Thirst (17 page)

“I’m sorry, he
was too fast.”

“It’s okay,” I
said. “He didn’t hurt me.” I licked my fingers and rubbed the
wounds on my chest and face. My nose was still bleeding, but the
scratches healed quickly. The wound on my chest stung like crazy,
but it too healed, albeit more slowly. It left a noticeable scar
behind.

In the car,
Carl’s head was on the dashboard, sweat rolling down his
face.

“Carl, are you
okay?” I said, feeling frantic. “Could he die?”

Peter shook his
head, but his face was pale; he wasn’t sure.

“I’m okay,” said
Carl. “It hurts is all. I need to lie down.”

“We could go back
to Eddie,” Peter said.

“He sold us out!”
I snapped.

“We’ve no choice;
he might know what to do.”

Peter drove back
toward the bookshop, but the fight wasn’t over. The street seemed
like it was drowning in blood.

“Keep driving,” I
urged, afraid we wouldn’t get away after everything.

As we drove by, I
saw Maximus turn on Arthur. Arthur backed away, holding his hands
up. I half expected him to roll on to his belly. Maximus flew at
Arthur, and they both smashed through a window. A half second
later, Maximus rushed back outside with Arthur’s head in his hands.
I looked away, guilt pouring over me. We caused it. Even though he
was a vampire, I had felt a sort of kinship toward Arthur. And I
wanted to know what his last words to me meant.

“I’m taking us to
Nancy’s house,” Peter said, interrupting my thoughts.

“What? No
way.”

“There’s nowhere
closer, I can’t drive around all night.”

“Fine.” I felt
too miserable to argue. I curled up in a ball, feeling a persistent
ache in my stomach.

“Sorry, Carl.
Can’t get you home until morning. Just in case.” Peter’s voice was
gentle and that worried me more than anything.

“’
S’okay,” mumbled Carl. I was almost afraid to look at him. I
didn’t know if he was scared or hated me, but I knew he was in pain
because of me.

The reality of
the last few days exhausted me, and I dozed off in the car. I was
in the middle of a dark dream when Peter shook my shoulders to wake
me up. “Ava, quick. Get up,” he whispered urgently.

My eyes flickered
open to see Peter looking distraught.

“I’m sorry, Ava,
something’s happened here.”

“What? What’s
wrong?”

“We’re outside
Nancy’s house but her front door is torn down, her windows are
smashed... I don’t think she’s here.”

I jumped up,
pushed him aside and ran into my grandmother’s house for the first
time in years. I sucked in a breath. Everything looked the same
except the furniture had been tossed around.

Peter came up
behind me. “Is she here?”

I shook my head.
“No, I can’t smell her. There’s blood. Not much, but it’s there.
They took her earlier, maybe yesterday. Oh, God, what have I done?”
I sank to my knees.

“Who took
her?”

“I don’t know!
Does it matter? It’s all my fault no matter who did it. I’m
systematically screwing up the lives of everyone around me without
even trying!”

“Come on, get
up,” Peter said. “Freaking out isn’t going to help
Nancy.”

I took a deep
breath, wiped a few tears from my eyes, and got to my feet. “Yeah,
you’re right. I’ve stuff to do. Look, thanks for everything. You
didn’t have to help, but you did. I owe you. I have to go now,
figure this out. Could you make sure Carl gets home
safe?”

“Yeah, sure, but
I’m not going to... I mean, I know Nancy. I have to help too,”
Peter said, his forehead creasing with stress.

“I’m going to
help you too.” Carl limped into the room.

“Are you two
stupid? You could die! You’re both human, and you’ve nothing to do
with this crap. I’ve gotten you both into enough trouble as it
is!”

Carl crossed his
arms stubbornly. “I’m not going while you need help. What happened
with me was an accident, and you did everything to fix it. I’m not
going to walk away until it’s over.”

“Carl, you don’t
know what you’re talking about. It’s the bond, you’re still feeling
it.”

