Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (12 page)

She was beneath
the Sphinx in Egypt.

And staring down
at the lost vampire city.

Vivian lurked in
the shadows outside of Blake’s house, concealing herself behind a tree. From
this angle, she could see that inside the house there was a single light on, in
an upstairs bedroom. She decided to try her luck and, with a quick glance
around her to make sure no one was looking, flew up to the window.

She landed on
the sloped porch roof with a soft thud and peered in through the glass. There
was Blake. The sight of him made a sensation like electricity buzz through her
veins. She was so close to owning him, to beating Scarlet. Her heart fluttered
with anticipation.

Blake was facing
away, seated on his bed with his shoulders hunched. Vivian deduced from his
posture that he was unhappy. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her brain, she
felt that old human emotion of sympathy. But it was nowhere near as strong as
the power of her vampire desire, her need to consume him.

She tapped on
the window with one of her perfectly manicured fingernails.

Blake flinched
and looked around, surprised. When he saw Vivian crouched on his porch roof,
his eyebrows drew together.

He stood from
the bed and paced over to the window, pulling it open.

“What are you
doing here?” he asked, glancing at either side of her as though trying to work
out how she’d climbed onto his roof.

“You weren’t at
school today,” she replied. “I was worried about you.”

“Worried, huh?” Blake
said, clearly not believing it.

“Are you going
to, like, let me in?” Vivian said seductively. “Or do I have to stay out here
all night?”

Blake sighed
with irritation.

“Fine, come in,”
he said. “But be quiet. My parents will kill me if they find out I have a girl
in my room.”

Vivian stretched
one of her lean legs through the window, reveling in the way Blake’s eyes
skimmed over them. Then she ducked the rest of her body through the window and
stood there in Blake’s room.

“So?” he said in
a grumpy tone. “What do you want?”

Vivian tried to
play it cool and sympathetic, but that human emotion seemed so far from her now
it was almost impossible to recreate.

“You didn’t
hear?” she said. “There was a shooting at the school.”

Blake’s face
paled.

“This better not
be a trick, Vivian, because if it is, you’re totally sick.”

Vivian widened
her eyes, trying to portray her innocence.

“I swear on my
life,” she said. “You can check the Internet. It will be all over the news.”

Blake did just
that, and when he saw the news reports of the shooting at the high school he
slumped back in his chair, stunned.

“I guess my
grandma chose a good day to keel over and die,” he said.

Vivian reached
an arm around his shoulder.

“Is that why you
weren’t in school today?” she said. “Because your grandma died?”

Blake’s gaze
tipped to his lap. He nodded.

Vivian knew she
was so supposed to feel something—empathy at his loss—but all she really felt
was opportunity. Blake was vulnerable right now, which made him ripe for the
taking. And with his head bowed like that, his long, pale neck was on display,
practically inviting her to taste him.

“Blake,” Vivian
began, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but a lot of people died today. The
football team. The cheerleaders.”

Now it was
Blake’s turn to be the empathetic one. He swiveled in his chair to face her,
then threw his arms around her and pulled her into him.

“Oh God, are you
okay?” he said into her hair.

She nestled into
him, feeling his broad, strong chest, and the pulse of his heart beating against
her cheek. With her heightened vampire senses, Blake smelled even more amazing
than he had when she was human. She fought the compulsion to breath in his
scent.

“I’m in shock, I
guess,” Vivian said, trying her best to feign upset.

“Do you know
what happened?” Blake asked, moving back and taking both her hands in his. “I
mean the news reports aren’t saying much, just that the police had cordoned off
the school because of an incident involving firearms.”

Vivian twirled
some hair through her fingers and tried to make her face look innocent.

“Someone said
there was an escaped convict,” she said. “And that these two guys were after
him in retribution, or something, and that a load of kids got caught in the
crossfire.”

She was playing
with the truth now, patching together bits of information she knew and
embellishing it in ways that would garner the most sympathy from Blake. She
even managed to squeeze out a tear, though her ability to induce theatrical
crying was far less than when she’d been human.

“Jojo, Malcolm…”
she said, and then she succumbed to her fake tears.

Blake wrapped
her up tightly in his embrace and pressed a kiss on the crown of her head.

“I’m so sorry,
Vivian,” he said. “I wish I’d been there to protect you. You must be in shock,
you’re freezing cold. Here, let me get a blanket.”

As Blake turned
away from her, Vivian licked her lips. Her fangs had descended, the vampire in
her ready to devour Blake and make him her own. But this game was too fun to
cut short.

He returned and
wrapped her up, sitting her on the bed. He wrapped his arm around her and she
snuggled into his side.

“We were good
together, weren’t we?” Vivian said.

Blake was
silent. Their brief romance had been intense but ultimately destructive. Human
Vivian had enjoyed causing pain in much the same way vampire Vivian did, though
before it had been psychological rather than physical.

“I guess,” he
said.

“I mean, we had
chemistry
,” Vivian added, prodding him. “Not like with you and Scarlet.”

She felt Blake
straighten beside her, his arm around her no longer comforting but stiff and
formal. She sat up and glared at him.

“Don’t tell me
you still have feelings for her?” she snapped.

Blake raised his
eyebrows.

“Are you sure
you want to talk about this right now?” he said incredulously. “After
everything that’s happened today?”

Vivian couldn’t
hold back her jealousy.

“I can’t believe
it!” she snapped. “I can’t believe after everything you’d still rather be with
that freak than me!”

Blake’s
expression darkened.

“Scarlet’s not a
freak, Vivian. I messed around with her, is all. But there’s something special
about her. Something I can’t put my finger on.”

