Free Destined to Die (The Briar Creek Vampires, #3) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse by Jayme Morse Page B

Austin smiled at
her.
    “Stay safe, okay, babe?”
    She nodded. “You stay safe, too. Let’s meet
back here on Thursday around nine.”
    As Austin flew out the car window and swooped
through the night sky, a dark figure loomed in the background,
watching the direction that he was flying in, before shifting into
a bat and following him.
     
    *
     
    Back at the house, Lexi and Gabe were watching
a movie on the couch. Gabe still wasn’t as talkative as he normally
was, but he had stayed really close to her the whole time Austin
was gone. It made Lexi feel safe knowing that Gabe would be here to
protect her if something went wrong.
    When there was a loud knock at the front door,
Lexi jumped to her feet, startled. “Who could it be?” she whispered
to Gabe.
    “I don’t know,” Gabe said, coming up behind
her. “I’ll handle it, though.”
    Before either of them could open the door,
Austin shouted, “Let me in!” He pounded on the door
again.
    When Lexi turned the knob, Austin burst through
the front door and said, “Sorry, I forgot to bring my keys with
me.”
    “Is everything okay?” Lexi asked, noting that
her cousin’s normally freckled fair skin had turned a bright shade
of tomato red.
    “I don’t know,” Austin replied, his voice shaky
and a startled expression on his face. “I get this weird feeling
that I was being followed by someone.”
    “Why would you think that?” Gabe asked,
scanning their front lawn through the window.
    Austin shook his head, running a finger through
his strawberry blonde hair, which looked like it hadn’t been cut in
quite a while. “No. It was when I was in the sky. It wasn’t until
after I left that I noticed a bat flying behind me. I heard them
and when I looked back, there was someone there.” He turned to
Lexi. “When we’re in bat form, we aren’t able to recognize one
another. I kept changing my route to throw them off and when I was
about halfway home, I realized they weren’t behind me anymore. So I
changed my route once more and came home but I still feel like
something was strange about that bat. I don’t know what it
was.”
    “So, maybe it was just a real bat then,” Lexi
said hesitantly, trying not to feel nervous. “You don’t even know
for sure that it was a vampire, do you?”
    “I guess I didn’t mention that we can smell the
difference between a real bat and other vampires,” Austin replied.
“They smell different from vampires. I didn’t smell a bat scent
this time. The bat that was following me was definitely another
vampire.”
    “No vampires besides us and Ben ever come out
this way,” Gabe murmured. “There’s a really low population of
vampires in this area,” he explained to Lexi. “It had to have been
someone who knew who you were.”
    “But if they wanted to know where he was going,
wouldn’t they have followed him all the way here?” Lexi pointed
out. “Why would they have only gone halfway?”
    “That’s the stranger part,” Austin agreed. “I
don’t know who it was or what they want, but we really need to keep
our guard up. Someone has an idea of where we are, and if it’s
anyone from Briar Creek, they’re going to try even harder to find
us. In fact, I better cancel seeing Mary-Kate again on Thursday
like we agreed.”
    “But we agreed that you wouldn’t call her,”
Gabe insisted. “How are you going to let her know you’re not
meeting her and when you’ll meet her next?”
    “I know. Worst case scenario, I just won’t show
up.”
    “Wait, I’m confused. Why aren’t you calling
Mary-Kate?” Lexi asked.
    “We’re afraid that even if we block the number
we’re calling from, Mayor Lawrence will somehow find a way to
figure out how to trace it and figure out where we are. We only
call her in emergency situations.”
    “That makes sense.” Lexi paused. “I wonder if
the person who tried to follow you home also saw that we were in
Briar Creek earlier tonight. I wonder . . . I wonder if they
already