Hi everyone! Here's chapter 34, within the month of March, as promised. It seems my characters don't have the same interest I do in moving things along at a reasonable pace. If they keep wanting to drag things out we'll never get to the end. Don't worry, though, I'm in the process of negotiating with them. On the bright side, their stubbornness means that you guys get long chapters. :) I actually didn't expect to finish this chapter tonight, but I couldn't stop. I really need to focus on school, though so I can't say when the next chapter will be. Hopefully it'll come next month. I also want to say thank you for being such wonderful readers. I really can't say that enough. Your reviews (as always) have been wonderful. Thank you for your feedback, I really, truly appreciate it. I'm so glad that you all have been enjoying this story. Anyways, enough of my rambling. Enjoy!
"You turned him?" I shrieked, horrified and more confused than I'd ever been in my life.
"Really, Evelyn, your ability to put two and two together is quite mind blowing," Lucas taunted.
"That's n-not possible," I stammered, trying to wrap my head around what was clearly right in front of me.
Lucas just stared back at me, amusement dancing in his eyes. I could tell he was enjoying everyone's confusion.
"We buried Ethan's body," Nicole murmured.
That was exactly what I was thinking. Ethan was dead. I'd held his lifeless body myself. There'd been tons of people at his funeral. They'd all seen him get buried. It wasn't possible to change someone into a vampire after they died.
"What did you do, Lucas?" Anthony asked.
"I can't believe you're being so cold to me, Anthony. And all because of one little huntress," Lucas said. "Do you really think you can trust her? Think about it, she's already gotten you to invite two of her vampire-hating sisters into your home with open arms. It won't be long before you've had the entire Administratio over, and before you know it –
"Enough!" Anthony cut him off. "Evelyn didn't hypnotize me. How did you turn Ethan?"
"It was all part of my plan. You see, I wanted you to stop seeing your precious Evelyn. A vampire dating a hunter is just so wrong. But that was before I saw the possibilities it presents…"
"Stop rambling and answer the damn question," Anthony snapped.
"Oh my god," Emily gasped.
Everyone turned to her, shocked at her outburst.
"It was a clone. You made it look like you killed Ethan, but really it was just a clone of his body," she accused Lucas.
"It took you long enough to figure it out, considering cloning was your power" Lucas smirked. "It really is a most useful power, you must miss it."
Emily bristled at his taunting. She clenched her fists tightly together, but didn't respond.
"My apologies," Lucas continued. "I should have known that your power would still be a soft spot for you. You hunters really are very fond of them, aren't you? I tried to get Evelyn here to give up hers, but she won't budge."
"It's stupid that you would think there's a chance I'd ever give my power to you," I said.
"It's stupid that you would think there's a chance your relationship with my nephew is going to work out," Lucas retorted.
"He has a point," Olivia muttered under her breath.
I glared at her. "This is so not the time."
"Why did you bring Ethan here?" Anthony asked.
"I want you to take him off my hands," Lucas answered. "You all seem to be so accommodating to all of Evelyn's friends, after all. And new vampires are just so much trouble, they're like children really. I remember when I had to juggle you three, I had my hands full."
"It's not like we asked you to turn us," Eric said.
"I suppose that's true, and I certainly have my hands full now that you've all decided to become friends with the enemy. But it does make life as a vampire so much more interesting."
"I don't understand," I said.
Lucas nodded sagely. "I'm not surprised. I have a feeling Anthony was looking more for beauty rather than brains when he chose to date you."
Anthony opened his mouth, obviously about to set Lucas straight, but I spoke before he could do anything. I was growing used to Lucas's snide little comments. I'd realized it was his way making people emotional, which kept them off their guard.
"I meant I don't understand why you would turn Ethan. It couldn't have been for his power. He had the power of super speed. Vampires already have that."
"Very good, Evelyn," Lucas said condescendingly. "I should give you more credit. You're right. While Ethan here can move faster than any vampire I've ever seen, I didn't change him because of that. But you don't really expect me to give everything away do you?"
"What if we don't take Ethan?" Mark asked. "What if we don't want the burden of a new vampire either?"
Lucas shrugged. "Then I suppose I'll kill him."
"No!" I said. "You're not killing him."
Lucas was grinning from ear to ear. He wanted me to tell Anthony to save Ethan. He wanted this to happen to cause more trouble for his. It would just make his sick game more entertaining for him. If I told Anthony to save Ethan, I'd be playing right into Lucas's hands.
