Change of Fate (The Briar Creek Vampires Series #4) Read online

  Mary-Kate shook her head. “I just – I don’t understand. Why?”

  “It just happened,” Austin said, shrugging. “I don’t know why. I guess all this time away from each other has made us really grow apart. Maybe you should have come to live with me at Ben’s house when I asked you to.”

  Mary-Kate stared back at him, completely silent. Then she glanced over at the dresser, her eyes hovering over Anna’s pink duffel bag. She looked back at Austin, meeting his eyes. “Who is she?”

  ”I don’t know if that’s any of your business,” Austin replied. As sweet as Mary-Kate could be, Austin knew that she could also be vicious when she wanted. Girls who crossed her path were often punished by taking a hit to their social status; no one messed with the mayor’s daughter and still remained popular.

  “Okay, fine,” Mary-Kate replied. “Don’t tell me her name if you don’t want, but . . . do you think we can try again? Maybe we could work this out.”

  Austin shook his head. “No, it’s not going to work out. I’m sorry.”

  For some reason, Mary-Kate’s reaction was surprising to him. Austin hadn’t really expected her to care about their breakup at all. He had assumed that she was experiencing the same feelings as him – and maybe even seeing somebody else, too.

  “Well, then,” Mary-Kate said, standing up and brushing her jeans with her hands. “I guess that’s that. I better head back to Briar Creek. Can I use your bathroom here first, though?”

  Austin nodded, grateful that Mary-Kate wasn’t going to push the issue any further. He didn’t know what the point of her driving all the way to Long Island was just to have this talk, but things definitely could have gone a lot worse than they had. Hopefully, Mary-Kate would make peace with their break up really soon.

  There was a knock on the door that connected Anna and Austin’s room to Gabe and Craig’s room. “I’ll be right there,” Austin called. He walked over to the bathroom door and knocked. “Mary-Kate,” he hissed. “I’m gonna go. You can let yourself out.”

  When Austin went into the other room, he found Anna sitting at the table and Gabe was sitting up in bed. Craig was awkwardly standing front of one of the beds.

  “We found the address,” Gabe told Austin. “It’s in a little town called Ocean Crest. There were no other matches.”

  “Well, then, I guess that’s where we’re going,” Austin said. He glanced over at Anna, who had a sad expression on her face.

  “We have to be prepared for what we’re going to find there, though,” Gabe said. “We need a plan before we go.”

  Craig looked over at Gabe. “What do you think we’re going to find there? This isn’t just a case of a missing guy.”

  Gabe shook his head. “No . . . based on my other visions, I’m pretty sure that Ben is being held hostage.”

  “Let me guess,” Craig said. “By the Mayor and his cronies.”

  “Well, that was a tough one,” Gabe muttered. “Anyway, what are we going to do if we get there and there are more people guarding Ben than we’re expecting?”

  “We fight,” Anna chimed in. “We’ve all been at Huntington for a reason. We can’t back down . . . not if we want to save Lexi and Dan.”

  “Yeah, that’s really the most we can do,” Austin agreed. He had been listening to see if he could hear the door to his hotel room close. He hadn’t heard anything; the hotel walls were probably soundproof. Austin had been in Gabe’s room for more than enough time for Mary-Kate to finish up in the bathroom and let herself out, though, so he said, “We should probably get packing.”

  “Yeah, let’s be ready to leave in an hour,” Craig said.

  Austin opened the connecting door, which he had left unlocked, and Anna followed him inside their room. Austin glanced at the bathroom door. It was wide open. Mary-Kate must have left herself out already. He breathed a sigh of relief. Austin hated to keep secrets from Anna, so he would probably tell her that Mary-Kate had come to their room eventually, but he just didn’t feel like dealing with it right now.

  Anna was still being quiet – which was rare for her when they were alone together. She was normally happy and giddy around him. “Is everything okay?” Austin asked.

