The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (28 page)

But then there was Gavin.

“
That
is why I came for you.” He gave
my hand a squeeze.

I felt a tear escape from the corner of my
eye and was suddenly grateful for the darkness that enveloped us.
“I… I know I care about you too. But, I…I don’t know what it is
either.”

I finally managed to choke out.

“Why didn’t Gavin come?” I couldn’t help it,
I had to ask.

Drew pulled his hand back. I glanced over at
him and saw his eyes had narrowed before he turned his head away
from me.

“What…what is it?”

“It’s a long story. I could make him look bad
and say he didn’t want to come, but that isn’t totally true.”

What? They planned to bust me out, and Gavin
didn’t want to come.

“Tell me.”

Drew sighed and settled back against the
mossy wall. “He wanted to come. Since you left, there have been
several meetings about coming to get you. It was vetoed three times
because you left of your own accord. Even Luke wasn’t pushing for a
rescue, until just recently.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Drew cut me
off before I could get a word out. “Just let me talk for once.”

I nodded into the dark.

“Chloe, regardless of why you’re here, I know
it’s not because you want to be. It’s because you think it’s going
to keep all of us safe from your father. I’ve known this since I
got your note, and you’re stupid if you think I would just sit back
at home and let you sacrifice your life to that bloodsucker. I went
to the only other person besides Luke who I figured would feel the
same.”

I shifted on the floor and shivered. Then,
after a second thought, I moved closer to Drew, pressing up against
his side.
It’s freakin’ cold, screw propriety.
I just wanted
to keep warm. He ignored me and let me lean up against him.

“Gavin did want to come and get you, but he
wanted to do it organized. You know, a planned attack with lots of
Hunters backing us. He wanted the same kind of rescue that the
board had already vetoed three times. I begged him to come, and he
said he would but that we had to plan it better. Dumb ass.” He
shook his head. “Anyhow, we argued about it… a lot. He insisted we
needed more Hunters to come with us, and I just wanted the two of
us. It’s quieter that way, and we could infiltrate more places
before anyone would have noticed we were here. He stood by his idea
of convincing the board of a rescue. And, well…here I am.”

“Why would you come here by yourself? This is
probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

“Well, even perfection makes mistakes.”

I could see pretty well in the dark, so his
grin wasn’t hidden from me.

“Knock it off!” I slapped at him. “This isn’t
a time for joking around. We have to get out of here. My birthday
is in about a month!”

He shifted to face me better. “What does that
mean?”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“Well, apparently, I was bred to allow my
father to become a day walker.”

Drew visibly startled. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, the only way a vampire can become a
day walker is if he drinks the blood of a human who is half vampire
and half vampire hunter. As you well know, those are kinda hard to
come by, so my genius father decided he would just use my mother to
make his own.”

“What the…are you freakin’ joking?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not joking one bit.
I didn’t even get to the part where he has to drain my entire body
of blood on the day of my sixteenth birthday for it to work.”

“Oh, god! Chloe! We have to get you out of
here.”

“Yeah, you think?” I mumbled. “I’m more
concerned about getting
you
out of here. He needs me alive,
at least for another month, but you are expendable. Like he said,
he wants to kill you tonight.”

He stood and paced, like I’d done before.
“How the hell are we going to get out of here? We need the other
Hunters.”

I nodded. “Luke will know. He always knows
when I’m in trouble.” I watched him pace. “Is that Luke’s gift?
Does he have some kind of psychic ability or something?”

He nodded, but continued his voyage from one
end of the cell to the other. “Yeah, mostly it’s just like a strong
feeling, but with people close to him, he has been known to have
visions or dreams.”

I pretty much knew this, but it was nice to
have confirmation.

“Drew, come sit down.”

“I can’t sit down; we have to get out.”

He went to the bars and tried to look down
the dank hallway on the other side.

In an effort to get him to sit down so I
could think for a moment, I said, “I need you to tell me why you
hate Gavin so much.”

