by D. N. Hoxa
The taste of acid took all my strength away, but at the least the pain was fading. I fell on the ground again, eyes closed, and breathed. Just breathed.
“Here,” the man said, pressing something to my lips. A small bottle of water.
I drank like I hadn’t tasted water in days. It washed away the sour taste of bile in my mouth and the cold soothed my insides until the blur disappeared completely.
The pain was still there, but it was nothing compared to what it had been when I woke up. I pulled myself up, but I only made it to rest on my elbows, because the pain from the left side of my waist cut my breath off.
“Easy,” the man said, his brows narrowed as he turned his phone on and shone its light on my body. “The wound needs time to close.”
“What the hell happened?” I asked. The memories were coming back to me, but they were still fuzzy.
“The bullet was still inside you. I took it out,” he said, leaning away from me. “You’re welcome.”
“What are you, a doctor?” I asked and sniffed.
No, he wasn’t a doctor.
The man was a vampire.
It’s amazing how fast fear can overcome any other emotion—including pain. I sat up and dragged myself away from him. Vampires were nasty creatures. They mostly kept to themselves and rarely played nice with other paranormals. It was best to just keep away from them completely, if you could. You could never trust a person who depended on the blood of others to survive. Every living creature was made to survive, and there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for it. There’s very little that could stop us, too.
Take me for example. I’d willingly begged my wolf to come out when I realized that I was going to die. I’d willingly given her my body—the one thing I hated about myself the most, but in the face of death, I hadn’t even thought twice about it.
“If I wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t have woken up,” the guy said, smiling, and sat back on the ground. Resting his arms on his knees, he analyzed me. I did the same.
There was no way to determine a vampire’s age. From the day they were turned, they looked exactly the same. They smelled the same, too. They smelled of deadness. Living dead, they couldn’t get out in the sun and they were in a lot of pain when touched by silver. I should have thought about that before. I should have made myself a few silver knives to use.
But as naive as I was, it never actually occurred to me that I’d ever have to fight off a vampire.
“The wound’s already healing. You’re faster than usual,” he continued, his voice light as a breeze. His face was on the square side, his dark hair cut short to the sides and longer at the top. Some strings fell on his forehead, shining like he’d spent hours doing it. His eyes were a cross between green and brown. Not your usual hazel. Something stranger than that.
He was very handsome to look at, but that was just because his teeth were normal, if not just a bit turned inward. Once he became what he truly was—a bloodsucking monster—all his beauty would disappear. His teeth would turn sharp, his fangs would extend, and he’d have the means to suck you dry until the very last drop of blood left your body.
“How did you find me?” I asked and finally thought to look around. There was no point in staring at the vampire now. If he wanted to, he could snap my neck before I could blink. They were faster, stronger, better than us without the boundaries of mortality holding them back. I was no match for him. Not like this.
So I needed to search for a way out of wherever he’d taken me.
We were in a park somewhere. A few dozen trees around us, but about fifty feet away, I could see the benches and the marble statue in the middle of the square.
“I followed you,” the vampire said. “I’ve actually been looking for you for quite some time.”
That made me look at him again. “Why?”
He raised his brows. “You’re the best finder in the country, and I need something found.”
I would have laughed my heart out if I wasn’t afraid it was going to hurt like hell. I was still sitting but frozen, afraid to make even the smallest movement. I was healing, I could feel it, but I still couldn’t stand.
“Whoever told you that, buddy, I’m sorry to tell you, but they lied.”
The vampire’s smile faltered.
“You’re Victoria Brigham,” he said, as if he knew this for certain. I swallowed hard but refused to answer. “I’ve heard about you. You find animals for a living.”
“Exactly. Animals. Not things,” I said.
“But you can find other things, too.”
“No, I can’t.”
“So how did you find those guys at the Palace?”
He was mocking me. I saw it in his eyes. Mischief danced in their colors, and he was trying to stifle a smile, too.
“None of your damn business,” I said and I tried to stand up. Screw the pain. It was going to hurt anyway, but I needed to go home asap.
“Sure it is. I just saved you. You wouldn’t have been able to get that bullet out yourself without passing out,” the vampire said, his movements a blur to me when he stood up. He didn’t offer to help me, thankfully, so I held onto the tree until I straightened. I was right, it did hurt, but not nearly as much as I’d feared. I could even breathe halfway through without wanting to double over. Definitely a success.
Now, if I could just find a way to get to my car…
“Thank you for saving me, but I didn’t ask you to do shit. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Hold on a second. You’re not going to get far in this condition. You still need my help,” he said proudly.
I smiled. Nothing I loved more than to prove people wrong. “Watch me.” And I took the first step.
The pain made my every cell vibrate, but the vampire’s eyes were on me, so I controlled myself. I got my shit together and kept a neutral expression. This man was a stranger—one who could kill me in a single second—and he did not get to see me squirm in pain. Again.
Not to mention that he was a vampire.
“Nobody told me you’d be an ungrateful brat, but I’ll take what I can get,” he said and followed me.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not getting anything from me.”
“Sure I am. You just don’t know it yet.”
