Intertwined (23 page)

She really was here. She was breathing heavily, her fangs peeking over her lips in a show of absolute hunger. Couldn’t be an illusion. Tucker didn’t know she was vampire. Aden pushed to shaky legs and reached for her. His hands were covered in blood.

She backed away from him. “Can’t…touch you right now,” she croaked out.

Did she fear him, too? Or did she simply crave the blood that covered him?

“Oh my God!” Principal White pushed his way through the
crowd and peered down at Tucker’s motionless form. “What did you do? What the hell did you do? Someone call 911.”

Victoria shook her head, seeming to drag herself out of her stupor, and shouted, “No one move,” in that husky voice of hers. Power hummed from her. “Hear me and obey. Except you, Aden.”

Everyone froze. Including Shannon, who now stood in the crowd, stopping midcough.
No
. Shannon had been kind to him these past few days, and they’d had each other’s backs. Aden hated that the former dreg had seen him like that, bloody and vicious, hated that Victoria now had to use her vampire powers against him.

“A tall, blond stranger came onto campus and fought Tucker,” she said, and everyone nodded. “You all saw it. Then you watched as that blond stranger ran off. You didn’t follow him because you were too concerned for Tucker. Now go about your day. Principal White will handle things from here.”

When she lapsed into silence, everyone started moving at once, backing into the shadows. The kids mumbled fearfully about “some blond stranger,” Shannon sneaked away, probably wanting no part of the interrogation that would come, and Principal White bent down and cradled Tucker’s head in his lap, feeling for a pulse.

“He’s alive,” he said with relief.

Aden’s shoulders sagged. He hadn’t killed him. Thank God.

Victoria cupped his face, forcing his attention on her. “Meet me in the parking lot. I’m going to convince your last three teachers that you are in class, even though you won’t be.”

“No,” John said, suddenly beside him again. “I put the polish in your backpack. Pink, glittery and brand-new. You have to find Chloe now.”

Aden flicked him a glance, took in his panicked expression, before turning back to Victoria. She didn’t act as if she saw the ghost. “I’ll be a few minutes. There’s something I have to do first.” He didn’t give her a chance to ask what. He bent down, kissed her hard—she licked his lips, eyes closed in surrender as the flavor of blood hit her tongue—and raced toward the cafeteria.

“Stop in the bathroom and clean up first,” John demanded at his side. “You’ll scare her.”

Aden quickly obeyed. There was no ridding himself of his bruised nose and hands, so he simply mopped up the blood as best as he could. When he finished, he resumed his journey. Word of the fight was spreading fast. He even heard kids on the phone with their parents, telling them about the unidentified man. Those parents were probably on their way now, meaning to take their precious children home to safety. Would news stations come out? Interview witnesses?

Aden gulped.

Everything will be all right
, Elijah said.
You won’t be sought and Dan won’t be worried
.

You’re only encouraging his bad behavior
, Eve reprimanded.

“Where is she?” Aden asked John. He scanned the crowded cafeteria, face and hands throbbing. Since learning John was a ghost yesterday, he’d made it a point to find out who Chloe Howard was. She hung with the smart kids, the ones more
concerned with grades than appearances. A cute little thing with thick glasses, skin covered in freckles, and braces. She had pen-straight brown hair she always wore in a ponytail.

“There,” John said, pointing to the far back corner.

Aden worked his way over. When she spotted him, she ducked her head to her tray. There were three other kids around her, books in front of them as they talked and studied. A moment passed. She glanced up, realizing he was still coming toward her. She looked behind her, saw no one, and her mouth fell open.

“Can I speak with you?” he asked when he reached her.

Her gaze fell to her friends. They, too, were watching him with confusion.

“Alone,” he added. “Please. I need to talk to you about something important.”

John moved behind her, bent down and breathed her in. He pressed his lips together. To silence a moan? A whimper?