“I’m not, Ava,”
he said, his voice firm and steady. “I’m sticking around because I
want to.”

“Same here,”
Peter said.

I glared at them
both, but they were unfazed. “You can help me figure out what
happened, but that’s it.”

“Whatever,” Peter
said. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” said
Carl.

“My place. We’ll
figure out things from there.”

As soon as we got
to Peter’s house, he made some phone calls—leaving Carl and me
alone in the kitchen. We made sandwiches and coffee and faced each
other warily for a while.

“You feeling okay
now?” I asked.

He nodded. “A
little shaky. It felt like something was ripped out of me back
there.”

“I’m
sorry.”

He shrugged.
“It’s okay. Thanks for looking after me when I was all...
brainless.”

“Do you remember
everything?”

“Not everything,
more like flashes. I remember the other vampire. I was looking for
a taxi home after a night out. This guy asks me for the time, and
next thing I know, I’m up against a wall being nibbled on. Then you
walked up, and all of a sudden, I had to follow you. All I wanted
was to do what you said. And, you know, other stuff.”

His ears and neck
flushed scarlet. “It’s okay,” I said. “You had no
choice.”

“But I wanted it.
Even when I tried to be me, I still wanted it. I keep thinking
about when I tried to —”

“Don’t worry
about it,” I said firmly, not wanting to acknowledge it
happened.

He scratched the
back of his neck. “But you really fought it. You could have just
killed me and gotten rid of me that way. I don’t know what to make
of the whole vampire thing, but you’re not bad.”

It was my turn to
blush. “I had a little help. Eddie gave me this,” I showed him the
cross. “And it made it easier for me to stay normal.”

“Doesn’t matter.
You still tried not to hurt me.”

“I promise we’ll
talk about this, just not now, okay? Want to call your family or
something?”

He nodded. “Yeah,
I probably should.”

“What are you
going to tell them?” I asked as I handed him my mobile
phone.

“As little as
possible.”

“I’ll give you
some space,” I said and headed into the other room.

“Where’s Carl?”
Peter asked as he flipped through a book.

“I gave him my
mobile to call his family.”

“If you avoid the
world, what do you need a mobile for?”

“My business.
Sometimes people want to make phone contact. No big
deal.”

“Hmm. Okay, look
at this map,” he said, marking it with a pen. “My best guess is
this is where Nancy is.”

I looked askance
at him and waited for an explanation.

“Fine. I rang
someone who works for Daimhín. She said no way did they take Nancy.
Rang around a couple more sets of eyes. One said there’s an old
lady amongst the volunteers who aren’t really volunteers at
Maximus’s place. This is where I’ve heard it is.”

“You know someone
who works for Daimhín? How do you know they can be
trusted?”

“I just do.
Besides, it makes sense for Maximus to take her. He wants you,
probably reckons you’re human enough to be persuaded if they take
someone you love.”

I bit my lip.
Maximus was pissed. He had killed Arthur who was completely loyal
to him. What would he do to a little old lady? After everything
she’d put me through, she was still my grandmother, and according
to Peter and Eddie, she had changed.

“Don’t worry,”
Peter said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get her out of
there.”

“I can’t say I
ever really loved her, Peter,” I said, reluctant to speak the truth
but needing to get it off my chest. I sat down and avoided his
eyes. “But I don’t want to see her hurt. If I’m honest, I barely
know her. She wasn’t exactly a cuddly, loving woman, you
know?”

He sat next to me
and squeezed my hand briefly. “I get it. But she isn’t like that
anymore.”

“You don’t know,”
I said, shaking my head. “She had all these rules and secrets but
no explanations for most of it. She wouldn’t even tell me about my
parents, or what really happened when I was born. And the things
she did to me, Peter, how she made me feel. I’ve hated myself
because of her, she couldn’t just accept me. She couldn’t just love
me. I was just a kid—I was born this way, I didn’t choose
it.”

