Hunted (20 page)

That warning caused her stomach to clench. 

“You trust me, don’t you?” Kyle Vincent asked, his tone implying that he already knew the answer.

Lanie paused for a moment, looking up at the ruggedly handsome face of Kyle Vincent and letting herself feel that place in her gut.  She didn’t know this man from Pete.  She had seen him standing over a dead body in the woods.  He was running around town with a crossbow.  But, looking up at him, she didn’t have a single warning bell go off.  There was just something about Kyle Vincent…

“You
do
trust me,” Kyle said to her.

Lanie really and truly hoped that she didn’t live to regret what her gut was telling her.  “I do,” she answered somewhat hesitantly.

“Then trust me when I tell you that your father can’t help with this.  Let him go off chasing after a human killer.  He’ll live longer,” Kyle stated.

Lanie nodded her understanding, though it did not sit well with her conscience.  She knew other people were probably going to die.  She knew…
what
was killing them.  She knew that if she told her dad, he would do his flat out best to hunt down the monster responsible and try to stop him.  She knew her dad would do his flat out best to try and make sure that no one else in Fells Pointe had to die.  He’d have everyone locked down and hiding behind their doors until everything was over. 

But, if her dad went looking for the monster and happened to get close to him…her dad would be killed.  She knew how fast and vicous this Frederik was.  She knew.  She’d seen…

“Your father will be fine so long as he’s looking in some other direction,” Kyle assured her.  “You’re the one I’m worried about right now.”

“Why?” she asked, though she feared she already knew the answer.

“Because his kind usually don’t lose out on a meal.  Once they find their prey…they’ll keep after it until its dead.”

Lanie’s heart plummeted into her stomach.  “He-he…so he
will
come after me now?”

Kyle’s handsome face was set.  “I can’t say for sure, but it’s better to assume that he’ll try again.”   

Lanie suddenly found breathing difficult.  “I-I…what do I do?  I-I mean…I can’t stay in the house.  I have school!  I have…things going on!”

“He’s not going to come after you if you’re with a lot of people,” Kyle told her.  “He doesn’t want to be seen, otherwise he’d have to leave town and find another spot to feed in.  So, you have to be careful, Lanie.”

“I’ll be with my friends most of the time,” Lanie answered weakly.  “And I usually don’t leave the house at night.”  How much more careful could she be?

“He can hunt during the daylight,” Kyle pointed out.

A vampire that could walk in the sunlight but who couldn’t step through a door without being invited?  How did that make sense?  “Johnna and Devyn…my friends, they’re staying here with me.  Should I tell them to go away, just in case he does come after me?”

“I can’t tell you if they’ll be safe.  He’s unpredictable.  All I can tell you is that he’s still in town and there’s no proof that he won’t come after you again.”

“But-but…you shot him, didn’t you?” she offered hopefully.  “Maybe he’s already gone because—“

“I hit him, but that didn’t do more than piss him off.  And he
is
still in town.  I can feel him,” Kyle stated.

Lanie wanted to ask what that meant.  She actually wanted to ask Kyle Vincent a thousand questions right then, but the early morning was growing lighter and lighter and she knew she had to wake up Johnna and Devyn soon.  Now was neither the time nor the place for a lengthy discussion.

“Lanie, you’re the first person I’ve ever been able to keep him from killing.  So, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.  I’ll be close by to make sure you’re alright,” Kyle stated, his sparkling eyes intense.  And then he turned to go, but Lanie shot out a hand, taking hold of his arm to stop him.

“Wait, Kyle,” she breathed, her insides clenched tight.  “Where are you staying?  How will I find you?”

“I’ll be close by.  Don’t worry,” he told her.

Don’t worry?  Don’t worry that a bloodthirsty monster might be coming after her?  Don’t worry that Kyle Vincent was probably living out of his car and starving in the process?  Don’t worry that Kyle Vincent might get himself killed trying to keep the vampire away from her or whoever else he decided to go after?  That was not likely.

“I’ll be close by you, Lanie,” Kyle assured her and with that, he was off the front porch and then he was…just gone, leaving Lanie to stare out into the grey morning.

Lanie somehow managed to make it through the first half of her school day, though it was rough going.  It was impossible to focus on classes and assignments and teachers droning on and on when her thoughts were going a mile a minute, replaying what had happened in the park the night before, replaying her brief conversations with Kyle Vincent, going over and over whether or not to tell her father what was happening in Fells Pointe, even though she knew it might get him killed. 

She spent the first hours of her day wallowing in a miserable fog of racing thoughts and horrid worry over what might be happening to Kyle Vincent, along with everyone else in Fells Pointe.  She honestly could not decide if she should tell her father or keep this to herself. 

More people in town were going to die.  A
vampire
was going to hunt another person down and kill them.  That knowledge ate at her, gnawing a hole right through her! 

She was the sheriff’s daughter and she had firsthand knowledge about the person who’d killed her friend and some other poor soul.  Yet, she was withholding that information.  That was the same thing as aiding and abetting!  She was as good as a criminal!  She was mentally harboring a criminal and any other deaths that occurred as a result of that were going to be her fault!

