Page 10 of To Love a Vampire
Declan stops in his tracks, smirking but offers me his hand. As he pulls me up I glance down at the dead tree branch that’s littering the dirt, catching dry leaves and twigs and what appears to be paper.
Bending down, I pick up the foreign piece of paper, so out of place in nature. My fingers work meticulously to straighten the edges of the crinkly and torn document. Once its edges are smooth my breath leaves my lungs, leaving me gasping and confused.
My face stares back at me.
Against the dirty white paper are my own green eyes looking up at me, my dark hair pulled high and neatly atop my head, a broad smile stretched across my tan face.
It’s my school ID photo, laying out here in the desert, ready to blow into the mountains and never be seen again.
Along the bottom of the page in stark bold letters are the words:
MISSING:
FALLON FIERCELY
LAST SEEN HEADED WEST
APPROACH WITH CAUTION
ANY INFORMATION SHOULD BE REPORTED
DIRECTLY TO YOUR
CONGRESSMAN, AYDEN THOMAS
Ayden.
His name stands out like the guiding moonlight in the clear night sky.Is he searching for me?
Of course he is.
How does he even know I never returned?
“Caution? What the hell does that mean?” Declan’s pale blonde hair brushes against my temple as he scans over the paper.
“I don’t know.”
I do know.
It means Asher.
My mind rewords the true meaning in an instant:Caution, the pike that she was last seen with isn’t very well liked and is seen as a bloodthirsty killer. Could have just been blunt, Ayden.
“Have you ever seen this before?” I ask, leaning away a little to look at him.
He pauses, searching my eyes.
“Yes.”
“Where? How many?”
Declan exhales a long breath, raising his brows as he thinks. His slowness to respond makes the anticipation grow to a hulking mass in my chest.
“I don’t know, a hundred, maybe two hundred copies scattered through the woods, throughout neighboring villages, the desert planes stretching between here and the Capitol.”
“Two. Hundred. Copies.” I take a deep breath, ready to blow out every word I know to try to express my anger. “You passed two hundred copies of my grubby face thrown throughout the world like confetti and you didn’t think to notify me? Maybe the missing person herself might want to know about this little bit of information.”
“I-"
