The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Complete Collection(27)

“Why do you like her?” I couldn’t help myself; I had to ask.

“Chloe, we had this discussion already. I dated her. We're still friends. I like her, okay?”

“Fine.” I waved my hand and turned to get a glass out of the drainer.

I must have mumbled something under my breath, because Drew practically shouted, “What did you just say?”

“Nothing… I don’t know.”

“You said something.” His green eyes were glowing and he took a defensive stance with his body.

“Jeez, Drew, I don’t know. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well, you don’t see me all up in your business about you going with Gavin. He’s not exactly an angel himself.”

I narrowed my eyes and put down my glass. “What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged and walked out of the room.

I followed him. “Drew, you can’t just say that kind of stuff and then walk away.”

Still, he said nothing. Sometimes his iciness bugged the crap out of me. I followed him into the living room. He must have felt cornered because he turned around and went back into the kitchen.

“Drew, stop! What the hell do you have against Gavin?”

“Forget it!”

Inside, I wanted to stomp my foot and throw a fit like a two year old. It was infuriating, his acting like he knew something and not telling me. I could feel my body starting to heat up and knew what was happening. Since the attack, I had become more in tune with my fire power; I could sense it coming, unlike before, when I didn’t have a freakin’ clue. I was, however, still having trouble controlling when it would come and wasn't certain how to make it stop.

I closed my eyes and blocked everything out, trying to think of anything that would calm me down. My mother’s face materialized behind my eyelids. She used to sing all the time, no matter where we were: at home, in the car, shopping for groceries. Her voice was a constant in my life, ever since I could remember. Sometimes, even after I was older, she would come into my room and sing to me like she had when I was little.

Now, her voice was my constant… a way for me to put out the fire—both literally and figuratively—that burned inside of me. The one thing I had discovered about this stupid fire power was, once it was burning, I had to put it out with my thoughts. It wouldn’t just eventually go out on its own.

“Chloe, are you all right?”

I could barely hear him. He sounded far away. I ignored him and just kept my breathing regular and my mother’s voice prominent in my head until I felt the heat pass and my body temperature return to normal.

“Chloe?”

I opened my eyes and glared at him. His eyes had lost their ice and were filled with concern.

“You were fighting the fire again, weren’t you?”

“None, of your business,” I snapped.

They said women had mood swings. Well, I guess whoever ‘they’ were had never met Drew. The doorbell rang and I spun to answer the door before Drew could get there. I fully expected to see Gavin, in his supreme hotness, when I opened the door. Instead, I flung open the door and found Christina on the other side.

“Oh.” Surprised that it wasn’t Gavin, I stepped back a few steps. “It’s you.”

She wore the most hideous dress I’d ever seen. Well, maybe not the most hideous dress I’d ever seen, but probably a close second. It was dark green, skin tight and strapless. Her dark hair was in a beehive-looking up-do. She completed her look with hooker boots.

“Chloe.” She nodded at me and stepped into the house.

“Christina.” I nodded back at her and yelled, “Drew, Christina is here!”

When Drew came into the room, Christina let out a girly squeal and jumped into his arms. She planted a kiss right on his lips. I felt like barfing a little.

“I missed you,” she whispered to him, but it was loud enough for me to hear. That was intentional, I was sure.

Ugh… Gavin could not arrive fast enough for me. I wanted out of there. I don’t know why Drew didn’t pick her up at her house. Why did she have to come to our house?

Drew must have wanted out of there as badly as I did, because he rushed Christina out the door, asking her if she had a coat.

“See you there!” She giggled over her shoulder to me while Drew herded her out. I simply stood there and watched them go. Drew gave me one last look that pretty much told me to behave myself, and then he was gone. Why did he have to act so strange all the time? One minute, he would act like my brother; the next minute, he would act like my father. Sometimes, in those rare moments, he acted like my friend. That was the Drew I preferred. I had no idea what I had done or what was going on that he would have so much animosity toward me lately. It had to be a repercussion of the attack.

Since then, the board members had been in the process of planning a full-scale attack on the vampires. It was fast becoming a full-out war. I knew I was the cause. The vampires would have never attacked if I weren’t here. They wouldn’t have hurt Luke, and they wouldn’t have killed the three hunters, including Drew’s uncle. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. That was the reason I had made plans to leave soon after the New Year’s bash. There were just a few things I needed to get done before I could go. I knew I wasn’t ready, but it was going to have to be good enough.