Page 30 (1/2)
Taking another deep breath, she used the counter to support her as she moved slowly back to the island she had left the paper on She did not want to look at it again, did not want to touch it, but she knew that she had to She needed to see it, to know for certain if what she had seen was right To see if what she feared was true
Releasing the counter, she sturasped hold of the paper and pulled it close She was shaking so badly that she could barely get the pages open Her gaze scanned over the article, co to rest on the date of the first disappearance Septean Keller, twenty-two, had vanished fro liht to her chest The wrinkled pages crinkled loudly as her fingers curled into it Devon had arrived on the thirteenth He had strolled into her life two days before the disappearances started
Herto deny Little pieces of the puzzle she’d always had, but hadn’t wanted to assean to fall swiftly into place Devon’s speed and agility, the strength he exhibited when he lifted Mark easily, effortlessly, off the ground He hadn’t even broken a sweat! She thought over the way he spoke, it was so old and elegant, so outdated He knew the card gaame no one knew anye ever having played the gaan slipping together, she could not stop the about Devon, other than his arrival, and Chris could not read him Both of which could be explained by the power that radiated from hiinning to believe it was even more power than she possessed
A chill ran down her spine, her body shook with the fierce trees tuether, but no matter how hard she tried, they would not stop He was always slightly colder than normal, a fact that could be explained by the weather, or bad circulation, but neither of those explanations seeht to her now
She had been irresistibly attracted to hiinning All of the girls were drawn to hiainst her in the hopes that they would get hi, that her attraction to hi that nore that fact in her desire to be closer to him, to be with him
As the last pieces of the puzzle slid into place, Cassie’s breath locked in her chest as panic clenched at her Every single one of those pieces, every single one of those oddities, was abilities or traits, of vampires Abilities that her worst enemies and most hated foe’s possessed Now that the puzzle was in place, she fully realized that it was a jigsaw straight from hell
He had sensed the evil in the woods, but what if he was that evil? What if he had let his guard down briefly, allowing the evil to slip free, allowing it to per with us,’ Chris had said softly ‘Playing gaames with her than to make her fall in love with him, before he tried to kill her?
Tears streamed down Cassie’s face, pain twisted in her chest as she tried to inhale heaping gulps of air through the agony consuht beyond Her forehead furrowed tightly in confusion as a piece of the puzzle did not slide into place Devon walked about in the day, unaffected by the light of the sun She had never known a vaht killed them
The day was for humans, their time to be safe, and not to have to worry about thein the shadows
Hope ballooned briefly inside her, and then swiftly deflated as she recalled Luther’s words ‘We do not knohat an Elder could be capable of The powers that they ht possess’
One of those powers ht, a uise to fool any Hunter If Devon was an Elder, than he was more than just a normal vampire, he was one of the most powerful and one of the most hated He would have been one of the ones to help mastermind the destruction of her parents, one of the ones that had helped to eradicate her race
Her body lost all strength; the paper fell limply fro into a asped, shaking and crying; her head fell forward into her hands He breathed, she thought desperately, she had felt him breathe, but what if he only pretended to breathe in her presence? She tried to recall if she had felt the beat of his heart, but try as shepulse of life within his chest
She tried to convince herself that she rong, but though she tried to hide behind a wall of denial, she could not Not anyht
He was not human He was not a Hunter He was not even a human with special abilities
He was theand toying with theood at it She had fallen helplessly in love with him She had allowed him into her soul, taken him into the very essence of her And the entire ti her death, her murder, and the hts, when he had held her gently, aive hi her, fro left to her No hope, no wonder, no life She was an empty shell of the person she had been, wounded and beaten
And yet, soer than that He may have destroyed her, but he would not hurt anyone else He would not take her loved ones fro the tears from her eyes, Cassie placed her hands on the floor and shoved herself up She could not sit here and cry She didn’t have time for that There was a monster out there, and she was one of the few people that could stop him She stood shakily for afrom the ashes fury blazed hotly forth and burned away the devastating hurt that had encased her Heto destroy hi up the stairs to gather her weapons She was tired of running, tired of hiding, and very tired of being frightened It was ti, instead of being the hunted for a change
Devon sat completely still on the tree branch, all of his senses tuned to the night beyond It was the exact saht for the past hile Cassie had been occupied with studying, or at Melissa’s Probing with his h for him to pick up on in the area It was one of his talents, the ability to sift through people’s minds in order to pinpoint the one that he wanted The mind he would then latch onto, track down, and destroy; the one that stalked this town, and its inhabitants, especially Cassie
Thoughts of Cassie caused him to tense Whenever he came out here, he had to shut his mind off of her; otherwise he would be disrupted from his pursuit He could pick up heras a lighthouse beacon to him But now, here, her mind was a distraction to hi to succeed in destroying his prey
Tuning his senses to the night, he strained to feel anything out there, to find anything out there Then, he felt it For the first tiht A power that he recognized instantly as belonging to the one he sought