Destined to Die (The Briar Creek Vampires, #3) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse by Jayme Morse

who is in town these days. There are also a few
vampires here . . . including Greg Lawrence . . . who have also
been cured by the disease, so they can smell you.”
    Of all the vampires who had been saved, Greg
Lawrence had to be one of them. He was probably her biggest enemy
in Briar Creek. He intimidated her even more than Violet and Tommy,
mostly because he was the mayor and he had such authority over the
town. Greg Lawrence also hadn’t made things easy for her. The only
other time she had ever tried to escape from Briar Creek, he had
caught up with her and made her come back. He must have been able
to smell her that night.
    “Okay, I think we’re ready to go find Lexi’s
tote bag,” Austin said. In the dim glow of the streetlamp, Lexi saw
her cousin turn to Gabe. “You’re sure that Dan said he’s
distracting them right now?”
    “Wait, wait, wait,” Lexi interrupted, throwing
her hands up in the air. “ Dan is in on this?” Dan had been
Austin’s best friend, who her aunt had also forced her to date in
an attempt to keep a close watch on her.
    “Yes, unfortunately,” Gabe muttered.
    “You’re just bitter because he likes Lexi,”
Austin teased. He turned to Lexi. “Sorry, but that’s the truth.
Dan’s a good guy. He’ll help us however he can.”
    “I don’t trust him,” Lexi replied, unconvinced.
Since she had been in Briar Creek, Dan had the opportunity to show
her his true colors on multiple occasions. When he wasn’t busy
insisting that Lexi date him or trying to attack her, he was having
private conversations with Violet and Tommy that had Lexi convinced
that he was on their side. She trusted him about as much as she
trusted Gertie, the town busybody, to keep a secret: not at all. “I
mean, he did attack me that night, you know.”
    Austin shook his head. “I know that must have
been really scary for you, Lexi, but I think you need to see it
from Dan’s perspective . . . from a vampire’s perspective. You
smell so good to vampires. It’s like waving a bottle of vanilla
vodka in front of an alcoholic. It’s hard for a vampire to resist,”
Austin said. “Dan didn’t attack you because he wanted to hurt you.
He was just having a really hard time controlling
himself.”
    “That’s bullshit,” Gabe chimed in. “I was
around Lexi for a long time. I lived across the street from her,
for Christ’s sake. I definitely got a whiff of her scent, but you
didn’t see me attacking her for blood.”
    Lexi glanced over at Gabe and thought she saw
the angry expression on his face in the moonlit. “No matter what
his intentions were, it was still really scary. I don’t trust him,
and I don’t think you should trust him either.”
    “As someone who’s known Dan for almost my whole
life,” Austin began, climbing out of the car, “I can vouch for him.
He’s a good guy. He’s on our side. Don’t worry. Now, let’s drop
it.”
    As Lexi opened her own car door, she opened her
mouth to say something, but quickly shut it, deciding to keep her
opinion to herself. There was no way Austin was going to let her
win this fight right now. She was just going to have to find a way
to prove to him that Dan couldn’t be trusted. If Lexi knew Dan as
well as she thought she did, he was going to make it really easy
for her.
    When she was standing on the pavement, Lexi
glanced around. On the night of the festival, she had tossed her
tote bag into the bushes somewhere around here, but she couldn’t
remember exactly where. It was important for them to find her tote
bag because it held all of Austin’s belongings that had been given
to Lexi by his friend Anna. She’d assumed that everything in the
bag was really important, so they really needed to find
it.
    “Question,” Lexi said to Austin, as she
crouched down to look under the bushes. “Why did you give this
stuff to Anna to give to me, anyway? I mean, you were alive the
whole time. You could have just held onto the stuff until you could
give it to