by Amy Faye
27
I heard a noise. The noise wasn't like someone being stabbed. I shouldn't know what someone being stabbed sounds like. I never stabbed anyone, and I never wanted to stab anyone. I've been stabbed myself, but I'm still around.
Then again, it's not hard to imagine how I came across it, with the company that I keep. It's not hard at all. So when I didn't hear the noise I expected, and I heard a different noise altogether, I opened my eyes again.
Cassidy stared up at Kyle, defiant. Kyle, for his own part, looked down on her with a gentle smile. Like he was expecting everything to go exactly according to plan, and so far, he hadn't been wrong yet. There was nobody coming. No rushing outside, no shouts. No doors burst open.
"You know, you're a good looking woman. I could get used to having a girl like you around."
"You couldn't handle me, little man." Cassidy was petite, and her body was soft. But her eyes burned hot and her lips pulled back just a little bit. If she was afraid, she didn't show it.
"Tough talk," Kyle said. He knelt down in front of Cassidy, careful never to hide the knife from her eyes. Careful to make sure that it stayed somewhere in her vision the entire time. "But I'm afraid that it doesn't matter how tough your talk is. I'm going to have my way. I'm going to take you, and then I'm going to break you. It has to be in that order, or it's no fun, you know?"
The knife drifted up. He liked that knife; it was an extension of his arm, in a sense. He could put the point wherever he wanted it, and he could leave it away from whatever he didn't want. He seemed to have an intrinsic sense of the sharpness of it, exactly how much pressure was needed to cut something, without needing to go over.
The point of that knife caught in the neck of her blouse and started to travel down. I watched her shiver in fury and disgust, and then the knife fit into the thread holding the button on her blouse. It held there for an instant, and then slipped through and the button fell to the ground with a soft rattle.
"Kyle, stop it," I said. It was going to piss him off, and I knew it. But I could deal with pissing Kyle off. He couldn't do any worse to me than he already had. But Cassidy? Cassidy wasn't involved in this. She was open and fresh.
But he didn't stop. He ignored me. The knife slipped lower. Continued to trace a line down her flesh, one that didn't quite cut in. It met another button, and once again it caught for half of a second. I could see the central panel of her bra, now. The knife continued to descend, slowly.
He paid for the slowness a moment later; there was a noise outside. Not loud, but enough. He looked towards the door a moment before three men burst through. He seemed to consider his next move only for an instant before he pulled the knife back and moved to plunge it into Cassidy's chest.
Seth caught him in a full-body tackle that sent them both to the ground. I felt something hard and metal and sharp run down my arm an inch, and then the duct tape and rope that had been holding me still in my seat loosened.
"You're going to be fine," the quiet brother said. He started to move to the other side of the room as if this were a practiced routine.
On the other side of the room, Blake caught Kyle from behind with the point of a boot and my ex doubled over in pain, still not able to get up.
"You fucking son of a–"
Blake kicked again, and this time Kyle screamed.
"Transform, you dirt bag! Try something! See what happens!"
The youngest, Lance, I thought, started to move between them.
"Blake, you're going to kill him."
"He took Cassidy! He took Meg! He deserves what he's got coming to him."
"You don't get to decide that," Lance said. Behind him, though, he didn't seem to notice Seth.
Seth knelt down beside Kyle and looked into his eyes. Kyle laughed and laid his head down, even as his body still writhed in agony.
"You think you've done something here, don't you? God, you're so…"
"I've done everything I needed to do," Seth said. "I stopped you. Everything else I do tonight? That's just a bonus."
There was another commotion at the door, and a pair of men ran inside. They looked like they were ready for a fight, and they both had knives. There was a moment of struggle as the fight became a melee and the different men tried to figure out how they were going to handle things.
That lasted only a few moments before Seth and his brothers started to turn things around again. They moved like soldiers, like they'd practiced this for days on end. Like they were used to this kind of thing. First the one on the right, then the one on the left. They worked in tandem, one of them keeping the one busy while the other got worked over, three-on-one.
Nobody took any risks. Nobody ever came close to the edge of a knife, even as the other men's faces turned black and bloody. Even as their knees started to wobble under them. Even as two became one, and one became none at all.
In the time that it took to beat up the other two, though, Kyle got back up. I watched as he reached for the knife on the ground. Cassidy struggled against bonds that Dante hadn't had time to undo. I could have gotten up and gone for Kyle. I should have.
But I couldn't shake the terrified feeling that if I did, if I allowed myself to get that involved, I was going to be the one who took the point of that knife. Seth turned just in time to see Kyle pull the knife back for a second attempt at stabbing his sister-in-law.
