Page 82 of Burn Falls

“I have to do this, Athan. I don’t want to kill innocent people.”

“I don’t like killing either, but we have to survive.”

“There are other ways than feeding off humans.”

“What? Animals?”

“Yes,” I said dryly.

“Where will you go?”

“West. There’s no one here for me anymore.”

Athan chuckled. “West?”

“There’s more ground to cover that way.”

He thought for a moment. “I’m going with you.”

My eyes widened. “You are?”

He smiled. “I can’t let my best pal make tracks all by his lonesome.”

“He’ll kill you too if he ever finds us.”

“If,” he emphasized the word, “he ever finds us.”

“Then we better go now. Get as far away as we can before the sun rises.”

We drove out of town, leaving everything behind except the clothes on our backs, and we never looked back.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Seattle – Present Day

The rest of the week seemed to drag on. Every night Draven called me on his break while working at the hospital, but they didn’t last longer than ten minutes at a time. It sucked.

Thursday night after the sun went down, Martin came over to my apartment to help load the moving truck I’d rented. Since the cat was out of the bag, Athan was going to drive my car to Burn Falls behind Draven and me. Valencia came over too, and while the guys loaded all of my belongings, we drank margaritas since we weren’t going to have Margarita Fridays for a long time.

“Is it bad that we’re making the guys load the truck alone?” V asked from her seat on the floor of my bare dining room.

I knew that it wasn’t strenuous for Athan, and I could tell—now that I knew—that when he and Martin carried something heavy, he was taking most of the weight. “They said they don’t want our help.” I shrugged.

“I can’t believe that you both are leaving me tomorrow.”

“You know he needs to drive my car, and he needs to help Draven unload everything into my storage unit.” My mother had rented a storage unit for me in anticipation of my move back since I was going to be living with her for some time.

“I know. But what am I going to do with my life?”

“You want to move to Burn Falls? We can be roomies.”

“Maybe. Except Athan is going back to Russia after he helps you guys.”

She might think that, but I knew he was hanging around. “Really? I thought he mentioned the other night at Unicorn that he was thinking of moving to Burn Falls?”

“He said he needs to go back to work and see what’s going on before he can make a decision.”

“What does he do anyway?” I had never asked him nor had he’d said.