Chapter 18
Peter Fenton
Two timid little heartbeats echoed around the inside of the barn.
I tucked the ribbon into the inner spine of my journal so I didn’t lose my place where I was scribing the details of another eventful night.
I scooted to the edge of the loft, and I was met with wide eyes and giggles between the two little sisters.
Had Fallon ever been so carefree? Or were these two only that way because of the burden Fallon carried? The unfairness soured on my tongue.
“Didn’t your sister ever tell you not to go anywhere near vampires?” I made sure my smile was wide enough to show off my fangs.
Lily presented me with a stake, and the girlies giggled. Cute. I wanted to rip out her partner’s throat to teach her a lesson. Fallon wouldn’t like that.
“Best to stay in the sunlight,” I warned.
“Why? Aren’t you supposed to protect us?
” Amanda asked, all sass and sarcasm. There was a strange bit of sadness clogging my chest to see her now on the way to growing up, when in my head, I still thought of her as that little kid sister of Derrick’s in twin braids and a grass-stained soccer uniform.
“Those are the ones you should watch out for most.” I hadn’t expected my voice to go so dark, but at least it left an impression. They had one of those silent conversations with their eyes that girls are so good at.
“Would you hurt us?” Amanda asked, naive more than cocky now.
“Of course I would.”
“He’s a vampire,” Lily whispered.
“I’m a man.”
Lily wasn’t much bigger than that little bird I’d helped out the other night. Maybe I was being a dick. Her eyebrows came together, and her lips worked on a response, but the understanding dawned on her. Smart girl.
“You were nicer when Fallon was around. Why are you being so mean?” Amanda asked.
“Aren’t I supposed to protect you?” I sneered, and okay, it was kind of fun being mean to these little girls.
“It’s because he has a crush on her,” Amanda said to her little friend, like she’d seen right through me, straight to some secret, guarded motivation. She really thought she’d hit the bullseye on my weak point.
“I don’t have a crush on Fallon. I’m in love with her.”
Despite my acidity, the two girls took one look at each other and screeched and giggled. I rubbed my forehead, but I couldn’t hold back my own laugh. Horrible as it was, there was a thrill to being in love.
“Wait, have you always been in love with her?” Amanda asked like this was the best gossip she’d ever tasted. “Even when she was in love with my brother?”
“I was in love with her before she ever met your brother.” The fucking nerve of this child.
“Did she know?”
I swung my legs over the edge of the loft. Annoying as it was, this was likely the best entertainment I’d get out here. Two curious sets of eyes ogled my bare chest, so I grabbed my shirt and put it back on. Fucking hell, the lessons were not sinking in with these two.
“What do you think?” I finally answered, because wasn’t it obvious? They knew Fallon. When they didn’t answer quick enough, I continued, “Of course she didn’t. She’d never have picked it up without me telling her to her face. She’s not big on feelings, is she?”
“But she knows now?”
“Yeah, she knows. Becoming a vampire gave me a stronger pair of balls. I finally told her.” I turned away to hide my cheesy little smile.
I missed her already, and it had only been a few days.
Her scent that had clung to the blanket she’d left me was starting to fade.
The girls were whispering, and I didn’t bother to listen in.
I thought they might just walk away and find something more interesting than me.
I needed some sleep, anyway. I was back to helping Guero tonight. We had a pickup scheduled.
“Have you killed people?” I was so deep inside my own thoughts that I hadn’t picked up which shy little voice had asked, but I turned back on them with a dark glare.
“Listen to me, kiddies. This isn’t the fucking vampire zoo. Fuck off.”
Lily jumped and stepped out of the barn, but Amanda sent me a snooty little scowl before she followed.
I peeled my shirt off and spread out on Fallon’s blanket, bringing the corner over my nose to breathe her in. This babysitting gig was harder than I’d thought it would be. I wished Fallon would just come back.
* * *
I stared into the frolicking flames of the bonfire, entranced and unable to look away. A fire just for the fun of it had been a silly concept when Derrick had explained it earlier, another funny tradition for the Hope family.
“She’s cute when she’s vulnerable like this.” Peter Fenton was here? He never came when Gabriel built his bonfires. Of course, Papa didn’t usually build them so close to the house. I rocked my chair on the porch, mesmerized by the flickering orange glow.
“Are you sleepy?” Derrick blocked my view of the fire, tucking my hair behind my ears, then repeated the same soothing petting motion over and over. This was what it must have felt like to be drunk. I was warm and happy and loved. The fire was licking the roof of the porch now.
“I’m…”
In the cave. I snapped my head back up and looked around the cavern, pushing myself to sit.
I’d drifted off, but I was still alone. I rubbed my eyes, where my lashes stuck together with dried tears.
I brushed away as much of the salty grit as I could, though there was nothing I could do about my swollen eyelids that fit together just a little bit wrong with every blink.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It could have been a thirty-minute nap or a full night of sleep.
Though I’d slumped onto my side, my back had been against the door, so I knew it hadn’t been opened yet.
I licked my lips, but my entire mouth was parched, even in the damp cave. The far-off trickle of water was a siren’s call now. A mind game. Cave water wasn’t safe to drink, was it? But then I’d been left in here without water of my own. What was I expected to do?
Survive. That was it, that was always it.
To fight and survive, to be clever no matter the circumstances.
I wasn’t meant to wait around for a mother to save me.
I was a Hunter. I got control of my panting breaths, just so I didn’t have to hear them in my own ears.
