Vampires & Vinca (Hawthorn Witches Book 4) (10 page)

I felt bad for him, but there was one thing he had said that really caught my attention. It made my stomach turn and my heart slow, almost as much as the mistletoe had done.

“They’re asking you questions?” I asked in a low voice.

Vince slowly sat back down. He rubbed his hands over his face. “She keeps asking me about that damn book, and if Kendra gave it to you or Lyssa. I keep telling her I don’t know anything about a book. I haven’t told her about Gates.”

I felt cold sweat break out on my skin, and this time, I got up to pace. Kendra had been right all along.

“She says there’s a cure for werewolfism in there,” Vince said, looking up at me with interest. “Is that true?”

I stopped. I had no idea, and at the same time, the look on his face had sparked a new paranoia in my heart.

“If there was, and I knew about it, don’t you think I would have told you?” I asked.

Vince stared at me a moment too long. Kendra’s reputation was coming back to haunt me, because everyone in the world knew how secretive she was, and she didn’t always have a reason for being so. She just chose not to share things.

And every day, she was driving me to be more like her.

“Would you?” Vince asked.

The accusation fell on me like a ton of bricks, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as what he said next.

“So, I knew you were going to need the lab assignments for astronomy, and I asked Tristan the TA if I could bring yours over for you,” he said. “He said he was already by. Were you planning to tell me about that?”

Chapter 11

It took me completely off guard. “I didn’t… there’s nothing to tell.”

“How does he know where you live?”

His accusation was ridiculous, and Kendra’s words about jealous werewolves echoed in my head.

“You’re acting like I cheated on you, and I didn’t,” I said defensively. “We walked together one time after lab let out and got sandwiches, and I said that I lived around here. That’s all.”

“Sandwiches?” His eyebrows shot up, and a moment too late, I realized how it sounded. “That’s kind of our thing, isn’t it? Or it used to be, I guess.”

I crossed my arms, shaking my head. “It wasn’t like that.”

I knew it was a bad time for him. I knew the wolf was making it difficult, and if he had been in a better frame of mind, he wouldn’t have said those things. I knew I shouldn’t have been making excuses for him.

And deep down, I knew that he was also right, and that was why I felt so guilty. I had been flirting with Tristan, and I had let him flirt with me. Vince had a right to know, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

We parted in cold silence that night. Neither of us had to say it was over. It just was.

I returned to the greenhouse the next day in a foul mood. I tried to hide it as best I could, but Kendra had given Gates a vacation similar to mine. In Gates’ absence, she was more focused on me that ever. I threw myself into my studies with such determined gusto that I finished her lesson for the day in under two hours.

Now having demonstrated that I could distill a basic poison from a few of the greenhouse plants, I moved on to my school work. Kendra went to study a new book of runes that Charlie had found for her, and Lyssa came to harass me instead.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

She pulled up a stool next to me. “I haven’t seen you this determined not to think about something since mom died.”

I stopped reading mid-sentence. When I looked up at her, I saw the young woman who had raised me. Lyssa was ten years older than I was, and when our mom died, she had been twenty-one and hardly ready to take on the challenges of raising a pre-teen.

“I broke up with Vince,” I said in a whisper. “For real, I mean.”

The pain on her face was real, and when she reached to pull me into a hug, I let her. I rested my head on her shoulder, and a few tears slid down my cheek as she rubbed a hand over my back.

“He thinks I cheated on him,” I said in the same voiceless tone. “I didn’t. I thought about it, but I didn’t. I’m a horrible person. I did this to him, and now he’s going to be all alone.”

She shushed me, and I saw Kendra start to come back in the greenhouse, but she took one look at us and then turned and went back into the office.

“I’m pregnant,” Lyssa whispered back to me. “And when Kendra finds out, she’s going to be pissed. Don’t tell her. Please.”

I was surprised, but I tried to smile when she finally released me from the hug.

“But, that’s great…” I shook my head. “I’m so happy for you. Why would she be angry?”

“Because she knows what it means,” Lyssa said. “Auras change when you’re pregnant. You can’t do half the things you should be able to, and then after, I’m going to have a baby to look after. When she first came back, she took me aside and went on and on about how the timing was just perfect, because I already had Rosie, and that meant she could have me back as a student full time. But she can’t. Annie, I didn’t want this, either. There is nothing that I want more than to be able to leave all of this and just be with my family again.”

