The Keeper's Vow (24 page)

“Annabel?” Katie asked.

“That was your name. Annabel Watts.”

It made her uneasy to look him in the eyes.
All this time she’d wanted him to be honest and share his secrets.
The more he talked the more he relaxed. He was talking about
them
. A life they had together, and she didn’t remember a
second of it. Whenever his lips curled she felt guilty. They had
had happy times and he was the only one who remembered them. No one
to relive them with.

“Your dad didn’t like it much. He thought I
was an abomination. He’d tried more than once to get your mom to
move back here. On your sixth birthday, we were popping all the
balloons when we heard them arguing. He regretted getting Lucinda
involved in finding us—” Tristan paused. Thoughtful.

He laid his head on the wall and smiled.
“You used to torment me. It wasn’t a day unless you were trying to
slip and kill yourself. I’ve stopped you from falling out of trees
and falling into the lake when neither of us knew how to swim. It
was always a count down before you did something stupid,” he
laughed again but it wasn’t light, like the night in the park.

Tristan lifted his shirt and she saw a
small, silver tattoo on his chest. It was sun, and inside was a
crescent moon. “My dad had this mark too. He never told me much
about it,” Tristan looked down at his before pulling his shirt back
down. “It dated him. The only vampire known with it were born to
royal houses.

“The royals were the only ones with gifts.
Some used them to kill their fathers and ‘cleanse’ their houses.
Others wanted to reform the vampire rule. My father didn’t care
about any of that. He knew that his would only be used by others.
He had the strength of a thousand men.”

He looked at the ceiling and his eyes were
like ice, crystal clear and close to melting. “Your mother wanted
me to take the Keeper’s Vow with you—because I have my fathers
gift.” Tristan stopped and Katie was overwhelmed with his anger and
guilt.

She looked at him but he wouldn’t so much as
glance in her direction.

“My father never asked if it was something I
wanted to do, or if it was something I was capable of doing. I
imagine, when my dad made me speak the words and drink your blood,
he didn’t know he’d be murdered less than a week later. In the end
it didn’t matter how strong he was.”

This was it. Katie knew it was coming. The
event that had change their lives forever. The one that sent
Tristan away, turned her father into a drunk, and even now was
still ripping things apart.

“We were playing in the upstairs bedroom. I
heard them crash in through the front door. I could smell the blood
before I heard my mother scream.”

“Why?” Katie said.
Why couldn’t things be
different? Why did any of this happen?

“Because if you kill a royal pure blood and
drink his blood, you gain his power. It’s against the law, but some
people don’t care about that as long as you don’t get caught.”
Tristan adjusted himself on the floor. “They were fast. The only
option was to hide. You were too slow back then to run. I wasn’t
strong enough yet, not to carry us both and out run them. Your
mother was the first to reach our room. I grabbed you before you
ran out of the cabinet we here in. There was someone behind her.
And then she was on the floor. I covered your eyes but you knew. I
thought you would scream and give us away. But you never did. You
didn’t say anything that night.”

“He made me forget it all,” she said,
feeling overwhelmed. Even now she still couldn’t remember any of
it.

“He did what was best for you.”

“How did we survive?” Her heart pounded in
her chest.

“A friend of my father. But, I don’t know if
it was luck or cowardice.”

“It wasn’t cowardly to hide. We were
children.”

He didn’t seem to hear her.

“Why didn’t you stay with Lucy?”

“I didn’t belong here. If I’d have stayed
people would have found out what we both are.”

“So. Is it
that
bad?” she could have
remembered her mother. Maybe then her dad wouldn’t have turned to
drinking, or if he did, at least she would of had a friend to talk
to it about—instead of being ashamed every time an afternoon play
date turned into a two week sleepover.

Tristan got up and sat next to her. He put
his arm around her and she let herself be held. “It is here. Here,
we are less than human,” he said. She had a healed bullet-hole to
prove she was different.

“Where did you go? What did you do?” Like a
closing door, his wall was rising and blocking her out. She’d never
felt this before, but she knew what he was doing. “Tristan tell
me.”

“I lived with someone who took me in. A nice
big house, with no one in it. But I left a few years ago and—did
odd jobs.”

“Like what?” she whispered.

He didn’t say anything.

She held her stomach feeling like she’d fall
apart. She got a new life, a new name and he got what exactly?

When it was obvious he wasn’t going to
answer, she asked a different question. “How did you know my dad
changed my name?”

“I wanted to find you. I ran away and
wandered around for a few days listening to your voice until I
found you at the elementary school up the street from here.

“You were on the playground. You didn’t know
me. You didn’t know me at all. Your new name was Katalina, and from
then on I knew I would never see you again. I was sent to live in
New York after that.”

“Why?” Katie said.

“Punishment? I was a bit violent after
that.”

“No,” Katie said, imagining a little Tristan
who’d lost everything he’d ever known in one night. “I mean why did
this all happened. Why did it turn out this way? Why does life suck
like this? Why did I get shot?”

She turned to Tristan, as if he’d have all
the answers. He was so much braver than her, and he was hardly a
year older than her. She wondered if that was why he seemed to
enjoy going to school and studying, why even though Lucinda yelled
at him to mind his curfew or nagged for him to join her for a
movie, he’d listen and comply. It was because he hadn’t had a real
home life since he was seven.

“Life sucks sometimes.”

“That doesn’t explain why
I
got
shot.”

“I don’t know what he wanted with you,”
Tristan said, shifting.

