “I know it’s not a bad idea for Anna to become a vampire. I hope she’ll agree to it. Do you think it’s a good idea for me to ask her to become one, though? I don’t want to seem pushy or anything, but . . . I really want her to turn soon. I don’t want to have to live everyday worrying that there’s a chance she could die. I mean, I know she can die if she’s a vampire, too, but not as easily.” He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. The past few nights, just worrying about everything had made him feel sick.

“So, then what’s the problem?” Lexi asked with raised eyebrows.

“The problem is I’m not sure if I should be the one to tell Anna this is what I want. I’m afraid that if she doesn’t come up with the idea herself, it won’t be something she wants to do.” Austin sighed. “I want Anna to make the decision on her own, I guess, instead of having to suggest it to her. Do you think that’s the right thing to do?”

Dan hesitated. “I don’t think it will hurt letting her know that you want her to become a vampire, but right now may not be the best time.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Lexi asked, glancing over at Dan. “You and I both know that our lives can change at any moment. If Anna doesn’t change soon, something could happen to her.”

“It could,” Dan agreed, adding hesitantly, “but asking her to change right now might stress her out. She’s busy getting ready for this trip to hopefully find out who killed her mother. I’m sure she has a lot of stuff going on in her head right now. Asking her to change right now will probably only overwhelm her more.”

“That’s true.” Austin hesitated. “So, you think I should wait until we get back from Ohio, then?”

“Yeah, you should,” Lexi replied. “What do you think about this whole trip, anyway?”

Austin shrugged. He hadn’t really even had time to consider how he felt about it. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter; all that mattered was that Anna was happy with the outcome.

“It doesn’t worry you at all?” Dan asked. “I don’t know why, but I have this awful feeling the whole thing is some sort of setup.”

Austin narrowed his eyes at him. “Why would anyone do that?”

Dan shrugged, running a hand over his sandy blonde hair. “I don’t know. I just think they will. We need to be careful.”

“I guess we’ll see. There’s no way we’re going to be able to talk Anna out of this if that’s what you’re implying you want me to do,” Austin said. He turned to go out the door. “I gotta get back to our dorm room. We have some packing to finish up.”

“Okay, we’ll see you soon,” Lexi said, turning back to her own packing.

Austin headed out the door and down the hall to the dorm room that he and Anna were sharing. It was the same dorm room that he and Gabe had once shared, back when he thought that Gabe was
his friend, back when he actually thought he could trust him.

Now, it made Austin sick to think that he had once trusted a killer.

It made him scared to trust anyone too much. Outside of Lexi and Anna, he didn’t trust anyone. Even though he knew that Dan had proven to be a good friend, there was always a chance that Lexi had been right all along and that Dan was actually against them. It didn’t cross his mind often, and he didn’t like to think that way, but if Gabe could be a pathological liar in addition to being a killer, Austin knew he couldn’t really trust
anyone
.

When he swung open the room to their dorm, Anna was sitting on the bed, holding something in her hands. As he entered the room, she glanced up at him, meeting his gaze with her chocolate brown eyes. Normally, her eyes were sexy and adoring when she looked at him, but at the moment, they had a scared, almost desperate look in them.

“What’s wrong, Anna?” Austin asked softly, sitting down on the bed next to her. He hated to see his girlfriend sad, especially since it was so unlike her. She was normally a bubble of happiness.

“I’m just looking at this old picture,” Anna said, wiping away a tear that spilled over the rim of her lashes. “It’s me and my mom on my sixteenth birthday. I had this huge party. I invited my entire high school class. It was bigger than the prom was supposed to be. And even though there were going to be so many people there and we were hiring an expensive caterer, my mom still insisted on baking my favorite carrot cake.” She smiled at the memory. “I miss her so much. And I know I shouldn’t stress about it, but I’m just worried about this trip.”

Austin waited for her to explain why. When she didn’t give him any explanation, he asked, “Why are you worried?”

Anna glanced over at him. “I feel like I’m so close to finding out who killed my mom, but I’m also so far away. I’m hoping this all leads to something, but . . . what if it doesn’t? What if it’s just another dead-end?”

Austin sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you that this was a guaranteed thing, that we’re going to find out for certain who killed your mother tomorrow. But I can’t make a promise that I won’t be able to keep. As much as I’d like to think that this tip is legit, we w
on’t know until we go to Ohio.”

Tossing her short hair over her shoulder and smoothing out her black Owl City band t-shirt, she sniffed. “It just sucks.”

“That it does,” Austin agreed, staring at the wall. He didn’t even want to think about how much it would suck if things didn’t turn out the way Anna was hoping, and she didn’t find out anything
about her mother’s murder.

Chapter 7

Ten minutes to eight o’clock, Rhonda sat in her car, allowing it to idle as she waited for Gabe to come outside. A guy in one of her classes gave her a small wave as he passed by her car. Rhonda waved back and smiled at him. If only he knew that she was thinking about how good his blood would taste . . .

Rhonda shook the thought away. She didn’t have time to think about humans and their delicious blood right now; she had to worry about getting to Ohio.

She noticed the door to Huntington swing open and someone darted over to the parking lot. Rhonda realized, right away, that it was Austin. Perfect.

She lowered her window. When he got closer to her car, she called, “Austin? Can you come here for a minute?”

Even though Austin had a puzzled look on his face, he strolled over to her car. “What’s up?” he asked, his turquoise blue eyes full of curiousness. Even though they’d seen each other in the hallways, they hadn’t actually spoken since Gabe had first brought her to Huntington.