“Chloe, I don’t want to talk about that
now.”

The outside of the cell had suddenly become
important to him. He looked from side to side, up and down.

“You will never want to talk about it unless
I hassle you. Get over here.”

His hands dropped to his side, and he turned
to face me. “Fine.”

I patted the hard stone floor, offering him
his spot back. “Besides, I need you over here to keep me warm.”

“Can’t you warm yourself up with your
fire?”

“Uh, no, it doesn’t really work that
way.”

He slid back down the wall beside me.

“All right, now spill it, mister.”

Drew was silent for a moment, trying to
gather his thoughts, I suppose. He leaned forward and wrapped his
hands around his knees. “Gavin is my brother.”

“What!” I knew something was up with them,
but I never suspected they were brothers.

“He is my half-brother. My mother is also his
mother. Right after I was born, my mother left my father for
Gavin’s father. She left me too. She had been having an affair with
Gavin’s father. When I was six months old, she found out she was
pregnant again. This time the baby wasn’t my father’s. My father
kicked her out and told her never to come near him or me
again.”

“She just left you? Her baby?” I was having a
really hard time believing a woman could do that.

“Yes, she just left me. I think she knew my
dad would have fought for me, physically, if he had to.” He closed
his eyes. “She probably figured that she had another baby coming,
so she would be able to replace me anyway.”

“But… you all live in the community, how is
it that you never see her?”

“I don’t know. She avoids me, I think. I
pretty much hate her for screwing around on my dad and leaving us,
so I’m okay with not seeing her.”

“She never tried to talk to you?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“And Gavin… how is it his fault that your mom
did this to you?”

“It’s not. He has tried to be my friend over
the years, get to know me or whatever, but I don’t want to be his
friend, and I especially don’t want to try to be brothers.”

“That is just stupid, Drew! Why not?”

Suddenly he slammed his fist into the floor
and I flinched in surprise, the thud resonated throughout the cell.
“Because! He is the reason my mother isn’t my mother! He is the
reason she left. If he had never been…then my mom would have gotten
over that damned affair and would have stayed with us.”

“Oh...” My heart ached for him. I couldn’t
imagine going through that. “I’m so sorry.”

He was quiet, head turned away from me.

“Drew?” I placed my hand on his arm and tried
to turn him toward me. When he resisted, I only tried harder.
Still, he didn’t want to turn toward me, so I crawled around until
I was in front of him. I knelt and took his face in both my hands
and stared into his now watery green eyes. “I know it hurts. I know
that you don’t want it to hurt, but hating Gavin isn’t going to
make the hurt go away.”

Suddenly, without warning, he grabbed my arms
and yanked me forward until I was kneeling between his legs and our
chests were touching.

And then… he kissed me.

He kissed me better than Gavin had kissed me,
I’ll admit that. Drew’s kiss felt like he had been waiting a
hundred years for our lips to finally meet. I placed my arm on his
shoulder, around the back of his neck and kissed him back, not
wanting it to end.

All too soon, he pushed me away.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, almost under his
breath.

I shook my head. “Why are you sorry?”

“I just had to do it, just once.” He caught
my eyes with his.

“I don’t understand. Why only once?”

For some reason I felt the tears starting
again. Damned tears always showed up when I didn’t want them.

“Chloe, I’m not about to be second choice for
anyone. I care about you, but you want to be with Gavin. If that’s
what you want… fine. I just don’t want to be a choice you made
because he wasn’t available to you at the moment.”

Now the tears were really rolling.

“Gavin and I are friends, Drew.” I sniffed.
“Don’t ruin this.”

“Ruin what? We are stuck in a freakin’
dungeon!”

“Ugh! You can be so frustrating.” We’d just
had our first kiss and he was ruining the moment with every word
that came out of his mouth. “Drew…”

He held up his hand in the dark. “Stop, I
know what you’re going to say, but I’m simply telling you not to
make any decisions right now. I don’t want to hear that I shouldn’t
have done that, I don’t want to hear that it was wrong, and I don’t
even want to hear that it was right! Let’s just figure out how to
get the hell out of here.”

