Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (37 page)

I opened my eyes and saw Cesar folded next to me, eyes closed. I glanced at the small dart now sticking out of his neck, and the remains of the pleasure that had been pooling warmly in my torso twisted into anger. I lashed out with my foot and heard his collarbone crack under my heel.

Ava gasped and I looked up. Instantly the anger was gone, replaced with humiliation at what she’d seen me become, even if only for a moment. I turned to face her, trying to figure out how I could explain, but her terrified look was not aimed at me but over to my right. Tom was striding towards us; Valerie, Damian, and Luis walked behind him in a loose cluster.

“Oh my god, there’s more of them?” Ava whispered, and then fainted, crumpling onto the floor in a movement disturbingly like Cesar’s. I darted to her just quickly enough to keep her from cracking her head against a metal chair on her way down.

“How do you figure she knew what we were?” Tom asked as he got closer. I shrugged.

“You’ll have to ask her when she wakes up.”

I went to gather her in my arms and stand, but Tom shook his head.

“There’s enough we’re already going to have to will these people into forgetting—having even more see a slight woman like you carry someone her size with no apparent difficulty will just give us more work to do. Let me carry her to the plane—Sam just landed. You can keep her company there while we finish up.”

It was then I noticed that Luis, Valerie, and Damian had been stopping to talk to people as they walked toward us. I turned around and saw that Marcus, Jade, and Orchid were doing the same with the people who had clustered behind us. I realized how fortunate we were that this had happened in a small airport—if we’d been in LAX we’d have really had some problems.

I nodded to Tom and he scooped Ava up, cradling her as he walked down the terminal to the exit that would take us to our plane. I followed him out, trying to decide if it would be better for me to bring her around as soon as Tom left us in the plane, so I’d have a chance to calm her down before we were ten thousand feet off the ground and she was the only thing with a live heartbeat for miles around, or if it would be better to just hope she stayed unconscious for the rest of the trip.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t take him out sooner,” Tom said as he walked. “The humans gathered around you kept getting in the way of our shots, and Damian had to keep reminding the rest of them that we did not need to add any human casualties to this mess. And then Cesar had Ava again, and it took a while to maneuver into a position where one of us could shoot him without him noticing our movement through the crowd.” He paused, and smiled at me. “I’m impressed though—for someone with minimal training, you handled yourself quite well.”

I still hadn’t decided whether to wake Ava when Tom slid her onto the onboard sofa and returned to the airport. Even Sam left the plane once I was there, though I wasn’t sure if it was because they could use the help inside or because he still didn’t feel comfortable enough with me to hang around. Ava’s eyes started to flutter, though, making my decision for me.

She groaned, and sat up slowly.

“Where the hell
am
I now?” she said, looking around at our unusually luxurious accommodations.

“In a private jet—it’s just the two of us. We’re still outside the Resistencia airport.”

“Wait a sec—you get turned into a vampire and now all the sudden you have a private jet? Shit, sign me up!”

I laughed. Ava must not be too traumatized if she was able to crack jokes like that.

“No, it’s not mine,
it’s
Temora’s—and don’t ask me who she is right now; it’s too complicated.”

Ava looked at me, and I shrugged.

“Alright—I guess the more important question is whether I’m about to be turned into someone’s breakfast.” She paused, quirking an eyebrow at me. “Am I?”

“No. The rest of the vampires who are here with me—they’re all the good guys.
Er
, good guys and gals, I guess,” I amended, thinking of Valerie, Jade, and Orchid. “Cesar’s an evil bastard, of course, but he’s been knocked out with a powerful neurotoxin and won’t be a problem anymore.”

“You mean that dart thing I saw the one guy fire didn’t kill him?”

“No,” I said,
then
realized I couldn’t actually be completely sure. Tom had wanted to kill him after all. “Well, I don’t think so, at least.”

“Does it make me a horrible person to kind of hope it did?”

I laughed, thinking of the anger that had welled up and shoved my foot through his collarbone. I guess I didn’t need to worry about having freaked Ava out with that display after all.

“No, it doesn’t.” I paused, unsure how to ask my next question, and whether I even had the right to. “Did he—are you okay?”

She looked up at me, surprised.

“Yeah—you were the one I was worried about. He made a few obnoxious passes at me, but nothing beyond that. He spent most of his time fantasizing about how he couldn’t wait to kill you, how I was the perfect bait, how he planned to torture you, and all I’d ever see of you would be a pile of ashes—” She stopped, shuddering. “That’s why I was so relieved to see you standing there when I got off the plane, alive and well.” She paused, her face mouth twisting wryly. “Well, as alive and well as you get these days, I guess.”

“So you—you’re still my friend, even knowing what I am?”

“Of course I am,” she said, popping off the couch and walking over to where I was leaning against the cabin wall, giving me another hug. “I’m sorry I was such a shit to you before.” She stepped back, giving me a sly look. “I’m actually kind of curious about it now, what it’s really like. Is the garlic thing true?”

I nodded, wincing as just the memory of garlic made my stomach churn, and she grinned.

“No more Luigi’s for me when I’m hanging out with you then, I guess,” she said.