I really, really disliked people who thought they knew me. “You’ve got a better chance surviving sunlight,” I mumbled.
It wasn’t smart to piss off a vampire, especially in my condition, but what the heck. It wasn’t like things could get any worse, could they? I was choosing to look at the silver lining. With tonight, I’d made sure that I was never, ever, ever going to allow my curiosity to make decisions for me. If I smelled something strange, I was going to turn around and leave. I was not going to search. I was not going to follow. I was not going to beg my wolf to come to my rescue, ever again.
Very valuable lessons, all of these, and I was still just twenty-one. Imagine what I’ll learn by my thirties.
“We got off on the wrong foot here. My name’s Red and I’m after the same people that were looking to kill you before you killed them. Well, two of them. The third got away.”
I stopped in my tracks. My skin broke out in goose bumps. I didn’t want to have to look that man in the eyes again, but I couldn’t help myself.
“What did you see?”
It was the wrong question. With it, I’d confirmed that whatever he had seen was accurate. Not that I could trick him from believing his own eyes, but who knows? Maybe it could have worked.
And the vampire smiled. Fuck.
“I saw you running out of the Palace, and I saw the werewolves chasing you. You can’t blame me for following you, can you? I was curious,” he said, perfectly amused.
Pressing my lips together, I calmed myself down a bit. “What. Did. You. See?”
“You,” he said with a grin. “Your animal. It was spectacular. She’s pretty extraordinary, but I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”
My palm itched to s
lap him across the face, but I already knew I would have to potentially pay for it with my life. So I gritted my teeth and continued to walk.
“I’m a werewolf,” I said, breathing heavily. “What else did you expect?” Trying to play it cool almost always got me nowhere, but I still had to try.
“Oh, no, no, you’re not a werewolf. Werewolves don’t turn into…that.”
Curiosity raised its ugly head again. The question was at the tip of my tongue. I wanted to ask him what my wolf looked like so, so badly, but I swallowed the words whole. No more.
“Look, whatever you think you saw, you can forget all about it. I’m not going to work with you, or help you in any way. I’m going to go find my car, and I’m going to disappear, okay? And I’m going to pretend I never met you.”
“Now I’m wounded,” the vampire said, chuckling. “Really. My ego’s bleeding. You can’t really forget about me that fast, can you?”
“Sure I can.”
He leaned his head closer to my ear, but I refused to move away. “Am I really that ordinary? I’ve been told I wasn’t.” The grin I heard in his voice pissed me off even more. This was just a game to him. He was having fun.
“Stop it,” I said, no longer able to control myself. We were almost out of the park, and I was going to have to find someone to ask where I was because I didn’t want to ask Red and make his day. I mean, who calls themselves Red?
“I’ll pay you. Name your price—and I don’t just mean money,” he said.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I reminded him. On the inside, I was chanting, disappear, disappear, disappear. I had enough on my plate already. I was no closer to finding my sister because of a stupid mistake that almost cost me my life. Now, I was going to have to start all over again tomorrow.
“Spells, secrets, favors—I’m a very resourceful guy,” he continued.
“I don’t care.”
“Everybody wants something. I’m willing to give a lot to find what belongs to me.”
With a roll of my eyes, I sighed. We were about to step onto the main street, and that was as far as I wanted to put up with a vampire. I was thankful he’d gotten that bullet out of me, but I could have done it myself. Probably. I was stronger than I looked, damn it.
No, my wolf was stronger than I looked. But still.
“Look, this isn’t going to work. There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind. Thank you for helping me, but I honestly don’t want to have anything to do with you—or anybody else. Just…please. Leave me alone.”
The smile on his face vanished. He searched my face as if looking for a hint that I was kidding, but I wasn’t. And he soon saw it. His strange eyes lost their shine, and he took a step back.
“They took something from me, and I can’t find it on my own. You’re my best chance,” he said, not so amused anymore, but not desperate, either.
“No, I’m not. Did you not see me? I’m not going anywhere near those people, ever again.” Because next time, who knew if my wolf decided to come out and save me? I really didn’t want to have to find out. I was lucky to have gotten out alive, but this night was going to be the greatest “adventure” I’d ever have. “I’m sorry they took from you, but if I were you, I’d leave it alone. Whatever it was, you can live without it. Those people are dangerous. They’re not fooling around.”
“Oh, I know who they are. Trust me. But I need to find the man running the show, and he’s very well hidden,” Red said, and stepped closer to me again. He looked sad but also hungry. I looked at his lips. They were really red and juicy, but whose blood flowed in his veins right now? Whose blood was going to keep him alive tomorrow? How long did I have until his fangs came out?
“I’m sorry, Red. I can’t help you,” I said, and hoping he wouldn’t get even more pissed off, I turned around to leave.
“No. You can, but you won’t.” He sounded almost sad.
“Whatever,” I called and waved my hand back.
“I’ll see you again, Victoria,” he said. “Very soon.”
It sounded like a warning, so I turned with the intent to flip him off. Just for my pleasure. The look on his face would have definitely been worth the effort.
