The Vampire Hunter's Daughter: Complete Collection(56)

I shifted on the floor and shivered. Then, after a second thought, I moved closer to Drew, pressing up against his side. It’s freakin’ cold, screw propriety. I just wanted to keep warm. He ignored me and let me lean up against him.

“Gavin did want to come and get you, but he wanted to do it organized. You know, a planned attack with lots of Hunters backing us. He wanted the same kind of rescue that the board had already vetoed three times. I begged him to come, and he said he would but that we had to plan it better. Dumb ass.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, we argued about it… a lot. He insisted we needed more Hunters to come with us, and I just wanted the two of us. It’s quieter that way, and we could infiltrate more places before anyone would have noticed we were here. He stood by his idea of convincing the board of a rescue. And, well…here I am.”

“Why would you come here by yourself? This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

“Well, even perfection makes mistakes.”

I could see pretty well in the dark, so his grin wasn’t hidden from me.

“Knock it off!” I slapped at him. “This isn’t a time for joking around. We have to get out of here. My birthday is in about a month!”

He shifted to face me better. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“Well, apparently, I was bred to allow my father to become a day walker.”

Drew visibly startled. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, the only way a vampire can become a day walker is if he drinks the blood of a human who is half vampire and half vampire hunter. As you well know, those are kinda hard to come by, so my genius father decided he would just use my mother to make his own.”

“What the…are you freakin’ joking?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not joking one bit. I didn’t even get to the part where he has to drain my entire body of blood on the day of my sixteenth birthday for it to work.”

“Oh, god! Chloe! We have to get you out of here.”

“Yeah, you think?” I mumbled. “I’m more concerned about getting you out of here. He needs me alive, at least for another month, but you are expendable. Like he said, he wants to kill you tonight.”

He stood and paced, like I’d done before. “How the hell are we going to get out of here? We need the other Hunters.”

I nodded. “Luke will know. He always knows when I’m in trouble.” I watched him pace. “Is that Luke’s gift? Does he have some kind of psychic ability or something?”

He nodded, but continued his voyage from one end of the cell to the other. “Yeah, mostly it’s just like a strong feeling, but with people close to him, he has been known to have visions or dreams.”

I pretty much knew this, but it was nice to have confirmation.

“Drew, come sit down.”

“I can’t sit down; we have to get out.”

He went to the bars and tried to look down the dank hallway on the other side.

In an effort to get him to sit down so I could think for a moment, I said, “I need you to tell me why you hate Gavin so much.”

“Chloe, I don’t want to talk about that now.”

The outside of the cell had suddenly become important to him. He looked from side to side, up and down.

“You will never want to talk about it unless I hassle you. Get over here.”

His hands dropped to his side, and he turned to face me. “Fine.”

I patted the hard stone floor, offering him his spot back. “Besides, I need you over here to keep me warm.”

“Can’t you warm yourself up with your fire?”

“Uh, no, it doesn’t really work that way.”

He slid back down the wall beside me.

“All right, now spill it, mister.”

Drew was silent for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, I suppose. He leaned forward and wrapped his hands around his knees. “Gavin is my brother.”

“What!” I knew something was up with them, but I never suspected they were brothers.

“He is my half-brother. My mother is also his mother. Right after I was born, my mother left my father for Gavin’s father. She left me too. She had been having an affair with Gavin’s father. When I was six months old, she found out she was pregnant again. This time the baby wasn’t my father’s. My father kicked her out and told her never to come near him or me again.”

“She just left you? Her baby?” I was having a really hard time believing a woman could do that.

“Yes, she just left me. I think she knew my dad would have fought for me, physically, if he had to.” He closed his eyes. “She probably figured that she had another baby coming, so she would be able to replace me anyway.”

“But… you all live in the community, how is it that you never see her?”

“I don’t know. She avoids me, I think. I pretty much hate her for screwing around on my dad and leaving us, so I’m okay with not seeing her.”

“She never tried to talk to you?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“And Gavin… how is it his fault that your mom did this to you?”

“It’s not. He has tried to be my friend over the years, get to know me or whatever, but I don’t want to be his friend, and I especially don’t want to try to be brothers.”