Flutter (35 page)

“What do you want from us?” Jack asked. He was as
scared and sick as I was, but he could almost pass for calm and
confident.

“How about… a game?” Gunnar smiled.

Stellan returned to his side, leaving the corpse in
the middle of the trail like a discarded piece of trash, like a
half eaten apple. Gunnar’s eyes moved to something behind me, and
when I turned, it was already too late.

A giant vampire had somehow crept up behind us, and
he wrapped his massive bare arms around Milo. He yelped in surprise
and fought against the vampire, but it was completely useless. He
was the largest person I’d ever seen in my life, and he had vampire
strength behind it. Milo was still gripping my hand, and I clung
onto him tightly, trying to pull him from the vampire.

“Alice!” Jack had his arms around me, refusing to let
me be dragged along with Milo as the vampire pulled him away, but I
wouldn’t let go. “Alice! Let him go! Alice!”

“Milo
!” I
screamed, but my fingers slipped, and I let go of him.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was still
reaching his arm out for me. His huge brown eyes had never looked
so sad or scared in his life. I kicked at Jack, but he wouldn’t let
me go.

“Alice, as you can see, my good friend Bear isn’t
hurting him,” Gunnar interrupted.

Bear, the gargantuan vampire, had Milo firmly secured
in his arms, but he didn’t even appear to be squeezing him. Milo
still squirmed and fought against him, but he didn’t look like he
was in any real pain, just terrified.

“Milo – that’s your name, yes?” Gunnar asked. Milo
didn’t say anything and kept fighting. “Milo, are you in any pain?
Is he hurting you?”

“No,” Milo grunted and settled down in Bear’s grip.
He was saying it for my benefit, so I would stop fighting against
Jack. He looked over at me and nodded. “I’m okay.”

I did finally stop struggling against Jack, but
smartly, he didn’t let me go. I would’ve taken off towards Milo the
second he did.

“Let him go!” I yelled and turned to Gunnar. “He has
nothing to do with this! Just let him go! Peter doesn’t even like
him!”

He laughed at that, but I’m not sure how that was
amusing. Jack said nothing, but he was gauging the situation. He
knew Gunnar had some plan going on, and he was trying to figure it
out. I knew that too, but I couldn’t keep my emotions under
control.

“Mmm, yes, I’m sure, but Peter might not be arriving
for awhile,” Gunnar said with faux sadness. “So I thought we would
play a game until he joined us. Can you guess what it is?” I glared
at him. “Tag – vampire style.

“You see, it’s just like normal
tag, except you have to kill whoever you tag. Since you’re new to
this game, we’ll keep it easy and start with two players. How
about…
you
,” he
pointed to Jane, “and
you
,” he pointed to me. “And since
you’re the vampire, you’re It, Alice.”

“No! I already told you I’m never going to bite her!”
I yelled at him, disgusted.

“But you don’t even know what the prize is yet?”
Gunnar smiled widely at me. “It’s that Milo fellow. If you win, you
get him back. If you lose, then Stellan gets him, and we all know
how he likes to play.” Gunnar nodded to the corpse on the trail.
“But since I am such a giving guy, I’ll give you a parting gift.
After Stellan eviscerates Milo, I will personally give you his
heart.”

I just gaped at him for a moment, unable to do
anything but try not to vomit. Either I would have to murder my
best friend, or they would murder my brother. The only good thing
was that I wouldn’t live very long to regret my decision, no matter
what it was.

“No,” Jack said. “Let me play. I’m much quicker than
Alice.” I’m not sure if he had a plan to save Jane, or if he was
only trying to save me from killing her by doing it himself.

“Well, Jane doesn’t seem much in the running mood, so
I don’t think speed is really an issue.” Gunnar had a point.

Jane had tied the tourniquet around her arm but not
before she lost quite a bit of blood. Her only consolation is that
her body was used to running on less blood, and she had spent the
last few days building her supply back up. But she was barely even
holding herself up, and she hadn’t screamed or protested when
Gunnar told me to kill her. Her skin was completely ashen, and the
blood had started freezing on her arm.

“There has to be something else!” Jack shouted.

He let go of me so he could step forward to Gunnar,
challenging him. Stellan stepped towards Jack, defending him, but
Gunnar held his hand out to him. His hand was the only thing
preventing Stellan from ripping out Jack’s heart, and we all knew
it.