“He knew you. He called you a traitor.”
There was still something he wasn’t telling her. A something that
got her shot.

“I killed him. He won’t come after you
again.”

“Tristan. I was nearly killed—”

“Because Brian shot you. I saved you. I
won’t let anything happen to you.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” If that
vampire knew her, it was because he knew Tristan. It wasn’t a
random act of violence.

“Katalina, I’ll protect you with my
life.”

She steadied her breathing. She was almost
killed. Extinct. Erased from the earth. That wasn’t enough.

“Nothing else will happen. He’s dead. I
killed him. He’s gone okay?”

She nodded. He did kill him. He was gone.
But what if there were others.

“There won’t be others. He was the only
one,” Tristan said, gripping the sheets on the bed.

“How can you expect me to believe that. Just
take your word for it?”

Tristan’s eyes darted around the room.

“Tristan?”

“I used to be a Death Dealer. My dad left me
money, but it was the only way I could live on my own with
protection.”

“I thought you had a place—”

“That
place
wasn’t a home.” The
sheets tore under his grip. “Death Dealers are the underground
police force. They were more like a family to me than the place I
ran from.”

A thousand thoughts flew across Katie’s
mind, but one flashed brighter than the others.
Death
Dealer.
He killed people.

“I didn’t kill people. D-Ranges mostly. Ones
that went around
actually
killing people. The vampire that
attacked you was one of my lead commanders. He’d been trying to
kill me ever since I left. He doesn’t like deserters.”

“Anyone else pissed at you?” Katie didn’t
want to sound angry, but she was.
He
had gotten her shot.
Something
he
was apart of.

“I should go.” Tristan stood up, but she
pulled him back down. It was instinct to hold on to him. The guy
was dead. It didn’t matter anymore.

That’s what she told herself.

They sat in silence. How did someone move
past something like this? He’d joined some weird gang and now it
was following him around spraying bullets at her.

He flinched.

What if it had been her with no friends, or
parents—related or not—to look after her and care about her.
“What’d you tell Will and Lucy?” she said.

“Nothing yet. I’ll tell them the truth.”

“No.” Katie said. It was stupid maybe. She’d
been told her whole life always to tell adults when something bad
happens. Tell the truth. Always come forward. What would they do?
Kick him out? He’d be back to the life he was trying to leave.

It was Tristan who’d saved her life after
all. He knew she needed blood. She shuttered at the way he’d forced
it down her throat. It was the most vile thing she’d ever tasted.
“Do you ever get used to it?”

“No,” he said. She remembered how she choked
on it. “I had to.”

“I know.” Even though she said it, it didn’t
make her feel any better. “If we tell Will and Lucinda maybe they
can use connections or something to make sure no one else is trying
to revenge kill you.”

“It doesn’t work that way. They can’t tell
anyone. What we are…we’d be outcasted and we’d be kicked out of the
school. It would ruin Will’s career. He’s an elite. And they’d both
lose credibility as guardians.”

“All of that because we are—” was she really
half-
vampire
? Was that something she could except? No. She
was still Katie. Katie Watts.

“They don’t care who you are. Not as much as
they’ll hate
what
you are. You can’t tell anyone. Not
Allison, Not Brian. They know about me, fine. But no one can find
out about you.”

Katie thought that normally she would laugh
or tell him he was being dramatic, but she didn’t. There was no
desire to challenge him or anything he’d told her. She was numb.
“People are better than you give them credit for,” she said.

“You give people too much credit.”

“How do I know when I walk out this door no
one will put a bullet through my head?”

“I’d kill them first. I killed him.”

“Exactly. You have to stop doing that. You
have to leave all that gang crap behind you or you’ll get us all
killed.”

“It wasn’t a gang. It was a police
force.”

“Funny, the police department here doesn’t
put out hits on retired cops.”

Tristan didn’t say anything.

“Your life is different now. No matter what
happened before it’s in the past. You have to change too. No more
going on errands or anything like that. From now on we’re normal
kids going to a normal-ish high school, living a normal life.
Okay?”

“Katalina—”

“Promise me. You’ll stay. You’ll stop
keeping secrets and going off to secret places. I have to know
things are going to be okay. I don’t want you to leave. I want us
both to have a decent life. Together.”

The last word, she meant it, but she didn’t
mean to say it out loud.

Tristan nodded.

It was good enough. She pushed him off the
bed and laid back down. She needed to sleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Katie moved back
home with her dad over Thanksgiving break. It was awkward between
them at first, but eventually he stopped tip-toeing around her.
Brian was home from the hospital, but she hadn’t gone to see him.
She couldn’t face him, not after he’d nearly killed her. It was a
relief that he’d be out of school for the rest of the term. Lucinda
didn’t say whether it was because he needed time to recover or if
it was because he refused to go.

Between being shot, opening the pandora’s
box that was her past, and moving back home, Katie was not prepared
to go back to school either. It didn’t help that she felt oddly
groggy and sluggish for a few weeks. It could have been because
teachers were cramming in material trying to get to through their
lesson plans. It was always like that though. Hamilton High
was
an academic school. The problem was the big evaluation
she had to take before winter break.

Traci followed her everywhere around the
school. At first she’d pretend that she ‘just so happened’ to be in
the lunch room too! And with a pile of text books no less!

“
Katie, I hope you’re using that noggin
of yours today because we have to get through half of this
chapter!”
Or,
“That tuna sandwich looks nice. By the way I
made you math flash cards, want to go through some?”