His eyes widened,
and I wondered if I’d said too much, but for once, I didn’t care. I
needed to talk to someone. “Part of me thinks she deserves to be
punished... but not this way, not like this. This isn’t right. If
anything happens to her, it’ll be my fault. I don’t want
that.”

“It’s okay to
feel all those things, Ava,” he said. “When I first met Nancy, she
was in a bad way. She blamed herself for everything. She regretted
a lot of things. I know she made mistakes with you, but almost
everyone who’s introduced to this other world loses the plot in
some way. Except maybe Carl.”

I laughed,
relieved he was taking the conversation in a lighter direction.
“Yeah, he seems at ease with everything, doesn’t he? I can’t
believe he’s volunteering to stick around. I was him? I’d be
running away, screaming like a little girl.”

“And you do it so
well.”

I punched his
shoulder lightly. He clasped my fist and held my stare a little too
long. I mentally counted rapidly, anything to calm down my racing
heart. Carl interrupted us before things could get any more
awkward.

He burst into the
room in a temper and threw my mobile on the sofa.

“Everything
okay?” Peter said, inching away from me.

“Yeah, it’s cool.
So when are we going to get Ava’s grandmother back?”

Carl’s fists
clenched tight; I wondered what his family were like.

“Peter thinks
Maximus has her. He reckons he knows where.”

“I’m pretty sure,
actually.”

“We going now?”
Carl asked.

Peter shook his
head. “We should get some sleep first; let you heal up a little.
You still don’t look the best. Then maybe head over during the day.
There’ll only be humans there.”

“Humans?” I said,
surprised.

“Yeah, they tend
to use bodyguards during the day. No problem to us.”

I squirmed. “I
don’t like the idea of humans getting hurt.”

Peter’s face
darkened into something I didn’t like. “They deserve it if they
work for evil. I’m wrecked, I’m heading to bed. We’ll talk more in
the morning. There are spare rooms upstairs, take your
pick.”

He left, followed
by a yawning Carl.

“I’m going to sit
up for a bit,” I told them.

I tried to relax,
but all I could think of was my grandmother. Maximus could spend
the entire night torturing her while I had a good night’s sleep in
Peter’s house. If I waited, she would probably suffer and judging
by Peter’s black/white morality issues, the bodyguards would almost
certainly get hurt too. I had enough on my conscience. The more I
sat there thinking, the more certain I became. I was going alone.
To offer myself in exchange for my grandmother.

Once again, I
found myself sneaking out of Peter’s house. I originally planned to
call a taxi, but I had forgotten my mobile. I decided to run and
look out for a car on the way, but changed my mind when I realised
I was running fast. Very fast. Determined, I pushed myself harder
and harder, to the quiet outskirts of the city. I found my way to
Maximus’s place easily. It was as though I honed in on his
location.

He lived in a
very fancy mansion-sized building on a small but well-kept estate.
I should have guessed. The exterior decorating made me want to
puke, all overdone fountains and played-out colours. I was
surprised by how unafraid I was. I had worked myself up into a fit
of anger that was keeping me going. If I was entirely honest, part
of me was too tired to care if I lived or died.

Two vampires
stood outside the house and clocked me with surprise clear on their
faces.

“I’m here to see
Maximus,” I said. To my relief, my voice stayed steady. They let me
pass without speaking a word.

The front door
opened before I reached it. A young girl dressed in a stereotypical
slutty maid costume greeted me. Puncture wounds on her neck were
barely healed. I stifled a shudder.

“Follow me,” she
said in a sweet voice. I wanted to cry for her. She was someone’s
kid.

She moved
purposely slowly then gave a neat little curtsey and held open a
door for me. I made my way into the room, recognising Maximus
straight away—even if I hadn’t, it was obvious who was in charge.
He was the one lounging on an old-fashioned chaise lounge, fawned
over by the others. One vampire sat closer to Maximus than the
rest, his blond hair caressed by Maximus’s oversized
hands.