Read Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) for Free Online Page A

parachute already detached and floating away, snatched by the strong
current.
    “Get your pack
off!” Caleb instructed the second he was beside her.
    Caitlin shrugged
the heavy thing off, feeling instantly more buoyant. But her body was still weary,
and her water-logged clothes were weighing her down.
    “We have to get
to land,” Caleb said.
    He scooped his
arm around his wife. She could feel that he was trembling violently. He was
trying to be strong for her but really his situation was just as perilous.
    “Do you think
you can swim that far?” he added, nodding to the crumbling Boldt Castle.
    Caitlin gritted
her chattering teeth.
    “What if the
plane hit her?” she managed to say.
    Caleb shook his
head. “Don’t think like that.”
    “I can’t help
it. She’s our daughter. What if—”
    But Caleb didn’t
let her finish. He pressed his hand over Caitlin’s heart.
    “If she was
dead, you’d know,” he said. “Wouldn’t you? If you can sense our daughter, track
her to this place, then you’d know in your heart. I’m right, aren’t I?”
    Caitlin bit her
lip.
    “Yes,” she said,
finally. “You’re right. I would know if she was dead. I would feel it.”
    But even as she
said the words, and even though she believed them, she couldn’t help but feel
that same sense of dread. Even if Scarlet was alive, she was most certainly
still in danger.
    Caitlin felt her
arms begin to fatigue from treading water for so long.
    “What are we
going to do?” she cried to Caleb. “The only land is that way.”
    She pointed at
Boldt Castle, at the gaping hole in its side. Caleb followed her outstretched
finger.
    “I know,” he
said with trepidation.
    Caitlin nodded.
Wet tendrils of hair stuck to her face. She swiped them away and began to swim
toward the castle.
    Just then, a
noise caught Caitlin’s attention. It sounded like a distant whining noise,
mechanical in nature. Familiar. Getting louder.
    Caitlin glanced
over her shoulder at Caleb.
    “A helicopter,”
she said.
    Caleb paused mid-stroke
and stared up at the sky as the noise grew louder and louder.
    “The police?” he
said. “They can’t still be on our tails, can they? Unless they were tracking
the plane.”
    Caleb suddenly
thumped his open palms against the water, making a huge splash. But the noise
was almost completely drowned out by the whirring blades of a helicopter
approaching fast.
    His features
dropped into resignation.
    “Get ready,” he
said. “This is about to get a lot more dangerous.”
     
    *
     
    It took several
minutes to swim to Boldt Castle. The side closest to Caitlin and Caleb was
completely destroyed where the plane had struck. Stone and rubble had tumbled
into the ocean, creating a sort of slope that they could now climb up. It was
precarious going but they made it, finally, into Boldt Castle.
    The smell of
airplane fuel was strong in the air, mixed with the smells of dust, smoke, and
sea salt. Caitlin heard a clamoring of noise in the distance, of people
shouting, arguing, and crying out in pain. She knew at once that the building
had been full before the plane hit, and that thanks to her, many people had
been hurt. She shivered, her frozen body racked with guilt.
    Caitlin was in a
state, her hair a mess, the jump from the airplane and force of the waves having
turned it into soggy dreadlocks. Her clothes were torn in places. Caleb looked
just as bedraggled.
    “Well?” he said.
“Can you sense her?”
    Caitlin put a
finger to her lips to quiet him. She tried to get a feel for her daughter, to
let her instincts tell her where she was, but she was struggling to catch hold
of anything tangible. The sound of the roaring helicopter circling above them,
the heat coming from the fire, the cries coming from the injured, all were
crowding her mind and messing with her abilities.
    “I can’t feel
her,” Caitlin whispered, feeling defeated.
    Caleb rubbed his
chin. Caitlin could tell he was at his wits’ end. She wished she could