by J. N. Colon
Shocked, he held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Gees.”
“I would back away very slowly Jason,” Jill said trying to suppress her laughter. She pointed to the cooler. “The raw ones are in there.”
Jason grabbed a hotdog and shoved it on a free stick. He gingerly stepped beside me and held the stick in the fire, eyeing me precariously. “I’ve never seen a girl so protective of a hotdog.”
“Now you have.” I squirted ketchup on my second weenie.
“Usually they’re all about dainty salads and froyyos.”
Eric snickered. “Please. Rubi’s idea of a salad is mixing different types of sausage in a bowl with a barbeque sauce dressing.”
My brow arched. “Hey, that sounds good.”
Chapter 2
“Rubi, honey, close the refrigerator. You know how much energy that wastes.” My mother patted me gently on the head.
I rolled my eyes inside of the cool, dry space, my gaze facing an unappealing carton of soy milk.
“If you’re hungry there are some veggie burgers on the counter.”
I almost gagged as I pulled myself out of the fridge to see several lumps of weird, brown patties cooling on a platter. “So that’s what that smell is.”
“Yep. Don’t they look delicious?”
Our house was three stories with a ginormous bonus room above the garage. It was very green with bamboo floors, solar panels, and a bunch of other gadgets my earth loving parents installed. I don’t know what half the crap is in our house. Once I thought a giant can crusher was an electric peeler and tried to peel a potato with it. It didn’t work out so well. I was cleaning splats of potato off the kitchen ceiling for weeks.
The whole house had tons of windows for natural light. The left wall of the kitchen was covered in windows with a spectacular view of the beach. The counters were a light sand, floors tawny, and walls pale blue. The cabinets were made of recycled wood.
My mom sashayed toward the island with a bowl of hummus in one hand and pita chips in the other. Her purple and gold bohemian skirt swished around her while bangle bracelets clanked on her arm.
“Mom, that is just so unnatural.” The person who thought of squishing soy bean curd into meat-like molds should be maimed. Maimed and then fed to a lion.
She dipped a chip into the hummus. “Rubi, you should really give it another try it. You were only a little girl when you decided you didn’t like them. You might enjoy veggie burgers now.”
I shook my head and backed away toward the kitchen table, eyeing my mother precariously. My parents tried to cram that weird vegetarian crap down my throat without my consent several times. My mother looked like the sweetest little hippie woman with large honey eyes, blonde wavy hair, and a warm smile, but I didn’t trust her for a second.
She shot me an incredulous expression. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“Nice try. Gramma’s still alive and kickin’.” She’s probably still at that biker convention in California. She owns four Harley’s, two Indians, and a Ducati. If I didn’t know any better I’d suspect she was on vampire blood to keep her from breaking a hip riding those things.
My mom winked before walking out the kitchen with her hands loaded down with yucky food.
I smiled as my gaze flitted down to the table, stopping on the neatly folded newspaper. My smile dropped as I scanned the article that caught my eye—the one with Gruesome Animal Attack scrolled along the top.
Sawdust filled my mouth just seeing those words. Floods of gory images flashed through my mind, making my fingers tremble as I lifted the paper and unfolded it. The murders at Highland Academy were made to look like vampire attacks covered up as animal attacks when really they were all committed by a sick, twisted girl.
Mac told me some vampires—none under the protection and law of their family—were horrible enough to tear people’s throats out and cover the murders with freak accidents including animal attacks. Was this one of those cases?
The vampire in my nightmare—me—certainly wouldn’t think twice about murdering an innocent.
Or was this simply an animal attack?
I skimmed the article, searching for clues this was anything other than what it appeared. I held my breath. I’m a swimmer so that can be a really long time. The male victim was camping in the woods in upstate New York when a large animal happened upon his tent.
That seemed plausible. Maybe the guy was careless and left food out. Maybe a bear or wolf or something smelled food and came looking for the source and found a juicy human instead.
There was a grainy photo of deep claw-like gouges in the nearby pine tree. I doubt vampires could rip through trees like that.
My breath blew raggedly out and my body slumped with relief. It was probably an animal.
I dropped the paper and shook my head. Not every freak accident or animal attack is caused by a vampire or crazed hunter. I have to let go of this paranoia. No one is after me anymore. No one is stalking me. No one is hunting me.
But I couldn’t suppress the cold shiver than ran through my veins at the thought.
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Hunted (A Secret Salem Novel 2)
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