Crave 02 - Sacrifice (31 page)

Shay looked at Millie. She wasn’t sure about Luis, but she thought Millie would say yes.

“I shouldn’t have a say,” Millie replied. “I’m not going with you,” she added quickly, tears shimmering in her eyes.

“What?” Gabriel burst out.

“Mils, that’s crazy,” Luis said.

“I don’t want to hide anymore,” Millie explained. “I want to live in a city. A huge city. I want to do things. I want to do
everything
.”

“You’re not thinking of telling people the truth about yourself?” Gabriel gasped.

“It would be a horrible mistake,” Shay’s mom said. “They’d lock you away. They’d do unspeakable things. Just look at what Martin—”

Millie held up her hands. “I don’t mean I’m going to walk around telling people I’m a vampire,” she said. “I just don’t want to be so isolated anymore. Since I was a child, I’ve been hidden in caves and labs and houses in the middle of nowhere. I have been alive for ages, but my life has been so . . . small. I want to know more people.” She gave a teary smile at Gabriel and put her hand over Luis’s. “Not that I don’t love you guys.”

Shay nodded. She knew what it was like to live a life with so many restraints, expected to be cautious all the time.

“It’s way too risky,” Gabriel began.

“It’s her choice,” Shay said, cutting him short. “And I understand why you’d want that,” she added to Millie.

Gabriel didn’t look happy, and Shay could feel more worry in her communion with him, but he didn’t try to argue. He turned to Luis. “And you?”

“It’s not going to be the same,” Luis said.

“It’s not,” Gabriel agreed. “And I don’t want it to be. I want our family to be a place where there’s room for all kinds. I don’t want us to be so ruled by fear that we’re willing to kill each other to stay safe. Or what we believe is safe.”

“I’ve been part of a family, your family, as long as I can remember,” Luis said to Gabriel. “I don’t have even one memory of another life. But I feel like my family doesn’t exist anymore.”

“In a way, it doesn’t,” Shay said, wondering if she had the right to speak. “You’ve lost your father and a brother. Your sisters are going their own way. It isn’t the same family. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be yours. My family is different now too.”

“We have a lot to figure out,” Gabriel put in. “And we’ll do it together. Together we’ll figure out what our future can and should be.”

“Okay. I’m with you,” Luis said.

“Millie, you’ll always have a home with us. You know that. Or you can just come visit for holidays,” Shay’s mother said. She gave a little laugh. “Do we celebrate holidays?”

“Like Gabriel said, we’ll figure it out together.” Shay was filled
with a rush of anticipation and hope, the emotions so powerful, they made her a little giddy. She was about to start planning her future. Her
future
. She used to believe her future would be short, and filled with sickness.

But now she had an eternity, an eternity with Gabriel, and her world was full of time. Time, and love.