  Anna shook her head and flopped down on the bed. “I don’t know. I just – I know I had to let Gabe drink from me because there was no other human blood available, and he really didn’t look too good. But . . . I just always thought that the first time a vampire would drink from me, it would be you.”

  Austin felt a wave of relief wash over him. “How about this? Instead of being the first vampire to drink from you, I’ll be the last.”

  Anna smiled. “I’d like that.”

  *

  “I can’t believe you thought to bring stakes and matches,” Gabe told Anna, as he sat next to her in the backseat of the sedan. They were almost in New Jersey already; their attack was in the near future.

  Anna smiled and shifted in her seat uncomfortably. Gabe wasn’t sure why, but he had noticed that Anna had been acting really weird tonight – ever since he had drunk her blood. He hoped that wasn’t why she was acting so strange. It actually made him feel bad. “I’m a vampire hunter. I bring stakes and matches almost everywhere I go.”

  “Let me be the one to put a stake through their hearts,” Austin chimed in from the front seat.

  Gabe laughed. “I don’t think so, Austin. We all know how good you were in Stakeology class.” The science of staking a vampire was called Stakeology. It was one of the classes that they had taken during their stay at Huntington High. As it turned out, Austin was actually really bad at it – almost laughable, really, because of the way he snuck up (or, to put it bluntly, didn’t sneak up on vampires). Lexi was the only one who had exceled in the subject, which they had later found out was probably because she had vampire hunters in her bloodline; that was probably why her last name was Hunter.

  Gabe found it a little ironic that her blood was the most sought after because it was superior to the blood of other humans – and yet, she also had powerful vampire hunters in her bloodline. It seemed really strange that their blood would be so much more powerful. It would make it a lot harder for a vampire hunter to stay hidden. On the other hand, maybe that was why she had vampire hunters in her blood; what better way to catch them to lure them in with blood that vampires go crazy over? The Hunter’s had probably had to learn overtime to become hunters to fight back against the vampires who sought them out.

  “So, what do we do if this Ben guy doesn’t know how we can get Lexi back?” Craig asked from the passenger’s seat.

  “We deal with it then, I guess,” Austin replied. “As of right now, Ben is our only answer.”

  Gabe thought back to the vision that he’d had tonight. He hadn’t seen Lexi’s father in the vision. He also hadn’t seen the people who were keeping him there. Yet, somehow, Gabe knew that Ben was still alive – at the time of his vision, at least. It was as though he felt some sort of presence that let him know that Ben was there inside the house.

  Once Austin drove past the sign that read “Welcome to Ocean Crest,” Gabe began to feel panicky. It had been a really long time since he had fought any vampires. Fighting other vampires was mostly common sense. Gabe hoped that, like riding a bike, it was something that he would be able to pick up on again really quickly.

  It was funny how many changes had happened in his life since he had been a teenager. He still found it ironic. Even though he had turned eighteen many years ago, it still felt like yesterday. Back then, before he had become a vampire, Gabe never would have thought about fighting someone. Even when someone messed with him, he usually didn’t defend himself as much as he should have. His mom had always gotten angry with him over letting people bully him and walk all over him.

  Gabe would never let someone walk all over him again. When he saw Greg Lawrence next, he was going to give him a peace of his mind – even if that meant that one of them wouldn’t live to see the next day. Ideally, Gabe would be the one who w
ould win that battle.

  Gabe listened from the back seat as the obnoxious woman’s voice on the GPS spurted out the directions to Austin. He rolled his eyes. Were people really so lazy nowadays that they couldn’t just read a road map to get where they needed? Advances in technology confused him sometimes.

  The sun was setting as Austin pulled up in front of the white house on Sandy Shore Lane. The beach house was definitely the same house from Gabe’s vision. He glanced over at Anna, who was nervously twirling her costume rings around her fingers. “Ready to kick some vampire ass?” Gabe asked.

  Anna glanced over at him. “I’m a little nervous. I’m the only one in this car, and probably in that house, who isn’t a vampire. I’d be the easiest one for them to kill.”