I caught Mark's eye, and I knew that his hatred towards me would only escalate if I told Anthony I wanted this. The last thing he wanted was another hunter in his house, even if it was a former hunter.
It was Eric who made the decision. "Just leave him here, and get out. We'll decide what to do with him."
"But we were having such a nice chat," Lucas protested. There was a time when I would have been welcome in your home for as long as I liked."
"Well that time is over. Get out," Anthony said.
Lucas sighed, and I could see the playful façade drop. He released Ethan from his grip. Ethan clearly didn't have any kind of strength to keep his eyes open, much less stand up. He fell to the floor, worn out.
"You haven't spoken to me much, Mark," Lucas said, his voice low and threatening. "Perhaps you've missed me."
Mark stared impassively back at Lucas. "Hardly."
I wanted to sigh in relief. At least Mark didn't seem to harbor any sentimental feelings toward his uncle.
"Does this mean you three have joined the ranks of the hunters? Perhaps you're all conspiring to kill me to keep Anthony's girlfriend happy?" Lucas taunted. "I really don't want to have to kill you boys."
I don't know how they managed to move perfectly in sync with each other, but Eric and Anthony both chose that moment to lunge at Lucas, the two of them effectively bringing him down.
"Stop, both of you," Lucas said. And just like that, they released him. Lucas locked eyes with Mark. "Mark, kill Eric," he ordered.
I gaped at Lucas. What was he doing?
"No!" Emily ran in front of Mark, but he tossed her aside easily.
He continued to head toward Eric. Both Eric and Anthony remained unmoving, still locked in Lucas's hypnosis. Ethan's body remained limp on the floor.
I moved in front of Mark. "Stop this," I told him. "You don't want to do this."
Olivia jumped at Lucas, ready to attack, with Nicole right behind her. I heard him hiss in pain which meant that one of their knives pierced his skin. Barely a moment after, Olivia cried out, and I heard the bone snap as Lucas broke her arm.
Meanwhile, Mark attempted to throw me aside the way he'd moved Emily, but I punched his arm away. He swung his arm at me again, and I ducked just in time. I didn't want to use my dagger on him. The poison could kill him. This did not help my situation. I wasn't used to fighting vampires to only deter them. The point of fighting them was always to kill.
In my peripheral vision, I could see the flurry of activity as Olivia and Nicole fought Lucas. I couldn't focus on what they were doing or who was winning. I needed to get Mark and his brothers to snap out of it.
I went invisible and kicked Mark square in the chest. He stumbled back, and I took that opportunity to slap him hard, right across the face.
Out of nowhere, Emily came behind Mark and bit his neck. He screamed at the pain and fell to his knees.
On the other side of the room, Nicole was healing herself. There was a puddle of blood on the floor that was coming from her right leg. Olivia appeared to be focusing all of her energy on using her power on Lucas. Her good hand was wrapped tightly around his wrist. She was burning his arm, and it seemed to be disintegrating to ash, but he was a vampire so it continuously regenerated itself, forcing Lucas into an ongoing cycle of torture. He was using his other hand to try to push her away.
"Anthony, kill Olivia," Lucas struggled to give the order through the pain, but it worked because Anthony's fangs were out as he headed towards Olivia.
"Stop!" Nicole screamed. She stopped healing herself to run to fight Anthony before he could reach Olivia.
Moving faster than I ever remember moving in my life, I grabbed one of my sisters' knives that had fallen to the floor and stuck it in Lucas's back. He shouted out as the poison entered his system, and Olivia stopped her torture on him, falling back to the couch clearly exhausted.
Anthony stopped fighting Nicole, and Eric finally moved and pulled Emily into his arms - away from Mark - who also came out of his hypnotized state.
Lucas managed to wrench the dagger out of his back. He grabbed me and sunk his fangs into my neck, using my blood to help himself heal. The excruciating pain overwhelmed me. It'd been a while since I'd felt the pain of a vampire bite.
It didn't last more than a few seconds, though because Anthony twisted Lucas's neck and pushed him away from me. I fell into his arms, suddenly feeling very weak.
Lucas escaped out of the house and the neighborhood with such speed that in a matter of seconds, I could no longer sense his presence.
I felt Nicole's warm hands at my neck as she quickly healed me before tending to Olivia's injuries.
"I cannot believe that just happened," Olivia said.
It took a few moments for my head to stop spinning, but when I finally felt my body return to its normal strength, I jumped up to address the elephant in the room.
"Ethan!" I ran over to him. He was face down on the floor. I turned him over and leaned close, brushing the hair out of his eyes.
