The mysterious soldier found his own rock close by and slumped against it, pulling out a canteen and unscrewing the lid. He brought it to his lips, all the while watching me with unwavering eyes, his throat bobbing up and down as he drank. Afterwards, he handed me the canteen.
“Soon, you won’t be needing this stuff anymore.”
I eyed him while taking a chug from the water. It tasted weird and metallic, and I felt as though drinking it was pointless. I grimaced and handed it back to him.
“No good, huh?” He released a dry chuckle which made me smile, although for the life of me —or un-life, rather— I didn’t know where I could possibly find humor in this situation. Here I was, thrown into some sort of different realm of reality, and I was naked to boot. Not my idea of a comedy show.
“Where are you taking me?” Of all the hundreds of questions in my mind, that one seemed the most relevant.
The soldier shifted his position on the rock and checked his watch, the blue glow of it highlighting his chiseled face, yet again making me aware of his masculine beauty. “Some place safe.”
“You ever heard of a car before?” Apparently, a recurring habit of mine was words falling from my mouth before thinking. Though his expression was impassive, his grey eyes bored right through me at my sarcastic remark.
I wasn’t quite sure about my savior yet, thinking he might just be a figment of my imagination. Maybe he was just a crazy screwed-up dream or the ghost of Christmas past. Who knew. But he seemed all business, cold and mechanical. Though, if he was in fact alive, I couldn’t blame him for his detachment. We had just been through a hell-battle after all.
His gaze shifted away from me into the night and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “We have to stay off the roadways and out of sight. For now, at least. I’ve done something really bad.”
I flinched, wondering what he could’ve done that was so bad. I looked him up and down, his gorgeous profile accentuated by the moonlight. Yes, he’d had a gun to my head, but he hadn’t pulled the trigger, instead hauling me out of the battle and saving me from the raining debris and fire. I fumbled with the edge of the blanket.
“What have you done?”
A long moment of silence passed before he answered. “I rescued you.”
I looked down at my fingers tangled together. Why was rescuing me a bad thing? It suddenly came to my attention I hadn’t been in searing pain in a while. The pain still remained —don’t get me wrong— but I could at least sit upright now. The handsome stranger clenched his jaw.
“Orders were to kill every vampire on sight.”
The force of his words snapped me back to attention. My face drained of color and my heart jackhammered in my chest. Despite my fear, I laughed out loud.
“And you think I’m a…vampire?”
He shook his head, his expression serious. “Not yet. But by tomorrow night you will be.”
FIVE: GUY
Though the girl was light and petite, my arms were starting to tire from running us through the desert for the better part of two hours, getting us as far away from the ambush as possible. If they found me with her, if I was caught… No, I didn’t even want to think about the repercussions I would likely face. I glanced down at her in my arms and frowned.
God, what was I doing? What in the actual hell was I doing? I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d completely lost my mind and, what’s more, wondered what on Earth could’ve motivated me to make such a rash decision— a decision that could mean the end of my career and, probably, my life.
I guess I hadn’t thought it through, somehow letting my emotions take over. But that wasn’t like me, I didn’t have emotions. Hell, I’d even heard people say I didn’t have a heart. All machine. All combat. All killing. I’d had emotions at one point in time, years ago, before I knew better. But that wasn’t me anymore.
I stopped momentarily to consider my options, wondering if I’d had a brain hemorrhage or something. Complete darkness covered the sky now, the orange glow from the explosions long gone. Stars twinkled merrily in space as if I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life. I could take her back and leave her in the bushes for someone else to find. I could leave her there and reconvene with my men back at headquarters.
I shook my head like I was actually having a conversation with someone else instead of fighting with my own conscience. But my conscience won the battle, telling me I couldn’t let anyone else find the girl because she’d talk. She’d tell them what I’d done and I couldn’t chance that. The only other option was to kill her, and I’d already proved myself unable to do so. I don’t know how many more times I would say it, but, God, what was wrong with me?
Yet again, the girl cried out in pain, bringing me back to my ridiculous reality. I’d have to go on, to find a place to take her and leave her. And I thought I might know just the man. But the old vampire and I had an odd relationship, and I wasn’t sure if he would have us. We had an agreement to never speak again. He hated me and I him. That was what enemies were for right? But under the circumstances… just maybe…
It wasn’t the best idea, but it was my only option. I’d have to make it work.
But for now, dawn approached and the girl would need shelter away from the sun. She would need complete darkness.
I tried to recall the map of Bisbee I’d studied for days on end once assigned to this reconnaissance. In my mind, I saw the rough outlines of the small town and the major roads. I saw the warehouse we’d been staking out and the wash we now traveled. There was something up ahead that could offer us shelter, but I couldn’t remember what. I hoped we could find it before anyone else found us…
“I can walk now,” the girl huffed, irritated. She was hanging onto my neck for dear life, her legs folded over my arm. The blanket barley covered her body, her clothes having been ripped off in one of the warehouse explosions. I tried to avert my eyes.
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” I dropped her like a bag of cement and she oomphed upon hitting the ground and rubbed her backside. She shot me a nasty glare and I smirked, amused by her annoyance.
