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  “I love you,” he whispered softly into my ear. “Always.”

  With that, he was gone. Before I could even open my eyes, he’d disappeared. I hadn’t even had time to plead with him or restrain him. He was just gone.

  “Kai!” I screamed, collapsing to the floor and covering my face with my hands.

  “Are you okay?” I heard a voice say.

  I looked up and saw Jamie and Will standing in my door, both looking extremely worried.

  “Kai’s gone!” I shouted through my sobs.

  “Gone?” Jamie asked. “Gone where?”

  “To find Max,” I moaned.

  “What?” Jamie gasped. “Why?”

  “He wants to die,” I groaned, shaking my head.

  Will kneeled beside me and put his arms around me, and Jamie plopped down in the floor in front of me.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” Jamie assured me.

  “He left his phone,” I cried, motioning to the damaged phone he’d tossed onto the bed.

  “He’ll come back,” Will said.

  “He won’t,” I said. “I’m certain of it.”

  “Call Max,” Jamie said at once.

  “What for?” I asked her.

  “Ask him not to hurt Kai,” she suggested.

  “Why would he listen to me?” I questioned. “He thinks with Kai out of the way, I’ll want to be with him.”

  “Tell him that’s not true,” Jamie said.

  That could work, I thought. Max wouldn’t want to risk any chance he had of being with me, would he? I had to try.

  With trembling hands, I picked up Kai’s phone and dialed Max’s number. He answered after just one ring.

  “Alice?” he asked.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “I was beginning to think you’d never call me back!”

  “Max, I have to talk to you about something serious.”

  “What is it?”

  “Kai’s coming there,” I said.

  He sat in stunned silence. I guess this was better news that he’d ever hoped for.

  “Listen, Max,” I pleaded. “If you hurt Kai, I swear to you that you will never hear from me again. I will hate you until my last breath, do you understand me?”

  “Alice, I…” he started to say something.

  “I’m serious, Max,” I said. “You know how I feel about him. And you know what it would do to me if anything happened to him, right?”

  “I do,” he said softly.

  “Then don’t hurt him,” I begged. “It will kill me.”

  I heard him gulp.

  “Fine,” he said. I could hear that his teeth were clenched.

  “Fine?” I verified. “You won’t hurt him?”

  “You have my word,” he snarled. “But I want one thing in return.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I want you to come home,” he said quietly. “Be my friend again.”

  “You mean act like none of this ever happened?” I questioned.

  “Right,” he said.

  “You want me to bring my entire family back where you or your father could slaughter us all at any time?”

  “I promise you, I won’t hurt any of you,” he said. “I won’t tell my father about you.”

  “How can I trust you?” I asked. “You’re a hunter!”

  “Alice, listen to me,” he said firmly. “Do you believe I care about you? Can you hear it in my voice?”

  I thought for a minute before I answered, “Yes.”

  “Then do you really think I could hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Then come home.”

  “And I have your word you will never hurt Kai or any of us?”

  “You have my word,” he reaffirmed.

  I gritted my teeth, but finally said, “Okay, fine.”

  I hung up before he had a chance to say anything else. I looked up at Jamie and Will.

  “Get packed. We’re going home.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Really Home

  When we got home, Max was waiting for us. He was sitting in the swing on the front porch. Kai was nowhere to be seen, and I was breathless with fear that the worst had happened. As soon as Jamie put the van into park, I flew out the door and up the steps.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “Relax,” Max said. “I haven’t seen him. I’ve been waiting here for almost two days.”

  “Where could he be?” I muttered.

  “Listen, before you go inside,” Max said. “I wanted to… apologize.”

  “For what?” I snapped.

  “Well… I…” he mumbled.

  “Spit it out,” I hissed.

  “I kind of damaged some stuff… some paintings,” he admitted. “I assumed they were his.”

  “No…” I whispered, remembering the painting he’d done of the mother and child. “Please tell me you didn’t damage the painting of the mother and child.”

  “I don’t remember one like that,” he said.

  I raced upstairs to Kai’s room, and a stack of canvasses lay in shambles in the middle of the floor. My eyes darted around the room, and I spotted the painting of the mother and child in a corner, partially hidden by a table. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t ask how Max knew which room was Kai’s.

  Nothing else appeared to be touched. Maybe Kai hadn’t come home, yet. He didn’t have a car, so maybe he couldn’t get back here as quickly as we could in the van. Surely, that must be it.

  Jamie was helping Mother and Will bring their bags inside, and Max was offering to help.

  “No,” my mother told him. “I think you’ve done quite enough, hunter.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, hanging his head.

  Max’s phone rang.

  “Dad?” he answered after looking at the caller ID.