His eyes snapped open, and he grabbed me and pulled me down to latch his mouth on to my neck. His fangs sank into the skin, and I screamed at the burning pain as he sucked the blood from my veins.
It didn't take long for Anthony to react. He easily pulled me away from Ethan's grip, while Eric pinned him down. Again Nicole had to come over and heal my neck.
"Ethan," my voice came out in a broken sob.
"He needs blood," Eric said.
"Clearly," Anthony deadpanned.
"Well give him some," I cried. Seeing the way that Ethan was clawing at Eric frightened me.
"I have a better idea," Mark said. He walked over to Ethan, and without a second thought hit him over the head, hard. Ethan fell ungracefully to the floor.
"What the hell?" I screeched. "Why did you do that?"
Mark wasn't fazed by my outburst. "He wasn't exactly being cooperative."
"Is he unconscious?" Olivia asked, walking up close to inspect his body. "I didn't know it was possible to knock out a vamp."
"It's possible to knock out a new vampire. It takes a few weeks for a new vampire's body to grow into its full strength," Eric explained.
"Is he going to be okay?" I asked, pulling away from Anthony to get closer to my friend. I moved more cautiously toward him this time, fearful that he might suddenly wake up and bite me again.
"Sure, after he gets some blood he'll be fine. Physically, that is. Mentally, I don't know if he'll be able to deal with it," Eric said.
I wanted to ignore Eric's last statement, but I knew he had a point. The Ethan I knew would be disgusted with being a vampire. He would go through everything Emily was still going through and then some. At least Emily had been able to find a support system in the Carsons. I highly doubted that Ethan would be eager to make friends with any of them, especially Anthony.
"We should kill him now," Olivia said.
All eyes in the room turned to her. "Are you crazy?" I asked.
"Don't start with me, Evelyn. You know it's what he would want. That's what's supposed to happen when a hunter gets turned," she said, standing her ground.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Emily said softly.
Olivia took a deep breath. "Look, I said I'll help Emily, and I will. But we can't let this become a normal thing. Having vampire friends is unnatural." She looked at me pointedly.
"Why don't we just wait till he wakes up and see what he wants?" I suggested, trying my hardest to not fight with Olivia.
"That's not a bad idea," Emily said.
"Actually, it is a bad idea because he might try to suck the life out of someone again," Olivia said.
I looked to Nicole, hoping and praying that she hadn't already made up her mind to side with Olivia on this. "It's not fair," I complained. "This is exactly what happened to Emily. Ethan didn't ask to be turned either. Who knows what Lucas put him through? He hasn't done anything for you to kill him."
"Except for trying to kill you just now," Olivia said sarcastically.
"It seems the people close to you tend to get the short end of the stick," Mark said to me.
Olivia turned on him. "What did I tell you about the way you talk to my sister?"
Mark remained calm as my sister stared him down. "I'm just making an observation. But I agree with you on this. He should die."
"You don't get to decide –" I started to say angrily.
"Easy, Evelyn," Eric said. "Obviously no one knows what to do here. We're just exploring our options."
"We need to do something," Olivia said. "The only reason this is even an issue is because Evelyn's gone and decided that it's perfectly fine to be friends with vampires. Keeping Ethan alive just complicates things."
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out what she was saying. It was true, I suppose. I wasn't thinking about this the way a hunter should. I was holding on to some hope that Ethan and I could be friends again. After losing my best friend, who I'd been so awful to right before he died, I wanted to be able to fix our relationship.
Nicole touched my shoulder gently. "Evelyn, I know this is difficult, but Olivia has a point. This isn't the right thing for Ethan."
"So what do you want to do then?" I asked harshly, daring her to look me in the eye and say we should kill Ethan.
She shrugged and then hesitated. "We could vote."
"You want to vote on whether or not my best friend gets to live or die?" My outrage at the idea made my voice crack. "That's not your decision to make."
"It's not yours either," Mark said.
I was about to argue, but he wouldn't let me get a word in.
"You're not the one who's going to have to take care of him. You won't be the one giving him a place to live or finding blood for him to drink or teaching him to use his powers as a vampire," he reminded me.
He had a point. It was selfish of me to want the Carsons to take care of Ethan without asking them how they felt about it. But whether they helped Ethan or not was irrelevant to the bigger picture. I wanted Ethan to live.
"I will," I said. "I'll help him learn to live as a vampire if you won't. He can't die."
"And if he wakes up in the next few minutes and asks you to put a knife in his heart? What will you do then?" Olivia challenged.
