vampire beach 1 - Bloodlust by Alex Duval

Author:Alex Duval [Alex Duval]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance/paranormal
ISBN: 9781416534228
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2006-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Nine

Jason climbed out of the police car and headed up his driveway. His mom, his dad, and Dani were waiting for him on the front lawn. Mrs. Freeman wrapped him in a tight hug and didn’t let go. He hugged her back, then pulled away, trying to muster up a reassuring smile for his mother. It didn’t work—the concern remained in her eyes. He had the feeling she was imagining him lying there on the sand, with blue lips and fingernails. Cold. Dead.

“Mom, it’s okay. I’m okay,” Jason said. His mother slowly nodded, and his dad took over, giving Jason the father-patented rib-busting special.

“You’re not going to have to hug me too, are you?” he asked Dani when his dad let go.

“No. Don’t worry. I’ll let you off,” she teased, but her gray eyes were serious.

“When the police called…” Mrs. Freeman shook her head. “I knew we were right not to let Dani go to that party. I shouldn’t have let you go either. Where were the parents? That’s what I want to know. They just waved from the dock as a bunch of teenagers and enough alcohol to kill a—”

“Mom,” Jason interrupted her, “not now.”

“I can’t even imagine how that poor girl’s mother is feeling. Did either of you know her?” his mother asked.

“A little,” Jason admitted.

“We talked about surfing once,” Dani said. “She promised to show me the best boards.” Jason suspected that that conversation had taken place at the party, hours before Carrie died. But he wasn’t going to rat out his sister. “She was only a year older than me,” Dani added, her voice choked with tears.

Now Dani got the parental hug treatment. “You see why we didn’t want you at that party?” Mr. Freeman said.

“Yeah,” Dani answered quietly. “You were right.”

“Well, we were going to fire up the grill and have a barbecue,” Mrs. Freeman announced, clapping her hands together. “We have those steaks.”

Jason appreciated the change of subject, even though he doubted he could eat. His own emotions weighed pretty heavily right now: guilt over not telling his parents that Dani had been on the yacht, horror over the memory of Carrie’s dead body, and just a basic queasiness over the realization that he’d been making out with Erin and obsessing about Sienna when Carrie had fallen overboard to her death. “Barbecue sounds good, Mom,” he said.

“We’ll do the corn, too,” their mother said, “and a salad.”

Dani and Jason stood in silence as their parents disappeared into the house. “Thanks for not telling,” she said when they were out of sight.

“You think I want to kill our mother?” Jason asked. The joke landed with an almost audible thud. Right now it was way too easy to imagine any of the people he loved being snatched away from him. The world suddenly felt dangerous.

Dani just looked at him, her big gray eyes still serious.

Jason looped his arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go inside.”

“Was she…like, deteriorating?”

With the school day less than half over, this was the eleventh time someone had asked Jason about finding Carrie’s body.

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