ONCE THE DECISION TO LEAVE was firm in my mind, there were many things to do. Firstly, I needed a set of wheels. Evie had suggested flying home, but I couldn’t risk having my name show up on any commercial airline passenger manifests or travel databases that Caleb might be watching. I couldn’t take my own car, the one that Jared had so generously driven across the country for me. It was like driving a red flaming beacon that screamed, ‘Here I am, come and get me!’
I also had to time my exit appropriately so that nobody would try to stop me. I doubted Ryan would lock me up again, but I didn’t exactly trust him. I knew he had something big planned—he was going somewhere ‘important’ and could be away for a few days. Ivy was going somewhere mysteriously vague, as usual. And Sam had his teaching commitments at the university. All of this gave me a good six-hour window of time to pack my stuff up and get as far away as I could before anyone realized that I was gone.
Still, the logistics bothered me. I was going to have to stop for the night at some point, and if Ryan was really keen (which he would be) then he’d only have to track me to where I stopped and come get me. I could drive through the night, but that sounded exhausting. The other thing that worried me was having enough blood to drink in case I got my freak on again and felt like biting somebody. I was afraid to be alone on the drive in case I flipped out, but I was more afraid of If you stay here you will die.
It was early. I sat at the table waiting for my black coffee and blood to infuse. I hated to admit it, but the coffee component was merely a distraction to mask the plain horror of what I was drinking for breakfast—human blood. Stuff that people donated, from the goodness of their hearts, to help save lives. The stuff that pumped through my boyfriend’s veins. And I was putting it in my Nescafé.
Ryan sat down across from me, his own coffee/blood concoction letting off steam in front of him.
“Do you ever wonder whose it is?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked, digging his spoon into a bowl of cereal.
“The blood,” I replied. “The person who donated this. They must have thought they were giving it for good, not evil.”
Ryan smirked through a mouthful of Cheerios. “Evil?” he spluttered. “Jesus. You’re like a nun. Only you put out.”
I glared at him in disgust. “You’re so fucking hilarious.”
I can’t wait to get the hell away from you.
“The blood doesn’t come from a hospital blood bank,” Ryan explained without missing a beat. “Vampires have particular requirements of donors that humans do not. It’s about more than blood type. It depends on their diet, their lifestyle, their psychic energy. This stuff is expensive.” He tapped on his coffee mug. “Why do you think we limit our intake? Not because we want to. There’s only a small amount available.”
I thought about that for a moment and my blood ran cold. “A small amount?” I echoed. “So vampires who can’t get their hands on this stuff …”
“Get it directly from people, yes,” Ryan finished casually.
“Do the people die?”
Ryan shrugged. “Sometimes. It depends.”
“So you only drink this blood?” I asked, pointing at his cup. He could tell I was testing him—of course he could, he could read my mind.
“No,” he said evenly. Because I already knew. He had drained Kate. He hadn’t killed her, though. Caleb had saved her last terrified breaths for himself.
“And?” I pressed. “Do they die sometimes?”
“If I take blood from a human, I’m careful. I don’t bleed them to death. It gets messy. People would come looking for me.”
“What people?” I asked. “I thought you said most people don’t even know about vampires?”
“There’s a bunch of people who keep tabs on supernaturals like us. Vampires, witches, shape shifters, werewolves, hunters.”
“Like a council?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ryan replied, draining his coffee mug. “A council of supernatural beings.”
“What’s it called?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was stupid. “The … council of supernatural beings.”
“Original,” I remarked.
I thought about that for awhile.
“So are we going to keep pretending your little visit with the witch didn’t happen?” Ryan asked casually, fixing his gaze onto me.
I just shrugged.
“That must have been hard. Seeing your little boyfriend? Your pal?”
“Who are you calling little?,” I shot back, raising my eyebrows and looking pointedly at the area below Ryan’s waistline.
Ryan laughed. “She has a sense of humor!” he cheered, raising his cup and clinking it with thin air. He stood and drained the last of his bloody espresso. “Well, she obviously didn’t convince you to leave.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Obviously. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, I’m off. Clair and I are going on a little sojourn.”
“Don’t eat her,” I said, trying to think and look as bored as possible. Hurry up and leave!
“Jealous?” Ryan asked. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you somewhere special soon.”
“Oh goody,” I rolled my eyes. “I can’t wait.”
I spent the next half hour reading every article in the latest issue of Vogue without taking in a single word, while Ryan took his sweet time loading suitcases into his car and grabbing supplies from the fridge.
“You’re not taking all that, are you?” I gestured to the baggies of blood he was packing into a small blue cooler bag. If he took it all, I wouldn’t have any for the long drive back to New Jersey. And I really didn’t fancy trying to pick up a human meal and drinking their blood without killing them.
“I left three for you,” he said. “Ivy’s picking up more tomorrow, so you’ll be fine until then.”
I watched as he opened the freezer door and started packing more frozen bags of blood in his cooler. There had to be at least fifty bags of the stuff, each containing a litre of blood. Fifty litres of blood. Where the hell was he going?
My heart sank as I put the pieces together. I stood and walked over so that I was in front of him.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
Ryan looked away, unable to meet my eyes. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“It is,” I insisted, grabbing at the handle of the cooler bag. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Ryan pulled the bag out of my reach and fixed his steely eyes onto mine. “Mind your own business,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“You’re going to Turn her,” I accused. His eyes gave away what he wouldn’t say.
“Why?” I demanded. “She’s got her whole life ahead of her!” I sucked in a deep breath. “Why would you do that to her?”
“Get out of my way, Blake,” Ryan demanded when I blocked his exit from the kitchen. “I mean it. I don’t have time to screw around.”
“Ryan,” I said softly, pleadingly. I put both of my hands on his shoulders, as I asked for the third time. “You’ve only met the girl a few times. Why?”
Sorrow and pain competed against each other in those dark blue eyes of his.
“Because,” he answered finally, “she asked me to.”
I was about to argue that that wasn’t a good enough reason, when he pushed me to the side and stormed out to the garage. Seconds later, I heard his car peeling off down the driveway and the automatic door closing again with a dull thud.