Passions Read online

  Chloe hadn’t given much thought to holiday celebrations or plans, but she suspected that her mother would want to arrange something.

  That thought made her cringe. How would Gavin deal with that? By then, he would be human. Could they explain the truth to her mother or tell unending lies about how and when this handsome Brit had appeared?

  That was a bridge she would cross when they came to it. For now, all she was concerned about was the present and just five nights ahead.

  She parked in front of the grocery store and pulled out her long list from her back pocket. She hoped that no one would notice her red eyes or the way her feet dragged a little as she walked.

  The grocery store hadn’t changed, except for the holiday decorations sprinkled here and there. Grabbing a cart, she began.

  While passing down can after can of vegetables into her cart, she couldn’t help but catch snippets of words from the conversation down the aisle.

  She looked, her attention diverted for the moment, at two older women who wore concerned looks.

  “Can you believe they found her there in the ditch? Dry as a bone, bless her heart,” one said, clucking her tongue worriedly as she pressed a bony hand to her rouged cheeks.

  At first, Chloe thought they might have been talking about a stray animal. But as the conversation continued, she realized that was not the case.

  “How are her parents doing?” the other asked, leaning so far forward that her string of pearls dangled down from around her neck.

  The first woman who seemed a little younger than the other shook her head. “Not good I’m afraid. They were already having marital issues, and with this, I’m not sure how long they’ll stay together.”

  “That’s just terrible,” the second exclaimed.

  The curiosity bug bit Chloe, and she approached the two women with her cart.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” she began, “but I couldn’t help overhearing. Who was found in a ditch?”

  The two women didn’t seem the least bothered by her intrusion. Chloe’s first impressions of them were rather stereotypical. The women looked like out of place in a grocery store. They might have been more at home in a beauty shop, the way they gossiped and by their flamboyant fashion tastes.

  The second and older lady angled to face Chloe, including her in the conversation. “You haven’t heard, honey?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I haven’t been to town in a while.”

  The younger lady said, “They found Susie Hopkins dead in a ditch out on Old Mill Road just on the outskirts of town.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible.”

  Murders happened all the time in Atlanta, but she had never expected that kind of tragedy to come to Carter Lake. Such crimes were devastating to a small community like this where everyone knew everyone and families were connected in all sorts of ways.

  “She’s the third one in the last month.”

  If Chloe had been drinking anything, she was sure it would have shot out of her nose. “Third?” she asked, her eyes wide and jaw slacked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the younger. “And it’s the same with all of them, bled dry and their neck and shoulders torn to bits. The police think it’s a rabid animal, but the county and state aren’t giving us all the details if that’s what it really is.”

  “I personally think,” the older butted in, “that it’s someone murdering these poor children. If it were an animal, they would have been eaten, not left to bleed out. And, I heard that there was practically no blood at the crime scene at all. It’s like someone let them bleed out somewhere else before dumping them there.”

  “Sheriff Lemasters isn’t telling the community anything. Darlin’, are you gonna be ok?”

  Chloe felt light headed and nauseated. To these ladies, she must have looked either pale or green around the gills. The way they talked about the murders, the blatant detail, and things that should have been considered taboo, it was too much.

  It took her a moment to realize they were speaking to her and she replied with, “Oh, yes, I’m fine. It’s just so horrible. Did you know the families?”

  One snorted a laugh. “Of course, we know their families. Everyone does. They’re holding a memorial service tonight for Susie at the school gymnasium. It starts at seven. Will you be there?”

  Chloe paused and then shook her head. “No, probably not. But I’ll pay my respects later. I have other plans I can’t break.”

  It was a lie she had used before many times with her friends in Atlanta. It was a typical excuse, one she had rehearsed time and time again until it sounded perfectly believable. It came in handy now when her mind couldn’t lock down on any solid concept.

  She excused herself and hurried away on her jelly legs to continue her shopping.

  But no matter how hard she tried to focus, her thoughts kept going back to what the ladies said about this new rash of murders.

  Bled dry. Neck and shoulders ripped apart. Found in a ditch. No blood at the scene at all.

  It was too gory, too strange. Chloe agreed it couldn’t be an animal. Animals don’t drink blood, and if the body was in a fair enough condition for the children to be identified, this was no rogue bear or coyote.

  But, a senseless murderer wouldn’t leave such a mess behind. Wouldn’t it be a single knife wound or gunshot? And it wouldn’t explain the victims being bled dry.

  The idea she wanted to avoid couldn’t be denied. If she had heard about these murders weeks ago when they first happened, she wouldn’t have even considered it. But after learning that there are more things out there that go bump in the night, Chloe imagined the worst.

  What if Gavin was not the only vampire in Carter Lake?

  Chloe sat on the edge of the couch cushion, waiting for the sun to set. She’d sat there several times before while patiently waiting for Gavin to appear. But she had never been this nervous.

  Her hands were fidgeting in her lap, and her mind was in a million places. After coming home from the grocery store, she made herself some baked chicken and rice for dinner, but only took a few bites. Her stomach was so tied in knots that she was afraid to eat too much.