But now, with the vampires, and our family’s status with them specifically, it wasn’t possible. I had mourned the loss of my own dreams when I found out, and now I couldn’t even fathom what Lyssa had gone through. She was going to do this with a husband and two children.

I frowned, still keeping my voice low. “Wow, you must be pissed about all of this…”

Lyssa opened her mouth to say something, shaking her head, but she didn’t get the chance.

Something shattered in the direction of the office, and I heard Kendra yelling.

We both shot to our feet.

But when I heard Charlie yelling back at her, I knew we weren’t in any trouble. Not any more than we were already, hanging around a mischievous demon and a witch who liked to turn people into cats as punishment.

“What are they fighting about?” I asked Lyssa, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know.”

“Should we go in there, or leave, or…?”

“I don’t know.”

But all the same, she grabbed a nearby bucket of loose planting soil, and started to stride toward the office. Not wanting to abandon my pregnant sister, I followed.

She opened the door and threw the dirt right in Kendra’s face, and the yelling stopped immediately. Charlie brooded in the corner as Kendra wiped the dirt from her eyes.

“Lyssa!”
she hissed. I saw her raise a hand.

Charlie stopped her, jumping to action to grab her hand and clap a hand over her mouth before she could utter the spell. “Don’t you dare!”

Lyssa hardly looked fazed. “I have been on your side so far, but your fighting is freaking out Annie. She’s followed your requirements, and she’s getting better, and she’s getting depressed being trapped here all day and now you’re
fighting
. She needs to go back to school.”

Covered in dirt and with Charlie physically restraining her, Kendra looked like she was about to explode in a fit of rage.

“No, I need her here. It isn’t safe out there.”

“You can make a spell to protect her,” Lyssa said, crossing her arms. “
I
can make a spell to protect her. Or Charlie can follow her around. There are options, and there is no reason that this has to destroy both of our lives. You know she’s never going to be respected in this world once it gets out that she was a demon, so why are you trying to steal what she has left? She has a chance right now, Kendra, and you have me. Let her go.”

Kendra shook her head. “No.”

“She’s going back to school,” Lyssa said with finality. She looked between Kendra and Charlie, and her frown slackened. “What were you just fighting about?”

“Nothing that concerns either of you,” Charlie said quickly. “Let it go, Lyssa.”

Kendra stared at the floor in determination.

“I would be happy to chaperone Annie on campus,” Charlie said diplomatically. “Assuming that isn’t a problem for Annie?”

He locked eyes with me. My sneaking around days, like my relationship with Vince, were done. “Not a problem for me.”

The next week at school went by at a snail’s pace. I knew Charlie was around, but I never saw him, and I found myself being more guarded for that reason. I skipped my astronomy lab because I didn’t want to hear his commentary on Tristan, and exchanged a few emails to cover my assignments instead. I even sent him my number, and he called, and we talked for an hour about how my physical illness had deepened into a depression over a more personal problem.

“It’s really not a problem,” he said. “I mean, you’re still getting good scores on the weekly quizzes and the tests, so don’t worry about it. Just focus on whatever else you’ve got happening in your life, and if you start to fall short, I’ll let you know. Are you getting out at all?”

I gave a single, light laugh. “I wish. My friends have all sort of bailed on me in light of this thing I have happening.”

“With your sister?”

I sighed. I’d been pretty vague with Tristan so far, because managing the lies got worse with every one I told. But with no one else to turn to, I really wanted to talk about it. “No… well, yeah. Kind of. I’ve got this aunt, and she’s been away in a mental institution for a long time. She just got out, and she’s trying to adjust to life here, and she’s kind of making life a living hell for me and my sister. Neither of us really wants to deal with her, and all of the drama she manufactures, but we have to. Family, and all that.”

“I get it,” he said. “And about your friends, Vince came by a while back and asked for your homework. I see you two sit together in class sometimes. When I told him I already gave it to you, he gave me a weird look. I hope that didn’t cause any problems for you.”

