by Anna Zaires
I opened the door, giving him one last glance. He kept gasping and thrashing about, but there was no time to knock him out or gag him. Or kill him, which was what he deserved. I had to leave. I hurried through the kitchen and lounge room and stepped out of the apartment. I closed the door quietly, not liking the way I could hear Ryan's muffled choking through the door. Thankfully, the hallway appeared deserted. I moved fast, tiptoeing down the corridor towards what I hoped was a way outside. The hallway stretched for miles in both directions, and each time I reached an intersecting hallway, I took the brighter looking direction. The vampires seemed to avoid sunlight, and I figured the sunnier it was, the less chance I would have of running into one.
Unfortunately for me though, logic didn’t prevail. Through the maze of corridors, it only took a few moments before a vampire was walking down the hall, coming straight for me.
Shit! I wavered for a moment. I was now completely lost, and in no hurry to retrace my steps and try escaping in another direction. I could hide somewhere and wait for the guy to go, but Ryan was probably healed by now, and on his way to catch me and drag me back to my cell. I had to keep moving. I continued towards him as casually as possible, and then took the first intersecting corridor that presented itself.
“Hey!” he yelled straight away, and I froze. Don't stop. Just get away. Vampires moved fast though, and by the time I started moving again, he was right with me. I turned to face him, and smiled nonchalantly. “Hey yourself!” I replied cheerily.
He eyed me warily, coming closer. “You're the girl from New Jersey, right?”
I laughed breezily. Thinking, Ryan, do not fucking interrupt us.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I was supposed to have forgotten where I was from, after all.
The guy might have been undead, but thankfully he didn't appear to be very smart.
“Hey, whats that in your pocket?”
“Huh?” Shit. He had seen the stake. He rushed at me, just in time for me to fish the stake out of my waistband and hold it in front of me and for Ryan to come around the corner. I couldn't tell who was more pissed, and I didn't want to hang around to ask. The dumb guy charged me, and I pointed the sharp part of the stake outwards. As he approached I thrust out with it, sidestepping him at the same time. Incredibly, he missed me and the stake altogether and smashed into the stained glass window directly behind me. No, he smashed through the window and kept going. I jumped, wincing as I heard him hit the ground. It sounded like we were pretty high up, judging by the timing of his fall and the ensuing splat.
Ryan blinked in disbelief, his bloodied shirt flapping in the new breeze created by the open window. I must have done some decent damage, because there was blood all over his shirt, soaking his jeans, and trailing behind him on the floor in neat little drops. I wished the wood splinters in his chest would become infected and cause him a long, traumatic death.
One could hope.
Ryan glared at me, and I smiled sweetly in response. Sunlight flooded into the hallway through the broken window, hurting my raw eyes. I hadn't seen much more than a crack of sun through boarded–up windows in weeks. Instinctively I stepped backwards and up, hoisting myself onto the narrow window ledge that led outside, where dumb vamp had eaten concrete.
My elation turned to despair as Ryan came closer, effectively blocking off the other hallway in both directions. It left me trapped on the ledge with no place to go except back into the arms of my captor.
I stole a glance outside and was slammed by a wave of vertigo. Shit! I was at least four floors up, not one or two as I had foolishly hoped. And not only was there nothing soft to jump onto, there was also nothing to shimmy down but smooth limestone wall.
I was stuck.
“Come on” Ryan beckoned, coming at me with hands outstretched. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”
I glanced from him to the ground below. He was wrong. I did have somewhere to go. And I had no hope left inside me that I would escape, unless I took this beautiful sunlight and broken window and–
“Stay where you are or I'll jump!” I yelled, thrusting my stake at the air in warning. Ryan smirked, coming closer.
“Don't be stupid,” Ryan said, as his hand began to close around my wrist. “You won't jump.”
I did.
TWELVE
There had been no time to think. Trusting my instincts, I had held my arms out and shifted my weight so that one foot left the safety of the stone windowsill and pushed away until it touched air. Ryan had reached out and tried to pull me back, but even with his superhuman abilities, he was no match for gravity.
The fall itself was over in an instant. Some people say you black out as soon as you hit bottom after falling, but that's not right. We landed together, awkwardly, the concrete and the weight of his body shattering me.
For a split second the world ceased to exist – there was only darkness, and my soul floated within that darkness. I thought that I had died from the impact; it had come on so suddenly. But after a few seconds I started to feel. And what I was feeling was beyond any pain I had ever experienced in my short time on earth. My head screamed from the impact, but I could barely make a sound. Somehow, that made it worse – being torn apart inside and not being able to make a noise.
I became more aware of where I was, of my surroundings, as the crushing weight on my back rolled off. I sucked in a small breath and coughed up wet stuff. I didn't want to know what it was. Finally, I got enough air in my lungs again, and I screamed and screamed.
The left side of my face, where I had directly impacted the ground, felt like it had cracked open entirely. I could feel my pulse in my temple, and I guessed it was my blood pumping out of my damaged skull; when I tried to lift my head, move my legs to crawl away, nothing happened.
