by L. M. Justus
Man, I so did not know what to say to that. I desperately tried to think of something to change the subject again. “Hey, what’s taking Sarah so long?”
Nathaniel sat up in alarm. I tensed at his reaction. “What? What is it? You didn’t smell any vampires, did you?”
“No.” He stood and moved quickly to the restroom area.
I leaped out of my seat and darted ahead of him. I rounded the corner of the narrow hallway at the back of the restaurant, bumping into the waitress who was coming out of the ladies’ room. “Was anyone else in there?” I asked her.
“No, it’s a single washroom,” she said and rubbed her shoulder where I’d run into her. “Did you lose your girlfriend?”
I ignored her and turned to Nathaniel. “I don’t understand. No one can sneak up on her because she can tell when people are planning to catch her by surprise. Trust me, I’ve tried it.”
“The back door,” Nathaniel snapped. He continued to make his way further down the hall. He pushed open the door into the alley at the back of the diner and I stepped out behind him. I turned, looking both ways down the alley in a panic.
“Sarah?” I called out. “Sarah!” I shouted, my voice absorbed by the darkness.
Nathaniel punched me in the shoulder. “Use your senses and catch her scent!” he growled.
I was tempted to punch him back and my own anger rose. Instead, I did as he’d instructed and sniffed the air. There! The scent seemed obvious when I searched for it. I followed the trail to the left down the alley. We rounded a corner and stopped at the street when the trail went cold.
“Now what?” I yelled.
“We have been outsmarted,” he seethed, nostrils flaring. “There is nothing we can do, but wait. They will contact us and tell us where to go,” he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it as though willing it to ring. “The Queen wants all three of us. Clearly, she devised a way for her minions to take Sarah and use her as bait.”
He swore, mirroring my own thoughts, and I realized he was actually capable of showing emotion.
Sarah
Sarah forced her eyes open and the world spun around. Her eyelids threatened to slam shut again, but she fought the urge to give in to the peaceful oblivion of sleep. She rolled onto her back in a drugged fog and stared at the dilapidated ruins of a wood beam roof above. Now she understood how disorienting it must be for Reed every time he woke up in a mystery location. She attempted to sit up, but collapsed onto her side when her arms failed to cooperate.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax, taking a few deep breaths. When she opened her eyes again, the room had stopped spinning and her head felt clearer. The rough wood floor she was lying on was covered in a thin layer of sand, and a few crates and rusty tools lay scattered around her. The building looked like an abandoned workshop, roughly two hundred feet square, and the whole place was in such disrepair she was surprised it was able to remain standing. She turned onto her side and spotted four men standing together at the large opening to the small building where one entire wall was missing.
It was nighttime, so it was difficult to discern anything outside. She didn’t see any lights in the blanket of darkness, and her heart sank at the slim hope of running to someone nearby for help. So much for her refusing to be a victim. She thought of Sophie, her little sister back in San Jose, and wondered who would protect her now. What if she never saw her again? Sure, both she and her sister were grown women, but after everything they’d been through Sarah had sworn never to let anything happen to Sophie again.
With some effort, Sarah tried to think and figure out how to arm herself. She recalled being in the diner’s restroom where she’d ‘heard’ someone singing the national anthem in their head. Before she’d had a chance to react, two men had charged in and grabbed her, covering her mouth and nose with a grossly sweet-smelling rag. The next thing she knew, she was here. She assumed her abductors had been instructed by the Queen how to thwart her ability to read their minds. By filling their heads with noise, she’d been unable to ‘hear’ their intentions to kidnap her.
Her hands and feet weren’t bound, and there was no gag or blindfold. Her captors must not have felt she was much of a threat. She considered whether any of the old tools leaning against the wall would make a good weapon. Just as she spotted a rusty machete, one of the men noticed she was conscious.
“The human female is awake,” he said to his co-conspirators. They all turned to look at her.