“No…” I lied before I even thought. “No, he’s just been kind of sick lately, and he acts weird when that happens. That’s all.”

“Good,” he paused. “I’m glad to hear it. Did you happen to see the shirt Dr. Lemuel wore to class on Friday?”

I laughed. He laughed, and then he went on about crazy holiday sweaters and the professor’s odd love for them. We talked about our mutual lack of holiday plans, given that both of our families were so crazy, and he invited me to a party on the Friday after finals.

We had remained strictly friends over the course of the semester, though I think we both knew we were treading a dangerous line. He wasn’t my teacher, but he did grade some of my assignments, and that made fraternization off limits. We always started and ended our conversations with something to do with class.

But once I walked out of the final exam, and specifically, on the Friday after that exam, we were just two people.

“Sure,” I said, more intrigued and excited at the prospect than I probably should have been. “That sounds great.”

After we hung up, I immediately felt guilty, though I couldn’t figure out why. Even if I ended up patching up my friendship with Vince, the romance was over. And despite his accusations, I had never actually made a move with Tristan while we were together. This wasn’t cheating. I wasn’t even sure if it counted as a real date, because we were just going to hang out at a party together.

I closed my books and tucked my homework into my bag, and then went out the door to the greenhouse grounds. I walked across the landscape of frosted vinca and through the side door of the greenhouse, stamping my feet to shed the grit on my shoes. I heard voices around the corner in the office, and I smiled.

Gates was back.

But when I turned the corner, the smile was wiped from my face. Kendra was standing there with her arms crossed and looking serious while Lyssa applied a wet paste to a deep cut on Gates’ arm.

Kendra glared at me. “You didn’t break up with the werewolf, did you?”

Chapter 12

I tried to stammer a response, but with all of their eyes on me, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. If Gates had been attacked by a werewolf, or if she was infected, I didn’t know how I was going to go on living.

Gates winced as Lyssa tried to wrap her arm in a bandage. Kendra took a step toward me, shaking her head.

“What did you tell them, Annie?”

The fight that I’d had with Vince had been bad, but it wasn’t
that
bad. There was no way he had done this.

“Did you tell them she owns the book?”

I closed my eyes, and snapped back to my sense. “Vince knew. No one else. He wouldn’t have told. He
didn’t
tell! They were pushing him for information about who was going to inherit it, and he didn’t tell them!”

Lyssa froze, looking up at me with wide eyes, and I realized my misstep a moment too late.

“You knew they were asking about the book, and you didn’t tell me,” Kendra said, turning away. “Anise, I don’t know what to do about you…”

I cringed, but I couldn’t let it go. “I kept dating him in secret, but we broke up for real last week. That’s when he told me they’d been asking about it, and I figured it didn’t matter. You already knew they were after it, and we broke up. There was nothing new to tell you.”

The silence that filled the room nearly drowned me.

Lyssa’s eyes finally turned away, and she went back to dressing Gates’ arm.

“You should have mentioned it, Annie,” she said. “But I don’t think Vince would have done this.”

“Did you tell anyone else?” Kendra asked in a loathsome tone.

“No!” I insisted. “Who the hell else would I tell?”

“There had to be someone,” she said with a sarcastic look. “Every time we have a problem around here, you’re the source. Think.”

“Oh, that’s not fair,” Lyssa said, standing up straight to face Kendra. “We’ve got no evidence that this was her fault. Don’t talk to her like that.”

“You should have raised her with a firmer hand,” Kendra said sharply. “If you want to share in the blame for this, I’m more than happy to indulge you, Lyssa.”

Charlie appeared right next to me. Kendra immediately withdrew a few steps as he set something on the table. We all stared down at a silver bracelet set with an amber stone.

“I’ve never known a werewolf to use a talisman, and one made of silver, at that,” he said. “This was Draven.”

I turned to Gates, who was still staring in shock at the bracelet.

“You didn’t see them?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I heard a window break, and my mom screamed, and I ran to my bedroom to get my phone. I thought someone was breaking in.”

“She called here instead,” Charlie added. “And that was a good choice. She took a hit to the head and they were gone by the time I got there. They must have heard her say my name.”

“Are my mom and my brothers…?” she asked quietly.

