Shadow Lake Vampire Society - Wendi Wilson Page 0,69
those?” Micah shot back, a hand on her slender hip.
True straightened her shoulders, the thin moonlight filtering between the branches above us highlighting her confident expression. “Well, does it work?”
Micah seemed annoyed to even have to answer but finally gave in. “Yeah, I guess if you shot one of us in the heart or brain. Are we done? Sarah isn’t a patient person, and it’s already been a few hours.” Micah glanced at the moon, then at us expectantly.
She was right. Mom was taken at ten, and it had to be past two a.m. My anguish and fear felt like a rope around my neck, tightening with each minute that ticked by. What if we were too late? What if Mom was…?
I stopped myself as my pulse began to race and my breathing picked up. There was no time to freak out now.
“Are you going to be okay?” Micah asked.
I’d forgotten for a moment that, as a vampire, she could sense my anxiety. Even though she wasn’t as nice or as calming as Levi, she seemed to care. Maybe she was worried I’d lose it and ruin everything. Maybe she just didn’t want to carry my fainting ass back to the nurse.
“I’m fine,” I said as True slipped her hand into mine. “Tell me the plan again.”
“When we get to the cabin, I’ll go in and tell Sarah I have something important I need to talk to her about. She’s in there alone with your mom and Levi, waiting for me to come back. I’ll lead her away. You free Levi. Un-compel him or something.”
“Can she do that?” True asked.
Micah shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Un-compel him?” I asked. “Like wake him up?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Micah’s eyes darted away, and I wondered, briefly, if she wished she were the one to wake Levi from his slumber. The princess to bestow a true love’s kiss. But that was a fairytale, and this was real life, even if it didn’t feel like it. I had no delusions that this would be that easy.
And how did she not know if it would work? Shouldn’t she be the expert on this stuff? I wanted to ask the questions aloud, but I had a feeling Micah was nearing the end of her rope, dealing with us simple humans.
True and I fell quiet as we continued marching after Micah. The woods were creepy enough, but the thought of roaming vampires thirsty for my blood made it even worse, and we were equipped with… What? One vampire ally and a thinly constructed rescue mission? It wasn’t a great plan, not even a sane one, but we had to do something. I couldn’t bear to lose my mother, too. Losing Dad had broken me.
Micah shuffled to a stop, holding out a hand signal for us to do the same. Ahead, a dim light shone through the branches. It took my eyes a moment to find the lines of the small log cabin nestled in between the trees. Something tickled my brain, like there was an air of familiarity surrounding the place.
“I’ll go ahead. You wait here,” Micah whispered, breaking off my musings. “When you hear the door slam, that means we’re leaving. Count to a hundred, then come, but be quiet. Sarah can’t know you’re here, or the plan is finished before it’s started. Got it?”
We nodded before watching Micah turn and run at a supernatural speed in the direction of the cabin.
True squeezed close to me as we hunkered down in the leaves. “Is this the stupidest idea we’ve ever had?”
“Yep. But there’s still time for you to back out,” I said, though I didn’t let go of my death grip on her hand.
“What? Me? Pshaw. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. What would I do instead? Get a good night’s sleep? Live to die another day? Boring.”
I snorted quietly. “You gotta hand it to me, I bring the excitement.”
“And the death,” she added jokingly. “Don’t forget the death.”
“Ah, yes. It’s a package deal.”
Our morbid jokes died as faint voices sounded from the direction of the cabin. I squinted toward it, trying to see what was happening, but my dumb human eyes couldn’t make out more than shadow and light. I held True’s hand, waiting for the sound of a door slam.
We waited. And waited.
“What’s happening?” True finally whispered.
“I don’t know.” I leaned forward, squinting in the dark, but I still couldn’t see. “I need to get closer.”