She nodded to her friends, who pushed from their chairs and walked away slowly, eyes never leaving them. Aden sat across from her. John remained behind her, hand brushing her cheek with longing. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m Aden,” he said.

“I know.” A blush stained her cheeks. Once again she turned her attention to her food, picking at it with her fork. “What happened to you? And what do you want?”

He ignored her first question. “I have a message for you.” There was only one way to present John’s case without admitting his own abilities. “John O’Conner and I were friends.
He told me about you, how he loved you.” As he spoke, her color became ashen. “He tried to tell you, but—”

She jumped to her feet. Hands shaking, she gathered up her tray. “How dare you!” she whispered fiercely. “Let me guess what happened. You heard the rumor about our…relationship and you decided to taunt me. I thought he was cruel but you…” A pained cry left her.

“Don’t let her leave,” John rushed out in a panic. “Not until she understands.”

Aden, too, stood. “It might have started out as a dare, but he fell in love with you and wanted to be with you.”

She turned, ready to stalk away.

“Aden,” John said, eyes beseeching him. “Please.”

Maybe John’s empath powers had somehow transferred to him, because Aden felt his desperation bone-deep. He had to make this right. Had to make this girl understand. Even at his own expense. “Wait. You’re right. I didn’t know him,” he admitted, “not when he was alive. But the past few weeks I’ve been able to see the dead and he came to me, wanting only one thing. For me to talk to you.”

At least she didn’t race away. He had her attention, whether she believed him or not.

John must have taken heart, for he jumped in front of her and said, “Tell her I meant what I said the last time I called her. I would have run away with her. I even tried to give her a ring, my grandmother’s. I placed it in the glove box of her car to surprise her.”

Aden repeated every word.

Slowly she pivoted around and faced him. Tears were streaming down her face. “I don’t know how you found out about that ring and I don’t care.” She closed her eyes, exhaled a shuddering breath, and reached for the chain around her neck, tugging it from under her shirt. A diamond ring hung in the center, the small stones winking in the light. “I just want you to leave me a…lone.”

Aden followed her stunned gaze. A beam of light had streamed in through the window, hitting John and outlining the shimmer of his body. Openmouthed, Chloe reached out, fingers misting through him. He leaned into her touch anyway.

“John?”

“Hey, Chlo. God, I miss you.”

“Can you hear him?” Aden asked her.

“No,” she whispered.

He relayed what had been said. A long while passed in silence. The beam faded, and so did John, but Chloe didn’t move.

“What I just saw…that’s not possible,” she said, shaking her head.

“It’s more than possible,” Aden told her. “Later, you can tell yourself it was only your mind playing tricks, but for now…What would you say to him if you could?”

She swallowed, licked her lips. “I’d tell him that I forgive him. I’d tell him that when I found the ring, I realized he’d been telling me the truth and that I…I…I loved him, too.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” John pressed a ghostly kiss to her forehead, his image wavering, shimmering and then disappearing altogether.

Would he ever see John again? Aden wondered. Or had fulfilling his last wish ceased the ghost’s torment and sent him away for good?

Chloe stood there, crying, and her friends, who hadn’t strayed far, closed in on her, offering support and comfort. Aden left her then. Confused but strangely satisfied, he made his way to the parking lot. Victoria was already there, waiting in front of a plain blue car. He stopped. She gave him an unsure smile.

“Where have you been?” he asked, equally unsure. “Where are Riley and Mary Ann?”

She motioned to the car. “Get in and I’ll show you.”

They settled inside, Aden at the wheel. She handed him the keys and pointed north. Aden had a sinking suspicion that his day was about to take a turn for the worse. As awful as it had already been, that well and truly frightened him.

A
DEN DIDN’T HAVE MUCH
practice behind the wheel of a car, so he wasn’t as smooth a driver as he would have liked. He hit the brakes a little too hard and took the turns a little too quickly. At least he didn’t have to worry about being pulled over. Not with Victoria in the car. She could talk them out of a ticket. Literally.