28
The next moments played out in slow-motion. Kyle's hand reached as far back as it was ever going to go; then, in slow-motion, like he was moving through water, his hand started to move forward again. Point-first. I watched it in horror, knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Knowing that I was going to have to live, for the rest of my life, with the fact that I'd just gotten Cassidy killed.
Seth saw it, though. And he moved. He didn't seem to move in slow-motion at all. Everything that happened with him happened too fast for me, like I was going to be sick. I watched him reach behind his back, pull something from his belt, and then I watched fire explode out of his hand, and something smack into Kyle's shoulder.
Time sped up again. Kyle fell to the ground, crying out in pain. A bullet. The sound of the bullet firing still rang in my ears, loud enough that I couldn't hear very well what was said.
But I saw Seth standing over Kyle. Saw him looking down. I saw his lips move, but the words were too soft to hear. Then the gun kicked in his hand again, and Kyle stopped looking up at him. Stopped looking at anything.
Seth dropped the gun, looked down at the body. Then he fell to the floor. He landed on his butt, looking up at the ceiling like it was the first time he'd seen such a thing.
His brothers rushed over to Cassidy. She was still sitting there, her chest halfway to bared. They worked her hands free of their restraints and the first thing she did was to stand up and pull her blouse closed, as if it were more of a hassle than a real embarrassment.
She walked over to the door, leaned against the wall, and looked as if any moment she were going to be sick.
Seth was forcing himself to his feet. They slipped out from under him. He did it again, and again they slipped. He did it a third time, and a third time, they slipped. This time, he didn't force it. He stayed down and laid back.
Lance was the first one to come over and say anything. Dante had taken Cassidy's seat and was looking exhausted. No doubt there was more to it than pure physical exertion. Blake was tending to his wife, and Seth couldn't get up. His bad arm now hung useless beside him.
"Are you alright? He didn't hurt you, did he? Didn't hurt the baby?"
"I'm going to be fine," I said. I hoped that it was true. "He didn't do anything to me."
"Okay. We're going to get you and Seth to the hospital, okay? Don't you worry."
And that's exactly what they did. Seth was like a limp noodle. He tried to walk, tried to stay erect. In the end, Lance wrapped Seth's arms around his neck and carried him like a backpack, his legs dangling behind. I leaned on Dante, harder than I woul
d have wanted for someone I'd met today for the first time. But I didn't have any other, better options.
"Thank God you got here in time," I said softly. "I don't know what I would have done if… if something had happened."
"Nothing did, though. Right?"
"No. Thank God," I repeated again. "How did you find us?"
"It was Seth who found you," he said softly. "He said he could feel it. Like he just knew, in the back of his mind. He practically could point right to you, even from all that distance."
"Where are we?"
"Far out," he said. There was a long moment. He shifted my weight and I climbed into the back seat of a van.
"Thank you, though. For saving me."
It was Seth who spoke this time. "I love you too much to let anything happen to you. If you'd just taken me home like I asked you to…"
"Don't ruin the moment with an argument," I said. Then I laid my head back and unceremoniously, I let myself fall asleep.
I woke up some time later to find that I’d apparently been readmitted to the hospital. It was probably expected. I’d been kidnapped, after all. Hospitals have a bad smell; nobody likes them, and I’m no exception.
I reached from my bed just a little bit, and Seth’s fingers interlocked with mine. The baby was alright, at least. And while my room-mate was a bit of a curmudgeon, he was at least my curmudgeon, and I don’t know if I can ask much more than that.
I close my eyes and feel his smooth skin on mine. Then I let out a long, low breath, and let myself relax.
Everything was over now. Someone cared enough for me to worry. And there was a future, however far away it was. The words came without my thinking them, almost without my permission.
“I love you, Seth.”
He squeezed my fingers between his. “I love you too.”
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Her fingers touched his shaft and it twitched. Sarah looked up to gauge his reaction. His eyes were closed, and he leaned back. He seemed to be struggling to keep control of himself. What could he be thinking?
Sarah wrapped her fingers around it, gave it an experimental tug. Jason's face lost the mask of composure for a moment and he inhaled sharply. She moved her hand again and he sucked in a breath. Was she doing this to him? Such a powerful, attractive man, brought to his knees by her?
She kept her eyes on his face as she ducked her head in, kissing the tip. His skin tasted salty on her lips. His body jerked when he felt her mouth on him, but she ignored her doubts. Her lips had to stretch just a little to accommodate his size, perhaps too generous, but she pushed past her discomfort.
This wasn't about her, this was about him, and making him feel good. Making him feel like it was worthwhile. She looked up again to gauge his reaction. The way that his hands searched for anything to get ahold of, the way that his expression was forced into that same neutral mask, all said that she was doing something right.
