A Kiss of Blood (Vamp City #2)(8)

She ignored him and pried the second screen hook loose, then glanced back to find the two vampires watching her.

Arturo’s gaze caught hers and held fast, frustration and determination swirling in those dark eyes. “Even if you escape, you cannot hide from me, Quinn. After your last escape, I put a magical tracer on you. I may not be able to follow you during daylight, but come nighttime, there is nowhere you can go that I cannot follow. How do you think Micah found you so quickly?”

Unfortunately, this she believed because Micah had introduced himself to her just hours after Arturo freed them. As soon as the sun had gone down.

Her blood steamed. Maybe she’d shoot him after all. Shoot them both.

“I want to go back, Quinn,” Zack said, sitting up slowly. “I want to go back to Vamp City.”

Zack’s quiet words stopped her cold. She met her brother’s tired gaze. “They made you say that.”

“No.” He swallowed and looked away. “I want to see Lily again before I die.”

“You’re not going to die.”

He turned back to her, his eyes older than she’d ever seen them. “Yeah, I am. Something’s happening to me. I can feel it. And I’m not going to survive it.”

Her breath caught. He sounded so sure, but he was wrong. He had to be wrong. “You’ll be okay once the magic is renewed.” Her own words, repeated so many times, came out automatically. But the moment she heard them, she froze. Her gaze flew to Arturo as the truth crashed over her with a shattering understanding. She was the only one who could renew the magic. Phineas Blackstone’s sons couldn’t do it. There was no escape. Not for her.

She sank down onto the sofa beside Zack, stunned. “I have to go back to renew it.”

Her brother took her hand. “No. Blackstone’s sons . . .”

“Can’t. That was just another of Arturo’s lies.”

Zack said nothing for a moment, but his grip tightened. “Don’t go back, Quinn. Let them die.”

“Renewing the magic might be the only way to save you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Stay here,” Zack urged. “No, leave here. Leave now and drive as far and as fast as you can. You can get away.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Certainly not to die. Just a month ago, she’d been bracing for the day he left her. When he graduated. When he moved to California with Lily. Lily. He said he wanted to see her again. Again.

Quinn turned to stare at her brother. “Did you find Lily when you were there?”

Zack released her and looked away. Slowly, he leaned his long frame back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “She was at Castle Smithson.” Where he’d been a slave. “She was a maid or something.”

Quinn felt the words like a blow. He’d known all along where the girl was, yet he’d said nothing. He’d left her behind. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His jaw hardened, tightening in that way it used to when he was small, just before the tears started. “What difference did it make? It’s not like I could save her. I couldn’t even save myself. I was f**king useless.”

Oh, Zack.

Her gaze swung to Arturo on a surge of hope that he could help save Lily as he’d saved Zack. But as she stared at that handsome, charming visage, as the vampire’s mouth began to open, she turned away, chastising herself for forgetting, even for a moment, that she couldn’t trust a word he said. He would promise her anything to get her out of the sunlight and back within his reach. Then he’d take her back there, use her to renew the magic, then try to kill her so she could never be captured by Cristoff and reveal what she knew about her escape from his vile master.

She turned to Zack. “You can’t go back there. Your chances of seeing Lily are next to zero, you know that.” If the girl was even still alive. “You’ll just be enslaved again.”

“I will find her for him,” Arturo said quietly. “And I will keep all three of you safe.”

Zack’s eyes snapped open, hope flaring within those sickly depths.

Quinn threw the vampire a look of disgust. “He’s a liar, Zack.”

“He freed us, didn’t he?”

“Did he? And yet, here he is.”

In the distance, she heard the wail of sirens.

Zack took her hand again. “Leave, Quinn, I mean it. Let that godforsaken place die.”

“And let you die with it? I’d give my life for you,” she whispered, emotion clogging her throat. “You know that.”

He dropped her hand, pulling in on himself as he scowled. “Why? I’m nothing. You’re the one with the X-man-like power. Figure out how to work it, then come back and kill the vampires that survive Vamp City’s destruction. You’ll be a hero, Quinn. Why waste all that on me?”

“Because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” her brother said matter-of-factly. “So do what I want this time. Let me go.”

Let him go.

Swallowing hard, Quinn shot to her feet and turned away, staring, unseeing, out the window as her emotions knotted together until she didn’t know what she was feeling, let alone what to do. The last thing, the last thing, she wanted was return to Vamp City. Nothing good awaited her there, only the threat of torture and the risk of death. But how could she walk away, run away, knowing Zack was going back there? Because whether or not going back there cured him, Zack’s chance of survival in that place was miniscule unless she went too.