Life Of A Vampire (Book 3)

Chapter Eighteen

We were tracking Vivian's scent when I got the call. Ashley's name flashed across the screen of my phone. I tentatively answered.

"Hello?" Silence. "Ashley?" I heard a faint sob on the other line. "Ashley what's wrong?"

"She's gone." Was the whispered reply. A ringing filled my ears.

"What?"

"She's gone. Rozalina's dead." She continued talking but I didn't hear anything she said. It felt as though I was floating outside of my body, watching my world implode. I could almost see the air around me shattering, taking me and everything I loved with it. Gone. She's gone. All my fault. If Mike was here he would agree that it was my fault but I noticed his nagging voice was gone from my head. I felt empty. Completely alone but surrounded by people.

"Alexander?" I heard someone call my name but I couldn't respond. I hung up the phone and let it slip through my fingers. I dropped to my knees and let my head fall in my hands.

Gone.

Earlier

"Lina-a-a." Ashley called in a sing-song voice into the room where Lina's body was being kept. The girl was impossibly still but her friend didn't notice. She sat beside the bed. "You missed a great episode of Ghost Adventures. Zak totally had the shit scared out of him. And don't even get me started on Aaron." She laughed and touched her friend's deathly cold hand. That's when she knew something was wrong. "Lina?" She grasped her friend's hand tighter and looked for any signs of life. Her chest no longer lifted and fell undsteadily as it had for the past few days. Her skin was paler than normal, the pink in her cheeks gone. She looked gray. "Lina please!" She pleaded softly as tears streamed down her face and landed on her friend's throat.

Ashley ran from the room. Ran from the looming shadow of death that had gripped her life lately. Ran from everything she could run from. She stumbled down the stairs and grabbed her phone from where it rested on a wooden end-table that was crowded with dead, wilting roses.

"911 what's your emergency?" The operator asked.

"Please, help, it's my best friend, I don't think she's breathing." Ashley gasped as she said the words aloud, more tears spilling down her cheeks.

"Ma'am calm down." The 911 operator instructed cooly.

"Calm down? Calm down!" She was practically seething. "My friend is most likely dead and that's all you got? Calm down?"

"Whats the address?" He snapped over the line. Ashley mindlessly rattled off the address of the run down mansion. The operator must have recognized it because he suddenly took in a sharp breath and told her that the ambulance, along with police, would be there soon.

He wasn't lying. Within minutes an ambulance and three police cars were parked out front. Ashley led them in, numbly opening the door that led to her best friend.

"She's been sick for a while." She whispered, not having any other explanation. The ambulance took her, performing CPR on her corpse. The police questioned Ashley. Why were she and Lina here? Had they been kidnapped? Had her friend been murdered? Who else had been in the house with them? And so on. The questions swam around inside her head and her answers came out thick and clunge to her throat, threatening to suffocate her. The officer drove her to the hospital so she could sit in the waiting room that reeked of antiseptic and more death. Everything about this place and the reason she was here made Ashley want to vomit.

Some time later a doctor came to Ashley. A grim look marred her otherwise lovely face. She led her down a hallway and into a dimly lit room. Lina was on a bed, wrapped in a thin blue hospital gown. She wasn't hooked up to anything. There wasn't even an IV sticking out of her arm. She was situated under a starch white sheet with her hands clasped together.

"I'm sorry, but there was nothing we could do." Ashley moved to the edge of the bed and sat carefully although she had no reason to be so gentle. Her friend was already dead. "Her heart was stopped when the paramedics got to her and despite several attempts and techniques her heart never began beating." The woman clasped both hands behind her back. Her curly brown hair was tied into a tight pony tail. Her coffee colored skin was offset by the powder blue scrubs she wore. This woman was too beautiful for a place like this. "I'm sorry." She backed out of the room, retreating down the hallway giving Ashley time with her friend.

She grasped one of Lina's cold, limp hands and squeezed tightly. She drew in a shuddering breath and looked out the window. It was cloudy and gray. The world looked gray a lot these days come to think of it.

"You know, I remember the last time we were here together," she begins. "We were climbing the trees behind my house. You were lagging behind, telling me to be careful. I didn't listen." She laughed quietly to herself. "I missed a branch and fell down. Mama was so mad and all I could do was cry." She stroked her fingertips across Lina's cheek. "You were the only reasonable one of the bunch. You helped Mama get me to the car and told her to take me to the emergency room. You held her hand while they examined me. When they let you see me you told me how stupid I was." Ashley's eyes were angled down to where she clasped Lina's hand. "You told me to never do it again and I said I wouldn't as long as you promised me something. Do you remember what I made you promise? I made you promise that you'd always be there to tell me when I was being stupid and to stop when it got out of hand. But now you can't because you're gone." She was crying again. "Maybe I should have promised to do the same for you. I failed and for that I will be forever sorry."

Ashley pulled her hand away and shakily retrieved her cell phone. She would go to wherever Alexander was and help kill Vivian. Then after that she would... she didn't know what she'd do. She found him in her contacts under "mosquito bitch" and called him. She would never forgive him for anything he has put her, and Lina, through but right now she was focused on killing the skank bitch responsible for hurting her friend. For taking her from Ashley. Then she would deal with Alexander. And he wouldn't like when she did.