by Dee Carney
Bast’s eyelids felt heavy, his body sluggish. “I’m…fine,” he mumbled.
Vampires don’t get sick, he tried to tell himself. Then his stomach lurched, an immediate reminder that as often as he passed himself off as a full-born vampire, he was anything but.
Putting one foot in front of the other took all of his strength, but somehow he managed to stagger forward. To the dark corner. To a door. Through it.
The cool night air blasted his face, and he almost moaned in pleasure. It felt so good against his skin. He’d begun to burn up, and the night kissed away some of the hurt.
The scent of a nearby garbage bin made his stomach roll again, and this time when his stomach heaved, everything he’d consumed lately spewed forth, covering the ground until it shone crimson. All that blood, gone to waste.
The woman screamed—he still held her hand, needing it like a lifeline—before blazing heat swallowed him whole.
Alice looked toward the commotion coming not far from where she crouched. She’d been peering into a crumpled white sack, hoping the grease stains on the outside meant still-edible fried food on the inside. She’d stopped near the parking lot between the two buildings in case she had to try again, if the bag’s contents were rancid. In three days, she could afford to shop in a grocery store, buying manager’s specials on things past their expiration date or anything a dollar or less, but until then she had to eat. No matter where it came from.
With a mystery illness running its course, she didn’t make the assumption she’d live to see sunrise. Each day was a gift. Seeing a new one was all she could ask for.
She almost squealed in delight when she saw the doughnut inside a wax paper holder only had a single bite taken from it. Two gifts for the day!
A woman screamed, and there was more noise. The sounds of someone retching. Once upon a time she might have thrown up herself just from the gagging sounds, but after spending so many months tending to Richard it took a lot to faze her now. One of the many things she’d learned while living with a junkie brother was how to clean up shit and vomit. Instead, Alice clutched the bag tighter, intent on keeping her newfound delight.
But the scream caught her attention. The curiosity of a woman’s terror urged her feet forward.
Alice followed the source, intent on just seeing from a distance why someone needed help. The staccato clicks of heels on pavement echoed into the lot, past cars she couldn’t have afforded even in her employed days. It was the sound of uncertain running, and she recognized a woman’s tiptoe dance in shoes meant for little more than looking pretty.
The woman had stopped screaming and decided to get the heck out of Dodge, it seemed. She’d left behind someone still moaning and coughing though.
Alice edged closer.
A man elevated himself on hands and knees, swaying like a drunkard. Apropos, seeing how they were just outside the doors of a nightclub. Alice almost turned back to more important matters, but a glint of light reflecting off something on the ground beneath him made her gasp.
“Mister?” she called softly. “You okay?”
There was no way he was okay. Even at her distance she recognized the blood pooled around him. The man tried to rise, stumbled, almost slipped in the blood. He lifted his head, looked at Alice then began to shake.
God, she didn’t want to go to him. She didn’t want to know if he’d been knifed or shot. It was none of her business. But then she thought of Richard, of the times he’d been brought home simply because of the kindness of strangers. This could have easily been him. Richard might have forced her out onto the streets with his backsliding ways, but he was still her brother. Whether she wanted to get involved or not, if this had been him, she would have wanted a stranger to help.
With a sigh, Alice ventured closer. “Hey, where are you hurt?”
He made a noise then dry-heaved. His mouth opened, and she grimaced, ready to watch him vomit. She tightened her stomach, mentally preparing herself for not getting sick with him. Nothing came out of either of them though, and she exhaled, relieved.
“Hey…do you have a phone? So I can call nine-one-one?”
His head lifted again, his attention coming to focus on her. Alice caught sight of his dark eyes and immediately thought it a trick of the light. They were eyes capable of seeing into tomorrow, she was sure of it.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” he asked, his voice croaking.
“My eyes?” Under other circumstances she might have laughed. Maybe even thought he was flirting with her.
Beads of perspiration raced down the sides of his face, the crown of his dark hair almost black in color. If she hadn’t seen the clear sweat, she might have considered his head the source of all that blood.
“They’re…wrong,” he replied.
