“Shit,” the hunter hissed.
“Connor…?”
He slumped. I caught him under the arms, slowly lowering him to the ground as his body went limp. I had to rest him on his side, because his back—his back had four inches of the end of a crossbow bolt sticking out of it, and nearly as much sticking out the front. Crimson was already seeping from the point of impact, staining his vest and button down.
My arms shook as I looked up at the hunter only feet from us, frantically trying to reload his crossbow. It was a repeating model, but that had been his last bolt—the bolt sticking out of Connor’s chest.
A roar erupted from me before I registered forming the sound. As my fangs lengthened in my mouth, and fire surged through my gut, I leapt over Connor. Rich, heady blood poured over my tongue as I sank my teeth into the hunter’s neck, cutting off his cry for help. The crossbow clattered to the ground. The prey in my arms seized.
All I saw was red.
Episode 32
Feeding from Connor had never felt like this—no limits, no reason to hold back. I felt filled, warmth spreading to every part of me as I drank without care of how much I took. I clenched my teeth down tighter, willing him to feel pain, worse than just what was on the surface, but terrible, bone-deep through the glamour.
He screamed, then gurgled, then fell silent as I drank, and drank, and drank…
“Emery, stop!”
No. He needed to pay. He had to pay for what he did to Connor. Connor…lying in the grass with a bolt through his chest because of this man. And others too. There were others to blame. I’d kill them all when I found them.
“Emery, please!” A gloved hand gripped by shoulder, but I whipped my arm back, shoving the owner several feet away from me.
The hunter’s heart was slowing, I could feel it. His body not even able to hold itself up, spasming as he lost blood faster and faster.
“Emery…” the voice softened, pleading. No hand accompanied it this time but it grew closer as it spoke. “You don’t want this. Connor is alive. You can still help him. Don’t prove them right for what they’ve done tonight. Please. Don’t be the monster they were looking for.”
I howled as I pulled my fangs from the hunter’s neck. Only then did I feel the tears on my cheeks. Only then did I feel how I was shaking as hard as the man in my arms.
I dropped him, the blur of red fading from my vision as I looked down and saw him seize slightly before going still, eyes closed, wound not bleeding freely but smeared with scarlet. His chest rose faintly as he breathed, shallow but steady. I hadn’t killed him. But I’d almost…almost…
“Emery,” Wendy’s voice came more solidly now, her gloved hand back on my shoulder. This time, I didn’t push her away. I blinked tear-filled eyes at her. Her expression was neutral, but I saw in her dark eyes the relief and sympathy. “Connor is conscious. Stay with him. I discovered the hunter’s vehicle nearby. I’ll drive it right to you so we can bring him to the hospital.”
“But what if I—”
“You can’t speed him there in his condition. Stay with him. Keep him awake. And don’t remove the bolt.”
I nodded, and darted around Wendy toward Connor’s fallen form as she moved to the hunter. I jerked my head back to her when I heard the flip of a switchblade, and watched her slice the hunter’s neck to hide the puncture wound. Then the jingling of keys as she raided his pockets.
My eyes returned to the blue tuxedo. To the two feet of crossbow bolt through Connor’s torso. “Connor…” I said, crouching by him and placing my hand on his arm.
His honey colored eyes lifted toward me, but seemed to look through me, unfocused. “Em…” He groped forward with his flesh and blood hand, his prosthetic trapped beneath him. I took it, lacing our fingers together. “Don’t kill him…please don’t kill him…”
“I didn’t. He’s…” I glanced back, torn between wanting the hunter to pull through and not knowing if I truly cared. “He’s alive. But he did this to you, and I…I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know…” he said, smiling faintly. “But it’s n-not so bad. Doesn’t even…hurt. Which…probably isn’t a good thing,” he cringed.
I looked at where the bolt had entered, between one of his ribcages, I’d guess, under the lungs but above the organs. Or so I hoped. If I was right, he could survive this, but Connor was skinny, compactly built. That bolt might have hit anything on the way through.