Oh, great. Were all four of these men vampires? Now her chances of escaping seemed even less likely.
“Have a good sleep, sweetheart?” one of the other men drawled with a nasty leer. Sarah wondered if this guy, who looked like a bum off the street, was a vampire.
“Quiet,” the first man snarled at him. He bared his teeth and his fangs elongated in an obvious show of superiority. The bum-look-alike swallowed and backed away a couple of steps. Hmm, maybe they weren’t all vamps after all. Two of them were dressed rather shabbily, while the other two were far more presentable. The two well-dressed men also stood straighter with a clear air of self-confidence.
The man she’d decided to refer to as Vamp One spoke. “A vehicle approaches. You,” he said, addressing the bums. “Take the car when they arrive, and drive it to our rendezvous point. We will call for the helicopter to pick us up when we have the other two in our custody.”
She opened her mind. Maybe it was Nathaniel and Reed dashing to her rescue. Although if so, they’d be marching straight into a predictable trap. A few seconds later, a car became visible as it drove toward them, and she felt relieved to know it was indeed Reed and Nathaniel. She stood up, pleased to discover her legs wobbled only slightly. The remnants of whatever drug they’d used to knock her out was quickly wearing off.
The car pulled to a stop at the front of the building, and Nathaniel and Reed got out. Sarah looked past her captors and caught Reed’s eye. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and his eyes darted between her and the four men. Nathaniel’s jaw clenched and his eyes were smouldering angry slits.
The two men she assumed were humans like her, brushed past Reed and Nathaniel. The men smirked as though daring anyone to protest they were taking the vehicle. They climbed into the idling rental car and took off in a cloud of dust.
“And to think the Queen had doubts about us capturing you three,” Vamp One said. His fangs had retracted out of sight. “It was almost too easy, using those two human lowlifes to grab your precious female companion.”
Vamp Two smirked in agreement. “And although it should go without saying, if either of you makes any sudden movements, the girl will suffer the consequences.”
Vamp One pulled a two-way radio off his belt, turned it on and called for the others to come retrieve them.
Sarah fingered the silver necklace that Reed had given her on their drive to Vegas. She thought back to the explosion at the Queen’s lair when she had begged Reed to rip the silver bars open, knowing he could touch silver without getting hurt. Nathaniel had told him silver would cut through a vampire’s skin like a laser. She slipped her hands behind her neck and undid the clasp of the necklace. This gamble could cost them their lives, she thought, as the necklace slid into her hand. But what other choice did she have?
She grasped the end of the chain in her right hand, and walked up behind the two vampires. They ignored her. She braced herself, and swung her arm out to the side. The long necklace flew out in a straight line. Her arm moved in a horizontal arc in front of her, the necklace meeting Vamp Two’s neck with a hiss. The chain sliced through his flesh and bone with almost no resistance. She continued the sideways motion of her arm until the silver chain met with the second vampire’s neck. Her body continued to turn with the momentum of her swing. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion while she finished turning, blood spurting out in a grisly fountain around her. The two headless bodies fell to the floor, and one of the heads rolled off to the side.
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nbsp; “Holy shit!” Reed shouted. “Jesus freaking Christ!” He stumbled backwards and continued swearing. Then he started dry heaving, and she wondered if vampires were capable of being sick to their stomachs. She felt strangely detached and blinked, looking at the necklace hanging limply from her hand. Drops of blood dripped onto the floor beside her and were absorbed by the sand.
Nathaniel stood watching her with his mouth hanging open. She’d thought he must have seen everything in his long life, but apparently, even he was shocked by the sudden turn of events. He snapped his mouth shut and resumed his usual stoic expression.
Sarah spotted the second decapitated head lying to her left, and she wondered why she wasn’t screaming in horror. She realized she must be in shock. Reed crawled over to one of the beams holding up the entrance to the building. “Oh, God,” he groaned, pulling himself up to stand and gripping the beam for support. He turned to her, avoiding looking at the floor and the aftermath left there. “Are you okay?” he asked, which seemed ironic to Sarah because he was the one looking positively green.
