Blood Born (6 page)

6

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. All I could do was watch Chance, with his powerful, menacing glare at the now dead vampire beneath me. I watched as his chest moved in rhythm with his breath and his hands twisted tighter around the blood-soaked stake. I saw a rage behind his eyes unlike any I had seen before. I was part vampire, apparently the most lethal weapon on Earth, and I was terrified.

“Stand up,” he said firmly, his voice unwavering. I did as he said, stepping away from the vampire but too afraid to stand next to him. His eyes remained fixated on the bleeding corpse, tiny tears forming in the corners. I wanted to calm him down, tell him to relax and breathe. Instead, I simply reached out and put my hand on his. After a few seconds, he released his death grip on the stake and I plucked it slowly from his hands. The horrid smell of the vampire’s blood dripping from it turned my stomach. Apparently the blood of the dead was nowhere near as enticing as the blood of the living.

“Are you okay?” He asked me, finally turning away from what he had done. He immediately began running his hands over my face and arms, searching for any signs of distress.

Suddenly uncomfortable, I quickly pulled away. “I’m fine,” I lied. Physically I was good, but totally messed up every other way. My emotions were going haywire, anger mixed with fear mixed with sympathy. And my mind would never be right. I mean, the closest I had ever come to seeing someone die was watching death scenes in movies and on TV (yeah, TV memories were back in full force). Real life death was much worse. Bloodsucking vampire or not, watching him die was painful. Even though I didn’t really consider myself a vampire—not yet, anyway—I felt a small pang of guilt for what I had done. In some weird way, it felt like I had just helped kill my brother or something. It actually hurt. “What about you?” I asked. “What the hell was that?” Chance looked at me as if hearing me speak for the first time.

“What was what?” he asked back, seemingly confused by my question.

“Um, that whole ‘vampire killer’ thing you just did. Where did
that
come from?” I kept my distance from him, suddenly scared of what he might do to me, the
other
vampire in the woods.

“I told you I was here for you, Ava. I meant it.” He snatched the wooden stake from my hand and chucked it into the woods over my head.

“You didn’t say you’d kill for me, Chance.” The breath in my lungs suddenly felt very heavy and thick like fog. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was about to have a panic attack if I didn’t calm myself down. “Listen,” I said after taking a few deep breaths. “You need to tell me
exactly
what’s going on. I can’t take this any more.”

“Take what?” Chance turned and walked away from me, clearly unwilling to talk. I had no intention of letting it go and was quickly on his heels.

“I can’t take any more of you hiding stuff from me. This is my life, my mess to fix. And you’re trying your hardest to keep me in the dark about what you’re up to. It ends now.” I planted my feet in the tall grass to emphasize my point. Chance smirked and almost laughed, obviously finding my behavior funny. “Don’t make fun of me, Chance Caldon. I’m dead serious.”

“Well you’re going to be dead
period
if we don’t get out of here. That whole screaming vampire thing doesn’t sit well with people, you know. I’m sure the cops are on the way.” I was fuming at his total disregard to my demand for the truth, but he was actually right; the last thing I needed was to be seen standing over a dead body.

Or possibly two.

“How is she?” I had nearly forgotten about the bleeding girl still leaning against the tree behind us. Chance apparently had too, practically jumping across the field to get to her. He slowly lifted her thin arm to check her pulse.

“She’s alive,” he said after a few seconds. “But barely.” He ripped the sleeve from his shirt, revealing a taut bicep muscle rolling beneath his tanned skin. He took the piece of fabric and wrapped it around the girl’s neck, trying to subdue the flow of blood. I watched as he scooped her into his arms, cradling her body against his. Even though she had just been attacked by a vampire and probably wouldn’t survive, I felt a twinge of something—Jealousy? Anger? Chance moved past me, and the smell of her dying blood sent me in to a rage unlike anything I had ever experienced. It completely blinded me to reality, engulfing my mind and becoming my only purpose, my only reason for being. I couldn’t stop myself. I lunged forward, pouncing on Chance’s back like a killer cat. He stumbled then fell, spilling the girl onto the ground. I quickly jumped over him, landing right on top of her.

The tumble had caused Chance’s makeshift tourniquet on the girl’s neck to slip, exposing a pair of gaping holes still oozing blood. A sharp, numbing pain raced across my upper jaw as my gums split open, revealing a pair of razor-sharp fangs. I flicked the tip of them with my tongue, tasting the potent liquid oozing from them. Venom. It didn’t matter that what I was doing was sick, or wrong, or would forever damn me to Hell. All I cared about was putting my teeth into the flesh of her neck and feeding. I wanted to taste her blood.
Bad
.

As I slowly leaned in, relishing in the strong scent of human blood, Chance’s large arms wrapped around me and squeezed as tight as possible. With a quick jerk, he and I sailed backward and off the girl. Without giving me a second to react, he pulled me tightly against him and half stood, half dragged us farther and farther away. After a few seconds— and several feet— the intensity of the bloodlust eased a bit, but didn’t fully subside. Sensing that, Chance didn’t let up. He held me close and tight as I struggled to break free. My body seemed out of my control. It clearly wanted to free itself from Chance’s arms and my mind and get back to the girl slowly dying in front of us. I could feel my muscles pushing with intense fury against Chance’s body, writhing and coiling and fighting. My mind eventually gave into my body’s overpowering force and it, too, began to want the girl again. I was going to win. I was going to get away from Chance and feed for the first time—I could feel it. But something suddenly happened. Something strange and comforting and powerful. Intense heat flooded my body, radiating throughout my skin, my muscles, my
soul
. I was defenseless against it, and for the second time in only two days, everything in my life went dark.