The rumble of a van alerted me to our surroundings again, and I looked up to see Wendy navigating through the trees. I had no idea what she’d done with her bike. It didn’t matter. If the hunters had really surrounded this place, waiting for that other hunter to make his move, backup could be coming any moment.
“You’ll be fine,” I said to Connor, squeezing his hand. “Your mom’s the best nurse in town.”
“She’s not on…call tonight.”
“I think they’ll let her take an extra shift.”
He snorted. “Hope it makes a nice…battle scar.”
Wendy ran up to us, the van parked as close as she could get, back doors wide open with an empty backend, no seats, and plenty of space. “Get the hunter in first. Then Connor, as carefully as you can.”
“The hunter?” I frowned at her.
“Do you want to leave him to die? We could leave him, hope his fellows find him and take the risk to bring him to the hospital themselves, so we can catch them. But you’ll put his life at risk. Is that what you want?”
I did. I really did. But I knew it wasn’t the right answer.
Connor’s hand shifted in my hold, squeezed my fingers as I’d squeezed his. His eyes couldn’t quite focus on my face. “It’s okay, Em,” he said.
I clenched my eyes shut, because it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
I pulled away, patted his hand, then dashed to grab the hunter as fast as I could and deposited him in the van, pushed over to one side to leave more room for Connor. I wasn’t as gentle as I could be; the one piece of revenge I allowed myself, besides what I’d already done to him. Then I returned for Connor. At first I moved to lift him carefully, slowly, but he hissed, and Wendy placed a hand on my back.
“Quick as you can,” she said. “Careful, but quick. He’ll feel less pain, and it isn’t far enough to aggravate the wound as much.”
I nodded, and darted with Connor to the van as swiftly as I had the hunter, though I laid him down more softly, still on his side, facing the wall of the van, so he wouldn’t have to see the hunter with him. I crouched into the corner by his head, as Wendy shut the doors behind us and got into the driver’s side door.
“Keep him talking, Emery, the hospital’s not far,” she said.
“T-Tell me,” he said, groping for my hand again. I let him have it. “Does she know…Nustad…what happened?”
“They cut him off at an intersection, rammed him after you turned the corner,” Wendy said, barreling back through the trees. Every bump and jerk of the vehicle had me clinging to Connor tighter. “Then from what I could tell before I continued after you, they sped off, luring him to the chase. With one of them in each vehicle, and our friend back there, I’m guessing they had three hunters stationed at the various sides of the park, one intended to move in and be backup. Though why backup didn’t show, I don’t know. It isn’t like a hunter group this organized to leave the final kill to one man. Even if some of them are lying to the others, someone else should have been there to finish you off.”
“Cheery…isn’t she?” Connor laughed. Then coughed. Then cringed and shivered, as his eyelids fluttered.
I put my other hand to his cheek. “Eyes on me. You’ll be fine. This is nothing. Straight through. They’ll fix it. They’ll fix it…”
“It would be pretty…mean…if my love story w-was a
tragedy.”
“Don’t say that. It won’t be. It’s not.”
“It’s okay,” he said again—he kept saying that, even though his eyes looked through me. “S’okay, because…I got to have you…” He pulled his hand from mine and reached for my face the same way I was holding his. He missed at first, so I used my other hand to help him.
Then it hit me. “Did you just steal that from Starship Troopers?”
“D-Dude…I keep telling you…best movie ever,” Connor said, smiling.
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. And Connor laughed. Before he coughed again. A sniffle came next, from me. I could feel the tears building even through our laughter.
Connor’s eyelids fluttered again.
“Stay with me…please…”
“We’re here.”
I looked up to see the bright lights of the hospital as we pulled in. Wendy practically dove out the door, running inside to alert someone to bring a stretcher.