“They’re fine,” Charlie said. “They won’t remember any of it. I took care of it.”

Gates nodded. Charlie looked down at her bandaged arm and frowned.

“You can’t heal it?” I asked.

His gaze lingered. “I already tried. That wound is the work of a demon. It has to heal on its own, or I risk making it worse.”

Gates stood and pushed past me without a word.

“Gates!”

I started to follow her, but Kendra’s cold tone stopped me. “You put her family in danger, Annie. She might not want to talk to you right now.”

“Werewolves didn’t do this,” I spat back at her.

Kendra tilted her head. “They could have. They still could, if someone finds out about her and wants it enough.”

“I’m pregnant,” Lyssa announced.

Kendra frowned. Charlie took a deep breath and sighed. He turned to leave the office as Kendra’s eyes once again danced to me.

“You knew,” she accused.

“I like her more than I like you,” I replied. “That’s not changing anytime soon.”

Kendra nodded, looking down at the floor.

“Congratulations,” she said distantly. She forced a smile. “I’m sorry. Really, congratulations, Lyssa. That’s wonderful.”

She walked from the office. Alone with my sister, I tried to collect my frayed nerves as she cleaned up the things she had used on Gates’ arm.

“Thanks for sharing the spotlight,” I said.

“You owe me,” she said back. She looked out the door after Kendra, and then back at me. “And you need to learn to talk to us. Gates could have been killed. I know it wasn’t the wolves, but this was your fault. If you had told Kendra they were asking Vince, she would have been more cautious. She would have sent Charlie with her to begin with, or she would have just insisted that she stay here. You don’t know about this world, Annie, and Kendra does. Your judgment alone isn’t good enough. You need to get over this childish game you’re playing where you think you’re getting back at Kendra by withholding information. And you owe Gates one hell of an apology.”

I didn’t talk to any of them for a day after that. I mostly kept to myself and ate ice cream, not sleeping and playing back the events of the weeks previous and everything that might have been different if I had chosen to play by Kendra’s rules instead of forcing my own.

If I’d had all the facts, I probably would have had Charlie invent some dire circumstance for me and petitioned the school for time off. I would have stayed with Vince, and introduced him to Kendra, and the two of them might have found a way to at least work around their differences. If the pack was really being that awful for him, he might have even moved in with us.

I probably wouldn’t have been on campus that night when Draven’s scout, Samuel, found me. That was the only connection I could find with the vampires and how they had gotten to Gates; he must have read my mind.

Lyssa was ultimately right, though. What had happened to Gates hinged on my need for secrecy, and that alone had been driven by my desire for a normal life.

My life was never going to be normal. And my quest to make it so had only succeeded in dragging in more people—Gates’ family. Thankfully, they hadn’t been hurt, but only by luck.

It took a lot for me to admit defeat. When I finally found my way back to the greenhouse, I approached Kendra with all the meekness of a mouse asking a cat for scraps.

“Tell me what to do,” I said.

She wasn’t happy with me. I wasn’t happy with her. But we had to make it work, so that’s what we did.

She sent Lyssa home to be with Josh and Rosie, and I agreed to take a semester off of school. Maybe more.

Gates didn’t talk to me much after the attack. We existed using what words we had to in order to complete Kendra’s lessons, but there were never any real conversations. I tried to apologize once, but she walked away.

On the last day of finals, I went to my guidance counselor’s office with my paperwork in hand. I had emailed her that morning, and she said all I needed to do for the semester off was to leave it with her secretary. She would see that it was signed and filed properly, and let me know if I needed to do anything else.

That day, Charlie had been out setting up charms to help protect Lyssa and her family, so Kendra was clear that I needed to be fast. If I wasn’t back in an hour, she was coming after me.

And because I was a walking bad luck charm, I ran into Tristan on the way to dropping off the papers.

“Hawthorn,” he said with a sly grin. I had just made my way inside the building, and we stood alone in the emptying hallway as students left for winter break. “I’m going to miss seeing you in class. Are we still on for that party?”

I took a deep breath. I hadn’t actually told Kendra about the date, but I was going to. If it meant saving Gates, then my life was in her hands.

“I was trying to find the time to call you,” I started, hating the look of disappointment on his face. “But I’ve had something come up with my aunt. You know, the crazy one. I still want to go, but it really depends on her.”

