Fate Fixed (21 page)

Davis taught her science class about the human body and its flight or fight response. As much as she wanted to take flight and make a run for it back to Torin’s home, her legs were like two lead pipes infused to the floor. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. She listened for any revealing sounds then counted to ten and reopened her

eyes.

The lights were out and she had to resist the urge to fumble for the switch. At least she made it this far, she had herself half convinced that the others would be sitting by the door playing cards, kil ing time until she made her dramatic entrance. Perhaps they expected Torin instead. She

thought of him and the others tracking the scent outside of Cian’s house.

She hoped it wasn’t Brooke’s blood they smel ed. What if they found Max and he hurt them? She knew he told her to stay, but she had to find El a and her mom.

Lexie couldn’t help but think of what happened to Courtney.

Maxim must have kil ed her. How could her stepbrother

have taken a life? How could she have not picked up on the signs? She wiped the hot tears from her face. There was a time and place for everything and she couldn’t risk

surrendering to despair just yet.

The long winding staircase that went to the second floor was directly to her right and as good a place as any to start looking for the two people who depended on her. She

began her ascent, her fear raw and senses alive. Would Torin feel her fear?

She hoped he could concentrate on what his family needed from him.

It had been eight hours since she last saw her mother

cooking lunch for Dragos and the others. Ruby had been crying a lot al week – she even heard them arguing before bed the night before, but couldn’t hear the details of their conversation.

When she peaked in their open door, Dragos whipped his head around and glared at her. She knew her interference wasn’t wanted.

She had always known there was something quite not right with her stepfamily. She even entertained the thought that they were dangerous criminals, but never in her seventeen years, could she have perceived them for what they real y were. Braden cal ed them shifters. What did that mean

exactly?

She had suspected they were up to some sort of il egal activity when they would disappear into the woods at night.

When El a remarked that Nicolai and the others were

running patrol, Lexie assumed they were playing war

games in the woods. Unsafe and not appropriate for three teenage boys, but especial y when the neighborhood pets kept disappearing – she thought maybe they were hunting them.

She remembered how Alik mentioned Courtney taking

Maxim in the band room for sex. The dead girl claimed she was with Alik, but Lexie could no longer pretend her

suspicions about Max were unwarranted.

She shook her head and tried to focus on the task at hand.

Her mother and little sister were in this immense house somewhere and if they were okay, she had to somehow get them out. She wasn’t sure what her stepfamily was exactly, but she did know what they weren’t. They weren’t like Torin and his family and they weren’t human either. She feared they weren’t going to just let her leave.

At the top of the landing, Lexie ambled forward through the darkness. Al of the doors were shut except for hers and the one her mother shared with Dragos. Lexie glanced into her mom’s room. The moonlight drifted through the two hefty windows giving off a stil glow. The large four poster bed sat empty; its mauve comforter in place with an assortment of

decorative pil ows. The rocking chair with an angelic little porcelain dol sat in the corner beside the bureau with her mother’s ceramic picture frames ful of memories.

It was too perfect; the whole house was, and she was just realizing it now. It was a guise and she was the

unsuspecting fool who had not seen through it. The caring widower with sons, who longed for a wife, came along just in time to sweep Ruby off her feet and transplant the family in Maine. Like a spider’s web, the trap was careful y

placed, and it was too late.

Lexie went into her room and closed the door behind her.

If she only had her slide lock, she would have latched it just the same. Glancing around the room, she saw it was

untouched. She bent down and checked under the bed.

Relieved she was alone -

she stripped off her saturated clothing and pul ed on a dry pair of jeans and a sweatshirt before raking her hair up into a ponytail.

She needed to be able to move freely if she had to fight them.

The house stil seemed too quiet. The guys were usual y making al sorts of noise as if silence was offensive. Lexie felt her panic returning.

What if I’m too late?

Looking out her window, she scanned the lawn and tree line for signs of movement. She thought she saw something

dark move among the trees, but couldn’t be sure. She had always hated that her room faced the rear of the house overlooking the

driveway and trees rather than the prettier front lawn. Now she resented it’s obscurity more than ever.

Glancing at her alarm clock, she decided she’d better get moving. There was nothing in her room she could use for self-defense, but she was determined to not waste any

more time.

The floor plan of the old house, with its adjoining bedrooms, was unlike her condo. At first, having another door that opened into her sister’s room was an irritant, because she didn’t want El a to take her things whenever she felt

compel ed to do so. Now Lexie was thankful, she did not have to go out to into the darkened hal again just yet. She hurried back to her bedside stand and picked up the photo of her Dad. She slipped it out of the frame and into her back pocket.
I can’t leave it
behind.

El a’s room was silent and Lexie tried to swal ow back the sob in her throat. Her sister was stil innocent and naive about the world, if anything happened to her, she wouldn’t be able to live with her self.

She tiptoed across her floorboards to their shared

bathroom and careful y peered into the dark room. Her

eyes spotted something on the mirror. Stunned, she

noticed El a’s bubbly scrawl on a note taped to the glass.

“Nicolai’s taking me to Big Wal y’s. Meet us as soon as you can. Don’t stay in the house.”

Lexie covered her mouth trying to silence the relief that wanted to come rushing out. If El a was safe, she would somehow be okay. Could Nicolai real y be helping them?

Was he different than Maxim and Dragos? She had only

known him since July when Dragos first introduced the

brothers to her.

Thinking back, Lexie could not remember him ever showing an il temper towards her and he always doted on El a.

Lexie considered climbing out her balcony and scaling

down the side of the house so she could meet them at the diner, but the thoughts of her mother being alone and sick crashed back into her thoughts. If she left now, it was possible she would never see Ruby again.

Nick could be setting us up…

The panic sent another dose of adrenaline through her

system. She couldn’t stand it any longer, she felt like screaming.