“Ava?” I heard Chance’s voice, faint and distant. He was calling my name, but I couldn’t see him. I could feel that safe, inviting heat that oozes from him, so I knew he was very close to me. I reached out with my arms, searching for him. I felt his hand take hold of mine, gripping it tightly. “Ava, can you hear me?” Very slowly, the darkness around me began to break away, replaced by long shards of warm, inviting light. My eyes fluttered open, revealing Chance’s face.

“Are you okay?” He was wiping hair away from my face, the touch of his fingers sending tiny jolts of electricity across my skin. I sat upright, scanning the scene before me. We were still in the clearing in the woods behind my high school, a dead vampire and his victim crumpled in the grass across from us.

“How is she?” I asked as Chance helped me stand. My head was spinning, and I felt that I could pass out at any moment. I saw the girl lying motionless in the high grass about fifty feet from us.
Wow
, I thought.
Chance pulled me that far away?
I was impressed at his strength and stamina.

“She didn’t make it.” His statement cut me like a knife. After risking my own life fighting a vampire, after Chance had stepped in and killed it when I couldn’t, we still lost her. I was so mad at myself for failing that all I wanted to do was scream and hit something. Instead, I cried. Tears poured from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and mixing with the dirt and spots of vampire blood that had taken up residence on my skin. Chance hugged me again, and I sobbed into his broad, muscular chest, letting the warmth of his body relax me. I wished that I could go back and do things differently. Maybe immobilize the vampire and check on the girl first, before going back to fight him some more. Maybe that would’ve helped.

“Don’t dwell on what you should have done, Ava. It won’t help.” I first thought Chance could read my mind before I realized that I had been thinking out loud. I quickly moved away, suddenly uncomfortable being so close to him.

“But I killed her,” I cried, trying to stop the tears as I crossed the field away from him and the carnage I caused. “She’s dead because of me.”

“She’s dead because of him,” Chance said, nodding his head in the dead vampire’s direction. “You were trying to save her. And you did, Ava. You saved her from being drained by that monster.” The way Chance said monster made me cringe. I briefly wondered what he
really
thought of me. Did he think of me as a monster like I did?

“Come on,” he said. He walked over and took my hand, pulling me along the path in the grass I had created earlier. “We need to get out of here.” As we passed the girl’s body, I couldn’t help but take another deep breath to soak up more of that delicious blood scent. Except this time, the smell turned my stomach. I hunched over a bit, holding the bile in my throat. Dead blood was so gross.

“Sorry,” Chance said. “I forgot to tell you. Once a person dies, the smell of their blood makes you sick.”

“How do you know so much about vampires?” I asked as I forced my stomach to settle down. I picked up the pace as we left the clearing and entered the thicket of trees, hoping to get as far away from the putrid scent as possible.

“I don’t know,” Chance stated. “I just do.” His voice quavered a bit, the words sounding more rehearsed than spontaneous. He was hiding something, I could tell.

“Okay,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s going on.”

Chance slowly dropped my hand but wouldn’t look at me, his eyes focusing instead on the empty space above my head. “Ava,” he finally said, lowering his eyes to look at me. “You just have to trust me, okay? I’m only here to help you.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not.” He turned and walked away from me, obviously upset. “I’m telling you the truth. I want to help you get through this.”

“I know that,” I said. Chance glared at me with confusion. “I know you want to help me. No one would do what you just did if they didn’t.” A quick image of the girl’s bloodied body passed my eyes. I closed them to make it go away. “But that’s not the only reason you’re here, is it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s just get out of here.” Chance opened his mouth to speak but didn’t. Instead he turned and led us out of the woods, though this time taking an alternate route, leading us
away
from school campus.

“So what about the bodies?” I finally asked as we maneuvered over fallen trees and deep holes dug by animals I had no desire to meet. I didn’t ask Chance where we were going, deciding it didn’t really matter; I had zero interest in going back to school just yet. I also surprised myself with how cavalier I could be talking about the dead. Maybe I really
was
a soulless monster.

“Aldric’s taking care of it,” Chance answered. “That’s why we need to get moving.” As he basically pulled me through the woods, my mind began imagining what ‘Aldric’s taking care of it’ meant. Was he going to burn them? Bury them?
Eat
them? Okay, that last one was absurd, but given all that had happened to me lately, the idea wasn’t totally unrealistic. I wanted to ask Chance what Aldric planned on doing with them, but kept quiet instead. Judging by the look on his face, I had aggravated him enough for one day.

We walked for what felt like hours before finally leaving the woods, coming to yet another clearing. This one, however, wasn’t empty. A large, decrepit house with giant windows and a wrap-around porch sat at the far back of the field, a very tall, very old oak tree plopped down in front. It was a typical horror movie house, complete with gauzy spider webs draping the corners.

“Where are we?” I asked as Chance walked toward the dilapidated structure.

“This place has been in my family forever. We’ll be safe here,” he answered, looking back over his shoulder. “I thought we could hang here until school’s out before we go back to get my truck.” I smiled at him, hoping to smooth over whatever relationship was growing between us. I sort of felt bad for being so mean earlier. Plus I was really tired. Even though I was immortal and apparently super strong now, my feet were killing me and I felt like I could sleep for days.