Savannah and I had argued before. All couples did. But this time felt different, more dangerous somehow. Maybe because this time, instead of outside forces coming between us, it was our own beliefs and needs.
Savannah would come around, though. Eventually she had to. There was no way she could stay this blindly idealistic, especially now that Mr. Williams had declared war on the vamps. Couldn't she understand that he wouldn't stop until every last vampire was wiped off the face of this planet? Including Savannah, her father and myself.
It's different this time, she thought, her back still turned my direction. That's why it hurts so much. Because it's different.
Had she heard my thoughts in spite of the music still pumping into her ears from her MP3 player?
But she never turned to look up at me or showed any knowledge that I was there in the distance watching her.
It's up to him this time, isn't it? I can't save him from making this mistake. There's nothing more I can say or do... It's up to him to choose.
My hands gripped the top rail of the fence hard enough to make the wood creak in warning.
Her shoulders stopped moving as she held her breath. I can't change his mind. And if he chooses revenge, I can't follow him down that road, either. If I do, we'll both be lost.
I froze, forgetting to breathe, too. Had it really just come down to that? Choose between her or killing Mr. Williams?
She didn't know I was listening to her thoughts, hadn't consciously decided to put that choice before me. But the ultimatum was there all the same. She was really that hardheaded, that convinced that she was right and I was wrong, that I might die if I went after Mr. Williams, that even avenging my mother's death wasn't worth it.
I pushed back from the fence, anger rising up like a fever to burn my cheeks and eyes. Silently I turned and stalked back down the hill, past the gas station to the truck, threw myself into the passenger side of the front seat then slammed the door shut.
Fine. If that was how she wanted to see this situation, then that was her choice. But she was f lat-out wrong, and I would prove it to her. When I took out Mr. Williams and was still the exact same guy she'd first fallen for, then she would understand.
"Where is-" Mr. Coleman said.
"She's coming."
A minute later Savannah appeared around the corner of the gas station. She got within twenty yards of the truck and hesitated. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears like a clock ticking off the seconds.
Then she changed direction, opening the trailer's door and climbing the metal steps to rejoin the girls instead.
I shouldn't have been surprised. But after our talk this morning and my hope that we'd made up, it still felt like a slap in the face. And the sting didn't stop there. It traveled all the way down like a glowing ember to join the ache that had already set up camp in my chest hours ago, building the burn into a full-f ledged fire.
The truck engine rumbled to life and the seat beneath me jerked forward as we continued our journey north in the complete opposite direction I should have been running toward.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on taking long, slow breaths past that fire in my lungs and throat.
The sooner I could go after Mr. Williams, the better for all of us.
SAVANNAH
It was during those long and seemingly endless days of driving north that Emily gasped.
I looked up from where I'd taken to lying on the couch. "What's wrong?"
She stabbed a finger at the screen of Mom's laptop, which she'd been using along with one of the many disposable phones Dad had picked up to surf the internet. "Jacksonville made the national news."
I hopped up and moved to sit beside her so I could look, too. What I saw had me croaking out Mom's name.
Rubbing her eyes, Mom emerged from her bedroom.
"Look," I told her, my gaze glued to the screen as Emily clicked on a news video.
Mom slid onto the dinette bench at Emily's other side then gasped. "Is that downtown Jacksonville?"
I nodded. "It's on fire!"
The camera panned to show building after building on fire...including the hills in front of the Tomato Bowl. The fire was so high it blocked out parts of the stadium's brown stone walls so that only the second f loor of the announcer's booth could be seen, and even that was hard to make out behind the rolling clouds of black smoke.
"The vamps set Jacksonville on fire as retaliation?" Emily whispered.
"That looks more like spell fire," Mom said. "See how it refuses to go out no matter how much water's thrown on it, and it twists around almost as if it's alive?"
"But that doesn't make any sense," Emily said. "Why would the Clann do that to their own headquarters?"
"How much do you want to bet the council sent some vamps to go after the Clann and things just got out of hand?" I pressed a shaky hand to my forehead. This was so much worse than I'd imagined. It was one thing to see Paris on fire as Mr. Williams's war declaration, and another to see bonfires blazing all over the town I'd grown up in. Paris had never seemed truly real to me. I'd never gotten to see much of it in the two times the council had summoned me there. What I knew of it was more from movies, and who knew how much of that was even the actual city itself instead of some Hollywood set in California?
But this...this was far too real to be any movie set. I'd gone to countless home football games with the Charmers at the Tomato Bowl, walked down those smoke-covered streets and sidewalks before and after the games and to shop. That antiques store was where Nanna used to sell her crocheted blankets and custom filet crochet names.
"That's the Jaycee building there," Emily murmured, reaching out to touch the screen as a pile of crumbled timbers and a partial wall collapsed across from the Tomato Bowl. "All those homecoming dances we organized there..." She meant the dances that the JHS cheerleaders organized every year. The Charmers dance team always held our fundraiser dances out at the Junior Livestock Barn at the edge of town.
I sat back on the bench, unable to watch anymore. Then I gasped.
Oh, no. Anne and Carrie and Michelle and Ron...
I grabbed another of the burner phones and dialed Anne's number from memory.
"Who are you calling?" Mom asked.
"Anne, to make sure everyone's okay. Can you call Dad and let him know what's happening?"
With a quick nod, Mom grabbed a phone.