“You stupid girl,” a groan came from beside me, and I opened my eyes. I could still see, though my left eye was quickly being swallowed up by the pool of blood that grew underneath me. I tried to move again, but I could only manage a pathetic reach with my bloodied arm. Ryan was beside me, bleeding and injured as well, but it looked like he was healing rapidly. He dragged himself to a sitting position and squinted at me in the bright sunlight.
I dragged a shaky breath and whimpered in agony as Ryan took my shoulders and rolled me onto my back. “Sorry,” he muttered, letting go of my shattered left shoulder.
Now you're sorry? I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Ryan looked around the courtyard. Apparently, we were alone for the moment. The IQ–challenged vamp who had sailed through the window had obviously recovered from his fall quickly enough to avoid being landed on by me.
“I'm going to die,” I whispered, closing my eyes in defeat. Once I had accepted the fact, a feeling of peace washed over me, and although I still felt the pain, I also felt relief that I could finally get away from this hell on earth. Now I understood why Kate had wanted Caleb to kill her. Anything was better than being a vampire's thirty–day blood supply.
“Hey, wake up. You're not going to die. I'm going to help you.”
I jerked on the ground where I lay, and my eyes flew open. “No,” I argued. “No!”
Ryan shook his head slowly, taking a shard of shattered window and creating a long gash down his arm. “You'll be okay,” he said solemnly, taking my bleeding – broken – left arm and pressing his single wound to one of my many.
“No!” I tried to push him away with my good arm.
“I'm trying to help you, Mia.” He grabbed my arm, completely immobilizing me.
“I don't want your help!”
“You'll die.”
I took one more breath and began to weep. “Please don't do it,” I begged him. “Please just let me die.”
I began to writhe and gasp as vampire blood trickled into my veins. It made my fall feel like a scraped knee. It was intense and unrelenting. I choked on a wail as I felt darkness and pain invade every cell in my being.
“Make it stop!” I begged deliriou
sly.
After that, I couldn't speak. I was too busy screaming as vampire blood overwhelmed my nervous system. I screamed and screamed, but there was no end. After what seemed like hours screaming into the waning sunlight of the afternoon, I blacked out.
THIRTEEN
Drink.
That was the first thing he said to me.
I opened my eyes. Naked save for a bloodied white sheet, my tender skin covered in sticky red blood. My broken body somehow, impossibly, repairing itself.
I felt something warm at my lips. Blood.
I tried to turn my head to the side, to see where I was, and groaned in pain. Staying still felt better. I was sticky and bruised. My body was fighting hard to mend all the deep gashes and crushed bones. I lifted an arm and gently felt my eye where I had taken the impact of the unforgiving ground. It was excruciatingly painful to the touch – but it wasn't shattered anymore. It was in one unbroken piece, as if my fall had been a terrible dream. The oddly comforting metallic taste on my lips told me otherwise, though.
I reached out with my hands, touching stiff sheets. I was burning up, but I was shivering, goosebumps lining my arms.
It was so hard to keep my eyes open, but I fought to stay awake. I wasn't dead. I still had something left inside of me. I couldn't give up yet.
A face appeared above me. Something warm and coppery breached my lips.
“Drink,” he repeated.
I did.
Time passed – how much, I have no idea – and I stayed in the same spot, and I slept off death.
Later, I heard the words again.
Wake up.
Night time. It could have been days, weeks, months – or just a single hour since I'd last been awake. I had no idea. I felt a little clearer, and I found I could move my head without wanting to scream.
“Get up and take a shower.”
I got up. I walked to the bathroom on shaking legs.
Standing under the hot water (how long had it been since I'd had a long, hot, uninterrupted shower?) was bliss. Bliss that soon ended up with a pile of questions. I started to hyperventilate at the sheer impossibility of what was happening. I was trying not to think about it – but who was I kidding? I knew why I was ‘magically’ all better. And I knew it wasn't Starbucks Gingerbread Lattes that I'd been drinking every time I was woken up by soft words and warm, soothing liquid that slid down my throat like – well, like Gingerbread Lattes at Christmas time. It had been blood. Vampire blood.
As I watched the dried blood start to flake off and dissolve into the steamy water, a wave of dizziness hit me. I sank down to a sitting position on the side of the narrow tub, the flimsy shower curtain resting against the film of water on my back.
How could this be possible?
How could I be alive?
I tentatively massaged shampoo into my long, dark brown hair, picking out little pieces of glass and clumps of dried blood and thick knots. One of the pieces of glass gouged the tip of my finger and I flinched. A drop of blood appeared, then another, and I rinsed it underneath the water.
I looked at it again. The cut had completely disappeared.
I held my hand to my mouth to stop myself from crying out. This could not be happening.
And I could not believe how, from a snow–filled parking lot five minutes from home, it had ended up like this.
A knock at the door made me jump.
“You okay in there?”
“Yes.” My wavering voice sounded like a stranger's. How long had it been since I'd spoken?
I shut the water off, swallowing a painful lump in my throat. I may have been ‘rescued’, but I still felt like I was a prisoner – I'd just switched one cage for another.
