Chapter 39
39
Ashley
T his was fine. She was fine.
Ashley wiped blood off the blue card, which—according to her color key and risk/reward system—was the start of her next best course of action now that yellow was out. She’d planned on taking a picture of the wall so she could carry it with her when she left and zoom in on the cards when she needed to reference them, but now blood covered half the words. She tried to gently wipe another card with her shaky fingers, and her perfect calligraphy smudged. Or maybe that was just her eyesight going a little fuzzy. She dropped onto her box, both exhausted and frustrated. Why bother salvaging her plan if she was dying anyway?
The puking had stopped, but she was shaking, and her vision was blurring. Still, it might just be a bad reaction. Maybe she wasn’t dying. In which case, she needed her cards and color key. Maybe she could number the cards and use a clip to keep them with the key. It wouldn’t be as convenient as seeing them all in order, but she could recreate her wall when she reached her next location. Wherever that was…
Yes, numbering the cards was the best solution. This solved all her problems. She pulled out a silver gel pen—the obvious choice for blue—and started numbering.
There was a banging at the front door. Ashley obviously couldn’t answer it. She was in hiding. It was rather insistent though. Didn’t matter, she continued numbering.
“Ashley!” That was Esther’s voice.
It was more muffled than she was used to, but she’d recognize that voice anywhere. One person had left the house while she was talking to Cynthia—she wasn’t sure who—which left a fifty-fifty chance that either Hannah or John answered the door.
Please, go away , wished Ashley.
The upper stairs creaked.
Tell her to go away .
The front door opened, but Ashley’s ears stuffed up like she’d left a concert after camping out in front of the speakers.
But she recognized that deep voice—John.
She crept closer to the stairs, hoping to get a better sense of what they were saying over the sound of footsteps. Had Esther come inside? There was shuffling, a loud crash, then Esther screamed.
Ashley’s limbs felt like they were moving through water, but she ran up the stairs and burst into the living room.
John had his arms locked across Esther’s chest as she tried vainly to block her neck.
“Ashley.” John’s voice was its usual slow and proud cadence. “I had a feeling that was you stowed away. You think I couldn’t hear you scuttling around down there like a rat?”
“Leave her alone, John. She isn’t part of this.”
Esther continued to fidget in his arms. Ashley wished she’d stop drawing attention to herself.
“I told you there would be consequences.” He leaned, his fangs inches from Esther’s neck.
Ashley clenched her fists, but there wasn’t anything she could do. John was hundreds of years older than her, and with time came speed and strength. He could snap Esther’s neck before Ashley took a single step. A wave of dizzying nausea passed over her—as though she needed another reminder of her disadvantage. It took all her concentration to keep from swaying on her feet.
“Take me instead.” Ashley clenched her fists. “You want someone to take your anger out on. Why not go to the source?”
“Your blood is not as sweet,” he replied.
He grazed a fang along Esther’s neck, leaving a small, red trail behind. A single drop of blood leaked from the opening. Ashley concentrated on controlling her breathing, holding back the urge to fling him from Esther, to curl her body around Esther’s and never let anything harm her ever again.
With dramatic slowness, John dragged his tongue along Esther’s neck, cleaning away the drop of blood.
“Stop it!” Ashley screamed, dropping her fangs.
Her cheeks felt wet. She hated to think she was crying, showing weakness in front of John, but that was what she was—weak.
Esther turned her nose inches from his, her face blank. Had John mesmerized her as well? Were there no boundaries he wouldn’t cross? Esther’s hand lifted, reaching for his cheek.
John said nothing, looking only at Esther, his lip curling in an amused smile.
Her hand continued past his cheek until she smacked it against his forehead and held it firm. John’s eyes went wide. An inhuman roar bellowed from his chest. He released Esther, backing away and scratching with both hands at his face as steam rose from where her palm had been. Through his fingers, Ashley barely made out the black outline of a cross.
Esther’s earring.
Ashley’s laugh came out as a sob when she recognized the shape. No wonder Esther was fidgeting with her ear while John held her. She had a weapon the whole time.
Esther reached Ashley while she was still distracted by John’s face. “Ashley.” She was panting. “Are you all right? I came to tell you not to…”
Her words trailed off as her eyes wandered down Ashley’s front.
Right, she was still covered in blood from her earlier puking stunt.
“It’s fine,” Ashley said. “I’m fine.”
“Ashley.” She touched Ashley’s cheek, and the care in Esther’s eyes was worth everything.
Ashley had missed her so much.
“You haven’t taken the potion yet, have you?” Esther asked.