"Well, that's been my suggestion from the beginning hasn't it? To wait until he wakes up to do something."
I refused to think about how it would feel for Ethan to tell me he wanted to die. I just wanted to be able to talk to him again.
I looked at Anthony who I just realized had been oddly quiet throughout the debate. He was the only one who hadn't voiced some sort of opinion.
"Evelyn," he reached out and gently brushed his fingers along the side of my cheek. "Another vampire turned by Lucas, means that there's another vampire for him to control. You saw what just happened. I'm sure your friend won't like being at Lucas's mercy."
I stared at him in shock. I'd never known him to not give me exactly what I wanted, no questions asked. It was a selfish expectation, but I couldn't help it. In all the time I'd known him, he went out of his way to ensure I had everything I wanted.
"What are you saying?" I asked.
"I'm just suggesting that you listen to your sisters' point of view on this one," he said.
I slapped his hand away, furious. I literally could not believe what I was hearing. How was it that all of these people could be so invested in making sure that Emily stayed safe but at the same time think Ethan was too much of a problem? It was so cruel. So wrong.
"Well, that said, I vote we get rid of him before this turns into anymore of a mess," Olivia said.
"I agree," Mark said immediately after.
Nicole wouldn't look at me. "You guys are right," she said.
"I'm biased, but I think you should you're all being too harsh," Emily said. "He's new, he can't be that harmful. You shouldn't be so quick to kill."
"Exactly," I said, nodding enthusiastically. "Emily's right."
"That's two votes to save him against three to kill him," Olivia said.
Eric looked into Emily's pleading eyes for a long time and shrugged. "I don't have a problem helping him out. There's no reason for me to want to kill him."
The entire room turned to Anthony. It was a tie. He was the sway vote, but his eyes were glued to mine. I saw the sadness in them as he stared at me.
"Evelyn, I need to think about what's best for you," he said. "Being around another vampire isn't going to help your situation." His face twisted, as if it were physically painful for him to be saying these things, which it should be.
I shook my head frantically at all of them. "No," I said. "I won't let you."
Anthony reached out to touch me, but I pushed him away, and he stumbled back.
"Shall we get on with it then?" Olivia asked, moving toward Ethan.
"I said NO!" I screamed.
I dropped to the floor to hold on to Ethan and teleported us both out of the Carsons' house. The last thing I heard was my sisters calling out my name. I ignored them.
I took Ethan to a motel I'd come to with my dad when he'd still been training me to be a hunter. He favored it often because it was cheap and located in pretty much the middle of nowhere in the state of Arizona. I chose it specifically because no one knew I'd ever come here before. I refused to let them follow me or track me down somehow.
Of course, now I was stuck, and naturally I had no plan. You would think I would learn after making the same mistake over and over and over again, but no, here I was, for the millionth time, stuck in a situation that was entirely my fault and I had no clue what to do about it.
I rested Ethan's body down, at the back of the motel near the dumpster. I hated the idea leaving him alone, but I needed to pay for a room, and I couldn't very well do that with an unconscious body in tow.
I prayed that he wouldn't wake up in the few minutes it would take me to get us a room. I double checked my pockets to make sure I had a decent amount of money. Hunters were required to keep a good amount of cash with them at all times, just to be prepared.
The old man at the desk stared at me as I tapped my fingers impatiently while he looked up available rooms on the computer. It seemed that he was completely incapable of realizing the very obvious visual cues that I was in a hurry.
"Here you go, Miss. Room 126," he finally said, handing me a key.
I didn't even bother thanking him as I spun around and dashed out the door to find that, thankfully, Ethan was still slumped over, up against the wall where I'd left him.
I teleported us into room 126 and pushed his body down onto the bed. I needed a plan. Ethan was going to wake up soon. He was going to want blood, and I had no idea how to find it.
I realized that for as long as I'd been with Anthony, I was relatively hazy on the details of how he got his daily doses of blood. I knew he and his brothers stored some in their house, but I had no idea how they acquired it.
Even if I knew how to get some, that wouldn't help because I couldn't leave Ethan here to wake up alone. He could go on a rampage and kill someone. I thought back to the old man at the front desk. Was it stupid to bring Ethan near humans?
Before I could decide what to do, Ethan stirred. He rolled around on the bed, and then his eyes shot open. His fangs were out and his mouth was hanging agape. He sat straight up and looked around the room wildly. He was hungry.