“I have other ideas, but I’m certain you wouldn’t
like them anymore than this one!” Gunnar growled.

I exchanged a look with Milo, his eyes wide and
uncertain. If I had to choose, I would pick him. Without a doubt, I
loved him so much that I would do anything for him. But I didn’t
want to kill Jane. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this, and I
couldn’t imagine taking anyone’s life, let alone someone I cared
about.

“Just do it, Alice,” Jane mumbled, her voice barely
audible. Her heart was beating so slowly, I didn’t know how she was
still awake. She propped herself up with her good arm, and she held
the wounded one up, trying to keep the cut above her heart. “I’m
dying anyway.”

“No. I can’t.” I shook my head and tears filled my
eyes. “I can’t do it.”

“So be it.” Gunnar shrugged and nodded to Milo.
Stellan stepped towards him, and I shouted.

“No!
Wait!” I shouted. Bear tightened his grip around Milo, and
Milo clawed at him. “Milo! No! Stop! Let him go! I’ll do it!
Milo
!”

“Do it, and we’ll let him go,” Gunnar said through
gritted teeth.

“Fine! Just stop hurting him!” I begged. “Stop!”
Gunnar rolled his eyes, and nodded at Bear again. Instantly, he
loosened his grip on Milo, who gasped for breath.

My panicked screams for my brother had carried
farther than I thought. I heard him before I saw him. Bobby was
racing through the grass towards us. He fell and slid on his ass,
and I wanted to scream at him, but I prayed he wised up and
realized what he was up against.

“Milo!” Bobby shouted, and I winced. His only hope
for survival had been going undetected, but he had just drawn
attention himself. He scrambled to his feet. “Milo!”

“Run
!”
Milo screamed as loudly as he could, but it was already too
late.

Stellan had started moving towards Bobby, but only a
split second before he got there, another lycan came out and
wrapped his arms around him. Bobby screamed in surprise, but the
lycan held him tightly. Stellan growled in protest. If he had
caught Bobby first, he would’ve gladly torn him apart.

Then the lycan holding him looked at me. His brown
eyes were sad and disappointed. It was Leif, the kind lycan that
had helped Ezra and I find Peter. I realized exactly what he’d
done. Leif had just saved Bobby’s life by intercepting him before
Stellan did.

“This has all gotten rather tedious,” Gunnar said
wearily and looked at Bear. “I’ve tired of this game. Kill the
boy.”

Before Jack could stop me, I dove at Bear. I jumped
onto his back, clawing and biting at him. Dodge came towards me,
but Jack managed to fight him off. Milo bit into Bear’s wrist, and
in a bold move, started drinking his blood. Bear howled, and even
though he was weakened, I could do little against him.

Stellan was on me instantly, pulling me off Bear. He
threw me onto the ground and sat on top of me, pinning my wrists
back. His mouth was stained red, and he bared his teeth at me,
showing his bloodied incisors with bits of flesh still clinging to
them.

“Stellan! Don’t kill the girl!” Gunnar shouted. “We
need her! Just scent the ground with her blood!” Keeping his dead
black eyes locked on me, Stellan yelled something back at Gunnar in
Finnish.

I tried kicking at Stellan, but he refused to budge,
and he had my wrists locked into the cold slush. Dodge and Jack
were still fighting, but now Dodge was holding Jack back from
getting at Stellan. Milo had managed to get Bear to the ground, but
he wasn’t free yet.

Through it all, Gunnar didn’t enter the mix. He just
stalked around, observing our futile attempts at escape. Bobby was
screaming at us, but I doubted that Leif was hurting him.

Stellan bent down and head butted me incredibly hard.
Shooting pain shot through my skull and everything went black for a
second. Had I been human, I’m sure he would’ve killed me with that.
I could hear him saying something to me in Finnish, but I couldn’t
see him or understand him.

When my vision started clearing, I was holding my
head, my natural reflex. Belatedly, I realized that that meant he’d
let me go. He was standing over me, repeating the same word over
and over again.

“He’s telling you to run, Alice,” Gunnar told me. I
was curled up on the ground, and I could see Gunnar through
Stellan’s legs. His expression was blank, and that was strangely
disturbing. “I suggest you listen to him. Stellan loves a good
chase, and believe me, you want him happy when he catches you.”