They had the music turned low in the background. His fingers tapped against the wheel, keeping the wild beat despite the pain in his knuckles. Just as they’d been during his driving test, the souls were nearly giddy.

When’s the last time we were this free?
Caleb asked with a laugh.

No doctors, no teachers. Just us and the horses
. Julian sighed with contentment.

“This your car?” he asked to break the silence between them and drown out his companions so that he didn’t accidentally start talking to them. “’Cause I’ve never seen you even approach one before.”

She shrugged, sheepish. “Let’s just say I borrowed it. But don’t worry. I’ll return it and no one will ever know it was gone.”

Borrowed. AKA stolen. Most likely she’d used that commanding voice and the owner had simply handed her the keys. He couldn’t help but grin—until his lip split and he winced.

Oh, Aden.
Eve
tsk
ed under her tongue.
Riding around in a stolen car? Whether you’ll get in trouble or not, that’s not the right thing to do. I’m not sure this girl is the best influence on you. Mary Ann is
—

No, no, no.
Elijah banged his head against Aden’s skull, rattling his brain.
Mary Ann is a friend only, so don’t try to push him on her. And I’m not just saying that because she knocks us into oblivion. Riley would eat us alive
.

Eve huffed.
All I’m saying is she’s a better influence
.

Once again, Aden did his best to tune them out. “So…do you know where Riley and Mary Ann are? Were you with them earlier?”

“Yes. They’re in Tri City, which is where we’re headed.”

Tri City. He’d been a few times and knew there were restaurants, lots of clothing stores and a theater. “Why are they there?”

“I—they—” She blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s too difficult to explain. It will be easier to show you.”

Well, she wasn’t the only one dealing with frustration. They had another ten minutes before they reached Tri City, and the wait would
not
be easy. “Have you guys been there all day?”

“Yes.”

Yet they’d willingly left him behind. Ouch. “Why not pick me up earlier?”

“You hum with so much power, we wanted to first make sure we could protect you in case something went wrong.”

That, he understood. With him, something always went wrong.

A minute passed. Two. He merged off the highway and onto a side road, slowing the car to an acceptable speed. He’d wanted to talk to Victoria all day. And now here she was. He could ask the question he
really
wanted answered.
Just say it. Put it out there
.

“So who was that guy? The one who was at my window yesterday? The one who heard you tell me to leave you alone.” The words left his mouth through clenched teeth, each one scraped raw.

She twisted in her seat, facing him, and rested her head against the seat cushion. Her hair was down today, those blue streaks gleaming. “I hated telling you to leave me alone almost as much as I hate that man, but I had to say it. I couldn’t let him know how much I…like being with you. He would have challenged you, I would have taken your side, and my father would have punished us all.”

Both a comfort—she would have chosen him—and a fright—her father’s retribution. Aden would do anything, even stay away from her, to protect her from such a fate. She’d done the right thing; his anger drained.

“Next time, give me a little warning and I’ll play along. So who is he?”

“A vampire,” she hedged. “Because of him, I have now been forbidden to leave home at night.”

Her sudden bitterness matched his own. “Is he another of your bodyguards?”

“You could say that, yes.”

He could say that, but she wouldn’t? “What’s his name? Did he hurt you?”

“His name is Dmitri, and no, he did not hurt me physically.”

Emotionally, then? He was beginning to learn her nuances, Aden realized. She didn’t want to lie to him, therefore she skirted the edge of the truth with omission. Smart. He did the same with Dan.

Aden wanted her to trust him completely, utterly, no secrets between them. That would take time, though, because he wasn’t going to push her the way his doctors had often tried to push him, using promises and assurances. Actions were the true test of a man’s integrity. One day she would realize that no matter what she told him, no matter what she did, he would love her.

Love?