Ignoring their ridiculous conversation, she crouched right next to him. The scent of copper rushed at her, almost triggering her gag reflex. “My eyes aren’t at issue here. I need to get an ambulance or the police for you. Can you wait here alone for a minute? Do you know how to press on the wound?”
“Wound?”
“Where you’re bleeding from.”
“I’m not bleeding.” He attempted to rise again, but he’d managed to put his hand at the edge of the blood, where it slipped. “I don’t think.”
How much had he been drinking? He was too stoned to know he’d been shot or worse? “Why don’t you tell me your name?”
“Sebastian—Bast.”
Who took a perfectly good name like that and shortened it into something so ugly? Bast, indeed. “Look, Sebastian, I’m going for help.” If he was talking, he seemed okay enough to leave for a minute. “Stay here.” As if that might be a problem. He looked weaker than a wet kitten.
Sebastian’s hand, the same one that had just been slicked down with blood, shot out and caught her arm. Alice cried out at the grip, which would surely leave behind a bruise. “No!” he said.
“No?” She tried to wrench her arm away to no avail. “You need some help. I don’t think—”
Sebastian glanced up into the night sky. He scanned the stars, as if searching for something. “My car. Just to my car. I can’t stay out here like this.”
His paranoia catching, Alice couldn’t help but look around them. “Dude, I’m not trying to get in the middle—”
“My car. That’s all.”
For the first time, she noticed the way her skin heated beneath his hold. “I’m going to get you there,” she said slowly. “But then you need to do something about that fever and wherever you’re bleeding from.” No doubt his injuries explained his behavior. The blood was a mystery he was content to leave alone, and so was she. Good Samaritan duties only went so far.
If he heard her, or if he cared, she couldn’t tell. Sebastian wrapped his arms around her neck and used her as leverage. Alice almost toppled over as he rose, the solid weight of him enough to drag her back down to the ground. By the time he stood, he towered over her.
Wanting to weep for her meager clothes, Alice pressed herself against him, into the wall of muscle and heft and simultaneously into his own bloodstained clothing. Beneath the overpowering scent of blood, she smelled some cross between clean linen and coconut coming directly from him. Had they been at the beach, slathered beneath sunscreen, she could understand the memories of summers by the waves he conjured, but this man was sinfully sexy and erotically dark. Nothing summery or beachy about him.
She recognized him now. The man from not even twenty minutes ago who’d stopped to look at her while on the way into the club. Now that she knew he was in serious shit or at least seriously sick, she pushed aside stirrings of attraction and focused on getting one foot in front of the other without allowing him to bring them both down.
Sebastian reached into his back pocket and retrieved a key fob. He pressed it in the general direction of a row of cars, and they made their way forward to the one that chirruped back at them. Richard’s old toy collection, and the unforgettable prancing horse medallion
, were the reasons she recognized the Ferrari Sebastian leaned against when they stopped.
“Help me. Inside.” His voice sounded shaky again.
She realized she’d been gawking at the silver vehicle worth more than she used to make in five years combined. Maybe more than five.
Between the blood, the shakes and the car, he had to be a drug dealer or something close. Had to be. “I’ll get you inside and then I’m gone.” Her damned conscience pinged. “And you need to get on a phone. Get to a hospital.”
Sebastian unfolded into the passenger’s side he opened. “No hospital. Just…inside…”
“Hey Sebastian?” She shook his shoulder and unresponsive, he slumped forward. “Bast?”
Shit.
Alice looked around. Despite being outside a crowded nightclub, no one else loitered in the parking lot. An unconscious man slouched inside an insanely expensive car next to her. They were alone at night in what wouldn’t be classified as the best part of town. She could leave him and hope to heaven someone with a kind heart found him before he died. Maybe he wouldn’t even die; his car might be stolen with him left on the cold ground in nothing more than his shirt, but that was okay, right? He’d be alive at least.
The night had begun to chill noticeably, and she still hadn’t picked a place to sleep until morning. She couldn’t stay here and wait for him. Her own survival took precedence.
Alice scanned the lot again, let out a breath and studied Sebastian’s profile.
Double shit.
~ *~
For more information about Hunger Awakened, please visit Dee’s web site.