Charlie dug into her supper with gusto. She couldn’t remember when she’d been so hungry. Then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down to a rare steak. The meat was pink, going on red in the center, and she’d been prepared to complain about that, but Roxy had interrupted before she’d said a word. “One bite. Then tell me you prefer it less rare.”
Charlie’s usual diet consisted of anything microwavable, any kind of chips, and vats of diet soft drinks. Her mom, overprotective as she was, had never been the domestic goddess type. She didn’t cook, hadn’t taught Charlie to cook either. And really, junk food was good. So why bother?
What her grandmother had put in front of her was a giant hunk of rare meat with a salad on the side.
She took the first bite, though, as instructed, thinking she’d have to make the woman a grocery list if she was going to survive out here. And something inside her seemed to wake up and growl for more.
She took another bite, and another, and stopped herself after the third, because she realized she was eating like a starved pit bull and her grandmother was watching her with a smile on her face. Embarrassed, she finished chewing, swallowed, took a sip of water, and sat back in her chair.
“Your body knows what it needs. You haven’t been getting enough protein,” Roxy said.
Frankly, Charlie was amazed. Hell, she’d dabbled in vegetarianism only two years ago.
“It’s important you get as strong as you possibly can. I know you don’t realize how much danger you’re in, Charlotte. But I do. If you have to fight, I want you able to do it.”
“Fight?” She blinked, tried to resist finishing off the steak, and took a dainty bite of the salad instead. “I haven’t got a clue how to fight. Mom freaked out if I even got my hands dirty.”
“She lost your father. She’s afraid of losing you, too.” Roxy shrugged. “But don’t worry. I’m going to teach you.”
“To fight.” She said it flatly, didn’t make it a question.
Roxy nodded.
Charlie said, “And all this?” She waved her fork in the air. “All this off the grid living is just because you have the antigen?”
Roxy nodded. “Yes.”
“I was born with it, though, and I’ve been doing just fine on the grid,” Charlie countered. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about my safety? If I’ve been safe out there living my own life with my own mother for the past twenty years, why is it suddenly different?”
“Because things have changed.” Her grandmother sighed. “You saw the letter from the government that requires everyone with your blood type to come in and register with them?”
Charlie had popped another piece of steak into her mouth. She was listening and chewing. She remembered how scared her mom had looked when she’d read the letter. “It was more of an invitation than a requirement,” she pointed out. “And they didn’t say anything about registering.”
“It was an order. Had you replied with thanks, but no thanks, you’d have learned that the hard way.”
“Yeah? So what would’ve happened if I’d said yes, instead?” she asked, unable to resist one last bite.
“Then when you showed up for that appointment, they would’ve inserted an electronic chip into your body, allowing them to track your location and monitor your vital signs.”
The meat slid down her throat and stopped. Charlie started choking. Roxy got up, came around behind her chair, and slammed her back until the chunk flew from her mouth. Charlie held up a hand to signal her to stop and guzzled more water. When she could breathe again, she said, “Are you shitting me?”
“No, Charlotte, I’m not shitting you. This is what I’ve been hearing from my...sources. A few have dropped off the map, and no one’s saying where they’ve gone. Young, strong ones, like you. That’s why I hacked into the government’s system and changed your blood type to A positive.”
She set her glass down. “Then what happens to me if I get hurt or need a transfusion or something and they give me the wrong blood? Wouldn’t that kill me?”
“They always type and cross-match before giving transfusions. I’ve worked as a nurse before. Trust me.”
“You’re a nurse?”
Roxy tilted her head to one side. “I said I’d worked as a nurse. Not that I am one.”
So she’d impersonated a nurse? What the hell? It dawned on Charlie that her grandmother had claimed for the second time now, that she knew how to hack into government mainframes. “How do you know how to do that?” she asked. “Hack into systems, change data?”
“Experience,” she said. “And necessity.”
Who the hell was this woman? No typical grandmother, that was for sure.
“I did the same to my own government records.”
“Because you have the antigen, too,” she whispered. Then she swallowed hard and asked the question that was foremost on her mind, the one she’d been itching to ask ever since she’d first met the woman. “Mom said that people with the antigen never live much past their thirties.”
“People with the antigen rarely live past their thirties,” Roxy replied. “But you can see that I have.”
“Why?”
Roxy shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
“Does that mean that I will, too?”
“I don’t know that, either. But I do know there’s a reason I’ve lived this long. A purpose. And I think that purpose might’ve been you, Charlotte. I believe the reason I’m still alive is to make sure you survive and thrive. To keep you safe. And everything I do, hacking your records, bringing you here, the bars on the windows and the trip wires outside of this house, all of it, is to that end. Understand?”