His heart skipped a beat, his ears suddenly ringing as blood pumped through his veins. He’d never thought to feel such an emotion himself. He’d always tried to guard himself against it, really. As quickly as he was sometimes taken from foster homes, he’d learned that goodbyes were less painful if he didn’t care about the people he was leaving.

This entire experience in Crossroads had been different, though, right from the start. Imagining Dan as his father, befriending Mary Ann and Shannon, then Victoria (and maybe kinda sorta Riley). Wanting more from Victoria than he’d ever
wanted from another, halfway in love with her before he’d ever even met her.

“Are you all right?” she asked, clearly concerned. Could she hear the rush of blood in his veins? Feel the way his heart skidded out of control?

“Yes,” he managed to croak out. “Fine.” He did. He loved her.

Eve would object. A few of the others, too. But he couldn’t help his feelings. They were there, and they were strong. He wanted Victoria safe, he wanted her with him, at night, during the day. He wanted to know everything about her.

She was smart, beautiful, warm. She’d fought for him when no one else ever had. She’d never looked at him as if he were weird or different. No, she’d always looked at him as if he were perfect, even lovable in his own right.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How deeply did her feelings for him run?

“About your death?”

He tensed at the reminder.

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about since you told me.” Her chin trembled as if she were fighting tears.

Those tears both delighted and sobered him. To cry for him, she must feel deeply for him. But they didn’t have much time together. Maybe there was a way to save himself, he thought, though he knew better. He just wasn’t ready to give her up yet. “Can I be changed to vampire?”

“Oh, I wish. But unlike what your books and movies portray, it has never been done successfully. Our blood is dif
ferent than yours, and humans simply cannot tolerate the amount needed to make the transformation. They go insane.”

Then there was no better candidate to give the blood to than Aden. According to his doctors, he was halfway there already.

Victoria sighed, and it was a wistful sound. “The first were created in my father’s time. When he realized what he was, what had become of him, he forced his elite soldiers and the females of their choosing to drink as he had done, as his pets had done. Some of them changed, some did not. Over the following years, many others tried to change additional humans, but
all
died.”

“Seriously? Not a single survivor?”

“Correct. The only new vampires are those that are born from a vampire mother.”

“But it stands to reason that if vampires were created once, they could be created again.”

“True. But no one knows what recent attempts are lacking. Either the tainted blood my father and his men consumed is no more, or human bodies have evolved, becoming resistant. Sometimes, for reasons we haven’t yet figured out, the vampire involved even dies with the human.”

So that was out. He wouldn’t risk Victoria. He sighed. What was he going to do, then?

“Turn left here,” she said.

He did, and soon found himself meandering along a dirt road on the outskirts of the town square, the backs of buildings facing another strip of forested land. Gravel crunched under the tires, and the car bounced. No one was in sight. Only a red corvette.

“Park here.”

He eased to a stop and turned off the car. They unbuckled simultaneously, and he peered over at her. She wore a black T-shirt, as usual, and was clutching the hem. Seeing her fingernails reminded him of the polish in his backpack.

Aden reached to the back of the car, unzipped his pack and dug inside. When his fingers curled around the small, cool glass, he tugged it free, praying it was as pink and glittery as John had promised. It was. Thank God.

“Before you show me whatever it is you plan to show me, I wanted you to have this.” Gulping, suddenly nervous, he held it out to her. “For you. Well, your toes.”

She looked down at it, up at him, then down again, her mouth opening and snapping closed several times. “Me?”

Did that mean she liked it? “You mentioned the colors inside Mary Ann’s house and well, I thought maybe you—”

“I love it!” she said, throwing herself into his arms and raining little kisses over his face. When one of those kisses landed on his mouth, she stilled. Her smile fell away. She pressed another kiss to his lips, this one soft and slow, her tongue slipping inside.

He was cut and bruised, and the kiss hurt, but he wouldn’t have stopped her for anything. He just wrapped himself around her and held on, savoring the contact. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the floral scent of her hair, enjoying the heady flavor of her. All that heat…

There was a tap at the window.