And now I was alone with him.
Thunder rolled overhead, and I heard rain. The whole room shook in the wind. Blinking wearily, I reached for one of the folded beige towels on the sink and wrapped it around my dripping hair. I wrapped the other towel around my torso, took one last look in the filthy, foggy mirror, straightened my shoulders, and ventured out of the bathroom.
Ryan had taken the bloodstained sheets off the bed while I was showering. They were balled up in the corner of a room that was the size of a postage stamp. A double bed on one side, a small sofa and an ancient–looking TV set bolted to the wall on the other. In between, a door that led to the outside world.
“I got you some clothes to wear.” He gestured to the neatly folded pile on the end of the unmade bed. I took them back into the bathroom and quickly slipped them on – a black fitted camisole, dark denim jeans and a pair of bright red Havaianas that were two sizes too big for my feet. No bra or underwear, but the camisole was thick and supportive enough to leave something to the imagination. I refolded the damp towels and closed the bathroom door behind me.
“Someone is on the way to get us.”
I nodded.
“Are you – thirsty?”
I walked gingerly to the sink, filled a tumbler with water, and gulped it down.
Then refilled it.
“No,” I said.
“Hungry?”
“Nope.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, then got up and looked out of the window. We were on the ground floor of what looked like a horseshoe–shaped arrangement of motel rooms. The plastic sign out front read La Guena Mexica.
Where the hell are we?
“Mexico.”
I dropped the glass, startled. It bounced on the thin carpet but didn’t smash, water sloshing onto my feet and the ground.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.”
“How did you –”
He started towards me, but stopped in the middle of the room. I can't say I had the most receptive expression on my face.
“We're linked,” he explained softly, pointing to his head, then mine.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I scowled at him.
“Think of something,” he offered.
I threw out some random thoughts. Cheese. The Eiffel tower. My cat, Polly.
“I prefer mozzarella. I've been there many times. I’m more of a dog person.”
I sat back, stunned.
“I don't want you to do that anymore,” I said. “If you want to help me, don't ever do that again.”
“Okay” he said. “I'll try. But it's kind of like a two–way radio. Sometimes I can't help but pick up the signal.”
“Well, maybe you should try harder,” I replied.
I heard a faint thumpthumpthump and looked around to see where it was coming from. Sure enough, my eyes landed on the large mason jar from Caleb’s room, the jar that contained the human heart. The still-beating human heart. It was sitting neatly on the sink, as if it belonged in the room with us. I felt bile rush up in my throat and fought to swallow it back.
Ryan saw my face and grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed, draping it over the jar.
“I can still hear it,” I said quietly. He didn’t answer me.
“You want to go grab something to eat? Our lift is still a few hours away.”
I looked around helplessly.
“What is it?”
Thanks for not reading my mind. “What are we going to eat?”
“Food?”
“It’s just –”
“I can give you more blood if you think you need it. Try listening to your body.
Do you feel like a burger? Or do you feel like something else?”
Ugh. I could guess what the something else was. The same something that had been fed to me as I fought off death. My stomach rumbled loudly. “Burger,” I decided.
He opened the door with one hand, and passed me a pair of dark sunglasses and a baseball cap with the other. “Here. Put these on. It's pretty bright out there.”
And I stepped willingly into the day, a walking dead girl with an ache in my belly and trepidation in my heart.
FOURTEEN
The diner was only a few hundred meters away from the motel room, so the rain
didn’t affect us too much. I ordered onion rings, a large bacon cheeseburger with the lot, and curly fries. My vampire friend (what was I thinking? My psychopath kidnapper) ordered a small plate of nachos. I suddenly felt self–conscious.
“It's okay,” he said. “I'm old, I don't – I can't – eat a lot at once.”
“How old?” I asked. “What do you eat? Where are we going?”
He just stared at me.
I chewed on an onion ring and swallowed thickly. My throat was still on fire, my cheeks red–hot with a burning fever. A flash of falling through a stained glass window came to me, and I shifted uneasily.
“Why'd you do it?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“Save me. Make sure I didn't die.”
He studied me for a long time, a peculiar look on his face. “I honestly don't really know. I'm just making this up as I go along, Mia.”
I baulked at his casual tone.
“Don't say my name like we're friends,” I said stiffly. “This is your fault, all of this. You took me. You chased me and made me jump out of that window. Don't say my name.”
“Okay, then,” he replied, a trace of a smirk haunting his mouth. “I’m making this up as I go, honey.”
I glared at him. “I want to go home.”
Ryan nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “Soon.”
“How soon?”
“I just need to figure out the details.”
“What details?”
He was grave. “I need to make sure you ... can survive on your own.”
I snorted. “Are you kidding me?”
“Well, are we going to talk about the elephant in the room, or just avoid it and change the subject all the time?”
I eyed him warily. “So talk.”
He sighed. “You're one of us, now. You're a vampire. I know you're having a hard time believing that, but it's true.”
“How am I supposed to believe that when I don't believe in fairytales and dreams like vampires?”
“Believe me, it’s more like a nightmare.”