“So wait.” Charlie put down her fork. “Are you saying that you’re protecting me from...from the government? Not from some stray surviving vampire that might hunt me down for a tasty snack?”
Roxy said, “That’s right.”
“So I’m just supposed to stay here, hiding in the woods for the next ten to fifteen years and then drop dead? I’m supposed to stop living now instead of then?”
Roxy smiled. “We only need to keep to ourselves for a few weeks. Just long enough to be sure no one noticed my little updates to your records. Once we’re sure of that, it’ll be safe for you to reintegrate into your life again. It’s not forever, Charlotte. It’s just for now.”
Charlie thought any time away from her life was time she couldn’t afford to give up. If she only had thirty-five years, she wanted to live every minute of it. She opened her mouth to make that argument but saw her grandmother’s green eyes go very wide, and followed them to see what she was looking at.
A red light was flashing on and off over the front door and a soft bing-bing-bing was sounding.
“Someone’s out there!” Roxy jumped out of her chair so fast it tipped over behind her.
Maybe it’s him, Charlie thought. Maybe it’s him.
Roxy ran into the living room, opened a closet and pulled out a shotgun.
A freaking shotgun! And that wasn’t all that was in there.
“There’s a safe room in the basement. Go. Now! “
She couldn’t. God, she couldn’t let her shoot him! “You said not to go to the basement.”
“Go, dammit. Lock yourself in. Don’t wait for me.” Then she opened the front door and stepped outside in the dark, all alone. A grandmother with a shotgun.
Maybe Roxy was crazier than Charlie had even begun to think. Then again, Charlie thought, she was the one who was afraid her grandmother was going to shoot her imaginary lover. Maybe craziness ran in the family.
Killian had ducked into the forest when Charlie had glanced out her barred window at him. He’d stood with his back pressed against the bark of a tree, his hand pressed to his chest, and watched her looking for him. And God, it was such a rush to see her, in the flesh, rather than just feel her invading his mind. It was so good. Pale skin like porcelain. Vivid red hair.
He could not be seen, he knew th
at. If the humans knew he was alive, they would hunt him down and kill him. Just like they’d done with every other vampire in the world. And yet, he couldn’t stay away from her.
He stayed there, pressed to the towering sugar pine for a full minute, feeling the bark against his back, smelling the pines and a thousand other scents wafting his way on the night. There were squirrels and chipmunks and deer and bear. There were flowers and berries and the leaves and needles of a dozen different trees. And there was her. Above all else, there was her.
He’d never felt anything as powerful as his sense of her. Like a magnet, she drew him. And it was stronger now that he was closer.
When he thought enough time had passed, he’d peeked around the tree’s massive trunk again. His jacket peeled away from the bark in a way that told him it had sticky pine sap on it. God, it smelled good.
The barred window was empty now. And he couldn’t help but move closer. He wanted to see her again. He should leave, he knew that. Avoiding humans at all costs was the only thing that had kept him alive this long. But he had to see her again before he did. Maybe up close. Maybe close enough to touch her. Or more. It didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t safe. It was suicidal, in fact.
And yet he had no choice. He could not resist this power, whatever it was, pulling him to her. It was like the lure of a drug to an addict. And it dragged him just as surely, just as recklessly, closer.
He smelled red meat, guessed the women were eating. He could get closer to the cabin if he approached from the side of it where she’d been looking out the window at him. Maybe he could slide to another window and get a glimpse of her inside. He decided he would move rapidly across the clearing between the redolent pine forest and the log cabin. He wouldn’t be seen. He wasn’t an old vampire, and he’d had nothing but animal blood for months. There wasn’t a lot of strength in him. But even minimal speed in a vampire rendered them invisible to the human eye. He crouched beside the tree, taking one last look around him and at the house to be sure he was undetected.
And then he ran.
He barely felt the trip wire graze his shin before it snapped beneath his power. He skidded to a stop so suddenly that his feet sent topsoil folding up in front of him, then switched directions and sprinted back into the woods.
The humans inside the house were emanating fear and alarm. Well, one of them was. From Charlotte, he felt eagerness, worry about him, and a longing that sang to his soul. And then the front door opened, and a woman came out. Flaming red curls, a mature face, and the heart, he sensed, of a lioness. She cradled a double barreled shotgun.
She was one of The Chosen. Which was bizarre, because they didn’t get to be her age. They always died young, unless they were turned.
He tore his eyes from her and looked toward the spot where his carelessness had torn up the lawn. It was around the side of the house. If she came out to explore, she would see it. Backing into the forest, he opened his senses. He needed a scapegoat, and he needed it fast.