They jumped apart as if burned. Aden was reaching for his daggers when he spotted Riley’s harsh, intense face. Mary Ann stood behind him, paler than he’d ever seen her.

Frowning, he opened the door and emerged. The cool interior of the car gave way to the heat of the day. One thing he hated about Oklahoma was how one day could be bone-chilling and the next a sauna.

He hadn’t heard Victoria move, but suddenly she was beside him. “Well?” she asked.

“It’s only getting worse,” Riley said.

Victoria stiffened, and Aden wrapped an arm around her waist.

“What is?” he asked. He was finally here. Someone needed to tell him what the hell was going on.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Aden ran his tongue over his teeth. Would no one give him a straight-up answer?

Riley turned, took Mary Ann’s hand and stalked through the alley between two of the buildings, remaining in the shadows. “We shouldn’t have brought you here at all, but we needed you to see what’s out there and be able to identify the different species at a glance.”

Confused, Aden followed, never releasing Victoria. He remained on guard, ready to attack anything that moved. To his surprise, nothing leapt out at them. Also to his surprise, he saw only crowds of people walking in every direction when he reached the front of the buildings. More people than he’d assumed lived in this small tri-city area, sure. But where was the harm in that?

“See that woman?” Victoria pointed to an average-size female with plain brown hair, plain features, a brown top and
faded jeans. She would have blended into any crowd, unnoticed, completely forgettable.

“Yes.”

“She’s a witch and she’s cloaked herself in magic. What you see is not what she truly looks like.”

His attention sharpened on her, and he noticed the alertness of her gaze as she scanned those around her. There was even a glow that enveloped her, slight though it was, as if the sun was drawn to her more than any other. She studied everyone she neared, even reached out and touched a few, as if expecting to be jolted. When nothing happened, she would frown with disappointment and move on.

“How do you know what she is?” he asked. “How can you tell?”

“You have to train your eyes to look past the surface,” Mary Ann said, as if she were quoting something she’d already been told. She probably was.

“Witches can bless with one hand and curse with the other,” Victoria explained. “Some wield more magic than others, but all are dangerous.”

“I’ve been listening to a few conversations,” Riley said. “The witches want to capture you, Aden, though they don’t yet know who you are, to use you to increase their powers. They think whoever summoned them is a mighty wizard. My advice is to avoid capture.”

“Oh, really? ’Cause I never would have thought of that on my own,” he said dryly.

Riley continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “If you’re
captured, when they finish with you, you will be a shell of your former self. They will drain you.”

“So noted.”

“The man behind her is fairy,” said Victoria. The disgust in her voice was palpable.

Aden quickly shifted his focus. The man—or teenager, probably eighteen—was tall and muscled, his skin boasting just a hint of glitter. He had golden hair and golden eyes. Everyone who passed him, male and female alike, stared at him, craning their necks to watch him as long as possible. Except for the witch, Aden noticed. She ran in the opposite direction.

“Like vampires, fairies are drainers,” Victoria continued. “Only instead of blood, they live off of energy. Vampire, witch, it doesn’t matter. Well, that’s not true. They do not drain humans. They consider themselves protectors of humankind, gods among men.”

“You mentioned goblins were here, as well.” Flesh-eaters. He shuddered, feeling phantom corpses biting at him. “Where are they?” If he could learn to identify them, he could evade them.

“And demons,” Mary Ann said with a shudder of her own. “Don’t forget those.”

“The goblins only emerge at night, their eyesight too sensitive to the sun,” Riley said. “Tell your friends to stop going out after dusk. The missing persons count is about to skyrocket. The death toll, as well.”

Because of me
, Aden thought. Because he’d seen Mary Ann. Because he’d remained in this town.

“Oh, God.” Mary Ann covered her mouth with her hand as
if she’d just realized the extent of the danger they were in, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “People are going to die?”