I didn’t give a shit what Stellan wanted, but if I
ran, he would chase me. I was what they were really after, so maybe
they would all follow me away. They would leave Jane and Bobby
behind for sure, since carrying humans along with them would just
be cumbersome, but maybe even Milo and Jack. And even if they
didn’t, it was the only plan I had.

My head stopped hurting, but I still felt dazed. I
tried staggering to my feet, and immediately slipped and fell onto
my knees. Stellan laughed, so I tried again. This time, I got up,
and I ran.

- 34 –

Sliding through the grass, I fell more than I
actually ran. Stellan was clearly giving me a head start, because I
wasn’t making it very far. He was going to be awfully disappointed
when he caught me, but I didn’t know what more I could do. I was
running as fast as I could. If he hadn’t head butted me so hard and
the ground wasn’t so slushy, I might’ve actually made it
somewhere.

I only made it about twenty feet before I felt him
pounce on me. It was how I imagined a tiger attack would be. His
claws dug into my back, and then I was down, the wind knocked out
of me. He pressed my face into the ground, so I was drowning in the
watery snow and grass.

When he finally let my head up, I spit out chunks of
grass and dirt. I tried to push myself up, with him on my back, but
he was too strong and the ground was too slippery.

In the distance, I heard police sirens wailing. It
seemed very far in the distance, but that was because my level of
consciousness was changing. The adrenaline and panic changed my
thirst into something different. I wasn’t blacked out exactly, but
I felt like I was fighting underneath water.

Stellan laughed, and I felt the weight move off me.
His hand went between my legs, and I scrambled to crawl away from
him, but that just made him dig his fingers into my
inner-thigh.

When I say “dig into” I mean literally dig. His claws
and fingers tore through my jeans and flesh into the muscle. I
screamed as the searing pain shot through me. I turned around to
fight him off, and he jerked his hand back, taking a massive chunk
of my leg with him. He laughed, showing me his handful of flesh,
and then disappeared.

I tried to sit up and look down at my leg, and it was
then that I realized what he’d done. The femoral artery runs
through the inner thigh, and if severed, a human would bleed out in
a very short time. Unfortunately, it’s not that much different for
vampires.

In an ordinary situation, my heart would be beating
much slower, which would give my body a chance to heal before
things got out of hand. But I was scared as hell and my heart was
beating to match that. My blood was spilling out all over the
ground, and I could feel it.

When I bled as a human, it had never felt like this.
It was pressure and pain and weakening. It was almost like a
vacuum, and I could feel my life being sucked out of me with every
drop of blood.

Jack appeared at my side. I might’ve noticed him
approaching if I wasn’t so focused on the blood. I held my hands
over it, trying to stop the flow, but there was a big gouge in my
leg. My hand wouldn’t cover it. The blood just flowed out over it,
and it was coming too fast for me to heal.

“Oh, hell, Alice.”

“Where’s Milo?” I asked, and my voice sounded weak.
Jack put his hand over mine, trying to stop the blood. “Is he
okay?”

“Yeah, he’s with Bobby. They’re fine,” Jack bit his
lip and looked back over his shoulder. “The lycan took off when the
cops showed up. We gotta get out of here before they find us.”

After the lycan attack, dealing with the cops didn’t
seem like that big of deal. Except that I was bleeding like crazy.
They would take me to a hospital, where everything would get very,
very complicated, and I couldn’t handle that.

The wound itself wasn’t deadly. Or at least I didn’t
think it was. I tried to remember if vampires could die from blood
loss. I knew starvation could kill them, but it had to be a very
long time. But by looks of the puddle growing underneath me, I had
lost almost all the blood I had in me.

My insides felt like they were burning and shriveling
up. I had this weird painful sense of being deflated. My mind had
fogged up so much I couldn’t understand anything Jack was saying to
me, and everything I could see had blurred completely into a red
haze.

I couldn’t feel actual bloodlust because I was too
weak. All the strength had seeped out of me, and it was replaced
with some of the most intense pain I had ever felt. I started
screaming until Jack put his hand over my mouth. I could smell and
taste my blood on his hand, and my stomach lurched.