He didn’t smile all the way, but he gave me an encouraging nod. “That’s the right decision. Family should always come first. Annie, in case I wasn’t clear before, I want to keep seeing you. Can I call you, even if that party doesn’t work out?”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing full well that my life was likely to crush his in the future. It crushed everyone who got too close, but it was lonely in the eye of the storm. “Yeah, I would really like that. And I hope I get to go to the party.”

He smiled more genuinely, and nodded at the papers I was holding. “Picking your classes for next semester?”

I felt my mood sink even lower. “I won’t be here next semester. My aunt.”

“Is it that serious?” he asked with a frown. “This thing with your aunt? That you need to take that much time? It will set back your whole program.”

I wanted to cry. I tried to think up a good enough lie. I thought about telling him that she was schizophrenic and needing a chaperone until we were sure a switch in medications was working. In light of what had happened to Gates, all I could do was stand there and shake.

“Annie?” he asked, looking more serious. When his eyes went sullen, he looked older than I had thought he was, and I had to question if it was even a good idea to get involved with a guy so much older than I was.

“It’s serious,” I finally managed. And then I added, “I’m afraid.”

I felt the tears start to slide down my cheeks as the panic attack set in, and he pulled me into an empty office. He put his arms around me as I started feeling dizzy, struggling to breathe.

“I just wanted a normal life,” I said into his shoulder. “I didn’t want all of this… I just wanted to be normal.”

He hushed me, and held me, and I knew I was being pathetic, but I had been too guarded around too many people for too long. In the dark of that office, it felt good to let it out. All of my disappointment and depression and fear had finally reached a breaking point, and I let them wash over me.

“Normal is overrated,” he said to me when I had calmed enough. “You are going to survive this, and you will be extraordinary.”

He stayed with me until I pulled myself together, and then he walked me up to drop off my papers. We said goodbye outside of the building, and he gave me another hug and made me promise to call if I needed anything. I promised I would.

I watched him walk away, feeling marginally better and hoping that Kendra would let me go to the party. It felt odd when he hugged me, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to jump back into dating, but he was the best friend I had right then. Even if he was only ever a friend, I would be happy.

Then I turned around, and I saw Vince watching me from the shade of a tree down the path. I sighed deeply. The confrontation was inevitable, and I was already late, so I didn’t change my route getting home.

“You like him?” he asked.

The question surprised me, and I stopped walking just to face him.

“He’s all right,” I said. “He’s there for me.”

Vince looked stung. “I wanted to apologize. I know you’ve been going through a lot this semester, and I haven’t been there. I should have been there.”

It wasn’t fair for me to feel that way. Vince had his own things going on, and that was why he had been absent. There was no apology necessary. Even so, I had needed someone, and he couldn’t have been expected to be there. That alone raised a red flag for me.

I shook my head. It didn’t feel right accepting his apology when he had nothing to apologize for.

“Are things better with the pack?” I asked.

Vince hesitated. Then he shook his head.

“Annie, I want a second chance,” he said. “If you’ll have me back, I mean. We could sit down together, and figure out our classes for next semester.”

“I won’t be here next semester,” I said quietly.

“You’re quitting?”

“Taking time off. I have to deal with this thing with Kendra.”

He looked like I had slapped him. Shaking his head in dismay, he stepped toward me. “You wouldn’t do that. You’ve worked too hard.”

I took a deep breath, trying to shrug off the weight of it. “This is life or death.”

“School
is
your life!” he said. “It’s who you are. If you’re giving it up… What did they do to you? Are they threatening you?”

“No.”

“Annie,” he said in disappointment. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

I stepped back from him, and I couldn’t look him in the face. I knew he was right. I had changed, and I didn’t know who I was now, either. But I had to get home, or else a witch would come looking for me.

Still looking at the ground, I gave one curt nod, then hurried away.

I made it back to the greenhouse just in time to stop Kendra from leaving to find me. She knew that I had been crying, but she didn’t know what to say, so she left me alone.

That was the way Hawthorns tended to deal with their problems. Alone.

Gates came and found me. Even with the look of guarded disdain on her face, I knew she was touched.