I kept my mouth shut and only nodded. I don’t
know what kind of decisions he was talking about anyway, him or
Gavin, I guess. He was right. After a kiss like that and Gavin not
being here, especially after hearing he didn’t want to join Drew on
the rescue, I was feeling drawn more to Drew than ever before.

I heard a door clang somewhere in the
distance and sat straight up. “Did you hear that?”

“No, what is it?”

“I heard a clang. Someone’s coming.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” He got to his feet
and held his hand out to help me up.

“I can hear it because I’ve got vampire
gifts, too.”

He nodded, trying to listen. “I forgot about
that,” he whispered.

“They’re coming,” I told him.

“I hear them now. It sounds like more than
one.”

I moved forward toward the bars that enclosed
us into the tiny dank cell. Whoever was coming down the hall way
was being extremely careful and quiet.

“Who’s there?” I called out.

“Chloe!” Drew chastised me in a loud whisper
at the same time as Alice popped into my line of vision. She held
her finger to her lips, shushing me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I
demanded. I was so ticked off at her for what she had done..

Drew joined me by the bars.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“It’s Alice, and she’s no one,” I told
him.

“Chloe, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Alice came
up to the bars and stood on the other side, straight across from
me. “I came down here to let you out. You have to get out of
here.”

“Yeah! You think?” I yelled at her.

Drew put his hands on my shoulders. “Calm
down.”

I shrugged him off. “No, I don’t want to calm
down! How the hell am I supposed to trust her anyway? How do we
know she’s not just trying to lead us into a trap or
something?”

“Who cares, Chloe? She's letting us out.”

Alice nodded and withdrew a set of keys from
her pocket, searched for the right one, and then turned the key,
releasing us from our prison.

“Which way?” Drew asked.

Alice pointed the same direction she had
come. “This way,” she told us and sped off in that direction.

I grabbed Drew’s hand and bolted after her.
We ran through the stone hallways as quietly as we could, knowing
that even footsteps echoed loudly.

Suddenly I heard a whimper. “Stop!” I hissed
at both of them.

“What?” Drew asked. “What is it?”

“Shh.” I held up my hand. “I heard
something.”

I heard it again. I followed sound. I turned
a few corners and found more cells. Finally, at the end of a
hallway full of cells, I found the source of the noise.

“Oscar!” I rushed toward the door and
realized then why he had never come for me. He hadn't been a
traitor. “Why are you in here?”

Oscar tried to stand, wobbled, and then fell
to his knees. He crawled to the bars and lifted himself to stand
with the help of the bars. “They locked me up as soon as I left
your room. I guess they figured I might be a problem.” He coughed
and gave a little laugh. I looked closer at him. There were bite
marks all over his neck and arms.

“They’ve been feeding on you?” I asked
him.

He only nodded and turned his head away.

“Alice, let him out,” I told her.

Immediately, she had the key in the lock. I’m
sure she had it ready before I even asked.

“Who is this?” Drew asked “Can we trust
him?”

“Drew… look at him. Does he look like he is
on Trevor’s side?”

Drew nodded. “Good point. Let’s go.”

As Oscar exited the cell, Drew grabbed him
around the waist to help him walk.

“Oscar,” I looked him in the eye. “I know
you’re hurting, but we are trying to get out of here, and I need
you to be as strong as you can so that we can move quickly.”

He nodded and we ran again, not quite as fast
as before, but hopefully quickly enough.

We ran until we reached a narrow door. Alice
whipped out a key and opened it. “Down here is a tunnel. The tunnel
is for Trevor, only. I only know about it because I’ve seen him use
it. It comes out in a parking garage down the street from one of
his night clubs. But there are exits along the way that are
closer.”

Seriously? Wow.

“Alice.” I looked her in the eye. “You can’t
stay here.”

She accepted my stare and our eyes locked. “I
know. I’m coming with you.”