“Here,” I said, pulling a couple of rags from my pack. “Tie these onto your feet, or you’ll get stickers.”
She pulled the blanket closer to her chest, hiding her form beneath as if I might assault her with my eyes. I laughed wryly. Though her beauty was not lost on me, it was the last thing on my mind.
Her angry gaze softened when our eyes met and I wondered if she knew I’d saved her life. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt her purple gaze through to the bottom of my toes. I shifted uncomfortably.
“Thank you.” She took the squares of white cloth in her small hands and tied them to the soles of her feet.
I took a deep breath and averted my eyes, remaining addled from the precarious situation I’d put us in. But after a moment, I stood up straight and squared my shoulders. Like it or not, this had been my decision after all and I needed to fix it. I took a quick gulp of water and shoved my canteen in my pack.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice smooth and soft, like fine sand. I studied her face and arms where the wounds had been, but they’d almost completely healed now.
“Just outside of Bisbee.” I tightened the laces on my boots and adjusted my pack. “We need to find you some clothes and shelter. Quickly.”
I stood and checked our surroundings. We were in the middle of nowhere, the desert sky a wide canopy of darkness and stars that spanned from horizon to horizon without another soul in sight. Just the way I liked it. I felt at peace out in the wilderness alone. But I was not alone this time. I had the girl with me and it was now my job to take care of her.
An agonizing scream snapped my focus back to the girl. She was covering her ears. “It’s so loud!” Her flawless face was scrunched up tight and she looked like she was standing against a loud speaker at a rock concert, trying to block out the pounding noise. But except for the vague melody of crickets and an occasional rus
tling breeze, the desert was silent.
I recognized what was happening; she was transforming. And from what I knew, it was a torturous feat. Everything in the person’s body was on overdrive, their sense of hearing being one of them. The slightest sound was intensified by a hundred and there was little to do to relieve it. But it would pass once her body became acclimated to the venom coursing through her.
“It’s part of turning.” I shrugged, betraying my distress with false confidence. “You’ll get used to it.”
She looked up at me, irritated, still muffling her ears. I could tell my casual manner was bothering her and I stifled a grin.
“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked. “Can I call my mom? My boyfriend? I live in Bisbee and—”
“No.” I slung my pack over my shoulders and walked on. She ran to catch up, limping and hunching over with pain. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to get us somewhere safe.
“No, you don’t have a cell phone? Or no, I can’t call my family?”
I grunted. When I’d seen her lying there at the warehouse, she’d done something to me, struck a chord inside of me. I’d felt bad for her. But now she was just talking too much.
“I want to go home.”
Here we go again. I sighed. “You are a vampire now —or will be soon,” I explained, trying to harness a shred of patience, thinking I should’ve never allowed her to take the gag out of her mouth. “It’s against the rules to contact anyone from your previous life. They must still believe you missing.” There, now we needed to move. I rushed ahead, coming to a long row of bushes blocking our path.
“So that’s it?” She huffed like I’d just given her cereal without milk. “Out of nowhere I become a vampire and now I have no family or friends? What about school? I was supposed start college soon.”
I snorted in response. I wasn’t her grief counselor nor did I owe her anything, much less an explanation. I’d saved her from permanent death. Wasn’t that enough? I pulled out my machete and started whacking at an overgrown patch of dry bramble.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked when I didn’t respond.
This girl was relentless. I released a curt breath and glanced down at her. “Say goodbye to everything you knew before. This is your new life.”
We made our way through the brush and into a clearing at the bottom of a hill. She stopped and looked up at me, her demeanor scared and desperate. I couldn’t ignore the effect her pleading gaze had on me. Her eyes dropped to the wooden stake hanging on my belt and she stumbled backward as if it would bite her. She placed a hand on her chest.
“You really think I’m a vampire?”
Our gazes locked for one long moment before I latched onto her arm and pulled her along with me.
“I don’t think. I know.”
SIX: RUBY
Shock zapped through me like an electric current and I couldn’t believe what the soldier had just said to me. He had said I was turning into a vampire. Me. A vampire. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I’d have laughed out loud. The idea was bizarre. Absolutely Looney Toons.
Vampires were creatures of fantasy. They were Halloween costumes and storybook characters. They were cartoons and movies. They were Count Dracula.
They weren’t real… were they?
I took in the form of my savior and, at first glance, he seemed a normal soldier, yet on closer inspection, he had more weapons strapped to him than the artillery room at the White House. And the thing that struck me even more than his hefty collection was a single weapon hanging at his side. What kind of soldier carried a wooden stake as protection? My heart pounded when I realized he might be telling the truth and I stumbled over my own feet.
My mind spun, desperate to grasp any shred of reality. I clung to the images that kept flashing through my brain, trying to replay recent events. But other than having a heated argument with my boyfriend and crashing my car, I couldn’t remember much other than dying and then waking to searing pain beneath a torrent of fire and explosions. Apparently, there was a huge chunk of time missing from my memory and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fill in the pieces.
“Come on,” he grumbled, clearly annoyed by my presence, and I didn’t blame him—I didn’t even want to be around myself at the moment. But he glanced over and suddenly stopped, his grey eyes holding something softer and I wondered if it could be sympathy.
