Cold as Ice (11 page)

Chapter 18

Before
Anna
even
parked the car, Dan opened the door and darted down the path that led to the hill that he and his father had gone to when he was a child. He hoped that he was right, that Lexi was really here and not at some other park that he didn’t know about. The idea that she was in some sort of danger scared him, but he knew that had to be stro
ng if he was going to help her.

“Dan, wait!
” Austin called. “Wait for us!”

“There’s no time! I have to find Lexi!” Dan began to trot up the gravelly hill that led to the top of the slope, hoping that he would find her on the side. He ran as fast as his legs would carr
y him, but he felt slowed down.

When he finally reached the top, all he saw was blackness. And that’s when he heard it—the sound of Lexi moaning softly. He had heard that same sound several times before, back when they were in the 1800
s, when he had drank from her.

Someone was drinking from her at that very moment .
. . probably Craig Lindstrom.

Gripping the stake that he had grabbed from the backseat of Anna’s car, Dan followed the familiar sound until he was near the edge of the hill, which overlooked a small stream that he and his father used to throw pebbles across and fish in when he was little. He knew the whole park like the palm of his hand. Dan even knew that the reason it was called Bear Cliff State Park wasn’t because the area was heavily populated with bears, but because the cliffs w
ere shaped in a bear formation.

When he got closer to them, he heard a male voice say, “Don’t worry, Lexi. I promise this won’t hurt at all. You won’t even realize that you’re dying. Rose didn’t real
ize it, and you won’t either.”

The moon reflected on Craig Lindstrom’s back. Dan could tell that he was hovering over Lexi, his body pressed against her; her legs looked lifeless and limp. Dan
hoped that he wasn’t too late.

Stepping forward and holding the stake over his head, he brought it down quickly, aiming for Craig’s heart. But Craig must have seen his shadow as it moved over him because he whirled around
and shoved him out of his way.

Dan shoved him back, leaving Craig lying flat on the ground. Neither of them said a word. Dan held the stake over his head, prepared to launch it through Craig’s heart, when he got up off the ground and before Dan could even do anything, he felt his arm
being twisted behind his back.

Craig forced Dan’s arm closer to his own chest; he was positive that the stake was goin
g to go through his own heart.

Struggling, Dan untwisted his arm, just as he was punched in the face. “You’re not gonna kill me,” Craig told him. “So
you should just give up now.”

Deciding that Craig wasn’t worthy of a response, Dan pushed him forward and jabbe
d the stake through his heart.

He watched, in horror, as Craig’s body began to smoke, as tho
ugh it were on fire. He’d
seen a vampire die before, but
each time it happened disturbed him just as much as the previous time
. The expression on his face resembled one that Dan would expect to see on someone who was being electrocuted, and a tortured sound escaped his lips,
as his body convulsed in pain.

Within seconds, his eyes fluttered shut, and h
e slumped over onto the ground.

Dan breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Lexi, who was lying on the ground. He wasn’t sure if she was conscious, eit
her.

“Lexi?” he asked, kneeling down on the grou
nd beside her. “Are you awake?”

Chapter 19

Lexi was lying on the ground, but Craig wasn’t drinking from her any more. She felt relief, but she wasn’t sure where he had gone or
if
he would
be
back. Her head was beginning to hurt, and she felt really dizzy from all
of the blood that she had lost.

When she cracked one eye open, she saw Dan kneeling beside her, staring into her face. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but when she reached out for him, she knew that she was alive. The realization somehow made her feel better; it gave her strength, and suddenly, s
he didn’t feel so bad anymore.

“Dan?” she whispered.

He nodded.
“It’s me, Lexi. Are you okay?”

“I think I’ll live,” she muttered, rubbing both of
her eyes. “Wait, you’re back?”

“Yep, I’m
back,” he replied with a smile.

“Oh, Dan!” Lexi cried, allowing herself to fall into his arms as he sat down beside her and held her close. He wiped her tears away with the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirts. “I don’t know how you’re back
, but I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I don’t know how I’m back, either,” he admitted, brushing back his sandy bl
onde hair. “But I’m glad, too.”

“What happened?” Lexi ask
ed, sitting up. “After I left?”

“I waited for you to bring me back. I thought that when you got back to the future, you forgot about me . . . and that you forgot to wish for me to come back, and about everything that happened between us when we were in the past,” Dan admitt
ed, looking down at the ground.

Lexi took his chin in her hands and moved her face closer to his. “Don’t be silly, Dan Nichols. I could never forget you.” She pushed her mouth against his and, coaxing hi
s lips to part, met his tongue.

Their kiss felt different from any other kiss she had ever felt before; it felt like her body was on fire, but his cold mouth felt icy against her own. Goose bumps shot up and down her arms, as Dan pulled her in closer to him, runn
ing his hands through her hair.

When he pulled away from her, after what felt like an eternity, he whispered, “I’ve
wanted to do that for so long.”

