“I should go talk to Jasmine,” I say. “See if they’ve heard anything. I’m sure they’ve been on alert. They might have some leads.”
“No,” Ian shakes his head and his eyes grow dark with worry. His hand reaches forward and his thumb rests on my lower lip. “You’re only a month away from your birthday. You show up at their door now with all this chaos going on, Jasmine might decide she’s tired of waiting. It’s too risky, Liv.”
“You’re not my protector,” I say with annoyance as I stand and take a step away from the bed.
“But he’s right.” Rath pushes the door open and stands in the doorway with his hands folded. “Jasmine is a desperate, oftentimes unpredictable leader. If you go to her, anything could happen.”
I look between Ian and Rath, angry and conflicted.
I’m not a little girl. I’ve survived on my own the last four years without anyone’s help. Without a father figure or an overly protective non-boyfriend.
But something is tugging on the back of my heart. Something soft and grateful that there are two men in my life who care about me and that I’m not alone.
It’s annoying. So I walk into the bathroom and close the door on them.
“WHAT’S BOTHERING YOU, ALIVIA?”
I look up from the display case to Daphne. She sits at a table, eating her cinnamon roll. It’s early, just after six again. She’s the first customer of the morning. Not every day, but I usually see her twice a week.
“How do you know something is wrong?” I ask as I slide the scones onto the display tray.
“I don’t need eyes to feel the frustration rolling off of you,” she says. “You’ve been quiet today. What’s on your mind?”
I sigh and walk around the display case and lean against it. I cross my arms over my chest. “Life is just complicated,” I say, because I could never explain what’s really bothering me. Four weeks, one day. A non-boyfriend who’s agitated and I’m afraid is going to do something stupid. Rath insisting I not go to the House. “I never thought I’d be involved in politics. All of adult life is just a game of politics, I’m learning.”
“Sadly, it’s true,” Daphne says with the nod of her head. “And it’s even more true when you live in a small, old town like this one.”
“Yeah,” I say. I stand back up and grab the baking sheet.
“You come grab these biscuits?” Fred calls from the back.
“Coming.”
AND ALL THAT WEEK, PEOPLE talk about the attacks. The fear and the speculation builds and builds.
At some point, it’s all going to explode.
ON DECEMBER NINTH, CORBIN, THE man who got all worked up at Fred’s the second he found out I was of Conrath blood, shoots an innocent man who is out too late one night, because Corbin was convinced he was a vampire.
On December tenth, Sheriff McCoy arrests another woman for breaking into her best friend’s house, sure she was feeding off of her husband at nights.
December eleventh, Rath shows me another secret door in my bedroom that opens into an armory. There’s nothing else to call it. The small room is stocked with guns, crossbows, stakes, knives—anything and everything deadly.
I have to be ready to protect myself with the town so on edge.
December twelfth is the day I finally realize that I haven’t seen Ian in two days. Which is out of character and scary. We’re down to nineteen days, and Ian wouldn’t waste any of them.
Something’s wrong.
“Damn it,” I hiss at my phone when Ian doesn’t answer. He hasn’t responded to any of my texts, either.
Shoving my cell phone into the back pocket of my jeans, I grab the keys to the Jeep from the hook and open the garage. Just as I’m about to open the driver’s door, a car rolls up behind it.
Elle climbs out of the rust bucket and I remember that she’s just turned sixteen.
“Have you seen Ian?” she asks with worry in her voice.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of him all day. I haven’t seen him since Wednesday.” Fear and anticipation leap into my chest and threaten to choke me.
“He came home from work this morning in a really bad mood,” Elle says. She clutches the hem of her shirt and twists the fabric absentmindedly. “I went to the cabin to try and talk to him about what was wrong. I didn’t even go to my first two classes this morning ‘cause I was worried about him. But he wouldn’t tell me anything. He just kept talking to himself and looking at the maps of town. He was twirling a stake the whole time.”
“Something happened at work last night,” I say as I watch the sun sink behind the house. “I don’t know if he’s told you how there’s been two attacks in the last week. There had to be another one.”