There was no more time for “what ifs” and she needed to find her mother. Hopeful y El a was safe with Nick. Ful of anxiety, Lexie knew she would learn soon enough.

She stepped into the unlit hal way and crossed to the room Nick and Alik shared. With quiet apprehension, she eased open the door. Both beds were made and the floor was

tidy.

Lexie’s eyes fel upon Alik’s pewter col ection of dire wolves in a neat little row on his dresser. She hoped he was okay and that Maxim and Dragos hadn’t hurt him. She knew he was nothing

like they were. He was caring and mel ow. It wasn’t his fault that the older two were monsters.

Maxim was terrifying on a good day, and that was before knowing that he was some kind of animal. She had

accused the year old of stalking her, of acting like her parent, and of scaring off the majority of the school’s population. He never tried to be her friend; he would just stare at her and command her to be part of the family when she just needed her own space.

From this moment forward, she would trust her instincts when it came to strangers. She was right about Torin and must be about Maxim as wel .

Maxim’s room was the last to try. The door creaked as it opened, her hand shuddering as she turned the knob. A

rancid smel met her nose, similar to how Torin described
the beasts’

markings in the woods. She didn’t want to look, but she knew she had to force herself. She stepped in, her legs like jel y and her teeth clenched with dread. There were flies everywhere.

Thick black ones covering the wal s and across the surface of Maxim’s bed. His floor was covered with soiled clothing and what looked like soda bottles and milk cartons

overflowing with a dark yel ow liquid.

Is that urine?

Lexie cringed at the thought and turned towards his bed.

There was a twisted mass under the covers. It looked too

misshapen to be Maxim; he was over six and half feet tal and weighed a good two hundred pounds.

She wanted to turn and run, but feared it was her mother or Alik, maybe even El a. Whoever it was, they weren’t moving and the smel of death permeated the room. She selected a pencil from the few scattered across his desk and poked the bulk under the blanket. It felt heavy and solid, but didn’t budge. She reached out and grasped the corner of the
blanket and slid it off the object.

Her eyes couldn’t register what she was seeing at first, just blood and teeth. She bit down hard on her lower lip to silence her scream. It was a pile of animal pieces, mostly dog heads with their bulging eyes clouded over and

tongues hanging out. But there were human parts too.

Officer Barry and Courtney…

She couldn’t stomach looking a second longer to find out.

She bent over and dry heaved where she stood. The smel and the blood were too horrendous. She ran out of the

room back into the darkened hal way.

As her heart pounded, she could feel her bond with Torin.

His worry for her blazed through her, she could sense he wanted to find her.

She hurried down the stairs, the darkness made her feel claustrophobic and she needed to get out of the house.

How

could she think she was able to help her family? The

situation was impossible, Maxim was insane.

As she rounded the corner, she ran into a moving body.

Forceful arms encircled her, a hand clamped over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. She clawed her attacker’s embrace.

“Lexie stop, be quiet,” Alik commanded. “Maxim is down here somewhere, and if he finds us, we’re dead.” As her body loosened, he relaxed his grip on her and she didn’t move.

Lexie couldn’t help the whine in her voice, “You have to tel me where my mother is. I have to get her out of here.”

Alik took her by the elbow and lead her into the kitchen, moving easily through the darkness. He opened a drawer and pul ed out a wooden box that contained her mother’s engraved wedding cake knife. “It’s sterling silver. If anything happens to me, to save yourself from him, you’l have to bury it in him up to the hilt.”

She picked it up and turned it over in her unsteady hands.

The moonlight reflected off the cool metal. Her mind flashed to Donovan and how he described those who are cursed to the darkness, the ful vampires. Was Maxim a draugr? Did he find a way to exist in the daylight?

Swal owing dryly, she asked “Are you saying Maxim is a vampire?”

Alik jerked, “No, he is a pricolici –a lycan, just like my father… the seventh son of a seventh son or something like that.”

“Werewolves -” her mind scrambled to make sense of what he was saying. Is that what Braden meant by shifter? “But I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have time to explain this to you right now. We have to end him while the moon is ful or he wil kil us al .”

Alik looked desperate, stress emanating from his eyes.

“Please, you have to help me, I can’t do it alone. He

fol owed you to your boyfriend’s house and he’s insane with jealousy. He wants you for himself. ” Alex began to head for the basement stairs, so Lexie fol owed him down each step even though her instincts insisted she run like hel .

Torin, I’m sorry I didn’t listen…

Staying only inches behind Alik, she held onto the knife with al of her strength while using her free hand to grasp her cross. If she died, would she see her father again?

Dad, please show me what to do. I’m so scared.

There was a smal light in the left corner of the basement by
the furnace and Lexie could see Dragos kneeling on the floor next to Ruby’s uneven form. With his shoulders hunched he looked like a broken man. Her mother’s

nightgown was covered in vomit and a glossy sheen

covered her pale complexion.

“Mom…Mom, what’s wrong? Why are you down here?”

Her voice sounded smal and childlike as she tried to asses her mother’s condition. A trickle of blood ran from Ruby’s nose and ears. “You’re bleeding.”

Ruby mumbled something unintel igible and squeezed her eyes shut.

Lexie looked at Dragos for an explanation but he wouldn’t make eye contact. With his body slumped he kept turning his head from her and glancing at the floor, his color ashen and his body trembling.

Lexie didn’t expect this kind of response, everything that was usual y intimidating about Dragos was gone. He was practical y cowering before her. “What’s wrong with him Alik?”

her voice quavered with trepidation.

“He’s no longer alpha. He’s defeated and he either steps down to omega or he dies.” Alik was candid as he opened a tool box and pul ed out thick suede welding gloves.

She was confused. “But, why? Why would Maxim do this?”