“Can I get back to you on that?” she replied with a shaky half-grin. She walked over to him, stepping gingerly around the gruesome mess. When she reached his side, he pulled her into a tight hug and folded himself around her. His breath warmed her as he buried his face into her hair.
“I was so worried,” he breathed.
“I know, it’s okay . . . it’s going to be all right,” she whispered back.
He stood straighter, pushing her gently away from him to look at her. “I thought we were coming to save you, but it looks like you saved yourself.”
She glanced at the necklace, which she still had a tight grip on, before stuffing it into one of her pockets. “Yeah, that worked better than I thought it would.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I bought the necklace for you, but I’m glad you’re okay.”
Nathaniel strode up beside them, his gaze flicking from left to right to scan the area outside the building. “We need to leave. Now.”
“Yeah, we’d better start walking because we’re in the middle of the desert and they took our car,” Reed replied.
A muscle twitched in Nathaniel’s jaw. His body was taut with apprehension. “Dawn is near. I must find shelter without delay,” he said. The gaping holes in the roof and siding, not to mention the missing wall of the building behind them was not enough to protect him from the sun.
“Uh, how are we going to find shelter in the middle of the desert?” Reed asked, alarm written across his face.
“There are plenty of cave systems in the area,” Nathaniel replied. “We will run in due haste until we find one.”
Sarah glanced between the two of them, wondering how she would be able to keep up with them if they ran. “How am I–” she began, but didn’t get a chance to finish because Nathaniel scooped her into his arms and took off. She let out a startled shriek, and Reed ran to catch up.
Nathaniel was a faster runner, even holding Sarah, and the distance between them grew longer and longer. Soon, Sarah could barely see Reed despite the growing pre-dawn light. She clung to Nathaniel and clenched her eyes shut against the sand flying around them. They sped through the desert landscape and she felt the occasional lurch when Nathaniel leaped to avoid obstacles as he wound his way through the rocky terrain.
“We’re not going to make it!” Sarah yelled. “Put me down so you can run faster.”
“I see a cave opening up ahead,” Nathaniel shouted back.
Suddenly, the sun breached the horizon, and Nathaniel released his hold on her. Sarah tumbled through the air before landing, rolling along the ground. The sand that helped to cushion her fall went in her mouth, ears, and hair. Nathaniel screamed as flames sprouted from the side of his body facing the sun. He threw himself the last few feet into the entrance of a cave directly in front of them. She ran towards the cave, nearly losing her footing, slipping on the sand and rocks beneath her feet.
They’d been so close to making it to shelter in time! She scrambled up the rocks at the cave opening and heaved herself inside. The smell of burnt skin hit her when she made her way further into the cave. Nathaniel lay on the dirt floor, panting heavily. He must have put out the flames by rolling on the ground. He groaned in pain, and she cringed at the raw, burnt flesh along the side of his body.
Rocks crunched behind her when Reed caught up and found his way into the cave.
“Is he okay?” he asked, his nose wrinkling at the burning smell.
Nathaniel struggled to sit up and turned a feral gaze at them. His eye color had paled to a silvery white, rimmed by a thin line of black. He bared his fangs like an animal. “I need blood,” he growled and inched forward on his hands and knees toward Sarah.
Reed moved between them, and she realized Nathaniel was losing control and dangerously close to attacking her.
“Hey!” Reed yelled. “Don’t you dare touch her.”
“Move out of the way,” Nathaniel snarled, his voice dropping another octave.
“I swear to God, if you lay one finger on her I’ll throw you out into the sun,” Reed threatened.
“Wait,” Sarah said, resting a tentative hand on Reed’s shoulder. “It’s okay. He doesn’t need very much blood, does he? Like when I shot you, and you bit me . . . it was all over in a few seconds.” She felt sympathetic towards Nathaniel instead of fearful.
