The Vault (A Farm Novel) Read Free Page A

only now? You think I’m going to lose interest if this takes too long? I’m not,” he says fiercely. “I am in this for her. I don’t want her just when it’s easy or convenient. I love her. Forever. No matter what.”
    My heart twists itself into a knot, because I almost believe him. What would it feel like to be loved like that? To love like that? Unconditionally. Forever.
    My family loved me like that. When I was human. But no guy has ever felt that way about me. And now? Now that I’m this monster? I couldn’t even be with a guy without wanting to eat him. Not quite the all-consuming love of girlish fantasies.
    I can’t contain the jealousy that slices through me. Lily always seemed to have it all compared to me. I hadn’t minded. I’d had order and music and power I didn’t even understand. I had never wanted what she had. And now I do.
    It shouldn’t bother me. I don’t want it to bother me.
    Carter is just looking at me. Waiting for a response.
    I say the only thing I can think of. “I would
never
have chosen this for myself. This was forced on me. I won’t force it on her.”
    “She’s been exposed to the Tick virus!” he yells, like I don’t understand. “Don’t you think she’d rather be a vampire than a Tick?”
    “No,” I snarl back. “I think she’d rather be dead than a Tick.”
    “Are you threatening to kill her?”
    Suddenly Carter is right in my face, and now I have more to contend with than just his anger. The desperation. The fear. The love. It’s all right there, ready to shove my own will out of his way.
    But what would it hurt, really? Would it be so bad? My sister as a vampire? As a murderer? My sister, who has always been so determined to do the right thing. To make the world a better place. To protect the weak.
    It would kill my sister to become a vampire. To see humans as kine. To feed off the people she loves.
    But maybe she’d be stronger than I am. And Carter would be with her. He could help her control herself. He could . . .
    What he could actually do is force me to change my mind.
    His determination is already swaying my will.
    He is so dangerous and he doesn’t even seem to realize it.
    I back away, slowly, palms raised. “No. But I won’t turn her. Not as long as we have any other options.”
    “Okay then,” he says firmly. “Let’s go get those other options.”
    I take another step back and another, because I can still feel it, tugging at my mind. Biting Lily is the only solution. The only way to guarantee her safety. And I know I need to get out of there before he’s convinced me.
    “I get Sebastian, you go to Sabrina’s.” Suddenly, sending him far, far away from me doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
    Before Carter can say anything else, I turn and run. Not just from him and this strange power he holds over me, but from myself as well.
    Because I know, deep inside, that it wasn’t my restraint that saved his life just now. It was something else. Not something within me, but something within him. I didn’t stop because I got control over myself. I stopped because his blood tasted wrong. Horribly repugnant. Deadly.
    The truth is I was dangerously close to killing one of the few people I’ve ever really considered a friend. And he is
Lily’s
. He is her love. He may be the one person who can save her. Killing him would have risked her life and destroyed her happiness.
    Those are things I didn’t even consider when his throat was in my mouth. They wouldn’t have stopped me. That is the kind of monster I am.
    I can’t do this to her. Not as long as there’s another choice.
    Out in the parking lot, far from Carter, I consider my options. There are plenty of cars, but I pick the one we came in. I only learned how to drive in the last three days. I need familiarity.
    I don’t even know how to hot-wire a car, but we took this one from El Corazon and we have the keys, so I slide into the driver’s seat. Except—dang it—the dog is in the