Just when Lanie thought she might throw her head back and howl, the lunch bell rang and she dashed from American History and out to her locker in the senior hallway, hoping to make it to the cafeteria before a line formed.  She really just wanted something to drink and a minute to pull herself together before her friends showed up. 

Devyn and Johnna had been hounding her all morning to tell them what was wrong and she had no ready answers to their questions!  In fact, if either of them asked her what was wrong one more time, she just might break down and confess to everything she knew just to have it off her shoulders!

How beautiful it would be to scream out, “
It’s a vampire
! 
It’s a vampire
that’s killing people and I saw him
! 
I saw him with my own eyes
!”

As she slammed her locker shut, her phone vibrated, scaring her so that she let out a shriek and jumped a foot off the floor.  Thankfully, there weren’t too many kids out in the hallway yet, so no one seemed to notice.  Whipping her phone out of her pocket, she saw the text was from her dad, who wanted her to come to the station and give her statement.  He’d already called Mr. Hamilton, the school principal, to let him know that she would be leaving and why.

A slight wave of relief washed over Lanie.  At least she could get out of the school house for a while.  Slamming her locker, she pecked out a quick text to Johnna to let her know she’d be leaving and then she bolted for the door of the school, though as she pushed through the front door and stepped out into the bright afternoon, she paused, a little thread of fear snaking through her.  The expanse of green lawn at the front of the building was deserted and the street and the parking lot beyond were still.  There wasn’t a soul in sight.  Which meant that she’d be making the walk to her car on her own.  And there very well could be a monster lurking someplace about, just waiting for an opportunity like this.

Lanie, halfway out the door, thought about calling her dad and having him send a squad car to pick her up, but she’d have to explain why she didn’t want to drive herself to the Sheriff’s Office, and of course, she couldn’t explain.

It actually took far longer than it should have for her to decide what the best course of action would be.  In the end, not being one of those girls who knew there was a monster in the woods yet went out into the woods anyway, she spun back around and went to round up Finn, Brady, and Chase, who were all at their lockers.

“Hey, guys.  Will you do me a favor?” she asked them as they all turned to look at her.

So, in an effort to stave off any impending vampire attack—and trying not to laugh out loud because she was actually worried about an impending
vampire
attack—Lanie was escorted to her car by not three, but six burly footballs players, all of who thought they were protecting her from the person she’d seen in the park the night before, thanks to Chase’s filling them in on the details. 

She felt kind of weird about being surrounded by a wall of stiff and wary athletes acting as if they expected someone to come charging out of nowhere to try and finish her off, but she had to do what she had to.  Once she was in the car and safely on her way, she knew the six boys would all make it back inside in one piece due to their sheer numbers.

Lanie drove through town and over to the Sheriff’s Office, where she was hustled into her dad’s little cluttered space and then spent the next hour giving a very detailed, and half untruthful, account of the previous night’s events.  Once she was finished, she was escorted out the door and to her car by her dad, who she noted was looking worn and weary.

“Go back to school, squirt.  I’ll be home when I can,” he told her, dropping a peck onto her forehead.

“You look like your about to fall over,” she told him worriedly.  “Can’t you go home and get some sleep?”

“I should be able to in a couple of more hours.  I have some calls I’m waiting for and some paperwork to take care of,” Sam told her with a weak smile.

Lanie opened her door and started to climb in, but paused.  “Can you tell me who it was…lying in the park last night?”

“It was Amy Jarvis,” Sam answered somberly.

Amy Jarvis, the quiet girl who played the flute in the band.  Amy had third period with Lanie.  And she hadn’t even noticed the girl was absent that morning.  Guilt stabbed at her, though she had no idea why.  She didn’t have to ask her dad how the girl had died.  She already knew.  She’d seen…

“The coroner thinks she was killed sometime between two and four p.m. yesterday, Lanie,” her dad said, his tone hard.

Between two and four.  That was around the time she’d been at the game field, along with half the other people in town.  She racked her memory, trying to recall if she’d seen Amy Jarvis there, but she couldn’t.  There’d been too many people around and she’d been too…distracted.  If Amy had been at the field…if she’d been taken from the field…that meant Frederik had been at the field, too. 

“Wait.  She wasn’t found until last night at the candle light service,” Lanie said, confused.  “Didn’t her parents miss her?”

“I’ve talked to them and she was supposed to stay the night with Millie Carter.  I’ve spoken to Millie and when Amy didn’t show up, she figured the girl had decided to stay home.  Some wires got crossed somewhere, that’s all.”

And now Amy Jarvis was dead.  And there was every chance that another person, or people, would wind up the same way.  And she knew exactly who, or what, was killing them.

“Dad—“ she heard herself say, but then stopped and clamped her mouth shut.

Sam’s brows went low over his sharp blue eyes.  “What is it, squirt?”

Lanie waffled, hard, for a second.  She wanted to tell him.  She wanted to tell him so bad that she ached from it!  But, even if he did believe her, which was up for debate because a piece of
her
still didn’t believe her, looking for the monster would get him killed.  She knew.  She’d seen…

“Squirt?” her dad urged, eyeing her as if he could tell she was hiding something from him.  Or perhaps that was simply her own guilt and paranoia.

“N-nothing.  It’s nothing,” she said, tossing her bag into the car so she could break eye contact for a second.