Ageless (11 page)

Violet decided at that moment that
it wasn’t the best time to let her grandmother in on her little
glowing secret. She appeared to have bigger things to worry
about.

Violet and her grandmother rode in
silence after that. Her mind was swirling with everything Riveka
had said. There were things that fit with what Margo and Jonah had
told her, and then there were other things that just didn’t feel
right. It irritated her that Jeremiah Montrose had managed to worm
under her skin in such a short amount of time. She should be
smitten with a boy her own age, not a thousand-year-old vampire.
But his face kept dancing in her mind. However, she wasn’t so dumb
that she would deliberately dismiss Riveka’s story and warning.
Everything seemed to key off of Violet’s eighteenth
birthday.

It seemed like a long while later
when the car rolled to a stop. The car door opened, and Riveka
climbed out of the car followed by her grandfather, who had finally
woken up. He smiled gently at her and shrugged. Violet wanted just
a few minutes alone with him to ask him if Riveka’s story was true,
but she knew Riveka wouldn’t allow it.

Her dress made it difficult for
Violet to gracefully get out of the car. She squirmed to the edge
of the leather seat and swung her legs outside and stood. She
winced as she heard the material rip. Although it looked killer on
her, she was afraid it was too tight. One more thing ruined for the
evening. Looking around, she saw that they were in front of what
appeared to be a train station. She glanced around the parking lot
and found it was deserted. Tall trees surrounded them on every
side. She knew she shouldn’t be afraid, but the setting had an
eerie, haunted feel about it.

“Where are we?” she
asked.

“The southern tip of North
Carolina,” Riveka said. “We went quite a bit out of the way to try
to travel with a low profile. Your grandfather’s family has always
kept some private travel options open in case of just such an event
as this, so you should be grateful. The Montrose boys have their
fingers in too many things these days and after talking to Elysa,
it seems their influence is more far reaching than even I
understood. I’m afraid that they will try something stupid like
trying to come after you.”

Would that be so stupid?
Violet thought, her heart starting to pound
against her chest. She scolded herself. Jeremiah was dangerous, yet
she found herself hoping that he would appear, if for nothing else
than to prove that everything he had told her wasn’t some made-up
story to manipulate her.

“What are we going to do if he
does?” she asked.

A figure wrapped in black leather
appeared at her side. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head
about Jeremiah Montrose.” Violet didn’t know why she had thought
that she would have seen the last of Elysa. “I’ve got lots of
experience dealing with those Montrose boys. You be a good little
girl and listen to your grandmother.”

The outright disdain in Elysa’s
voice made Violet angry. She may be naive, but she knew that
Elysa’s motivations had nothing to do with helping her family and
everything to do with getting back at Jeremiah. Violet didn’t trust
her or her intentions, especially when she saw the dislike for her
that Elysa wasn’t even bothering to hide. A gym bag appeared out of
nowhere and hit Violet in the chest, almost causing her double
over.

“Oops, sorry,” Elysa said with a
sly grin. At Riveka’s scowl, she shrugged. “Your grandmother packed
a few things for you. There’s a restroom right inside the station.
Let me escort you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Violet
retorted.

A strong hand encircled her arm and
Violet felt herself jerked forward. Elysa’s grip caused Violet to
go up on her tippy toes and she had to bite her lip to keep from
crying at the pain flashing up her arm. She looked to her
grandmother for help, but saw that Riveka was tapping away on the
screen of her smartphone.

“You will find that I am not one of
those saps you’ve been hanging around who is willing to let you
believe that you have a say or an opinion, Violet. Your grandmother
asked me to make sure that Jeremiah doesn’t lay a finger on you,
and that’s what I will do.” Violet found herself dragged up the
stairs and into the train station, which like outside was oddly
empty. Moments later they were in the restroom and she was being
shoved into a stall. When Elysa released her, Violet rubbed the
area on her upper arm, wishing the pain away. She glared at Elysa,
who looked pleased with herself.