Strangely enough I hadn’t asked my handsome savior’s name, nor had he offered it either. He hadn’t even asked me anything about myself, but had scooped me into his arms like a sack of onions and carried me away. The moon had disappeared and it would be light soon, the line of the mountain range growing a hazy pink with the impending dawn. We trudged through a wash and up a steep incline, the rocks piercing through the cloth on my feet and into my skin.
Tears welled in my eyes, but I would not cry. I would find a way out of this. My first instinct was to call my parents and tell them about the crazy night I’d had, and beg them to come get me. I wanted to tell them I was sorry for the way I’d acted, despite the awful secret they’d kept from me my whole life. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t seem so bad now. But my stomach shrank in on itself when the soldier said I couldn’t contact my family. I couldn’t help but wonder if he meant for now or forever. Dread clamped around my heart like barbed wire thinking I’d never see my mom and dad again.
The soldier had said we were near Bisbee, my hometown where I’d grown up, the place where I’d died in the crash. But even if I could find my way back home, would they even want me now, with what I’d become? I shook my head, disbelief coursing through me. That was only if this man was telling the truth. I still wasn’t sure I could trust him. My brain was on overload, sparking and fuming like a fried circuit board as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
“I just… I don’t understand what happened.” I could barely hear myself think over the cacophony clogging my head; bugs skittering and chirping, our feet crunching, the wind whistling. I clamped my hands to my ears. “How did I become a… a vampire? I was dying. I died.”
He stopped cold, as though my words struck him as odd. “You died? You weren’t taken?”
I shook my head. “I was in a car accident. I died.”
He looked as though something bothered him, his face contorting strangely. But his expression melted away and he shrugged. “Well then, you probably did die. But for mere seconds. And then some vampire —God only knows why— decided you should become one of them.”
I furrowed my brows, pondering why in the world a vampire would see fit I become a part of their —what would it be? Race? Kind? And why would I not remember this happening to me. And not only was changing into a blood-sucking monster a mind-blowing concept in itself, but the fact they existed in the first place was petrifying.
“Are you one?” I asked my handsome savior whose name I still did not know.
He burst out laughing. “No.”
My cheeks flushed, insult stabbing me through the back like an unwieldy axe. If I was in fact going to be a vampire, crazy as it was —and there was apparently nothing I could do about it— the least he could do was show some respect. Otherwise, I might decide it would be his blood I’d sample first. Thinking of how I’d do that sampling, I reached up and felt my teeth. No fangs. Just smooth, white pearls, lined up nicely in two neat rows, thanks to the braces I’d endured a couple years ago.
“Well, if you’re not a vampire,” I said, “then why are you helping me?”
He looked over, a whisper of sincerity crossing his face. “I couldn’t bring myself to kill you.”
I creased my brows, confused. “But according to you, I’m a vampire. And you kill vampires. So what gives?”
The man said nothing, but kept trudging through the rocky terrain, his shoulders tense. I felt a shift in his mood.
“Why?” I asked again. “Why are you helping me?”
“I couldn’t go through that again,” he mumbled.
“Go through what?” I asked, frustration raising my voice.
He released a disgruntled breath and scrubbed a hand through his dark hair.
“The reason I didn’t kill you was because you’re still human.”
“Then why did you run off with me like that? Why didn’t you just leave me there?”
He huffed. “Because they would’ve killed you.”
My heart sank at his troubling words.
“Who’s they?”
“FUSE soldiers.” The man’s answers were short and clipped. He didn’t want to talk, but I didn’t care. I needed answers.
“And these soldiers kill vampires?”
“We kill Vampires.”
“Do you work for the government?”
“Do you ever shut up?” He shot me an irritated look, but froze when he saw what I clearly felt —a raging bolt of pain slicing through me like a freaking meat cleaver gone wrong.
Shrieking, I collapsed to the ground and tucked up into a ball. Every nerve ending, every muscle and bone in my body felt as though it were ripping, breaking, and blazing with fire. The man got to his knees and placed my head on his lap to keep it off the rocky ground. “Damn it.” He rubbed my back with awkward fingers, a small attempt at comfort. After what seemed an eternity, the pain ebbed a little, leaving me gasping for air.
“This is only temporary.” Again, he awkwardly rubbed my back as if he’d never done such a thing before. Although the man was a complete stranger, his presence comforted me, his fingers a soothing balm on my aching skin. My flesh pebbled with shivers, something I might have mistaken for pleasure traveling through me. But a ball of emotion expanded in my chest, ready to burst.
“I don’t know what to think.” I covered my face with my hands, holding back tears. “I lost my family once already when I died, and now you’re telling me I’m losing them again. And I’m turning into this creature that should only exist in storybooks.” Guilt rippled through me, streams of tears bursting from my eyes. “This is crazy. It’s insane.” I didn’t know how many times I’d said it, but I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. I looked up into his storm-cloud eyes and blinked. “Who are you? I don’t even know your name.”
Unfortunate Souls (Book 1): Unfortunate Souls Series (The Unfortunate Souls Series) Page 3