by Amy Richie
I made quick work of the bandaging and pulled my socks on to hold it in place. I sighed contentedly and let myself fall back on the bed. I was ready for some sleep.
The bed was more comfortable that I even imagined. I curled up in the soft mattress and pulled a small blanket up under my chin. It wasn’t cold outside yet, but we were far enough north that the nights were chilly. I probably would have pulled the blanket on even if it wasn’t.
The sisters often dropped me off at different hotels for days at a time. I didn’t mind, though; at least at the hotels I had plenty of food, water for showers, and a bed to sleep in. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was a nice change. Especially now.
I rolled onto my back to stare at the ceiling. Dark brown water stains ringed the white paint, but no water was leaking down on me. I sighed softly and let a slow smile spread across my face. Living with the sisters had not been easy, but I wouldn’t want a different life.
There was a small window in the room with think white curtains covering it. I thought vaguely of going to look outside, but exhaustion won over curiosity. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the comfort of the bed. I could explore the town tomorrow, when it was light outside.
Gloria had told me to stay inside the room, but she meant tonight. Of course I wouldn’t go out at night. All the monsters came out at night.
I yawned wide and curled back on my side. Monsters. My mother had told me about the monsters that came out after Jewell hit. It took me too long to realize she had meant vampires. I yawned again and let my eyes drift closed.
The door slammed open, jerking me awake before I was even fully asleep. I rolled off the bed and was on my feet before my eyes were open all the way. There was nowhere to hide, though.
“Hey human,” Liza’s loud voice cut through my panicked thoughts.
What were they doing here already? They had only been gone a few hours. I let my shoulders sag, and crawled back onto the bed. I didn’t really care what they wanted; I was going back to bed.
“Fantastic little town,” Liza hissed.
“Mmm,” I murmured my agreement.
“Just what we needed,” she continued happily.
My eyes were already closing again so I didn’t bother responding to her. “Found out why the wolves stay away,” Melody added.
That peaked my interest, but not enough to open my eyes. “All the humans are flawed.”
“Yeah, it’s like a village of rejects,” Liza sneered.
Savannah’s limp. Of course the wolves wouldn’t want her. They only chose mates that were strong enough to carry on the line. I shuddered slightly at the thought.
“I have a great idea,” Liza sang out. “We can cut your foot off.” I felt her weight on the bottom of the bed. “Then, the wolves won’t want you.”
I considered kicking her, but that would require more energy than I had. “Brilliant,” I mumbled.
“Time to get up.” I felt a tug on my pant leg.
“Why?”
“We have to leave.” It was Gloria’s voce that answered, so I knew it wasn’t a joke.
“We have to leave already?” I mumbled before I could stop myself.
“Awww,” Liza pinched my chin with a toothy grin. “Does sleeping beauty need a little more sleep?”
“I haven’t slept at all.” I slapped her hand away.
“That’s not our fault.” Her eyes widened for emphasis. “What were you doing the whole time we’ve been away?”
“I showered.” I sat up and scooted to the end of the bed, away from where Liza had sprawled out. She came to sit too close to me, though.
“Want to know what we were doing?” she winked.
“No.” I pulled my shoe on with too much force and winced slightly. Once again, I had forgotten my blister.
“Foot still hurt?” Melody stepped forward, but I pulled it back quickly.
“It feels a lot better,” I only half lied. It did feel better, just not a lot.
“Hurry up,” Liza snapped.
“I am.” I puffed out my cheeks, but hurried to get my other shoe on. I pulled the laces tight and tied them into a double knot.
I stood up and gingerly put weight on my foot. It really did feel better with the bandage on and the socks were thick so it cushioned my skin from the hard soles of my shoes.
“Ready?” Gloria nodded in my direction.
“Yeah.”
Chapter 6
My face scrunched up but I fell in step behind the three without comment. We went down the hall and past the now empty counter to the outside. It was pretty late, so the streets were deserted for now.
Whatever they had done must have been bad for them to want to leave under the cover of darkness. A small twinge of irritation began to take root in my stomach. Couldn’t they just clean it up? What had they done?
Gloria looked around us as we made our silent way through the sleeping town. I envied them their beds, but I kept walking. She led us all the way to where the buildings stopped and the trees crept back up. Did the wolves sleep at night? I didn’t even know if they slept at all.
“There’s something I have to do,” Gloria announced. She didn’t look at me, but Melody nodded.
“You’ll be riding with me today,” She tried to sound happy about that.
I didn’t know who was worse to ride with- Melody or Liza. Liza usually made me walk by dropping me on purpose, but Melody was tiny. She was at least a foot shorter than me, which made things uncomfortable.
“You can ride with me,” Liza sneered. She raised both eyebrows in my direction, her grin turning to a full blown smile.
Liza was worse, I decided quickly. “I got her,” Melody intervened.
I awkwardly clambered onto her back. Even though I knew she was plenty strong enough, it still felt like I was too big. “It’ll only be for a short while,” Gloria promised.
I watched as her and Liza shot off in the dark. “Ready?” Melody asked. I nodded and off we were, too.