I realized what the alternative to finding some source of blood for him was. I pulled out my knife, gritted my teeth and drew a line of blood along my forearm. I held it out to him, and he grabbed me to drink the blood greedily. I struggled to not scream out at the pain, and when I couldn't take it anymore, I tried pulling my arm away, but he gripped on to it tightly.
"Ethan, let go," I ordered.
He ignored me, continuing to suck as though his life depended on it. Realizing that my words would do nothing to snap him out of it, I used my knife to slice a small cut into his arm.
He recoiled immediately, hissing with pain at the poison. He stared at me in shock for a few moments before coming to his senses.
"Oh my god, Evelyn," he whispered.
I was grateful to hear him talk.
"Do you still need blood?" I asked. Now that he was coherent, maybe I could leave him alone for a little while to find him some.
He shook his head, looking down in amazement at the blood on his hands. "I have blood…everywhere," he said, wide eyed.
I nodded. "You always were a messy eater."
He looked at me, not amused by my feeble joke. "Why are we here?"
"I don't want you die," I said. "I brought you here to keep you safe."
"They wanted me dead. Your sisters did, right?"
"We can worry about them later. First, we need to take care of you."
He shook his head. "No, Evelyn. Your sisters want to do the right thing. You have to kill me. Look at me. I hurt you. I almost killed you just now. I'm a monster."
No, not him too. "You want to die?" I asked softly.
"I need to die. This is wrong, Evelyn. I was a vampire hunter. I can't live as a vampire."
"You didn't answer my question," I said. "I asked if you wanted to die, not if you thought you should or you thought the hunters would think you should."
I looked him dead in the eye. He was my best friend. I knew him better than anybody. He could never lie to me when he was a hunter, so there was no reason that would change while he was a vampire.
He sighed. "No one wants to die, Evelyn. But I know it's what I need to do."
"You don't need to do anything. You haven't done anything wrong. You haven't killed anyone. You didn't ask to get turned. It just happened. When you tell me you honestly want to die because you can't stand being a vampire, I'll make that happen for you. Until then, you're stuck being alive."
"I honestly want to die because I can't stand being a vampire," Ethan said. He leaned back slightly after he said this. He always did that after a lie, it was his tell.
"You're lying," I said.
"How would you know?" he asked.
"I'm your best friend. I always know."
"Look, Evelyn, I'm scared about dying, who isn't? That's normal. But I can't do this. If I stay like this, I won't have any friends or family. I'll have nothing."
I had to give it to him. He was making a good case. "I'm your friend. This is just a change in your life. Emily had to adjust. She didn't want to die either, and now she's doing fine."
Ethan sighed. "This is going nowhere. So why are we all alone in a cheap motel room? I thought we were at your boyfriend's house before?" I ignored the bitterness in his tone when he talked about my boyfriend.
"Well," I started hesitantly. "I was kind of outvoted about keeping you alive. It was close though, three to four to be exact."
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess you and Emily wanted me to stay alive, and your boyfriend took your side, and everyone else wants me dead." Again there was bitterness in his voice at the mention of Anthony.
"Not exactly," I said. "Anthony wanted you dead too, his brother Eric – Emily's boyfriend – took our side." I couldn't think about Anthony and his betrayal. How could he want to kill my best friend?
"So you… what? Grabbed my body, and ran away?"
I shrugged. "Pretty much."
"See? Me being a vampire is just causing problems for you," he said.
"That's not true!" I insisted. "You don't know how much I missed you when I thought you were dead. I'm happy to see you."
"You've developed an unhealthy liking to vampires," Ethan commented.
I rolled my eyes. I was so sick of hearing that. "I do not like all vampires. I like some vampires. I've seen that it's possible to be a vampire and not be evil. If I've learned anything, it's that hating someone just because of what they are is wrong."
Ethan held up his hands defensively. "Alright, alright, calm down. You win…for now. You're in charge. What's the plan, Boss?"
I looked at him sheepishly. "I'm still trying to figure that one out."
I could tell that he was trying to resist laughing at me. I wanted to tell him off. He should not be laughing at me right after I just saved his life. But I was enjoying myself. Even though the circumstances were definitely less than ideal and this was nowhere near the kinds of conversations we'd had before Anthony came into my life. It was nice being in Ethan's company.
"Maybe there is one good thing about being a vampire," he said coming closer to me.
"What's that?" I asked, eyebrows raised, I hadn't expect him to be an optimist about this so soon.
"I get to spend more time alone with you," he said, brushing a stray hair out of my face.
He looked at me meaningfully, his eyes softening. He was really close to me now. No. NO! He was leaning in to kiss me.