“Want some help cleaning up?” she asked.
“No, thank you.” I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
Larissa hesitated, and I waited for her to leave me alone. Eventually, she did. I shifted to sit on my butt and reached for a box. I set it up right beside me and scooped up a handful of pictures, ready to drop them into the box when something thin and yellowish caught my attention.
I tossed the pictures back to the floor and reached for whatever that was. Paper, maybe. I tugged on it, and the entire bottom of the box lifted to reveal a stack of weathered papers and a worn leather journal.
“What the…?” I muttered.
Sitting cross-legged, I carefully removed the stuff from the box. The papers were thin and fragile. I gently unfolded the top sheet, the creases weak and torn from having been folded for too long. Smoothing it out, momentary excitement swelled inside of me, but then it quickly deflated when I realized the writing was so faded it wasn’t legible.
Well, that’s a bummer. I checked the second paper, and it was exactly the same as the first. Ugh. I didn’t bother looking at the rest of the papers, figuring they were like the first two. Instead, I opened the journal and was met with dark, scratchy handwriting. The first entry was dated 1932.
“Whoa,” I whispered. My heart raced as I began to read.
I cannot believe my entire life has been a lie! My “mother” is not my mother. Not even my name is true.
That was it? I flipped to the next page, eager to find out what that meant, and who was writing it, but the following page was blank. I flipped through the journal until I found more writing.
It has been days of angry solitude, but I can no longer bear it. I must know the truth, and the only way to find out is to ask the woman who raised me. What she has told me only enrages me more.
My birth mother was murdered by the man who claimed to love her. By a vampire! My father—a powerful, benign witch—was robbed of his lover, of his child. Of me.
I will avenge them both. I swear it.
My stomach sank, and my hands shook. All this sounded way too familiar, but it couldn’t be. Could it? There was only one way to find out. I flipped to the next page.
I have finally found him. The vampire who killed my mother.
Sean Halstead.
“No!” I gasped and shoved the journal off my lap.
Clutching handfuls of my hair, I propped my elbows on my legs and breathed deeply. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing everything I’d just read to be some crazy dream, but when I peeked one eye open, the journal was still there, taunting me.
What was a journal with Trent’s dad’s name in it doing in my father’s belongings? How was this possible?
With trembling hands, I reached for the journal. Nausea swept through me, and I swallowed the urge to vomit. The next several pages were crudely drawn images of bloody stakes, fires, and vampire teeth. Whoever wrote this was insane. I forced myself to keep flipping pages until I found another entry.
I now know why my surrogate mother changed my last name to hers, and I no longer hold any ill feelings toward her for it.
Rector Zoya + Annmarie Lewis = me (Jim Lewis-Zoya Jones)
Me + Lisa Woods = Dan Jones
The love of an amazing woman has changed me. I can no longer continue this life of vampire hunting. Not when I have a son on the way. He will not know a life of hatred and vengeance, nor will he be burdened with this legacy, for I must protect him at all costs. From this day forward, we will forever abandon the Jones name. I will never tell him our family history, but it will live forever between these pages for we must never forget.
I rest knowing Sean Halstead will be forever cursed.
I started to hyperventilate. Rector Zoya and Annmarie Lewis. I knew those names. Memories of things Trent had told me crashed into me with the force of a thousand tidal waves.
“The Zoya-Lewis bloodline died with the baby. The Zoya ensured there would never be a descendant. Believe me, we’ve tried finding one.”
According to this journal, that wasn’t true. Jim was the baby Rector and Sean thought was dead. And he’d had a son. What ever happened to Dan?
I frantically flipped the page, and there it was—a family tree, written in list form, the handwriting much neater than previous entries. I scanned it quickly, desperate to confirm what my gut was telling me.
Rectory Zoya + Annmarie Lewis = Jim Lewis-Zoya Jones
Jim + Lisa Woods = Dan Jones (changed to Miller)
Dan + Debra Denton = Frank Miller
Frank + Sarah Benson = ??
My head swam, and my vision blurred. Who was Frank Miller? That couldn’t be my dad—his last name used to be Madison, same as mine, before he married Larissa. But… his name was clearly listed next to my mother’s, and to my knowledge, my mother had never been married to anyone else. And even if she had, why would that be listed in a book that was about my father’s family?
I couldn’t ignore the one name missing from this list, though. Mine. Because I knew that I was my mother’s only child, which meant…
Trent’s words once again slammed into me. “There’s only one way to break the curse…”
“The only way to break the curse is to unite the three bloodlines. We need to find a direct female descendant of Rector Zoya and Annmarie Lewis and change her into a Halstead vampire.”
This wasn’t happening. This could not be happening. But there was no denying what was right in front of me. I was a direct descendant of Rector Zoya and Annmarie Lewis.
And I was the only one who could break the curse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Living Nightmare
I SPENT THE NIGHT TOSSING AND turning, my mind whirling with