“Him first,” I said, when two large EMTs arrived to lift Connor out of the van. One of them was Doug. His full lips weren’t smiling this time when his eyes met mine. They wheeled Connor out, and I followed close behind them, not caring what happened to the hunter, though I knew they’d be back for him, someone would be back for him.
I wasn’t family. I couldn’t go back with Connor. But Wendy was there, to sit with me in the waiting room. Our parents arrived in stages. First Connor’s, his mother in her scrubs, having changed at home to be ready, bursting into the emergency room to help however she could. Then mine. All of them hugged me, held too tight but not tight enough, talking at me. I knew I talked back, explained as best I could, though Wendy stepped in.
She’d been out for a ride. Saw our accident. Saw the man they’d brought in when he attacked us. She came to our aid, and together she and I took him down, cutting his neck, which seemed to have caused significant blood loss. Then we’d brought everyone here in the perpetrator’s own vehicle.
“So this is the shooter? The murderer?” Paul asked, eyes frantic despite the calm way he sat, hands folded between his legs.
“Lord only knows,” Wendy said. “Hopefully it’s over now.”
They thanked her. It was easier that they knew her, or thought they did, as Alec’s wife. It made a convenient truth, but it didn’t matter when Wendy and I both knew more hunters were out there, and nothing was really over.
I felt like a weight lifted from pressing down on my chest when Georgia came running out, crying but smiling, to tell us that Connor would be okay. The bolt really had missed everything vital, right between his ribs, too low to nick his lungs. He’d recover fast. He was young, resilient, and the shot had been everything one could hope for in a wound like that.
“Who uses a crossbow? On kids!” My dad shook his head.
The hunter would live as well, but his blood loss meant he was still unconscious.
My parents went to the cafeteria to get Paul some coffee. I stayed behind, watching them finish up on Connor through the glass. I could only barely see into where he was, since the curtains were drawn, but Georgia had tugged them aside just enough to give me piece of mind, catching my gaze with a warm smile. Her confidence made me feel confident. Connor would be fine.
I still stood at the glass feeling helpless. And tense. And guilty.
“I would have killed him,” I said, when Wendy walked up beside me.
Alec had joined us after we learned Connor would pull through, having tried to catch the hunters in action taking Officer Nustad around town, but by the time he’d discovered the police cruiser, the hunters were long gone.
“If you hadn’t been there to stop me…”
“But I was, Emery. And he’ll be fine, much as he doesn’t deserve it,” she said.
“All this time, I just didn’t want to be a killer. Didn’t want to hurt Connor, or anyone I care about. But it still happened. It wasn’t me, but it’s because of me. And then I turned right around and proved I am a killer…one moment of losing control away from being a killer like them.”
“Emery,” Alec said, the pair of them bookending me as we stared through the glass. They were finishing dressing Connor’s wound. He was unconscious now, put to sleep while they worked. “Control is something that must be honed. Nurtured. You’re no different than anyone who’s ever reacted when a loved one was put at risk, maybe a little more brutally than you would normally, but it doesn’t make you a killer. Or a monster. Just human, ironically enough.”
Wendy’s hand came up to rest on my shoulder. “Do you know the difference between a predator and a killer, Emery? A predator hunts to survive. A killer does so because they enjoy it. Don’t confuse the two. You are better if you choose to be better. I’ve known that only too well over the years. Good and bad exists on both sides. And you are not the latter.”
I knew their worldviews were broader than mine, their combined experiences dwarfing anything I could have thrown back at them, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Because when it came down to it, I was more upset that Connor had been hurt than the hunter. And I cared more that he might think of me as a killer than I cared that I’d almost killed the man who hurt him.
Georgia caught my gaze through the glass again. She gripped the curtain; she had to close it now. I nodded, focusing one last time on his unmoving form before it was closed off from me, and the way he looked stripped down to his navy suit pants, even his arm removed and set aside.