“No! Absolutely not!” Reed protested. “You’re not a source of food, goddammit!”
“Look at him, Reed! There isn’t any other way we can help him. It’s my choice. I want to do this.” She stepped around him and shoved her shirtsleeve up to expose her wrist. She held her arm out to Nathaniel, hoping he could bite her there instead of her neck.
Nathaniel stood shakily, and grasped her arm. He looked her in the eyes to mesmerize her, and he said, “You will feel nothing.” Then he bit down, hard.
“Ah!” she cried out when his fangs pierced her flesh.
Reed gaped at her. “What the hell! I thought that wasn’t supposed to hurt.” He marched to the wall of the cave and punched it. “I hate this!” he shouted. A shower of rocks rained down on the floor around him.
“It’s all right,” she breathed between gritted teeth. “I wasn’t expecting it to hurt, but I’ll be fine. Just calm down.”
He turned around and lean back against the cave wall. He slid down the smooth rock until he was sitting on the ground. Then he buried his head in his hands, clenching fistfuls of hair.
Nathaniel finished quickly and licked the puncture wounds on her wrist. The holes healed shut before her eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered before he fell back onto the ground in a dead heap.
She glanced at Reed, and his angry thoughts flew at her while he sat and stewed. She walked over to him and knelt on the ground. “It’s over,” she said. “I’m okay, really.”
He raised his head to look at her. “That bothered me. A lot.” He shook his head. “I want to strangle Nathaniel.”
Sarah bit her lip. Should she say anything? It seemed weird that she knew what the problem was and he didn’t. “I think . . . maybe . . . you’re a bit jealous.”
His head snapped up. “Jealous?” he scoffed. “No way, that’s not it. I swear it; I never want to bite you again. That was a mistake. I mean it!”
She swallowed and took a deep breath. “No, not jealous like that. I meant . . . jealous at the intimacy of him touching me. Putting his mouth on my wrist. You know, that kind of thing.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but his retort died on his lips.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she continued. “I’m not attracted to him at all that way. There’s no chemistry, if you know what I mean.” She paused, but he was still staring at her, speechless. “I realize we didn’t make a good first impression on each other because you were trying to bug my apartment and then I shot you.”
Reed blinked, and she watched trance-like as his eyelashes moved down and back up a
gain, revealing his deep blue eyes. Her lack of sleep was getting to her. Maybe she should stop babbling. Her gaze focused on his slightly parted lips, and before she could stop herself, she leaned forward and kissed him.
He stayed perfectly still when she pressed her lips softly against his. She pulled back slowly and searched his eyes for a reaction. He looked dumbstruck, but then a grin started to grow at the corner of his mouth. She could hear the fireworks of surprised pleasure going off in his head, and she smiled.
“Sorry, I guess I just made everything more complicated,” she said. “My brain is fried. I can barely remember the last time I got any real sleep. In fact, I think I’m going to lie down over there and crash, if you don’t mind.”
She shuffled over to a clear area a few feet away, and curled up on the ground. She turned so her back was facing him and tried to ignore his thoughts while her own mind raced. It would be a miracle if she managed to fall asleep, even though she was dead tired. This had been the longest day of her life, but at least it had ended on a good note.
Reed
Wow. Sarah had kissed me. Sarah had kissed me! True, she was probably messed up from exhaustion and the after-effects of her adrenaline-fueled afternoon . . . but still. I couldn’t believe she’d made the first move. I’d had it bad for her from the first millisecond we’d met, but I’d thought she looked at me as just some kid. Maybe she’d regret kissing me when she woke up.
Nathaniel lay dead to the world along the wall opposite me. I felt tired and overwhelmed, and I would have given almost anything to be able to curl up and go to sleep myself. When I glanced outside the cave opening, a tumbleweed blew by. Was any of this real? I felt like I was in one of those movies where the main character realizes they’re in a virtual reality world, and they have to figure out how to escape.