Chapter 29

I followed Livet into the forest. He wandered a fair distance away from the airplane wreckage and collapsed against one of the trees. I saw an imprint of his bloody smear left by his hand against a wet tree trunk.

I felt strangely numb to the scene unfolding around me. Maybe I was in shock, maybe it was the chill in the night air, or maybe I was awakening to what I always knew.

The cells implanted in my heart were the cells of Orienne's body. She was a woman who lived more than five thousand years ago. The Levarsi scientists cloned her cells from pieces of Orienne's bones and hair about fifty years ago. They had been implanting her cells into human subjects to see if Orienne could be resurrected through a human host. Her cells were malignant, vicious, immortal; they devour everything in their path. Only select humans could live with her cells in their bodies. The cells in my heart have been dormant until now.

Ailith Ying, the blond woman in my vision, and countless others were hosts who received KoRi cells. The real Ailith Ying was dead. I, Orienne, became Ailith when she underwent that surgery when she was six. The woman blond woman must have suffered a similar fate as a child. But who was to say this body isn't rightfully mine? I had been the sole occupant of these cells for the past decades and a half.

A strange peace came over me as I walked through the forest. I couldn't be turned into a vampire because I was already one. My body had already transformed to host a soul that wasn't its own.

"There, there, Livet," I said and patted the young man on his sweat-drench back. He turned to me and began wiping his forehead down with a silk handkerchief. I decided not to point out to him that the handkerchief was stained with blood, and it was making a mess on his face. He was more in shock from all of this than I was. He couldn't help it; death was alien to him. He reminded me of someone, someone I once knew very well. "Livet, that name sounds familiar. Have we met before?"

"No. Though, a long time ago, you were a close acquaintance of my mother," Livet told me with a broad smile, as though he was finally regaining his wits. "Do you remember her? You called her Bree. If not, perhaps you recall my grandfather, Lichtus. Your name back then was Odelia Winter. You never did change your name, not even after you were married."

"I'm sorry, I don't know any of those names," I mused. Odelia Winter, that was the name of the blond woman in my visions. And yes, I was correct, she was dead. She had probably been dead for decades. I saw Livet's face drop as though he had momentarily hoped he was talking to someone else, someone much more knowledgeable than me. Though his features were sharp, his blue eyes were calm and wise. It reminded me of a home I had never known. Then I shook my head. No, Holly was my home now. My parents, or rather Ailith's parents, were likely dead. Holly was all I had left.

"Let's go find Miss Xu," Livet said as though he was reading my mind. "We should make our way away from the crash site. There's no telling when the wreckage might go up in flames."

*

Together, we found Holly nearby. She had heard us talking and had made her way toward us. She looked cold and scared, but unlike before, now she kept her distance from me. I wonder what she had overheard of the conversation between Livet and me.

Perhaps, now she was starting to suspect that Livet and I had a relationship she knew nothing about. I wanted to assure her that we were not in cahoots with each other, but at this point, I didn't know if we truly weren't. Despite the darkness of the forest, Livet saw me shivering in the cold. I don't know what it was that gave me away, maybe it was the sound of my chattering teeth.

He shrugged his arms out of his black wool jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. He did it very naturally as though it wasn't any type of favor stemming from affection or chivalry but instead that it was merely what was expected of him. I noticed he made no move to address Holly's missing shoe. It was as though he barely even realized she was still here.

Who was this Odelia woman, who I was in my last life? Did people wait on her hand and foot? When I almost heard her name in my dream, all I had was a visceral reaction of pure dread. What kind of life had she known? I had a feeling I didn't want to find out.

It wasn't time to ask Livet. He was busy charting a path through the forest using a compass and a map. We were lost somewhere along the border between Florida and Georgia. Livet assured us that there would be a highway about five miles from where we were.

The three of us journeyed through the darkness. Soon, I heard a rustling sound from behind us. I tried to put the sinking thought out of my mind. Maybe it was a squirrel, or a breeze, or even an alligator. Whatever it was, there was nothing to fear from it as long as it was a living, breathing animal.

Only, as the hairs on my neck pricked up, I knew it wasn't.

It was a vampire.

Not just any vampire.

It was the only vampire I knew by name.

Grace.

"My sister is close by," I informed Livet as the tall, skinny man lingered by a fallen tree. He took a breather from our hiking to check his map by the light of his flashlight. Joseph's blood still stained the front of Livet's starched shirt. He had rolled up his sleeves, and now at least his forearms were clean for him to wipe his copious sweat on.

"Do not fret, madame," Livet said with a chuckle. "She will not harm us. You see, Miss Ailith, you two share a bond. She was bound to find you sooner or later."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked, furrowing my brows.

"If Grace is nearby, we need to hurry," Holly interjected with desperation in her voice. She finally found the courage to assert her presence here. She marched up and tried to snatch the map from Livet, but he quickly yanked it out of her hands as though his life depended on it. "We're close to the road. If there are cars there, she might be scared into hiding."

"No," I said as I stared into Livet's eyes. "He knows much more about Ailith's, I mean my family than he is letting on. I'm not going anywhere until you tell us what happened to my family. If you know what happened to my sister, then how about my mother?" I swallowed hard and felt my throat start to ache at the thought. "My father?"

Livet reached out and squeezed my shoulder, leaving flecks of dried blood on my shirt. "Don't worry about your father anymore. He took the first evacuation flight out of Miami before the Blight hit. The Levarsi got him out of there, and he's back in their headquarters in Lykos now. They had a deal."

"My father left my sister and me?" I asked, my voice starting to break. There goes to that sense of eerie calm that I had felt earlier. My emotions, Ailith's emotions, were beginning to take over. "He left our mother?"

"You were never in any danger," Livet reassured me. He reached out with a hand as though he was contemplating patting me on the shoulder. Then, as his fingers hung an inch above my shoulder, he withdrew them as though he thought better of the gesture. It occurred to me that he was just a little intimidated by my reactions. We weren't exactly friends, not in this life or my last.

Livet turned his eyes to the creature in the forest as though he would much rather face her than confront my feelings of abandonment.

"But as for this matter of your sister who is stalking us, I want you to close your eyes and try to sense her presence. When you feel the closest to her, tell her to leave us alone. Try it. She might just do it."

"And if that doesn't work?" Holly asked. "We're just going to ask nicely, and a vampire will just leave us alone?"

"It will work," Livet said. "On this particular vampire. Trust me. I'm not just good for polishing silver and folding napkins."

I closed my eyes and searched for Grace's face in my memory. I tried to pretend as though I were talking to her.

Stay away. It's not safe.

I heard her footsteps back away from us. It was working! I opened my eyes and smiled at Livet.

"I wish you taught me how to do this sooner," I said. "So, these vampires aren't just dumb flesh-eating machines?"

"No, absolutely not," Livet replied with a laugh. "Some of them are quite intelligent. You'll see."