  His face turned pale, and he sat down with a thud on the porch step.

  “Max?” I asked.

  “Dad, don’t do anything!” he shouted into the phone. “I know him!”

  Max listened for a few moments, and I desperately strained to hear the other side of the conversation. Damn it! Why is my hearing failing me now of all times? I thought.

  “Dad, please,” Max begged. “Just wait until I get home. I’ll explain everything.”

  He stood up and snapped his phone shut.

  “I have to go,” he said to me.

  “Kai?” I breathed.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “He’s at my house. He told my father he’s a vampire and that he was there to let me kill him.”

  “Oh, my God!” I gasped. “Your father knows about him, now! Will he kill him?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Max assured me. “He wants me to do it. It’s almost my birthday, and he thinks this will be good practice.”

  “Practice…” I whispered, almost passing out.

  I sat down on the step to avoid fainting.

  “I won’t hurt him,” Max promised. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’m coming with you!” I shouted, jumping to my feet, and then falling back to the step when my knees buckled.

  “No!” Max insisted. “I won’t have you in harm’s way. I won’t risk anything happening to you.”

  “But… Kai!” I shouted.

  “He’ll be fine,” he assured me. “I will find a way to get him out of there.”

  “But…” I tried to argue.

  “Trust me, Alice,” he said, looking deep into my eyes.

  I was quiet for a moment, and then I said, “I do.”

  “And for that reason, I won’t let you down,” he promised.

  With that, he jumped into his car and raced away.

  Jamie looked as pale as a ghost, having overheard everything. Will and my mother also looked concerned.

  “Do you think you can really trust him?” my mother asked me.

  “Yes,” I said quickly.

  I knew there was a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. I knew I misre
ad and misjudged people often. I knew I was too trusting in general. But there was one thing I was certain of. Max loved me. I trusted him.

  “I hope you’re right,” my mother said, sitting beside me and putting her arm around me.

  I buried my head into her shoulder and sobbed. I could trust Max. Of that much, I was absolutely certain. But would he be able to stop his father in time?

  Excerpt from Storm

  Blood Haze: Book Two

  My brother, my mother, my best friend Jamie, and I all sat in silence in the living room of my house. We were waiting for word from my friend Max, a soon-to-be vampire hunter, on whether or not my boyfriend, Kai, would live or die.

  Jamie gnawed her fingernails – something she always did in times of stress. I felt as though my heart would burst from my chest. The only sounds in the room were the click-click-click of Jamie biting her nails, and the tick-tock, tick-tock of the grandfather clock.

  Kai – my love, my life, my world – had gone to Max’s father to plead for death. He knew I had feelings for Max – the dark haired Adonis, and he could not bear it. I’d insisted it wasn’t love, and that was the truth as far as I knew. But it was more than Kai could stand. I had become the center of Kai’s entire existence.

  Kai’s adoptive father had died in prison when he was a baby, and his mother had always blamed him for it. His father had gone to prison for murdering my father, but it had been an accident that was set in motion by Kai, then only a toddler, coming into the room. But Kai’s mother blamed him, and she detested him even more when she discovered he was a vampire.

  All of this sparked a lifetime of abuse. Kai had been horribly mistreated by his alcoholic adoptive mother, his grandfather, and his cousins. Still, kind soul that he was, he cared for his mother and regularly went to check on her to ensure she wasn’t driving drunk. That was the kind of selfless person he was.

  I couldn’t stand the waiting. Not knowing what was happening was driving me crazy, and it was all I could do to keep from racing out to our rented van and speeding over to Max’s house. But he insisted he would keep Kai safe for me, and I had no choice but to believe him. I trusted him.

  I stood up and began to pace. I found myself chewing my own fingernails – something I’d never done before. The waiting and wondering was unbearable. I kept glancing at Kai’s phone, praying Max would call.

  The grandfather clocked began to toll its hourly refrain. The deep bong of the clock sounded five times. It was 5:00 P.M., and it had been over an hour since Max had sped away from our house.

  “Why isn’t he calling?” I asked no one in particular.

  “He will,” Jamie assured me.

  “What if he was too late?” I asked, shuddering.

  “He wasn’t,” Jamie answered.

  “But what if he was?” I moaned. “And why won’t he call?”

  With that, the phone rang. Kai’s ringtone, my favorite song, “Moonlight Sonata,” the first movement, rang throughout the room. I felt my heart thud in my chest, and I slowly walked toward the phone. The song was somber, and it perfectly accentuated the anxiety I felt as my trembling hands reached for it. I flipped it open, took a deep breath, and pressed it to my ear.

  “Alice…” Max said. “It’s over.”

  *****

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