She couldn’t stand it anymore. Ashley ran her hand along Esther’s arms, her cheeks. This day felt like a dream, and she had to know it was real. That Esther was really here in front of her.
“Ashley.” Esther took both of Ashley’s wandering hands in her own, focusing her back on the question. “Did you take the potion in the necklace?”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Ashley pulled a hand free, still not satisfied, and brushed Esther’s hair back behind her now empty ear. “I gave it a lot of thought first, and the numbers don’t lie. It was worth it. Just to have a chance with you.”
“No.” Esther was crying, too. “No, I’m too late? Ashley, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t know it wouldn’t work. I came as soon as I found out.”
“Shh, it’s all right, sweetheart.” She continued to brush back Esther’s hair trying to soothe her. “You were all of my yellow cards.”
Esther shook her head, her brows pinching in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The band?”
“Not the band.” Geez, maybe picking yellow was a confusing choice after all. “I made a color key. I can show it to?—”
Ashley was pulled by the roots of her hair, her scalp on fire, and flung through the air, crashing into a column in the foyer. There was a booming crack that knocked the air from her lungs before she tumbled, her head smacking the floor as she landed. She gasped, trying to suck in air. From her fallen place, her cheek pressed to the cool wood, she saw two boots step toward her. One swung back before burying in her gut. There was a pop in her chest that she guessed was a rib, though this had never happened before so she couldn’t be sure. That was what it would have been in the movies.
Esther was screaming, and Ashley needed to get up and tell Esther to run. But the boot swung again, and this time it caught her in the chin. Stars blocked out her vision.
She pinched her eyes shut, trying to make them work. When she opened them, Ashley had to blink repeatedly before they focused on the scene before her. Esther swung from John’s back, her arms locked around his throat as he spun, trying to fling her from him.
Ashley needed to get up. She needed to help. Esther wouldn’t survive being flung against a wall like Ashley. She was human.
Her side burned, but she forced herself to move through the pain. Bracing a hand against the column, she stood. The old oak sported a deep crack where she’d hit it, like the jagged lines of a map. On the ceiling, holes marred the star-speckled plaster and littered the floor around her.
An idea slowly formed. Ashley pushed at the column below the crack. The wood groaned but wouldn’t budge. This should have been easy, even without the ready crack, but her body was so tired she wasn’t sure how she would do it. A movement in her peripheral drew her attention back to the fighting as Esther was flung across the room and hit the wall by the door.
Esther fell limp to the ground, a small gash leaking a crimson tear down her cheek.
Ashley ran and leaped at John, her arms locking around his neck and her teeth clamping onto his throat. She’d tear out his jugular and leave him gasping until she found something that worked as a stake.
But something was wrong.
Her fangs wouldn’t descend, which meant her teeth wouldn’t sink in.
John laughed and flung her from him. She hit the column again with as much force as before, and this time it was enough. The column cracked, and the small tendons holding it together snapped one by one as the pressure from the ceiling pushed the column into its final bow.
John’s chin tipped to the ceiling as the column groaned, but he was too late. Ashley shot out and grabbed him around the ankle. He fell to the ground. They grappled, both clawing and elbowing, one to get free and the other to hold in place.
“Ashley.” The sound was barely more than a whisper.
Ashley looked up to see Esther, propped on an elbow, her dark hair sticking to the blood on her cheek. She tossed a small, silver object through the air. It slid across the floor and landed a foot from her—Esther’s second earring.
Keeping a fistful of John’s button-down in one hand, she dove and grabbed it, ignoring the pain that burned through her side at the movement. Half the ceiling’s plaster crashed where the earring had been moments before, leaving a cloud of dust and blocking her view of Esther.
John ripped himself free, leaving behind scraps of his shirt in Ashley’s fist. It was just the two of them now as more plaster fell and a second column cracked and bent under the weight of the crumbling house.
Ashley stood, the cool metal grasped firmly in her palm as she circled the last of the open space, John mirroring her on the other side.
“I always knew you were a terrible vampire,” he said, narrowly dodging a piece of falling plaster. His shirt hung in tatters around his lean frame, and his thin, brown hair was covered in so much plaster it looked white. It was the most disheveled she’d ever seen him. “I only regret how much I underestimated that first assessment.”
“I really am a terrible vampire.” She ducked and somersaulted away, narrowly missing a support beam as it crashed between them. “Good thing I was always a decent cheerleader.”
She vaulted over the beam and landed knees first on John’s chest. Before he could move or say anything else, she pressed the second cross to his exposed chest, right where his heart would be, and didn’t let go until it sank beneath his skin.
The second floor gave way around them, drowning out his scream.