But when I turned, the street was empty. Red was gone.
Shit. It was bad enough that I could barely walk, but now I had to try to talk to drunk people with half torn clothes and blood covering me everywhere. Which reminded me: Red hadn’t even flinched at the sight of it. A chill washed down my back. Vampires couldn’t resist the sight and smell of blood, not for long. So how come Red hadn’t attacked me when I’d been covered in it?
My hand moved to my neck to check if he’d already taken from me while I was out, but no. My neck was fine.
Cursing under my breath, I got my broken phone out and hoped it would work to make a call. It did, though I could barely see anything from the broken screen. I dialed the number and searched for a person in the streets, preferably human. I needed to know where I was and how to get to my car.
“Yes?” Finn answered after the first ring.
“His name is Haworth,” I said, already regretting it. But the ECU was already on this case. Maybe they could do something about this Haworth guy while I continued to look for my sister. Whoever he was, and whatever he was doing to those wolves, it wasn’t right. It was unnatural. He needed to be stopped.
“What?” Finn asked. He didn’t sound like he’d been asleep like I’d thought.
“The guy who’s doing the thing with the animals. I think his name is Haworth.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “And Finn? Don’t ever tell anybody else about me again.”
Knowing he was going to want to argue with me, I hung up the phone. Two more pieces of broken glass slipped from the screen. Black dots filled my vision so I took a second to close my eyes and breathe deeply. I was fine. I could do this. I could make it all the way back home.
And then, I could forget all about this fucked up night and focus on my sister.
5
One of the werewolves had gotten away. Wasn’t that what the vampire Red said? It was why I spent ten minutes hiding behind the bridge that led to the Palace, before I gathered enough courage to go searching for my car. My nose said that there were no paranormals anywhere close to me. I could trust my nose, couldn’t I?
And if I didn’t make it to my car soon, I was going to pass out.
It felt like hours passed before I finally slipped into the driver’s seat. The car was intact, not a single scratch on it, and it smelled like it always did. Nobody had been inside. Nobody had planted anything on it, either. I’d seen stuff like that in the movies. Tracker, bomb—you name it. But my car smelled clean.
It was the worst drive of my life. For almost an hour, I tried to keep my eyes open, but I slipped into sleep and woke up again with a jolt at least three times. That I could remember. When I did make it back home, I was honestly very surprised that I hadn’t broken my neck somewhere and killed myself.
My body was numb, my legs a mess when I got out of the car. Lui’s was as crowded as always, but nobody seemed to pay me any attention. At that point, though, I was way past caring if somebody saw me. I was that clueless. I had to stop in front of the mailboxes before going up the stairs. The piece of steel, perfectly round and pressed on both sides—kind of like an alien plate spaceship—was still covered in blood. I hadn’t had the time or the interest to even clean off the blood and see what it was. Probably an enchanted item. People killed for them. They stored magic better than any spell stones, if you knew how to make them properly, and their magic worked forever, or until the item was destroyed. Pretty powerful stuff. From what I’d heard, only a few people in the world knew how to properly make them, which was a good thing. I put the thing in my mailbox and locked it, and I almost ran out of breath by the time I made it to my door.
I was a mess. The wound on my waist and the one on my thigh had close
d, but the skin around it was still raw red and bruised, and it still hurt a lot more than it had when Red had first woken me up. Taking a shower was torture, but I couldn’t sleep with all that blood and dirt all over me. I needed to rest and not throw my guts out in my sleep.
For the first time in months, I slept in my bedroom instead of the living room.
When I woke up, it was a little past noon.
The pain had faded to a dull ache, enough to remind me that it was there and where it had come from. I blinked and stared at the white ceiling of my bedroom, and thought: how was that not a dream? The pain said it wasn’t, but how?
I was cornered by Finn the werewolf, my father found me, my sister was missing, there were people out there who were somehow manipulating actual wolves to kill people, I had almost died, and I’d been saved by a vampire named Red.
I would have really died had it not been for my wolf. And all that happened in a span of twenty-four hours.
So, tell me, how was that not a dream?
My stomach growled, informing me that I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. I could kill for some pancakes, but I was in no condition to make them, so a lame sandwich it was. I waited until I was full before I allowed myself to get in my closet and in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror mounted on the back of the door. It was time to see just how much damage had really been done to me.
To my surprise, when I stripped to my panties and bra, I looked much better than I’d thought. My waist was the worse, the purple and yellow bruises covering me up to my left boob, but my thigh was all but healed. Just an angry red scar on both sides from where the bullet had entered and exited my body. No broken bones. I’d healed faster than even I thought I would. This was the first time I’d ever been shot at in my life. And I intended for it to be very much the last.
Too bad the world had other plans for me.
When I got dressed, I went out and walked around the neighborhood, searching for unusual smells. The residents of the street were mostly humans, but paranormals were present, too. A Bone witch lived a couple apartments down, and I always smelled a fairy walking down the street in front of my building, every single evening. Nothing smelled unusual. Feeling as safe as always—which, really, after what happened, made me feel like I almost deserved what I got—I returned to my apartment.