“I notice that you didn’t include
yourself in that statement,” Violet said warily.

Elysa laughed. The noise was so
loud that it seemed to be coming from all areas of the room.
“Consider yourself fortunate. Unlike some others of my kind, I’m
not into scrawny little high school girls no matter how good you
smell.”

Violet flushed as she crossed her
arms over herself. She didn’t want to compare herself to Elysa, but
it was inevitable. Elysa must have been older when she became a
vampire, and that mature beauty was on display now. Violet had a
ways to go. She twisted a face at Elysa and then slammed the door
in the vampire’s face, locking the door before backing away. The
room was silent.

“Just so you know, doors won’t keep
me out if I want to come in,” Elysa’s voice floated down to
her.

Violet spun around and found Elysa
crouching across the span of the of the bathroom stall like a
spider waiting to capture its prey. Her fangs were on full display.
Violet’s back hit the door and she started fumbling with the
lock.

Elysa rolled her eyes. “As if.
Hurry up. I’m waiting for you right outside.”

Violet blinked and then Elysa was
gone. Her hand crept up to her chest to feel her heart. She wasn’t
sure where the desire to rebel against Elysa came from, although
she suspected it had to do with the fact that Jeremiah had once had
a relationship with her. It wasn’t in Violet’s nature to question.
She usually kept her head down and did exactly what she was told.
But tonight she didn’t want to. It seemed unfortunate that at the
moment she decided she wanted to make her own choices, she was
confronted with a vengeful vampire who was going to use Violet for
her own purposes.

Violet slid out of the beautiful
red dress and sighed. When she had stood in front of the mirror
earlier with Margo, she had no idea that her evening was going to
end like this. Her mind was swimming. She felt exhausted. She
tossed the dress over the door so it would hang and not wrinkle,
and then dug into the duffel bag. Inside, she found jeans, a loose
T-shirt, and a pair of brown sandals. She pulled them out. She
wanted to be comfortable, and by slipping on clothes that were more
in line with what she wore every day when she wasn’t in her school
uniform, she felt more like herself.

There was a small make-up bag
inside as well that she took out and set beside the bag. She threw
the high heels in the bag and stepped out of the stall, expecting
to find Elysa waiting for her. She was alone. Violet made her way
over to the mirror. In the small bag, she found a ponytail holder
and a small bottle of lip gloss. Sweeping her hair up into a high
ponytail, she saw that her cheeks were pale. Her eyes were wide and
haunted. Reluctantly, she completed the look with a touch of lip
gloss.

This was the face she knew well,
but it was the old Violet. Try as she may, after the events of the
last twenty-four hours, she didn’t think that she was going to be
able to go back to being that girl. Too much had happened. She felt
different. So who did that make her now? She didn’t know and it was
unsettling.

Unwilling to leave the red dress or
stuff it into the duffel bag, she slid it off the door of the stall
door and put it over her arm. Taking a deep breath, she walked back
out in the main corridor of the station. Again she was struck by
how empty it was. Her grandparents clearly had more resources than
she imagined, and it just illuminated all of the things that she
still didn’t know.

Elysa was leaning against the wall
just outside the bathroom, filing her nails and looking bored. At
Violet’s reappearance, she pushed away and stepped close to Violet.
She shuddered as she felt Elysa smell her hair.

“I thought you said you weren’t
into girls like me,” Violet said, trying to keep the quiver of fear
out of her voice.

“That’s true, but you do smell
delicious. Virgin blood is so tasty,” Elysa whispered with longing
in her voice.

“Elysa!” Riveka’s voice boomed off
the brick walls and Violet jumped. For once she was grateful to see
her grandmother’s face. “Unless you have forgotten, this train
leaves in less than five minutes. I suggest we make our way to it.
Now.”

Elysa stepped around Violet and grinned down at her.
Without her heels on, Elysa towered over her.

“Let’s go, Vi. Chop, chop. Don’t
want to piss off your grandmother,” Elysa said with a smirk. “I’m
looking forward to getting better acquainted. Later.”