Vivian turned
her face away from him, disgusted by his words.

“Gross,” she
said. “You’re making me want to throw up.”

Blake clearly grew
angry.

“What do you
want from me, Vivian?” he demanded. “You want me to love you? Is that it? Well,
can you just accept that I don’t and I won’t? Ever. I don’t feel that way about
you.”

His words cut
Vivian to the core. Without looking at him, she responded in a small, pained
voice.

“But you do feel
that way about Scarlet?”

Blake threw his
arms up in exasperation.

“I don’t know!”
he cried. Then his voice softened. “I’m sorry, okay? I just don’t feel towards
you the way you feel towards me.”

Vivian finally
faced him. She was fuming, her eyes narrowed to slits filled with malice.

“Do you know
what, Blake?” she hissed. “You don’t get a choice.”

Blake frowned,
looking deeply confused.

“And what the hell
is that supposed to mean?” he said.

Vivian exposed
her fangs, relishing the terrified, confused expression that appeared on
Blake’s face.

“It means you’re
going to love me, for eternity, whether you want to or not.”

And with that,
Vivian leaned forward, grabbed him by the shoulders, and sank her fangs into
his neck. The last thing she heard, before he went limp, were his pathetic
cries, trying to apologize—and way too late.

*

Vivian knew from
experience it would take Blake a while to turn. In the meantime, she had to
destroy her competition. She had to eliminate Scarlet. If Blake awoke with the
same insatiable desires she’d woken with, Scarlet would surely be his target.
But if she could destroy her nemesis once and for all, Blake would be hers
forever.

Vivian left
Blake prone on the bed, tucking him up in his covers so that if his parents
should think to check on him it would just look as though he were sleeping. She
kissed his deathly pale lips and stroked his hair. Then she leapt from the
window and soared into the sky, heading in the direction of Scarlet’s house.

The streets
below her appeared normal. There was no sign yet of Kyle’s vampire army. But
Vivian knew chaos would soon ensue, and the thought excited her.

She landed a
block away from Scarlet’s house and walked the rest of the way. When she
reached Scarlet’s house, she found it in darkness. She jumped into the air and
peered into each of the bedroom windows, but there was no one there.

Frustrated, she
landed again, and was just about to leave when she heard the click of the front
door latch opening. She froze.

“Hey!” a male
voice called out. “Are you one of Scarlet’s friends?”

Vivian raised an
eyebrow and smiled to herself. Then she made her face neutral again and turned.
There was a man standing on the porch, his face knotted with anguish. The door
now stood ajar, revealing that the house beyond was in total blackness. A husky
appeared on the step beside him and Vivian felt her stomach growl with hunger.
Blake had made a great meal, but the husky would be a wonderful dessert.

“Yes,” she said
to the man, forcing herself to focus. “I’m Becca. Who are you?”

“I’m Scarlet’s uncle,
Sam,” the man replied. He patted the husky’s head. “This is Ruth.”

“I know,” Vivian
lied. “Hey Ruth, girl.”

Ruth growled.
Vivian narrowed her eyes.

“We have a
complicated relationship,” she said to Sam in an attempt to explain away the
dog’s hostile behavior.

Scarlet’s uncle
didn’t seem to pick up on Ruth’s warning. He was too distracted by peering
anxiously out into the night. Looking for evil, without realizing it was
standing right in front of him. He opened the door wide.

“Come in,
Becca,” he said to Vivian, beckoning to her. “It’s not safe out tonight.”

He seemed
jittery, completely on edge. Vivian strode up to the door and waltzed
confidently over the threshold. If he only knew: you should never invite a
vampire inside.

“You weren’t at
the high school today, were you?” Sam asked as he led her into a kitchen at the
back of the house.

Vivian noted
that a small tealight was lit. There was a gun propped up against the back
door, a stool, and a mug of half-drunk coffee. Someone was on lookout duty, she
realized.

“No,” she said.
“I heard there was a shooting. That’s why I’m here. To see if Scarlet’s okay.”

The man began to
worry his hands, rubbing them together.

“I wish I had
something to tell you,” he said. “But I don’t. I was hoping Scarlet would be
with you. That’s what her mom said, that if she was anywhere, it would be with
Maria, Becca, or Jasmine.”

Vivian kept her
face neutral but beneath her calm veneer she was inwardly grinning. Had Scarlet’s
fool of an uncle just given away her whereabouts? Had he just signed her death
warrant?

Vivian shrugged.
“She’s not with me. I guess that means she’s with one of the other two.”

“Do you have
their numbers?” Sam asked.

Vivian had to
think quickly.

“Um…yeah, but
they’re on my cell. Which is in my locker at school. So I can’t get it.”

Sam looked
distracted but nodded. He was so wound up that he couldn’t even see through
Vivian’s lies.

“Kids today,” he
said with a tsk. “So reliant on technology. When I was younger, we knew our
best friends’ numbers by heart.”

Vivian pulled
her face into a faux smile.

“Tell me about
it,” she agreed. “We’re the worst.”

From beside Sam,
Ruth the husky began to growl again. Vivian shot her a death stare and the dog
shrunk back.

“Don’t worry
about her,” Sam said. “She’s on edge.”

He went to pat Ruth
but she moved out of the way of his affection. She began to bark, her teeth
bared and her gaze fixed on Vivian.

“I don’t know
what’s gotten into her,” Sam said, taking her by the collar and pulling her
back.

But Ruth was
strong, and she’d clearly sensed that Vivian was not to be trusted. She
strained against her collar, making Sam struggle to keep her still.