All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [20]
Sarah was stunned, both by the bitterness in Kristopher’s tone and the notion of such “certain understandings.” She wasn’t fully convinced that Kaleo wouldn’t someday need killing, but she would hold her tongue on the subject, at least until the current crisis was dealt with.
Nikolas returned, expression somber. “Christine is activating one of the phones. It looks like it might take a while. Are we going to help Kaleo?”
“Will Heather help the hunters?” Sarah asked. Nikolas and Kristopher both shook their heads without even needing to consider. “Then they’ll hurt her. She’s old enough, and close enough to Kaleo, that if they decide she’s useless, they might even kill her to weaken him.”
“And we’ll risk our necks rescuing her in order to help that bastard.” Nikolas sighed. “Sarah, help Christine make her call, but get away from her before … Just get away from her.”
“I’m not sure she should be alone right now,” Sarah said.
“We won’t be long,” Nikolas said. “Trust me, Sarah. You don’t know what a newly made vampire’s hunger can be like.”
“We’ll help you feed safely as soon as we get the word out about the Rights,” Kristopher said. “For now, be careful.” He bent his head to kiss her, and whispered, “I love you,” against her lips.
The brief touch of lips to lips should have been comforting, but for some reason it gave her chills. How many times had Kristopher said he loved her? She had never said it back to him. Should she?
Kristopher paused, as if hoping for a response, but then drew away. She didn’t dare look at his mind; she didn’t want to know if he was disappointed or relieved.
She felt numb.
The brothers both left, and Sarah sighed as some of the hard questions were deferred. She went to check on Christine, who was still struggling to activate the cell phone.
The tears on Christine’s face made Sarah freeze in the doorway and think, I don’t know how to handle this.
While Sarah tried to figure out what to say, Christine abruptly threw the phone across the room with a frustrated shriek. “Why do people have to be so stupid?” she cried as the phone broke through one of the windowpanes.
She stood up, and Sarah’s first instinct was to tell her to sit down, shut up and cope. If anyone had a right to hysterics, it was Sarah, right? But Sarah was a daughter of Vida, and she wasn’t allowed such a luxury, even now. It didn’t matter that the sister who had once studied Vida law beside her was now using it to remove all barriers to killing her.
She found herself staring at the shards of glass hanging loosely in the shattered window. She wanted to convince herself that even if Dominique had called the Rights of Kin, Adia would never follow them, but no matter what Sarah wanted, that was too selfish a thought to contemplate. There weren’t that many Vidas left. Adia couldn’t throw it all away.
Sarah was standing there, immobile, when Christine flung herself into Sarah’s arms and began to weep, her sobs almost as loud as the heartbeat that suddenly seemed to ricochet through Sarah’s bones. She could feel Christine’s pulse everywhere they touched as Christine shrieked, “I’m so … so … tired of being helpless!”
Sarah shut her eyes, trying to block out the sensation of the human’s pulse and the scent of her skin.
“Robert tried to protect me. You protected me from Kaleo even though it meant trusting Nikolas. Nikolas and Kristopher try to protect me now, and I’m grateful and I do feel better, but I’m—” She broke off with a hiccup. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry,