What happened next was so quick, so instinctual, that I could barely believe it. With a flick of his wrist, the baselard flew from Matthew’s fingers right into the vampire’s left eye.
She tossed the body aside with a grunt and reached blindly for the dagger, trying to pull it from her damaged eye. Without wasting a single second, I sprinted toward my target, my stake lifted high. A scream ripped from my throat as I brought it down with as much force as I could muster.
Straight through her heart.
I cowered, covering my ears as the vampire let out an inhuman-sounding shriek and then went quiet. She collapsed in a heap on the ground, her one undamaged eye staring unseeing at the sky as blackish blood pooled around the shaft of the stake that protruded from her chest.
At once, my bracelet went cool against my wrist as I lay there panting, entirely spent.
“I’ll destroy it,” Aidan said, dragging the vampire’s corpse away, toward the edge of the clearing while Matthew knelt over the crumpled form that remained. I couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see who was lying there with their life’s blood soaking the grass.
And then I heard voices, calling out to us. Footsteps growing louder. Next thing I knew, they were there surrounding us—my friends. I backed away, one hand covering my mouth as my stomach roiled in my gut.
“Someone call 911!” Matthew shouted, and I watched numbly as Tyler pulled out his cell phone and started stabbing the screen.
“C’mon, we’re losing her!” Matthew cried.
Tyler was yelling into his cell. Whitney was beside him, feeding him information about our location.
It was happening exactly as I’d seen it. I began to hyperventilate as Matthew ripped someone’s shirt into long strips—Joshua’s, I noted, seeing him standing there in nothing but a thin T-shirt now.
Matthew knelt over the prone form on the ground, pressing the wads of cloth against the victim’s neck to stanch the bleeding. Cece was there, leaning on Sophie’s shoulder crying.
And Jack . . . Jack was kneeling beside Matthew, sobbing. “Stay with us, Kate! You’ve got to stay with us. Don’t leave me, damn it.”
I could smell the blood now—way too much blood. I gagged once, twice before my knees buckled and I fell to the ground, struggling to catch my breath.
Instantly, Aidan was back, there by my side. “They’re doing everything they can,” he said soothingly. “Help is on the way.”
“You’ve got to do something,” I said, my voice rising in desperation. I clutched the front of his shirt with both my hands, shaking him as hard as I could.
Kate was dying. Dying! But Aidan . . . Aidan could save her.
I struggled to my feet, dragging him with me. “You’ve got to do it, Aidan. You’ve got to turn her. Now!”
He shook his head, his eyes slightly wild. “What are you talking about?”
“Save her,” I sobbed. “Turn her. It’s her only chance.”
“I can’t do that, Violet.”
“Yes, you can. You’ve got to. Don’t you see?”
“Are you mad?” His voice was a harsh whisper now. “I would never sentence anyone to suffer this existence. Never.”
“Kate!” Jack cried out, his voice breaking on the single syllable. “C’mon, you’ve got to fight. Stay with us. Please, Kate!”
In the distance, a siren wailed.
“Please, Aidan,” I begged. “Please. Before it’s too late.”
His cool gaze met mine, chilling me to the bone. “I’m sorry, Violet. I can’t. I won’t.”
A sob tore from my throat. I slapped a hand over my mouth, stifling it as I turned away from him. I stumbled back toward my friends just in time to see Matthew drop his chin toward his chest in defeat, his blood- covered hands resting on his thighs.
“She’s gone,” he said.
20 ~ Dead Wrong
I’m not sure how I made it through Kate’s funeral without losing my mind—how any of us did, really. The last week of break had been nothing short of a nightmare. Only, there’d been no waking from this one, no sigh of relief when the alarm sounded and you found yourself tucked safely in bed.
My sorrow was unrelenting. I’d screwed up; I’d somehow sent Kate out to suffer what should have been Jack’s fate. How had I missed the clues? True, I hadn’t expected to find my friends in Atlanta during break. I had expected this vision to take place closer to home. The semiformal attire had made me think prom, maybe. The filled-out, fully leaved trees suggested later in the season, at least in New York. I’d thought there was still time to figure it out.
I’d been wrong.
Thanks to Aidan’s mind tricks, the Atlanta police, along with Kate’s family, were convinced that some random, depraved murderer had killed her in a particularly gruesome manner. A botched robbery, they theorized. After all, rich kids wandering out in the woods around a posh country club would be easy targets. That explanation was good enough for them.
But those of us who knew the truth, well . . . we’d have to live with it for the rest of our lives.
School had offered us an extra week’s time off, but we’d all been anxious to return, to be together again. The first day back, they’d called us all to the school’s counselor’s office, even Matthew. I know they were trying their best, but talking about it didn’t help. Not for me and certainly not for Jack.
Jack, who had headed back inside the club after receiving a frantic text from Kate that night. Only he hadn’t bothered to text her back to tell her he was coming, and so she’d gone out looking for him.
And I would never, ever forgive myself for that.
My cell, set to vibrate, buzzed beside me. Patsy. With a sigh, I connected the call.
“Hey, Mom.” I lay back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“Hey,” Patsy said. “So, how are you doing?”
“Fine,” I lied. “I mean, I’m hanging in there.”
I heard her sigh. “I really wish you’d taken the school up on their offer and stayed home a few more days. It’s just too soon after something like that.”
“Well, I talked to the school counselor yesterday.” I figured that would satisfy her.
“Oh, that’s good. Okay.” I could hear the relief in her voice. “I . . . um . . . I kind of need to talk to you about something important, but I know it’s not really a good time.”
“Well, this is kind of big. It’s quite a shock, even for me.”
“Okay. Go on,” I prodded.
“Paul’s asked me to marry him,” she blurted out. “And I said yes.”
“Wow. That’s . . . great,” I said lamely. “Congratulations.”
“There’s more,” she warned, and I braced for it. “We’re moving to Australia. In June, right after your graduation.”
“You’re
“I know it seems sudden, but we’ve been talking about it for a while now. And . . . well, I figured you’d probably want to go straight to Paris and get settled once you graduate anyway, so—”
“Wait, what do you mean, Paris?” I sat up, glancing over at the calendar on the wall, realizing with a start that April first—decision day—had come and gone. My heart began to race, my palms damp now. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Didn’t you check the university’s website on the first of the month? I thought you told me—”
“I totally forgot to check. Are you saying the official acceptance came in the mail already?”
“Yes! The American University of Paris. I thought you said it was your top choice.”