  Austin glanced over his shoulder at her. “Do you want to stay in the car and wait for us, then?”

  “No, that would be even worse than going in with you,” Anna replied, shaking her head. Her short hair shook with it. “I’d be sitting here the whole time worrying about what’s going on in there. I’m coming with you.” Grabbing one of the stakes from her pile, Anna climbed out of the car.

  Gabe reached over and grabbed another one of the stakes. He handed a third stake to Crag and threw a pack of matches at Austin. “Let’s go.”

  Once they were outside, Gabe led Austin, Craig, and Anna to the backyard. If they were going to break into the house, it would be best if the neighbors didn’t see them do it. The last thing they needed was for the cops to come and arrest them before they had the chance to rescue Ben.

  Gabe climbed up the stairs to the back porch and glanced into a dark window. Through the darkness, he could make out the round kitchen table and chairs from his vision. There were dirty dishes piled high in the sink. He couldn’t see anything beyond that, though.

  Putting his ear up to the door, he tried to listen to see if he could hear anything. All he heard was complete silence. Gabe didn’t know if that meant anything, though. Someone else besides Ben could be in the house. For all Gabe knew, that someone could be trying to stay silent because they were waiting for them to arrive.

  *

  “Well, let’s do we have to do,” Austin whispered. He grabbed a broom that was leaning against the porch rail and ran towards the door, breaking the glass. Reaching inside, Austin turned the doorknob and pulled it open. Luckily, no alarm sounded. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Austin took a step back, letting Gabe in the house first. Craig followed close behind him. Austin let Anna walk in front of him. There was no way he was letting her follow behind them; he wanted Anna to walk between him and someone else at all times. Even though Anna had been practicing to become a vampire hunter for a longer period of time than Austin had, he knew that he would have to protect her if necessary.

  The whole entire house was dark, putting him on edge. As Austin glanced around every corner, he was afraid that he would find someone lurking in the shadows, just waiting to attack.

  Austin followed Gabe, who led them all upstairs. Once they reached the landing, Austin heard heavy breathing coming from one of the bedrooms. Glancing inside, he noticed Ben’s chin-length blonde hair right away; he was lying on the hardwood floor inside of a mesh net in fetal position, his hands cuffed behind his back and a scarf wrapped around his face, to prevent him from speaking or screaming.

  Gabe was the first to reach Ben. He tore through the net with his pocketknife, untied the scarf and pulled it out of his mouth. Ben immediately began coughing; from the sound of his coughing, it was obvious that the scarf had been in his mouth for a long time – probably days.

  “Why did you have a net on you?” Austin furrowed his brow.

  “I tried to fly away.”

  “Who’s keeping you here?” Austin asked, deciding that it was okay to skip a proper greeting right now. It was more important to know who they were dealing with first.

  “I don’t know,” Ben replied. “I – I think they’re someone who’s after Lexi. Whoever it is, I’ve never met them before. There’s a big guy named Mike and a smaller guy named Larry. They’re usually gone during the daylight hours.”

  “Larry Brayer and Mike Davis probably,” Austin muttered. When everyone stared back at him, he explained, “They’re two of Greg Lawrence’s best friends.”

  “Well, let’s get you out of here before they get back,” Gabe said. “Do you know where the key to the handcuffs is?”

  Ben shook his head. “No, it’s somewhere downstairs, but I don’t know where.”

  “We should go look for it,” Anna told Austin. “It will make things a lot easier if we can get those things off of him before we leave.”

  Austin nodded. “Okay, let’s go look.” He protectively wrapped his arm around Anna’s soft body as they descended the stairs.

  “If I were a key, where would I be?” Anna said, tapping her chin. “Maybe in one of the kitchen drawers?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Austin followed Anna into the kitchen. She opened the three drawers beneath the cabinets. When she looked up at him, Anna was frowning. “It’s not in here.” She began opening up the kitchen cabinets, moving the plates and glasses around hurriedly.