There was no point in rocking back and forth here on the ground, no point in wrapping my arms around my body to soothe my fears.
I had to face them. A cackle hit my right ear, mocking me, making my shoulders hunch and my body cower.
I balled my fists and mentally overrode those animalistic urges to flee.
The cave was too small for me to stand in, but I pushed myself into a low crouch.
For the first time, after years of being thrown in here, I moved deeper into the cave, past the smooth, flat floor near the entrance where I’d contemplated death for so many hours as a child.
Back then, it had been so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
Now, though, I could see and sense the vague shapes.
Awareness crept along the line of my shoulders and up the back of my head as I mentally mapped out my surroundings.
It was up to me how long I would be here. That surely meant I had to get out myself. I crawled to the other end of the cave, where a downward-angled path twisted deeper into the dark. I nearly jumped high enough to slam my head on the ceiling when another guttural yell bounced up the passage.
It wasn’t just my sight that had been improved.
My hearing was crisp. The uneven rock wall under my palm felt colder, each bump more distinct.
I pressed at the cut on my palm again, then dug my thumbnail into the skin.
The half-moon depression was more defined beneath my searching fingertip, though no more painful.
It was going to take some adjustment to grow into these senses, but for now, it allowed me to pack down the fear.
Those noises, frightening as they’d always been, weren’t any closer than they ever were.
However, for the first time, I could go towards them. I was meant to investigate them.
My sisters and I had discussed the phenomena of the cave before, gathering atop one bed and whispering when we were meant to be resting for another day of training.
Imogen had thought them one of Cora’s tricks, a clever use of witchcraft to push us closer to examining our frail mortality so that it ceased to have power over our actions.
I’d thought the sounds were a different trick, some hole in the cave that funneled sound waves from the mountain, and those calls were simple echoes of the vampires that were endlessly attracted to the Hunter Land.
Jerica’s theory had seemed implausible at the time, which was uncharacteristic for my cool and steady sister.
She believed that the cave was an entrance to the Underworld, and we were an audience for the Devil’s torture.
A scream rattled the walls, nearly knocking my folded legs out from under me, and I wondered if she’d been correct, after all.
I hoped to get the chance to talk to her about this once it was all over.
If that was allowed for Hunters. The trials were so full of secrecy that I wasn’t even sure if Hunters who had gone through them talked about their experiences.
I slipped down the shaft, moving to scoot feet first in a seated position, boots extended, then hips following after, crawling like a caterpillar to make careful progress.
At least the passage was wide enough for me to sit upright, and I tried not to worry about coming to any points I might have to crawl through on my belly.
Even with my improved vision, I could only just decipher the outline of the tunnel around me, and I was relying more on touch and sound to slug forward.
The temperature cooled the deeper I went.
As I palmed around the stone tunnel, I shivered and hoped there weren’t any bugs in my path.
I may have been trained not to fear death or vampires, but I’d never mastered the instinctual repulsion that flooded my body when bugs touched my skin with skittering legs or wings.
I moved faster downwards at the thought, finding a steady rhythm in scooching forward.
Light. There was light ahead, framing the round outline of the channel where it opened up into a large pocket of space with more than enough room for me to stand.
My pants were wet now, and my palms were slick and gray with cave grime, but I had room to breathe again.
The ceiling, twenty feet above me, was speckled with a few small holes half covered in green foliage that allowed sunlight into the larger cavern.
The gentle hum of life was a quiet comfort, the hush of water, the pattering of tiny feet, the songs of birds above reminding me I was alive and not alone.
It was interrupted by another howl that echoed even louder.
“Oh, shut up,” I finally said, and it bounced back at me. My laughter multiplied, too. Mary the Mother, I wanted out of here. It was up to me.
I did a slow circle around the perimeter of this new cave.
Water dripped into my hair from the stalactites above.
I stepped around the shallow puddles that had collected in dips in the floor.
This could have been a dangerous place to be if a heavy summer rain rolled over the mountain, as if I needed yet another reason to get out.
I tested one slimy cave wall nearest to the holes above.
Though it was hard to judge the size from so far below, even the largest of the openings to the outside appeared too small for me to fit through, if I could even climb up.
This wasn’t the right way. While all my instincts told me to find a way up, my own knowledge spoke louder.
I had to continue the descent. This was the trial.
I said goodbye to the mossy glimpses of sunlight and continued downward, following the tinkling strands of water.
I only had to hunch forward for ten feet or so through the next tunnel before the cave opened again, even more expansive than the previous room.
The air was thick, damp, and old, like it had been here for millennia without moving at all.
Each breath was dense. Though there was room to stand, I kept low, following the wall and the natural sloping path down.
I could sense more than actually see that there were dangerous drop-offs into deeper darkness, and so I had to be methodical.
Had any Hunters died in here? Was it the reek of decay that made taking full breaths so difficult?
I had no idea how much time had passed since I’d begun my descent, but my body ached with the tension of restrained movements, and my mind had never moved past that sloshy dullness after waking.
I was shivering and wet, I couldn’t see much of anything anymore, and sour dryness burned down my throat, but all I wanted to do was lie back and close my eyes.
Those awful sounds, the cries of unknown creatures, had only gotten louder.
I forced myself onwards, though I was more convinced that Jerica had been correct, and I would soon find myself in Hell.
My groan bounced around to herald my coming if that were the case.
I collapsed backwards, and illusions of light danced inside my eyelids and against the blank surface of rock I couldn’t see all the same.
I hadn’t even been able to tell that I’d slipped into a different darkness.