From what Rhonda could tell, Austin and Anna were attached at the hip. She couldn’t blame Austin for being so interested in Anna. Even Rhonda had to admit that Anna’s blood smelled enticing, despite the fact that she found guys’ minds easier to control—which was exactly what she was planning to do to Austin at the moment.

“Have you seen Gabe?” Rhonda asked Austin innocently. She pushed her sweater off her shoulder a little bit, revealing the red lacy bra that she wore underneath. Rhonda noticed Austin’s eyes drift to it before meeting her gaze again.

“Nah, I haven’t seen him. Why, what’s going on?”

“Oh, I’m just waiting for him to get ready so we can leave,” Rhonda replied. For once, she was actually telling the truth . . .
sort of
. No one knew the truth about where she and Gabe were
going; they all thought she was taking him to Boston to see her father, when the truth was, she was planning to follow them to Ohio.

She was hoping that she didn’t need to physically follow them there, though. There was a huge risk of getting caught—by Lexi, Anna, Dan, and Austin or by Gabe—if she literally followed their car all the way to Ohio.

Batting her eyelashes at Austin, Rhonda thought:
tell me where you’re going.

Austin met her gaze and said coolly, “We won’t be at Huntington. We’re going to Ohio for a couple of days.”

Tell me what part of Ohio you’re going to
, Rhonda urged him to tell her, continuing to stare into his eyes.

“We’re going to this town called Shady Brooke,” Austin went on. “Anna thinks she may be able to get a tip about her mother’s murder there.”

Rhonda felt the anger rise to her cheeks just hearing someone else mention Anna’s name. Even though she’d thought about her since she’d caught her talking to the Headmaster earlier that day, hearing her name aloud reminded her of how Anna wanted to take her down. It only made her realize, once again, that she wa
sn’t going to let that happen.

Rhonda was going to get rid of Anna once and for all, and by making it seem like she was in Boston at the time of Anna’s death, she would make sure that she wouldn’t be a primary suspect.

Even if Rhonda were a suspect, she wasn’t sure that it mattered. If the police officers who would inevitably handle Anna’s murder case were to investigate her, she would probably be able to control their minds. She could probably get away with it, but it was better for her not to take any chances.

Rhonda couldn’t figure out why her mind-control seemed to work on everyone except for Dan. She wasn’t sure why Dan’s mind wasn’t as pliable as everyone else’s, but that made her want to control it more. She liked a challenge. And Rhonda was convinced that, in time, she would be able to convince him to do whatever she wanted. He just was going to take some time and some convincing, but she knew that his willpower couldn’t be
that
strong.

Rhonda noticed the light stream out of the door of Huntington as it was swung open again. She saw a tall, dark, handsome figure approaching the car behind them, and she quickly turned to Austin. “There’s Gabe now. We have to get going, but thanks for our little chat.” Staring into his eyes, she thought:
You won’t remember this conversation anymore. If anyone asks you, you won’t tell them that you spoke to me or that you told me where you’re going in Ohio.

When she finished thinking the words, Austin stared back at her blankly. She could tell from the look in his turquoise blue eyes that he really didn’t remember that he had spoken to her. He glanced around and, judging from the look on his face, she could tell he was puzzled about why he was standing in front of her car.

Austin scurried off in the other direction, just as Gabe was standing next to the car. As he opened the door and climbed in, he turned to Rhonda. “What did Austin want?”

“Oh, nothing. He dropped a pencil or something next to my car, and he was trying to find it. What a weirdo.” Rhonda rolled her eyes and cracked her gum coolly. She turned to Gabe. “So, are you ready to hit the road?”

Gabe nodded, resting his head against the seat. A piece of dark hair fell into his eyes. “Yeah, I’m
as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Great.” Rhonda reached in the glove compartment and pulled out the red bandana. She opened it and held it up to Gabe’s eyes. “I’m going to blindfold you.”

Gabe stared back at her questioningly. “Uh, why?” The tone in his voice didn’t sound amused by the idea; he actually sounded sort of pissed off. Rhonda hoped that he wasn’t going to get testy with her again. She wasn’t sure how she would handle that.

“Because I have a surprise for you, silly,” Rhonda replied, with a ‘duh’ tone in her voice, even though she was lying. “You’ll see once we get to Boston.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes at her. “You really want me to be blindfolded the whole ride to Boston?”

“Well, I would tell you to go to sleep, but you and I both know that isn’t exactly possible. Is being blindfolded a problem? Because I think it’s pretty sexy.” Her hand drifted down to her cleavage.
Just let me blindfold you, Gabe. It will be completely harmless, I promise.

Gabe’s eyes followed her hand before meeting her eyes. “Okay, I guess you can blindfold me. As long as you promise me you won’t hurt me.”

Rhonda giggled. “Do you really believe I would ever hurt
you
?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s so silly, Gabe. You’re the love of my life.”

Gabe laughed what sounded like a forced laugh, but he didn’t say anything back. Rhonda met his eyes again and pursed her lips.
Tell me I’m the love of your life, too.

“You’re the love of my life, too,” Gabe said. The tone in his voice was monotone and almost robot-like, but it didn’t matter. The words were exactly what Rhonda needed to hear. They gave her an inner burst of energy, a happiness that radiated throughout her whole body, from the tips
of her fingers to her toes. They made her feel rejuvenated.

For a moment, she actually forgot about her whole plan. All she could think about was Gabe and how much they loved each other.

As she covered Gabe’s eyes with the blindfold, though, she glanced into the backseat of the car. She spotted the duffel bag that was lying on the floor of the car—the duffel bag that contained the alcohol and poison that she’d tricked Noah into getting for her earlier.

It was the same alcohol and poison that Rhonda was planning to use to kill Anna with once they arrived in Shady Brooke.