  “I wonder whose house this is,” Austin muttered as he began scanning the walls. Of course, there was no key rack. Larry and Mike were obviously smart enough to not leave their keys just hanging for anyone to take. “I have a feeling this is a waste of time. They probably took the keys with them.”

  “So, do you think we should just leave now then?” Anna asked, glancing over Austin. It looked like she was about to say something more, but at that moment, they both froze. The front door was being pushed open, and the sounds of two men talking filled their ears.

  Austin put a finger to his lips and crouched behind the reclining chair in the living room. Anna sunk down to the floor next to him, a worried look on her face. She reached over and grabbed Austin’s hand. He gave her hand a little squeeze as they watched in silence as the two men climbed the stairs.

  “What should we do?” Anna asked in barely a whisper.

  Austin reached in his pocket for the box of matches that Gabe had given him. A year ago, he never would have guessed that he might have to light someone on fire. Now, this box of matches could be his lifeline. Glancing at Anna to make sure that her stake was still tucked under her arm, Austin helped her off the floor and led her to the staircase.

  Chapter 15

  ****

  There was a ruffling sound in the trees behind her, and Lexi opened her eyes. She hadn’t even known that she had fallen asleep. The last thing she could remember was curling up next to Dan, his arm around her waist.

  Where was Dan? Lexi glanced around. She didn’t see him anywhere. “Dan?” she called softly, afraid of whatever was moving in the trees. Deciding that it was probably just a deer, she tried to remain calm. Lying back down on the hay, she shut her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep.

  Lexi heard the sound of crunching leaves from behind her and froze.

  “I told you we would find Hunter blood here, did I not?” a male voice said. His voice was deep and frog-like.

  “Aye, and she’s pretty, too,” a second male voice said. This voice was slightly higher-pitched. The suggestive tone in his voice raised goose bumps on Lexi’s arms.

  Should she run? Even though she was pretending that her eyes were closed, she could see the vampires approaching. They were both pretty tall and much paler than Dan. One of them had long light brown hair, and the other had dark hair which he wore slicked back. The evil looks in their eyes told her that she needed to think quick.

  “She’s not that pretty,” a third voice, this time belonging to a female, said from behind them. A dark-haired woman – who appeared to be in her early twenties – approached them. Her hair was twisted into a long braid and she wore a dark dress which revealed much more leg than most women during this time period showed. The scoop cut of the woman’s dress hugged her cleavage, and her facial features seemed far
too fragile for a vampire. Lexi recalled that Austin had once told her that female vampires were very beautiful, and this was the first time she had met one who she had found this to be true about.

  The woman took a step closer and kicked Lexi in the shins. Shocked by the blow of the kick, Lexi felt her eyes flutter open. “Are you going to allow us to drink from you or do we need to knock you out first?” the female vampire asked.

  “I – umm – I,” Lexi tumbled over her own words. Where was Dan? Why would he go off on his own without telling her? Surely, he knew that there was a risk of this happening to her again. If he wanted to protect her, why wasn’t he really standing guard?

  Before Lexi could manage to answer the vampire, she felt something hitting her head, and everything went black.

  Lexi was hoping that she’d see her mom again, but all she could see were the three vampires who had attacked her. The problem was that she couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t; everything had gone hazy in her mind.

  First, Lexi saw the girl vampire drinking from her. Once she was done, she turned to one of the guys and gave him a kiss with her blood-covered lips. The guy kissed her back, hungrily cleaning the blood off her lips before taking his turn to drink from Lexi.

  At some point, everything went dark again, and she felt herself falling into the blackness, tumbling like Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole – except Lexi knew that she wasn’t on her way to Wonderland.

  *

  When Lexi woke up, the sunlight shone in her face. She guessed, from the warm temperature, that it was sometime in the afternoon. She must have slept the whole entire night away . . . or maybe even longer.

  Lexi tried to sit up, but there was something on her chest, weighing her down like a pile of bricks. That’s when she saw it: the mess of blonde hair and the bare chest. It was Dan.