I clenched my teeth tightly, tight enough to make my jaw ache. Just when I thought I’d have a comfortable bed to sleep on, we were off running again. I repositioned myself slightly on Melody’s back. She was too tiny to get comfortable, though. I had to scrunch myself up too much to wrap myself around her neck and waist at the same time.
Where was Gloria? She had said I would only be with Melody for a little while, but it had already been a long time. I sighed heavily, knowing that Melody wouldn’t be mad at my human irritation.
“Was the food good?” her voice trilled back to me.
“Yes.” I smiled, but then frowned almost immediately when I realized I hadn’t gotten to eat it all.
“We’ll find somewhere safe soon,” she comforted me, knowing I wasn’t happy to be back on the run.
“I know.” I bit the inside of my lip, but decided it was ok to ask Melody what I had been wondering since we left. “What happened? Why did we have to leave?”
She didn’t answer at first, but finally her voice rang out. “We fed… got a little carried away.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
Even though she couldn’t see me, she had to have heard my gasp. Seven? No wonder we had to leave so soon. A little carried away. More like a lot carried away. I had a feeling they often were careless, but not usually when I was with them.
The order from Damien overrode anything else in their lives. Although I didn’t completely understand it, I was grateful for it. Despite being uncomfortable, I let myself relax as much as possible.
When Damien first brought me to the sisters, I was just a young kid and they were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen. And also the most terrifying. They had argued with him, refusing to let me stay, but of course he won in the end. I imagine he usually did.
“You’ll keep her safe,” he demanded in his deep baritone voice.
I stared at Gloria, knowing from that very first meeting that she was the leader of their little group. She snarled
down at me, her nostrils flared wide. “She’s a child, how do you expect us to keep a human child alive?”
“That is your problem,” he had snarled back.
I tried to hide behind him, but he pushed me forward and into Gloria. She caught me easily, but roughly, and pushed me behind her. Even while she argued futilely that she wouldn’t, she had already moved into a protective role.
Damien snarled at her and turned to walk away. “You can’t leave her here!” Gloria exclaimed to no avail. Damien didn’t even turn back.
She glared down at me, but there was nowhere I could hide. I looked back at her, eyes wide.
“What do we do now?” Melody asked softly.
“She’ll have to come with us,” Gloria growled.
I shifted uncomfortably on Melody’s back. The sun was beating down on us and I was still really tired. Where was Gloria? As least with her, I could try to sleep.
“We’ll stop by the river,” Melody offered.
I tried not to let my relief show audibly, but as soon as we reached it, I slid off Melody and hurried to the water.
I sank down to one knee and cupped my hands to get a drink of water. We had been running for too long and the heat made me thirsty—and hot. I briefly considered jumping into the water, but thought better of it. I might be hot now, but the breeze was cool enough that I would probably be cold if I was wet. I settled instead for splashing water on my flushed face.
Gloria and Liza still weren’t there. Melody glanced around us nervously. Her thoughts probably mirrored my own—that we didn’t want to run into any wolves without the other two here.
“We’ll be fine,” she assured me even though I wasn’t afraid.
I shrugged and continued drinking from my hands. I wished I still had my canteen to carry with me, but I left it at the hotel. It wasn’t long before Liza and Gloria joined us. I stood up quickly when I saw Liza.
“Still alive?” she asked sweetly.
“Yep.”
“Here.” Gloria held out a small brown canteen. I grinned and went to fill the much needed gift with water.
“I hope you don’t get any bugs in there,” Melody called.
“Extra protein,” Liza replied. “Maybe you should add some so we don’t have to stop anymore.” I kept my eyes on the water, looking out for anything other than water.
“Have you run into any wolves?” I heard Gloria ask.
I wasn’t sure who she was asking until Melody answered. “None.”
“We’re still not in the clear.”
A breeze picked up suddenly, sending a chill down my back. Liza mistook my shudder. “You afraid?” she sneered with a light kick to my leg.
“No.”
“Time to go. “ Gloria announced. She bent low and I climbed onto her back without saying anything. She must have been planning on making a lot of ground today.
“Did you fill your canteen?” she called back to me.
“Yeah.”
I wrapped my arms firmly around her neck. I wasn’t going to be falling off again today. I hadn’t seen or heard any wolves in a while, though, maybe we had finally outrun them. Gloria did say we were keeping straight today and getting out of the wolf territory.
How long would that take, though?
I tried not to let myself worry about the wolves. Worrying about things was usually senseless anyways in my life. I just needed to do what I was told to do without hesitation and I would be fine. I relaxed into Gloria’s shoulder as she started to run.
It wasn’t like the last few days of running. We went slower. We were no longer being chased. I should have been relieved, but I still felt uncharacteristically tense.
“Can I walk?” I asked suddenly. We weren’t going very fast and running myself would give me less time to be tense.
“I got you.”
“I want to walk,” I insisted. “I’ll go fast.”
Gloria shook her head, though. “Not until we are out of the valley.”
“The valley?”
