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

me on your own.”
    Austin took a deep breath. “I just wanted to
make sure that you would be able to get it . . . if I wasn’t able
to get it to you. I didn’t really know what was going to happen to
me when my mom and dad tried to kill me. I thought my plan would
work, but I couldn’t be too sure. I couldn’t get the stuff back
from Anna at that point because I needed as many people as possible
to believe that I was really dead. I didn’t want to involve
everyone in this. Then, I planted my journal when I knew you would
find it and read it.”
    “You knew that I read your journal?” Lexi
asked, somewhat embarrassed. Though she wasn’t sure why she would
be, he had obviously wanted her to read it, just as she had
suspected. It was just strange hearing him admit it out loud, but
it also made her feel happy. She wouldn’t have to feel so guilty
about snooping through it from now on; she was supposed
to.
    “I didn’t know at first, but I had hoped you
would. The only reason I put the coded messages in there was to
help you. You always liked playing detective when we were kids, so
I knew you would try to figure it out. Or at least, I hoped you
would. Then Gabe came back one day, telling me that you had been
reading it.”
    As she continued looking through the bushes,
she thought of one of the questions that had been running through
her mind. “Austin, I’ve been wondering . . . how did Violet and
Tommy try to kill you?” Lexi asked hesitantly. Austin hadn’t
mentioned how they had tried to kill him, so she wasn’t really sure
if he wanted to talk about it. He didn’t seem overly sad when he
talked about his parents attempted murder on him, but she knew that
it had to hurt. She couldn’t even imagine what he was going
through. Lexi also thought that the way in which her aunt and uncle
had tried to kill him would reveal a lot about them. She wondered
if they had chosen to give him a really horrendous death or a
smooth, easy one.
    “They had someone attack me as I walking home
from school one day,” Austin answered. “I’m not actually sure who
it was because I couldn’t look at them after they had already
supposedly killed me. Once I was on a ground, they injected me with
a lethal injection. I’d found the injection in our bathroom closet
when I was getting sunscreen a few days before, so I knew it was
going to happen that way.” Austin paused. “I guess they at least
tried to give me a relatively painless death.”
    “I doubt any death is painless. Not that I’ll
ever know what a real death feels like,” Gabe
shrugged.
    Lexi sighed. She really hated thinking about
the fact that Gabe was going to live forever, and she wasn’t.
Checking under a bush, she gasped.
    “This is where I put it,” Lexi whispered
slowly. “But it’s gone.”
     
    ****
     

Chapter 5
     
    “What do you mean ‘it’s gone’?” Austin shouted.
“It couldn’t have just disappeared.”
    “Dude, keep your voice down or someone’s gonna
catch us out here,” Gabe snapped at him.
    “I – I don’t know! I put it here.” She pointed
at the bush, which had bent branches and fresh green leaves that
had fallen to the ground on top of the damp, old-looking autumn
leaves. “See, it was obviously thrown up against this bush . . .
but it’s gone now. Someone must have taken it.”
    Austin exhaled, a cloud forming as his breath
hit the cold air. “Who could have taken it? Did anyone see you that
night?”
    Lexi shook her head. “I don’t know. No one was
around when I put it here.” She paused, trying to remember that
night but her memory was foggy. “At least, I didn’t see anyone near
me.”
    “You should have been more careful,” Austin
snapped at her.
    “It was a stressful night,” Lexi replied. “And
it was a last minute thought. I didn’t even think about what I was
going to do with it until I got here, but I knew Violet and Tommy
would have been able to spot me in the crowd if I had been carrying
my tote bag