Lexi stared into his sky blue eyes, which glimmered in the moonlight. She could feel her heart thump against her
chest. “Me, too,” she replied.

“Lexi!” someone called, and she turned to see Austin and A
nna bounding over towards them.

“Austin! Anna!” Lexi replied excitedly. She had seen both of them earlier that day, so their reunion wasn’t as surprising as her reunion with Dan was; on the other hand, she hadn’t thought for a second that she was going to get out of Bear Cliff State Park. She was positive that Craig was going to kill her, and that’
s when the realization hit her.

Lexi turned to
Dan. “What happened to Craig?”

“I ki
l
led him,” he replied quietly. Judging from the way he looked down at the ground, Lexi could tell that he wasn’t proud of what he had done. “I put a stake thr
ough his heart, and he’s gone.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, pressing her hands against his chest and standing on her tiptoes to press another small kiss against his lips. “I owe you for saving my life yet another time. If there’s anything I can ever do to repay you, please let me know. If it weren’t for you, I
would have died here tonight.”

“I’m just glad I got to you in time,” Dan replied, shaking his head. “We wer
e worried we wouldn’t make it.”

“How did you even know where to find me?” Lexi asked, realizing that she hadn’t told anybody where she was going. Unless Karla had gotten in touch with them, it didn’t make any sense how
they would know to look for her here
.

“Ga
b
e had a vision,” Austin explained. “He saw you were at a park, and judging from the descripti
on, Dan knew it was this park.”

“Gabe?” Lexi asked, her body tensing. “I’m surpris
ed he didn’t come, too, then.”

“He couldn’t,” Anna explained. “
Rhonda
wo
uldn’t let him.”

“Oh, God.” Lexi rolled her eyes. She had forgotten all about Rhonda and the crazy hold that she had over Gabe. “Oh, guys, I almost forgot to tell you. Rhonda isn’t
the one who stole the potion.”

“Really?” Austin asked, his face full of s
urprise. “Who did?”

“Craig.” She walked over to where she had just been lying and searched the ground. Picking it up, she showed them the jar. “Greg and whatever vampires were outside the school didn’t know the truth about Huntington. They just thought I was somewhere nearby. Craig tipped them off so that they would raise a security alert so that I wouldn’t go anywhere—and so he would get inside our dorm
room without us realizing it.”

Anna raised her eyebrows. “Wow, I thought for sure it was Rhonda. So, wait, why did Craig do all of this? Was he just nutty or something? He always seemed s
o nice. I’m sort of in shock.”

Lexi shook her head. “He had Wilkins’ Syndrome. He was mad at me because I didn’t agree to let him drink my blood a while ago, before Dan and I got trapped inside the book, but he never told me he had the disease. I would have done something to help him if I had known because I really did care about him. He was a good friend,” she added, when Dan shi
fted uncomfortably beside her.

“Don’t blame yourself, Lexi,” Dan told her. “You can’t sav
e the entire world, you know.”

Giving him a small smile, Lexi nodded. “I know. But I just wish people would ask for me to save them instead of trying to force me into saving them or someone they care about.” She shuddered at the memory of what had happened in the 1800s.
“What happened to Mary-Kate?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. I broke her stake in half, and she ran away from me, scared that I was going to try to retaliate and kill her first. I didn’t see or hear anything about her after that. I’m assuming that Albert might have gotten to her.” Albert was the vampire who Belinda loved who had been changed into an evil, blood-sucking vampire with bad intentions. He was the whole reason the curse had been placed over B
riar Creek in the first place.

“Well, if he didn’t, let’s hope she’ll stay stuck in the 1800s,” Lexi replied, shaking her head. “I don’t want to have to deal
with her again anytime soon.”

“I think she will,” Dan replied. “Are you ready to go back to Huntington? The security guards told us we had
to get back before midnight.”

“Although, after we tell them about what happened to Lexi, the security measures the school are under right now might change,” Anna pointed out. “We should really get going, though. I wouldn’t want any other vampires to find us out here. We’ve all had more than enough action for one night.”

As they all started to walk across the hill, Lexi stopped. “Wait, guys. There’s something I need to do right now. Something that can’t w
ait.”

Austin and Anna kept walking, presumably because they didn’t hear her, but Dan turned and watched her as she unscrewed the lid of the Mason jar and, tilting her head back, drank the potion in one large gulp. Now, there was no going back; she couldn’t second-guess whether or not she wanted to be an immortal anymore. It was too late. The first part of the steps that she needed to take
to become an immortal was done.

“I can’t believe
you drank it,” Dan whispered.

“You didn’t want me to?” Lexi asked, as she began
walking again, alongside him.

Dan wrapped his arm around her waist. “Of course I wanted you to. Knowing that I’ll never have to live without you is
like a dream come true to me.”

Lexi smiled. “I’m glad you’re happy. Because you make me happy.” She just hadn’t realized how happy until that very moment, as they descended the hill and piled into Anna’s car that it was the happiest she had ever been since she’d arrived in
Briar Creek earlier that year.