“Noir Valley. That’s what this area is called,” she explained patiently.
I nodded. I had never heard of Noir Valley, but it didn’t sound like a place we should have visited.
“It isn’t,” Gloria muttered. Before I could ask what she meant, she added, “Try to sleep, Lexi.”
I did try to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t slow down enough, I was too alert. Last time I had fallen asleep, a wolf had knocked me to the ground and almost got me.
Liza saved me, though.
My forehead creased with my confusion. It would have been easy for her to let it get me; she could have said she wasn’t fast enough. Maybe it was Damien’s order that once again saved me.
There was another time the wolves had attacked us. There were only three of them, so we didn’t think they were dangerous. We got careless—and paid the price for it. I shuddered at the memory.
I hadn’t got the worst of it, but my wounds healed slower than the others. A huge gash was torn into my leg; one that needed twenty-six stitches to patch up. Out of all the injuries I’d had—that was the worst.
I did get a nice hotel room out of the ordeal though. I smiled a bit. Room service had been incredible. I wished I could be there now.
I took my hand off her shoulder for a second to brush the hair from my face. She had put it back up for me before we even left the hotel. I could do it myself, but Gloria liked to do it for me. Now, because we had been running all day, the strands were starting to come loose.
As I watched Gloria’s hair flying in little wisps, I had to wonder why she ever got involved with someone like Damien Letrell. Everything I had ever heard about him was how evil he was. He had thrown away all three of them.
Damien Letrell was a mystery to me. My clearest memory of him was the day he killed my parents. I had craned my neck to look up at him, but he was so tall and the sun created a glare across his face. I remembered his voice most of all.
“What’s your name?” his voice boomed down to me.
“Alexis Tate.” My own voice was clear and non-shaking.
“Your parents are dead, Alexis Tate.”
“I know.”
“I killed them.”
“I know.”
“And yet you stand and stare up at me. Are you not afraid?”
“Should I be?”
“Oh, most definitely.”
I blinked a few times, trying to see the man more clearly. “Then I guess I am.”
His laughter thundered out of his broad chest. “I have somewhere you can go; a place you will be safe.”
The sisters hid me away for most of my childhood. We traveled together, but rarely among other vampires or even wolves if we could help it. Of course, it wasn’t an easy life, but I was shielded from the worst of what they were.
Here lately, though, we had been on the run more. When I was a kid, I had hated being left in the hotels while the sisters went out and had all the fun. Now—I wouldn’t mind so much.
I wrinkled my nose at my self-pity. That wasn’t exactly true anyways. I didn’t want to be left behind now either. Not because I felt safer with the sisters—because it was definitely more dangerous—but because I liked the danger.
I didn’t really remember what it was like to be a normal human girl, but that was okay with me. I couldn’t imagine a different life than running with the sisters. Everyday was an adventure; I loved it. There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
I looked out and caught a glimpse of Melody’s curls bouncing with her steps. She was sweeter than most humans I had run into; the other two were lucky that she was with them. She turned towards me then and smiled—as if she had heard what I had been thinking. I smiled back.
I tucked my face back into my arm, my exhaustion finally overtaking my nerves. Maybe I would be able to sleep for a little bit after all.
Chapter 7
My legs hurt when I was finally able to disentangle them from Gloria. As much as I liked running with Gloria, it would
have been nice to walk on my own for a little bit.
We had kept a steady pace throughout most of the day. We ran into the wolves several times and had to change our course, so she wouldn’t let me walk. “We need to get out of this area or you’ll never get proper food and a bed,” she explained when I asked if I could.
I hadn’t said another word about it, but I could feel it now in my stiff arms and legs. I paced slowly in the small space Gloria had deemed safe. It was a testament to the wolves that she was so protective over me, so I made sure to stay where she told me to.
Normally, they didn’t pay much attention to me. The fact that Gloria was nervous didn’t make me feel good, but I wasn’t going to worry about it. If we needed to move, she would tell me.
Gloria and Melody had their heads close together, intense in their discussion. Melody’s eyes were wide with her distress; I smiled. She wore her heart on her sleeve almost all of the time.
“We can’t,” I heard her shrill voice ring out before Gloria shushed her. Were they worried that I would hear?
No, I decided immediately. They had never babied me like that before—shielding me from the truth, no matter how scary it was—so they wouldn’t start now. She was worried the wolves would hear and our hiding place would be blown. I watched them for a few more minutes, but I didn’t hear anything else.
I yawned wide, exhaustion making my eyes feel gritty. I rubbed at them roughly, but that only made them hurt more. I needed to find a place to at least sit down, without bringing too much attention to myself. I started to turn away, but Liza stopped me.
“Hey,” she hissed, close to my face.
“What?” I snapped.
Her eyes narrowed as she took in my weariness. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m tired,” I widened my eyes meanly.
“You didn’t walk at all today.” She briefly glared at Gloria, but turned back to me.
“So?” It’s not like I could sleep very well on Gloria’s back. I hadn’t been able to sleep much at all this past week. I didn’t point that out to Liza, though. She already knew.