Violet didn’t like the look in
Elysa’s eyes one bit. “I’ll follow you,” she said, gesturing for
the vampire to go first. Elysa chuckled. Violet didn’t want Elysa
anywhere where she couldn’t see her. Elysa curled her index finger
at Violet and then spun around. The clicking of her boots on the
tiled floor was the only sound in the large room. Violet followed
after her slowly.

Outside the door, Elysa turned to the right and
walked on a pathway nestled next to the building. Violet kept close
to the wall in the light, and saw the railroad tracks spread out in
front of them. They reached the edge of the train platform, and
Violet was surprised to see that there were two railroad cars
sitting there waiting, an engine and a passenger car.

Her grandparents were already
waiting on the platform underneath a small wooden sign that Violet
couldn’t read. Nicholas seemed to be admiring the train, which
didn’t surprise Violet. Of all of her memories of her grandfather,
most of them involved him sitting in his study taking apart
different mechanical parts and then putting them back together. It
made Violet smile to see that if nothing else, her grandfather was
acting true to form.

Riveka saw them coming and looked annoyed.

“You always were one to dawdle,”
she said, looking Violet up and down. “You look more like you now.”
Violet had no way of knowing if that was a compliment or an insult.
If she were to guess, she’d pick the latter. Then Riveka looked at
Elysa. “So you are sure this is the right thing to do? I feel like
we’re running away.”

“Of course we are doing the right
thing. Jeremiah is going to be obsessed with trying to get Violet
back. But he’s going to assume we are traveling north. He won’t
figure out that we went south until it’s much too late for him to
do anything about it,” Elysa said with a dark chuckle.

Violet tried to focus on what they
were talking about, but then she saw two dark shadows emerge from
the darkness behind her grandparents. She had a moment of pure
conflict. On one hand, she didn’t want to go anywhere with Elysa,
but on the other, no matter how awful her grandmother was, she
didn’t want any harm to come to her. Then she saw features emerge
on the faces, and she realized with a dizzying disappointment they
weren’t the faces that she was hoping to see. These were strangers;
huge, ugly, menacing strangers.

“Grandmother, watch out!” she cried
out.

Riveka looked over her shoulder and
grimaced. “Really, Elysa?” She didn’t look the least bit threatened
or concerned. If anything, she looked more annoyed.

“If you expect me to stay a step
ahead of the Montrose brothers AND keep your granddaughter safe,
Riveka, I had to call in reinforcements.” Elysa put her hands on
her hips, and she and Riveka glared at each other. Finally Riveka
looked away and sniffed. “Fine, but they aren’t riding with us. The
passenger car is small enough already.”

Violet was in awe at her
grandmother’s spunk. Riveka was fearless. It made Violet feel a
small wedge of admiration. She realized that she didn’t know a lot
about Riveka at all, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that
her grandmother didn’t like to talk about her background. She had
told Violet once during one of the rare visits when Violet was
young that it wasn’t the past that defined you, but the path you
chose for yourself.

Nicholas had already sprung up to
the exterior platform of the passenger car. “C’mon, Riveka. Surely
you can yell more inside. It’s time to go.” He grinned as he leaned
out and Violet was surprised to see her grandmother purse her lips,
but say nothing. Riveka took her husband’s hand and gingerly
stepped across the gap and onto the railcar.

Violet looked around and realized
that she had been left alone on the platform with three vampires.
The two recent arrivals were eyeing her in a way that didn’t make
her comfortable at all. Quickly she rushed over to the passenger
car and threw her duffel onto the floor of the car behind her
grandfather. She gratefully accepted his hand to pull her onboard.
He gave her a small hug before pushing her toward the
door.

She looked over her shoulder at
him, but he gestured for her to go ahead. Then Violet made her way
through the small doorway. Once inside, she looked through the
large window and saw that Elysa was still on the platform talking
with the two men and gesturing toward the passenger car. That
didn’t make Violet feel the slight bit comforted.