  She wasn’t worried about Gavin being the murderer. She knew for a fact that he wasn’t. Gavin spent the whole of last night with her, so there was no way he could have killed that girl. Plus, his obvious grumpy behavior during the detox was proof that he hadn’t fed.

  It was the thought that something else was lurking out there in the woods and would probably kill again.

  Finally, dusk fell over the mountain. Every little noise made her heart skip a beat, thinking it was Gavin coming up to the hatch in the kitchen floor or another vampire snooping around her cabin outside. She went deathly still each time and listened, but nothing more.

  Chloe groaned in anguish and held her face in her hands. Sometimes, she wished she could go down there herself and drag him up. It would save both of them time. However, she knew that Gavin was too volatile during his detox. She wondered if he would be as grumpy on this night as he was the night before.

  Finally, Chloe was sure she heard him and rushed to the kitchen. Still fully dressed from the trip to town, she squatted down by where she believed the trap door was. Even after all the times she saw him come up, she couldn’t find the seams in the wood that differentiated the door from the floor. And she couldn’t determine which knot in the wood belonged to the hatch door, either.

  The door tilted up no more than a few inches and bobbed there for a moment as if Gavin were struggling to lift the wood. Chloe lent him a hand and pulled up the door, flooding Gavin and the few stair treads behind him with florescent light.

  Gavin was in a sorry state. He was still extremely pale compared to normal, and, if it were possible, it appeared his face had aged half a decade while he slept. What’s more, he wasn’t angry anymore. The scowl that seemed fixed on his face was gone, and in its place was a bone-deep weariness. Chloe felt tired just by looking at him.

  She felt pity for
him, knowing that he was suffering for the chance to be human. But it wasn’t only that. He suffered so that they could have a chance at being together.

  Chloe felt a new level of appreciation for Gavin as she watched him literally crawl up the slanted ladder on his hands and knees. He was truly trying. This wasn’t some half-hearted attempt to appease her. This was what real commitment looked like. Yes, he was doing it because he was sick of being a vampire, but the benefits were wide reaching for both of them. He was willing to make the change and endure the consequences. Brent would have never done that for her.

  Once his upper body reached the kitchen floor, Gavin stretched out his torso along the planks of wood and nestled his head in his folded up arms. His other half was still resting against the stairs.

  Chloe smiled despite herself. “Good morning,” she whispered cheerfully.

  Gavin grunted but didn’t move. Still holding the trap door suspended over his body, she gave a short giggle.

  “Are you going to climb the rest of the way out of there or do I have to drag you?” she asked. She kept her tone playful as if she were talking to a child. Chloe was enjoying this a little too much.

  Gavin turned his head to face her and gave her a sleepy smile, his eyes minimally open and one eyebrow arched. She grinned, admiring how handsome he was despite the detox effects and exhaustion that was so prevalent in his eyes. He couldn’t be feeling any better, but he certainly was in a more pleasant mood than yesterday.

  It took him a few tries, but Gavin managed to pull himself up and out of the trap door and fully into the kitchen. At first, the vampire laid flat on his stomach, but then after much struggling with his own lethargy, he rose to a sitting position and leaned back against a set of cabinet doors.

  Chloe closed the hatch and sat in front of him, watching his head and eyes roll as he fought the sleep that tried to overcome him. All the while she smiled, thoroughly amused.

  “You gonna be ok?” she asked.

  Gavin mumbled an affirmative before opening his eyes as wide as he could to see her clearly.

  “Did you not sleep well?”

  He cleared his throat and replied, “I slept fine, that’s what’s the matter. When I sleep too deeply, it’s often difficult to wake back up.”

  “I’d offer you some coffee if I didn’t think it would kill you.”

  Gavin smirked and let his eyelids droop a little. “It probably would.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Chloe knew that question was a dangerous one, especially since she asked it yesterday and nearly got her head chewed off.

  Gavin barely had the energy to shake his head. “No. Just give me a moment.”

  Chloe didn’t have a moment. Though this spectacle put a smile on her face, her heart was still full of anxiety.

  “I was in town this afternoon, and I heard a couple of older ladies talking about something that’s been going on in Carter Lake for a while now.”

  Gavin, through his fatigue, gave her his undivided attention. His brows furrowed together as he must have picked up on the worry in her voice.

  “There has been a string of murders. Little kids are getting torn apart and left in ditches.” She paused to observe the strange mix of confusion, worry, and odd fascination in his expression. “Each one was bled dry with lacerations on their neck and shoulders. One girl was found this morning.”

  “That’s terrible,” Gavin commented, and she could detect the genuine sentiments in his words.

  Chloe took a deep, steadying breath and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Gavin, could this have been done by a vampire?”

  He didn’t respond at first but gazed at her with that same muddled look as if he were still processing what she had told him.

  “It’s possible. Though, I haven’t seen another vampire feed. You forget, I haven’t been out in the world as much as I am able to. I’ve stayed on this mountain for centuries.”

  “That one vampire you met before, how long ago was that?”

  Gavin shook his head. “That was over half a century ago. He’s not around anymore. And even if he was, he made it very clear to me that he wasn’t the type to do what you’re describing.”