“He looks so breakable like that,” I said. “Not just because he’s hurt, but…without his arm. He feels vulnerable without it, I know he does. But it’s stupid of me to think he is. He’s not. He isn’t handicapped. He doesn’t need me to protect him. He’s the one who protected me…” My voice cracked, choked off, and all the wetness came pouring from my eyes again.
“Now, now, Emery,” Alec said, “without one of those fantastic prosthetics of his, I doubt he considers himself at all handy.”
I stared at him, because…really? How was he my mentor when he was so much more like Connor? I laughed in response to his crazed grin. Wiped my face. Took a breath. He patted my shoulder as Wendy’s hand finally released the other. We turned from the glass to find seats again in the waiting room. It helped that they didn’t need to leave, that their presence just made mine and Connor’s parents like them both more as kindly ‘neighbors’.
“What do we do now?” I asked whichever one of them would reply.
“Keep on as before,” Alec said.
“And track down the remaining hunters,” Wendy added. “The one you spared might yet yield some answers.”
“Doubtful, but I might be able to assist with that.”
I jerked to my feet the moment Wendy did, because while I hadn’t seen this hunter before, I recognized Wendy’s description of him.
Dark skin. Blue eyes.
He walked toward us from around the corner of the hallway into the waiting room, hands raised. His tightly coiled hair was close to his head, though not buzzed like Connor’s. His face scruffy. Wearing jeans, a T-shirt, button down, and leather jacket. His eyes were hypnotic against his darker skin.
“And why, dear boy,” Alec said, rising as well, but slowly, not having jerked upright with me and Wendy, “would we trust you?”
The man lowered his arms as he reached us, and turned his attention directly on me. “Because I’m the one who shot you at the school. And missed—on purpose.”
Episode 33
Eli Bane. He sounded like someone out of a comic book—Connor would have approved. He was a lifelong hunter, part of a family of hunters. He had the story Connor had expected of Wendy. His family killed by vampires, raised afterward by his uncle, who had orchestrated the attack tonight.
Eli was supposed to be the driver of one of the cars distracting Officer Nustad,
but he’d convinced another hunter to trade with him, putting him as Gamble’s backup. Gamble, the hunter who’d attacked Connor once before, and who had almost killed him tonight.
Eli didn’t believe that his uncle had planned all this knowing I wasn’t evil, didn’t believe the story the vampire we killed told us, unless she meant only Gamble had hired her. It had to be Gamble; not his uncle; his uncle would never do such things.
“But he’ll see now,” he said to me. “You brought Gamble here to be saved when you could have killed him. You had every right to defend yourself, to attack when he shot your friend, but you resisted. My uncle will understand that, he’ll see the truth, and we can call all of this off. The others will listen too.”
“You sound fairly certain,” Alec said. “Everyone is certain when it comes to the fealty of family. What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
“Alrighty then. Why don’t you run along and arrange a meeting with your uncle? We’ll sort this out together.”
“Alec,” Wendy spoke up.
“What?” He turned to her. To me. “Don’t you trust him? It’s really your call, Emery. Would you prefer we take a different path? Or shall we hear the hunters out?”
The anger in me thinking about Connor, how easily he might have died tonight, swirled in my stomach. But this hunter wasn’t to blame. If he was anywhere near as skilled as Gamble, or Wendy, then he had to be telling the truth when he said he’d missed the shot he took at me on purpose. I didn’t want more bloodshed, more enemies, if we could find another way.
My parents would be back soon. Paul too. Georgia could come out of that room any minute. So I looked at Eli steadily.
“Mr. and Mrs. Leonard never hurt anyone. Mr. Leonard turned me because he panicked. Because you forced him into a corner and he couldn’t see any other way out. I know that doesn’t excuse it, but neither of them deserved to die. I don’t. Connor sure as hell doesn’t. So if you’re serious about making this right, then talk to your uncle. Wendy’s different than what I’d expect of hunters. Maybe you are too. So prove it. I’ll give you my number, and once you have a time and a place, we’ll meet. I just want this to be over.”
Life as a Teenage Vampire Page 27