Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (36 page)

Once we’d returned to my house and found no one home and all my mum’s important belongings gone, Sam had order
ed me to pack as many of my things as necessary and told me that we had to leave the city that night. After filling two decent sized bags with clothes, necessities and mementos, we left the empty house and moved on to Sam’s. With our few bags and his beloved motorbike in the back of Sam’s borrowed blue pickup truck, we left Saint Jean forever.

We’d been travelling by road and rail for the last two days and still hadn’t decided where to stop. At the moment, running away from all my problems, from all my mistakes, from the normality of my past and the abnormality of
the present, it felt like perfect freedom. Right now, at this time, I didn’t want to stop; I didn’t want to try to return to life. Everything I’d once had without question was gone and now, instead of looking for a place to call home, I needed some personal stability.

My vampire mother had left me without a word to run off with my werewolf father to continue a love affair that ha
d ended before I was born. At the same time my evil side still wasn’t talking to me and hadn’t forgiven me or herself for following Sam to save ourselves and leaving Max to his death. My life seemed to be in chaos and I just didn’t want to stop and deal with it right now. Losing one person would have been hard enough, but three, including one I hadn’t even realized I’d had until the last minute, was unbearable. If Sam hadn’t been there to push me to keep going, to keep moving, I don’t know what I would have done.

I glanced up at Sam, whose beautiful violet eyes were staring seriously out the window and
I wiggled closer. His brooding eyes began to sparkle and he looked down at me with a little smile.

“I know I haven’t stopped saying it since we left Saint Jean,” I said, gratefully, “but thank you. I don’t know how I would have found the energ
y to keep going if you hadn’t been there for me.”

Sam’s smile widened and he grinned appreciatively at me and hugged me closer.
“There is nowhere else I would rather be,” he said happily, “than right here beside you. I never want to leave you, Kitty. You are the most important thing in the world to me.”

I grinned back at him and sighed, letting a little of the tight stress I’d been holding disappear. Then, as
agonizing tiredness swept over me once more, I yawned a great yawn and lay my head on his chest. Sam’s head rested gently on the top of mine and in his warm embrace, I started to peacefully drift off to sleep again.

Suddenly, a crash
in the hall outside our compartment snapped my eyes back open and I looked towards the small brightly lit corridor. Sam’s head lifted from mine and his body stiffened. Through the inner window and out into the hall nothing seemed out of the ordinary, everything was in its place and no one was walking past. At another smashing sound and some yelling, I straightened up a little and found myself focusing intently on the empty corridor.

Sam release
d me reluctantly from his warm hug and moved to stand up. “Wait here,” he said firmly, as he looked cautiously from me to the door.

I nodded at him, curious about
the commotion, but happy for him to investigate first. In my depressed and exhausted state I doubted that I’d be much good as a mediator or a fighter. Sam stepped toward our compartment door, then slid it to the side and stepped out. He glanced warily in both directions and looked bemusedly back at me as he slid the door closed. With a final raise of his right hand, which either meant ‘bye for the moment’ or ‘you better be a good girl and stay here’, Sam turned and disappeared down the left hand corridor.

I sat up straighter with my back off the cushion of the chair and I stared at the emptiness of the bright hall. For a moment, nothing happened and everything fell silent. I waited for another passenger to pass by, for a hostess to push a noisy trolley passed or for Sam to return, b
ut still nothing happened. Soon the silence became so deafening, even though I was sure that only a minute or two had passed, that I prayed for some noise. Even another violent crash down the hall would ease my tense and tender nerves, but the silence continued.

With nothing else to do, I stood up and took a quiet, cautious step towards the compartment door. I glanced out the window, down both sides of the corridor, but my vision was still so restricted that there was nothing of interest to see. As my heartbeat pounded aggressively and an
irrational fear started to overwhelm me, I took a second nervous and shaky step towards the door.

In a menacing flash of black shadows, something flew in front of me and threw the sliding compartment door to the side. My heart stopped, my jaw dropped in shock and I stumbled backwards into the room. With a fierce
pounding, my heart beat returned and my rapid breathing tightened my chest. I stared at the darkness in the doorway, completely cold and frozen with terror and I watched as something emerged.

A pale, familiar face emerged
out of the gloomy shadows and instantly his black clothed form was clear and free of the dark. His bright, amber eyes rose up to meet mine menacingly and a devilish smirk crossed his full, pink lips.

My hands flew to my chest as I struggled to find enough breath, and I stared at him completely amazed
and in a mix of fear and relief. “M—Max,” I choked, struggling to say his name.

His mouth widened into a mischievous, white grin and his eyes glared at me with a dangerous intensity.
“Kitty,” he murmured ominously as he took a step into the room. “I promised I’d find you, didn’t I?”