Sarah started moving slowly. As she began to move back on she enjoyed the way that his hips jerked ever so slightly, trying to meet her movements, an uncontrollable thrust to try to get deeper. It filled her throat and for a moment she was afraid that she was going to choke—and then he relented, pulling back until he was nearly out of her mouth completely.
She ran her tongue along its length, enjoying the movements of his hips as she pleased him. She couldn't resist asking, "does that feel good?"
His ragged breathing was her only reply, so she took it in her hand, giving it another experimental tug before she took it back into her mouth. She enjoyed the way that he moved, the way that she felt as if she was the center of his world as she sucked his cock. If this was how all women felt doing this, why would they ever want to stop?
"You can stop," he groaned above her. "I'm going to—"
Sarah didn't stop. Her tongue moved in time with the bobbing of her head, sucking hard, until she felt him jerk once, twice, harder than before. She knew what was happening only a half-second before he came, the salty, bitter taste filling her mouth. She swallowed.
She leaned back until she was sitting on the ground. She'd calmed down, now, she realized. Something about the way that Jason had seemed to enjoy what she'd done for him so much had set her back onto her feet. Now that she was looking around, there was something strange about this place.
It had seemed abandoned, at first. Yet, now that she was looking, most of the trash had been moved off to one side, the floors cleaned. Was this where Jason and Isaiah had been staying when they were in the city? The mattresses, laying in the opposite corner, seemed to confirm.
She looked back up at James, who seemed to finally be regaining his composure. "I think we're even, now," she said.
He smiled, a feral grin that showed off his teeth. Halfway a smile, but halfway a threat, she realized. It set her on edge. He was inhumanly attractive. She'd known that the moment she saw him. Those powerfully blue eyes seemed to see right through her.
1
Sarah Lincoln was coming home from a long day at work, so she didn't notice the men who were approaching her until they were already too close for her to do anything about what happened next.
They were shambling slowly, like they were tired from a long workout, or had been drinking, which wasn't all that strange because she took a back alley from the train station and it wasn't unusual to find people who didn't want to get the cops called on them for public drunkenness.
What was unusual was the way they grabbed her, almost in unison. They weren't fast, even as their hands balled up her jacket and started to shove against the wall. She might have been able to outrun them. But their grip was too tight, and as she looked past she could see two more coming up.
A voice shouted in the darkness. "Get back!" The shambling things didn't get back, though. They didn't even look as if they'd heard whoever it was. Then they started to lean into her, their hot, disgusting breath on her neck.
Sarah didn't question what the two men who ran up were doing. It was obvious from the outset that they'd come to rescue her. When she saw a flash of steel, though, a shock went up her spine. Jesus Christ, was that a knife?
His arm wrapped around the ghoul's neck and pulled back. She didn't have to see his hand to know that he'd just driven the knife in to the hilt. Whatever the things that were threatening her were, she knew, they weren't human.
They looked human, wore clothes. She'd mistaken them for men, but something about the way they moved, about the way that their eyes seemed not to focus, set them apart from any human that Sarah had ever known.
"Are you hurt?"
It took a long moment for the question to register in Sarah's mind, like he'd spoken a foreign language she had learned in high school. She was too afraid, and too caught up in her panic.
What brought her out, helped her regain her control, wasn't the soothing way that he asked, wasn't the violent dispatch of the monstrous creatures that had attacked her, nor the way that the second man continued on to dispatch the other two as easily as they had the first.
It was h
is eyes. They were tired eyes, the sort of eyes of most of the regulars at the library. The deep blue color, almost unnaturally blue. The sort of blue eyes that she only saw on film stars. The way he looked at her was strange, until she registered what she was seeing.
Desire.
She hadn't seen the look on many men's faces, not since high school when she'd known boys who would look at any girl like that. Sarah's breath came out shaky and she played back the last moments in her head, finally heard the question he asked.
"I don't think so," she answered.
Was that the right thing to say? She didn't feel any pain, but she wasn't sure that she felt anything at all. That was until his hands moved and touched her skin. Then she knew that she could feel, that she was intensely sensitive.
His skin burned against hers, lighting a fire inside her. Sarah couldn't help but lean into that touch, to want to feel more of it. She had thought that she didn't feel anything for men. As if it was never going to happen for her. The fact that she was never going to want to try sex again was something she'd accepted a long time ago.
But now she wasn't so sure.
"Are you sure? Not a scratch, nothing?"
It was the second man's voice, low and powerful. Sarah felt her knees go weak. The intensity of his gaze her made her stomach do a flip. He studied her neck with his eyes, his hands making a quick path up and down her clothing like a police officer doing a pat-down.
He spoke more to his partner than to her. "I think we got here just in time."
"Are you going to be alright?" The first one, with his powerfully blue eyes, looked at her, ignoring the comment of his friend.