  Chloe bit her lips thoughtfully. “Is there any way we would be able to tell if a vampire did it?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I’d have to see the body or go to the place the vampire has been. I remember the one I met before had a distinct scent that is unlike humans or animals.”

  “If a vampire was in an area, could you smell it?”

  “Most assuredly, I could.”

  Chloe nodded and smiled. “Great. We’ll go tonight. The ladies told me where they found the girl.”

  She stood up and grabbed for Gavin’s hand, but when she tried to pull him up with her, he didn’t even budge. Chloe looked back at him and saw the same amusement in his smile as before when he laid half in the basement and half in the kitchen.

  “Didn’t I say I needed a moment?”

  Now it was Chloe’s turn to plop down on the floor and Gavin to laugh at her silliness in a loopy, half asleep way.

  The drive down the mountain with Gavin was not like their first. He was more relaxed and not as panicked as before. The grogginess from the detox might have acted as a tranquilizer to his nerves. She wasn’t sure if she preferred Gavin exhausted like this or grumpy.

  Chloe assumed this extended bought of tiredness was a result of malnutrition. She remembered days when she had gone without eating before. The first stage was irritability, and then the second was fatigue. If she didn’t get food in her system, Chloe would drag her feet all day, completely miserable.

  It was with this recollection that Chloe realized that Gavin’s detox side effects were not much different than how hers would be if she hadn’t eaten in a while. But she didn’t turn into a creature that couldn’t control her actions.

  Chloe then remembered that this was his third night. Gavin said before that on his fourth night, he became unconscious and hunted whether he wanted to or not. That meant this might be their last night together before she had to lock him away.

  She turned to look at the way the bright moonlight shined off of Gavin’s features. After this night, loneliness would be her new companion. How would they manage being apart for four whole nights? It was something she hadn’t considered before when they originally concocted this plan. They had spent so much time with each other over the past couple of weeks that it would seem strange to not have him lurking around the cabin.

  Turning her attention back to the twisting roads at the base of the mountain, Chloe sighed. “How’s tomorrow going to work?”

  “What’s that?” Gavin asked, his voice cracking a little with sleepiness.

  “Tomorrow. It’ll be your fourth day. What do I need to do?”

  Gavin shifted under his seat belt as if he were trying to get comfortable. “I won’t be able to come out of the basement. I suggest that, sometime during the day, you find a way to lock me in.”

  Chloe remembered seeing padlocks at the hardware store and nodded. “Ok, but what about on the seventh night?”

  He was silent for a moment, probably thinking, then said, “I’m not sure. I may be very weak by then. Either that or more determined to feed.”

  Chloe came to the first stop sign at the main road that led into Carter Lake and turned left. There were no cars out, and very few house lights were still on this late.

  “How do I protect myself from you in case a lock doesn’t work?”

  A few beats of silence later, Gavin replied, “I’m really not sure.”

  Chloe felt a sliver of fear snake through her core at his answer. How could he not be sure? “What about garlic? Silver? Wooden stakes? Crosses? Holy water?”

  As she rattled off all the possible stereotypical weaknesses of vampires, Gavin grew frustrated and cut her off with a sharp gesture. “I told you. I don’t know, Chloe.”

  When she looked over, Chloe saw that he was rubbing his forehead, and his e
yes were squeezed shut. She wondered if he was having another temptation spell. As they passed the worn-down gas station on the left, Chloe began to debate whether or not she should turn back around and leave this for another time.

  But, knowing that this was the last night he could wander amongst the living, and after becoming human, he wouldn’t have the supernatural sense of smell, this was their only chance to find out if this was really a rash of vampire attacks or a rabid animal.

  “Gavin?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I’m just…” he began. Chloe heard the annoyance in his tone, and she didn’t know if it was caused by her or if it was self-directed. “I’m wondering if this was a bad idea.”

  Chloe no longer felt fear but a twinge of panic. What did he mean? That going into town was a bad idea? Trying to become human? Or trying to have a relationship with her?

  In a moment of blind, emotional turmoil, Chloe began to second guess all of these things herself.

  Yes, going into town with a hungry vampire might not be the smartest thing in the world, but it was for a good reason. Chloe romantically hoped that perhaps they could solve these murders together and save lives. If it was a vampire, they could fight it off or perhaps reason with it. If not, then Gavin was the best man for the job to find whoever, or whatever, was killing the children of Carter Lake.

  They had gone head-long into this detox process without any planning, either. Chloe was sure that neither of them had thought this through. All they knew was the end result, and that was all that mattered. But there were too many risks. Her late aunt might have been right in denying Gavin the accountability partner he needed.

  Chloe didn’t know how to defend herself, and Gavin seemed just as clueless. Over the years, he’d probably only learned how he couldn’t be killed rather than how to kill him at all. What would she do when it came time to feed him the vinegar on the seventh day? There were so many ways that this could go wrong, and she could end up the victim of his ravenous hunger.

  And where did that leave them? If Gavin stayed a vampire, would he still want to be with her, a mere mortal human? Chloe knew her own heart. She wouldn’t abandon him just because things didn’t go their way. But would he want to put himself through the heartache of watching her grow old and die just like her Aunt Mary Anne?