CHAPTER 20
Cassie's stomach curdled as if she'd eaten something rotten. A ball of nausea had wedged itself into her throat and was now choking her. She leaned over the counter, breathing heavily, as her gaze remained riveted upon the large headline before her.
THIRTEENTH PERSON REPORTED MISSING FROM HYANNIS.
Her blood pumped heavily in her veins as she read the article. The woman had gone missing from a bar on Main Street; no one had seen her since. And they probably wouldn't again, Cassie realized with a sinking sensation in her stomach.
It was smart, whatever was out there and it was definitely covering its tracks. And it was their fault it was still out there killing, destroying innocent people, and their families. It was her, Chris, and Melissa's responsibility as Hunter's to protect the innocent, and they were failing. Thirteen was far too many people, and these were only the ones who had been reported, dead or alive. There were probably many others who had gone unreported, who had no one out there to love and miss them.
Her hands shook as she closed the paper and stared out the window. The sunlight was completely out of place with the emotions rolling through her. It should be dark out, cold, foreboding. It should match the hollow chill she felt from head to toe.
Taking a step away from the counter, she started to leave the room when something about the article clicked into her mind. Slowly turning back, her throat went dry and her heart seemed to stop beating as her legs suddenly became weak. She grasped hold of the counter before she fell to the ground.
She inhaled great, heaping gulps of air in an attempt to ease the shaking wracking her bones. She was trembling so hard her teeth rattled in her head. Taking another deep breath, she used the counter to support her as she sluggishly moved back to the island where she'd left the paper.
Releasing the counter, she stumbled to the island. She was nearly hyperventilating as she grasped hold of the paper and pulled it close. She was shaking so badly she could barely get the pages open. Her gaze rested on the date of the first disappearance. September fifteenth, Megan Keller, twenty-two, had vanished from a park in Sandwich.
Cassie slid to the floor with the paper pressed to her chest. The wrinkled pages crinkled loudly as her fingers curled into it. Devon had arrived on the thirteenth. He had strolled into her life two days before the disappearances started.
Her mind began tripping over everything she'd been trying to deny. Little pieces of the puzzle she'd always had, but hadn't been willing to assemble, began to rapidly fall into place. Devon's speed and agility, the strength he exhibited when he lifted Mark easily, effortlessly, off the ground. She thought over the way he spoke, it was so old and elegant, so outdated. He knew the card game faro, a game no one knew anymore.
Though the puzzle horrified her, once the pieces began slipping together, she couldn't stop them from assembling the picture. Melissa had seen nothing about Devon, other than his arrival, and Chris couldn't read him. Both of which could be explained by the power that radiated from him, far more power than a human would possess. She was beginning to believe it was more power than she possessed.
Closing her eyes she tried to stop the images tumbling together, but they were relentless. He was always somewhat colder than normal, that could be explained by the weather, or bad circulation, but neither of those explanations seemed right to her now.
She had been irresistibly attracted to him, pulled to him like a magnet to metal from the very beginning. All of the girls were drawn to him, so much so they'd turned against her in the hopes they would get him. She'd known all along that her attraction to him was something most people didn't experience, but she'd chosen to ignore that fact in order to be with him.
As the last pieces of the puzzle slid into place, Cassie's breath locked in her chest. Every single one of those pieces, every single one of those oddities, was traits of a vampire. Now that the puzzle was in place, she fully realized it was a jigsaw straight from hell.
He'd sensed the evil in the woods, but what if he was that evil? What if he'd let his guard down and allowed the evil inside him to slip free and permeate the air? 'It's playing with us,' Chris had said. 'Playing games with us, before killing us.' What better way to play games with her than to make her fall in love with him, before he tried to kill her?
Tears streamed down Cassie's face as she tried to inhale heaping gulps of air. She focused on the window and the daylight beyond. Her forehead furrowed in confusion as she considered one piece of the puzzle that didn't quite fit. Devon walked about in the day, unaffected by the sun. She'd never known a vampire to do that before, it was impossible.
The day was for humans, their time to be safe, and not to have to worry about the monsters lurking in the shadows.
Hope briefly ballooned inside her, and then promptly deflated as she recalled Luther's words. 'We do not know what an Elder could be capable of. The powers that they might possess.'
One of those powers could actually be the ability to stroll about in broad daylight, a monster among humans. If Devon was an Elder, then he was more than just a normal vampire, he was one of the most powerful creatures on Earth. He also would have been one of the ones to help mastermind the destruction of her parents, one of the ones who had helped to eradicate her race.
Her heart was shattering into a million pieces as her world crumbled around her. He breathed, she thought desperately. She had felt him breathe, but what if he only pretended to breathe in her presence? She tried to recall if she had felt the beat of his heart, but try as she might she couldn't remember ever feeling the reassuring beat of life within his chest.
She tried to convince herself she was wrong, but though she tried to hide behind a wall of denial, she couldn't, not anymore. Her mind, her soul, knew she was right.
He wasn’t a Hunter. He wasn’t a human with special abilities.
He was the monster. He was the one hunting them, stalking them, playing and toying with them, and he'd been very good at it. She'd allowed him into her soul, and the entire time he'd been playing with her, plotting her death, and the murder of the ones she loved.
The past two nights, when he'd held her tenderly and made her feel safe had all been a part of his game. He was good at it, excellent even; she had to give him that much, as he'd succeeded in crushing her. She was an empty shell of the person she'd been before he came along.
And yet, she was somehow stronger. She wouldn't let him win. He may have broken her heart, but he wouldn't harm anyone else. He would not take her loved ones from her.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Cassie placed her hands on the floor and shoved herself up. She couldn't sit here and cry. She didn't have time for that. She stood for a moment feeling numb as she tried to get her bearings. Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes blazing fury burned away the last of the devastating hurt. He may have destroyed her, but she was also going to destroy him.
She forcefully strode from the kitchen and pounded up the stairs to gather her weapons. She was tired of running, tired of hiding, and very tired of being frightened. It was time to take a stand. It was time to do some hunting, instead of being the hunted for a change.