I couldn’t believe how well she was taking it now. It literally didn’t register; I went over to the sofa and sank into it, trying to convince myself this wasn’t just some insane dream that I’d wake up from to discover that I was actually still on the plane on the way down to Argentina. Ava came over and sat next to me, tentatively resting her hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, what about you?
Are you alright?”

“I guess,” I said, my voice sounding hollow even to me. I dropped back against the couch, my eyes shutting.

As soon as they did, I became immediately and painfully aware of her heartbeat, of the scent of her blood running just under her skin, or how kind her fingers felt on my shoulder. Surely she wouldn’t mind sharing just a little, a voice within me rationalized, and I bolted upright, shaking.

“
Aly
?” Ava said, leaning closer. The scent was unbearable; I froze, afraid that if I moved, if I opened my mouth to speak, it would destroy my last inches of self-control and I’d launch myself at her neck.

Aly
, hold on, I’m coming.
Tom’s voice echoed softly, barely registering in the back of my mind, and a few seconds later I heard steps vibrating the metal stairs outside the elevator. He zipped in so quickly that he was beside me before Ava even registered his presence, and I saw her eyes widen in my peripheral vision. Now the scent of her fear blended with the enticing pull of her heartbeat, and it was everything I could do not to lunge at her that second. Tom slipped his hand down and clenched my wrist in an iron grip.

“I won’t let you,” he whispered, too quietly for her to hear, and knowing he would hold me back helped me relax just enough to close my eyes and lean my head forward, resting it against his stomach.

“What’s wrong with her?” Ava asked.

“It’s been too long since she fed, and the stress of the day is catching up to her. I need you to grab four packs from the cabin fridge over there and bring them to me,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, sounding confused. She stood, and as she moved away from me I fought two warring emotions. Part of me was relieved—the further she was, the easier it would be for Tom to stop me if I lost control. Another part of me, however, raged at the sudden loss of her nearness, the slight fade in volume of her heartbeat, the slight lessening of her fear. When she returned, the first part of me tensed, and the latter part rejoiced.

I felt Tom gesture to the couch beside me. “Drop them there. And then you should probably step out onto the stairs for a few minutes. She won’t want you to see this.”

I thanked him silently.

Once I heard the clang of her feet hitting the metal, I opened my eyes. Tom lowered himself onto the couch beside me but still didn’t let go of my wrist. He snagged a bag with his free hand and passed it to me. This time, I didn’t need any more encouragement than that.

I finished all four bags in seconds, slumping back against the couch in relief. The entire time I’d remained aware of Ava’s heartbeat, pulsing nearby, so vulnerable and accessible. Now, finally, it was just background noise that I could ignore along with all the other sounds that swept by me.

“You can come back inside if you want,” I told Ava as I walked to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out. I didn’t want her to be repulsed by the sight of blood on my teeth.

As I walked back into the cabin, I noticed Ava was sitting down as far from Tom as she could. I guess she wasn’t quite as comfortable with the vampire idea as it had seemed.

“There are only six more bags in the fridge,” she said slowly. “Is that going to be enough for everyone?”

Oh, so
that’s
why she was freaked out again. It made sense. She’d gotten some inkling of how my bloodlust affected me—the idea of being trapped in a plane with several potentially hungry vampires probably now seemed a hell of a lot more frightening.

“They’ve all fed recently enough that it won’t be an issue,” Tom reassured her, though I could hear from his thoughts that what he meant was that they were all feeding inside before returning to the plane. I guess while they were willing people to forget what they had seen
anyway
they might as well get a meal out of it.

Careful,
Tom teased,
you’re starting to think more and more like us.

He was grinning at me, but the comment was still disturbing. I’d kicked Cesar after he was already down, I’d yearned for my best friend’s blood, and now I was thinking it sounded perfectly reasonable to drink from unsuspecting victims in an airport while brainwashing them. What the hell was happening to me?

Now that this is all over, you should really talk to Damian about that once we get home,
Tom told me. I flashed him an irritated glance and tugged up my mental walls. I needed to be alone in my head for a little while at least, even if I couldn’t be alone in person.

The rest of our party began filtering in then, and Ava, wide-eyed, got up from her seat and came to join me on the couch. Better the vampire you know, I guess. Everyone got settled and we took off. No-one spoke, and eventually the stress of the last few days caught up with both Ava and I and we fell asleep on the couch, awkwardly leaning against one another, and didn’t wake until the plane began its descent into Louisville.

As I stood to leave the plane, Marcus grabbed my wrist, stopping me. Ava hesitated, looking at me, but I nodded for her to continue off the plane without me. Once she was out, Marcus spoke.

“Jade, Orchid and I are bringing Cesar back to Atlanta for Temora now. But sometime soon you and I are going to have a little chat about how exactly you ended up with Marielle and just what broke her bond with Cesar.” I nodded, trying to pretend the prospect of having to lie to someone like Marcus didn’t scare me senseless. “And you’ll want to tell me the truth, because I can promise you Cesar will tell us his side of things before he dies.”

I nodded again, and pulled my wrist from his grasp before he could make any more threats. Then I walked off the plane slowly, as if the only thing I had to worry about was fitting my sunglasses over my eyes to block the last of the day’s sunlight.