The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [89]
Finally the human paused, and again she sensed him sizing her up.
Technically Sarah should have asked Dominique’s permission before telling any human she was a witch. Depending on how Robert handled her revelation, Sarah would either have to wipe his mind to make him forget she had said anything — something that was difficult, but possible — or she might be able to enlist his help.
Robert glanced around the parking lot, where other students were gathering in the postschool flurry of activity. “Get in the car,” he finally said. “Tell me what you know.”
He pulled out of the parking lot before Sarah could think how to begin. Her silence seemed to make him uneasy, so he spoke instead. “Look. Just because I’m listening to you doesn’t necessarily mean I believe you. But maybe if you tell me what you were doing at the bash …”
“You must have left early if you don’t know the answer to that one,” Sarah said, thinking of the disaster that night had turned into.
“About ten,” Robert answered, with a nod. “I couldn’t find the person I was looking for, so it made sense to ditch.”
“Who were you looking for?”
Robert had been driving aimlessly, apparently, but now he stopped at the side of the road. Voice cool and level despite the suspicion, he asked, “Why do you care?”
Sarah could see he wasn’t going to give away information for free, and unlike the vampires, she did not have the ability to reach into his mind and find what she needed to know. She had to tell him something. “I want someone dead, and you might be able to help me,” she explained.
Robert hesitated for only a fraction of a heartbeat. “You’re after Nikolas.” When Sarah nodded, he looked at her with absolute skepticism, sizing up her slender figure. “You really think you could get that … creature?”
“I’m going to try,” she snapped before she could catch herself. His implication had struck a chord, but Robert didn’t know what he was talking about; getting mad at him wouldn’t help things. She forced herself to control her tone the next time she spoke. “I’m not planning to arm wrestle him, Robert, and I’m not as helpless as you think. I’m not human; I’m stronger than your kind, and I have more power. And I’ve been trained to kill vampires my entire life. I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, good luck,” Robert answered sarcastically “I’ve killed my share of vampires, but I’ve still been after this bastard for months.”
She had to restrain herself from snickering at his bravado as she noticed Robert hadn’t elaborated on the exact number of leeches he had put a knife through. She wasn’t surprised. He was only human, after all, and though she hadn’t seen him fight, his ignorance of her kind told Sarah that he was probably relatively new at wielding a knife. He was lucky he had not run into Nikolas yet, or his little extracurricular activity would have gotten him killed already.
“How long have you been hunting?” she asked.
“Since Nikolas.” His response was short, but clear.
“What did he do to you?”
Robert took a deep breath, his gaze somewhere past Sarah’s left shoulder. “Not to me … my sister.” He spoke slowly, considering his words carefully before they emerged. “Her name was Christine.”
“Was?” Sarah would be far from surprised to learn the leech had slaughtered the poor girl.
“We call her Kristin, now. She doesn’t respond to her real name.” He paused. The silence was so long that Sarah began to wonder if he was finished, but finally he continued, “One of her friends, Heather, brought her to a party … I didn’t know then, but it was one of Nikolas’s bashes. She didn’t come home that night, or the next morning. My mother called the police, and they must have checked the hospitals.” Again he took a deep breath as if to brace himself, and she could see the vision forming in his eyes. “She had lost a lot of blood. He had carved his name into her arms, then left her nearly dead on some stranger’s front lawn.”
As he spoke, emotions surged across Robert’s aura — fury, frustration, hatred. He forced his lungs to take in a deep breath of air to calm himself, but