Page 122 of Burn Falls

“We gotta go,” Draven stated and moved back to his bedroom. Athan and I followed.

“Now?” I asked.

“Now.” Draven grabbed a bag from his closet and started filling it with clothes.

“Go where?” I questioned.

“As far as we can get before the sun rises.”

“But my mom.”

Draven stopped stuffing clothes into the bag. “Right. We’ll pick her up on the way.”

“Can’t we just stay here?” I asked. “Renzo can’t come inside.”

“He can burn the house down with you in it,” Draven stated a matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” My eyes widened, and I looked at Athan. He nodded in agreement with Draven.

“Go pack your laptop, sweets, and all the blood bags. We’re leaving tonight.”

Not being there at OBB to oversee the operations and whatnot felt as though I was letting my father down. It was going to go under. I knew it. My father must have been rolling over in his grave because he’d worked so hard to get it to the point it was at and I was going to leave it to burn to the ground.

“What about Al and Betha?” I questioned.

Draven looked to Athan. “We could call them and tell them that they each need to get out of town,” Athan offered. “Drive as far as they can and then lay low.”

“They have school for several more months.”

“Do you want to take the chance of Renzo getting to them?” Draven asked as he returned to packing.

“Of course not.”

“We’ll talk about it on the way out of town. We need to go now,” Draven clipped.

I didn’t argue anymore as I went to pack my laptop and made sure I had my cell phone and charger in my purse. Athan went to his room, and I heard the rustling of clothes. Moments later he and Draven were ushering me to the car, and we were driving toward my mom’s house.

“How am I going to get my mother to invite me in? She’s going to think we’re crazy.”

“Shit.” Draven slapped the steering wheel. “Since you’re no longer human, your invitation doesn’t work on me either. She’ll need to invite us all in.”

“I’ll stand guard,” Athan said from the backseat.

“Can’t you compel her to let us in?”

“If she stares me in the eyes long enough.”

“Well, we’re going to have to try that or get her to come outside in the freezing cold while we tell her some folklore about vampires.”

“We knew this day would eventually come,” Athan stated.

“Yeah, but we didn’t know it would happen like this,” Draven said.

As we drove closer to the house, we were all sucking on blood bags as I thought about how it was all my fault. If I hadn’t seen my father get attacked, he might have died there in OBB, and we never would have gone to Draven’s hospital. Draven would have never taken it upon himself to keep me safe, and he and Athan would be—

“We would be right here with you,” Draven indicated.

My gaze cut to him. “You were reading my thoughts?”