“It wasn’t you, though, not really,” Charlie said. “True darkness has a way of transforming people into what it wants for itself. Your ability to choose was taken from you the moment that necklace went around your neck.”
“But part of it was me. They were my feelings, my pain that Alarica used. If it wasn’t for the vampire who’d stopped me, I would’ve hurt so many more people.”
Charlie leaned forward. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through all these years, but you have a chance now at a new beginning, a new life.”
“I don’t see how’s that possible. My parents will see that my grave has been destroyed, and know that I’m free.”
“We’ll take care of the grave, and as for your parents, they don’t matter anymore.”
“You’re wrong about that. Erik will never give up. He will hunt me down until I’m dead.”
Charlie pursed his lips together. “Right. Your father. There’s something I should tell you.” He clicked his tongue again.
“What is it?”
“Your father, well, he’s dead.”
Chapter 27
“Dead?”
“By his own hand, I think,” Charlie mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was strange. We captured your parents about a week ago and were questioning them when all of a sudden your father keeled over. His heart just stopped. Personally, I think he stopped it himself.”
Erik was dead? A feeling sort of like being punched in the gut sucked the air from my lungs, and my head began to spin. I looked up to the circling trees above. Charlie said something else, but I didn’t hear him over the ringing in my ears.
“Eve?”
“I need to get out of here,” I said before I lost the ability to speak all together.
Charlie scrambled to his feet. “Hold on. I’ll help.”
He wrapped my arm around his shoulders and easily lifted me to a standing position. I leaned into him, trying hard to keep my feet beneath me, as he walked me through the dark forest.
I didn’t know where he was taking me, nor did I care. Erik was dead. The man who had tortured me mercilessly, the man who was also my father. I should feel glad, but the feeling wasn’t coming. In its place came a barrage of emotions too much for me to process.
When I stumbled over a log, Charlie’s hand gripped my waist. “Just a little bit further,” he said. “My car is just over that ridge.”
It wasn’t long before the forest gave way to a grass field with blades that came to my knees. The full moon provided plenty of light, but I tripped again. This time, Charlie didn’t steady me. He scooped me up and carried me in his arms. Too exhausted to protest, my head fell against his chest, and my eyes closed. I didn’t think about anything except for the steady movement of Charlie’s footsteps, the swooshing of his steps through the tall grass, and the sound of his steady heartbeat. Before I knew it, I fell asleep.
I woke when Charlie set me down and opened a car door. The black metal of the vehicle—a sports car of some kind—was shiny and had sharp lines that curved up toward the front of the car and then smoothly curved back down into a V on the hood, meeting the lines on other side of the car. A six-inch, silver metal statue of an angel with wings perched on the front hood.
“Nice car,” I mumbled, my eyes still half-closed. Charlie helped me into the leathered passenger seat, then rounded the car to hop in behind the steering wheel.
With a press of a button, he brought the engine to life. “Go back to sleep. We have about an hour’s drive.”
Charlie drove along a deserted road, passing several small towns and rural farmhouses until eventually there was nothing but trees. The area was not familiar, but the taller mountains in the distance told me we were going toward Canada.
He turned the car onto a bumpy dirt road that wound itself through an overgrown forest. It had probably been years since someone else had driven on this same path. I leaned my head against the window and, as I’d done my entire life, I didn’t allow myself to feel anything. Hearing of Erik’s death had brought many emotions to the surface, and they had almost overwhelmed me, but now, under the soft moonlight, I thought of nothing.
Charlie glanced sideways at me. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Don’t be. It was a good thing.”
“I had no idea he’d do something like that. Maybe I would’ve handled things differently.”
“What of my mother? Where is she?”
“We have her. She won’t be leaving anytime soon.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “So I really am free?”
Charlie took his eyes off the road to address me. “No. There are others who may not believe you are a dead, especially Boaz.”
“Boaz won’t be looking for me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He’s dead. At least I think he is, but if he was able to come back from the grave once…”
“How?”
“I blew up his house with him in it.”
“Did you actually see him die?” he asked.
I repressed a shiver. “No.”
“Then we can’t assume he’s dead. I’ll get a team together to search for him. But in the meantime, you need to stay hidden for a very long time.”