On the Edge of Humanity (24 page)

“But I want to go with him. Maybe I’ll see Sam. I can help him,” I said with a soft voice, hoping the vampire would believe I was sincere. But, while I was trying to lie, I realized that maybe I was right. Maybe I would see Sam and
could
help him.

Fernando stepped to the side with his back toward the living room. I assumed he did that just to keep his eyes on us. I cocked my head to one side and studied the black-haired vampire. He seemed relaxed, as if he were settling in for the night to watch a movie. Maybe that was a good sign.

“You’re not going with this dude,” Ben said.

I shifted my glance to Ben, who had moved closer with both his hands wrapped around the base of the bat, knuckles reddish-white.

“Who’re you to tell me what I can do?” I said.

Fernando kept shifting his glance between Ben and me. “This is quite amusing. You human teenagers are very dramatic.”

I wanted to laugh. This vamp didn’t know what the word
dramatic
meant. He was the one being dramatic with daggers and fangs.

Ben took a step forward, shaking his head. “I can’t let you do this, Jo.”

“Boy, I wouldn’t come any closer. She’s already told you she doesn’t want you.” He chuckled.

I glared at the vamp. “Stay out of this, asshole.”

Fernando glared back. “Sweetheart, I told you my name is Fernando and if you call me asshole one more time—”

In that moment, Ben swung the bat, making, contact with the vampire’s head, knocking him to the floor.

“Run, Jo.
Now!
” Ben commanded.

I ran out the front door, jumping the porch steps two at a time, turned to my left and ran in front and around Ben’s car to the passenger’s side. The engine was running. Right next to Ben’s car was Tripp’s, but no one was in it. I scanned the street. The neighborhood was dead quiet, not even the birds were singing this morning. I stood between the two cars watching the front door, waiting for Ben to emerge.

“Come on, come on,” I said into the cool spring air. I tapped my foot frantically on the concrete. “Hurry up, Ben,” I whispered to myself.

Then I remembered Olivia’s Jeep. Where was it? I started to walk down the driveway when Ben came running out.

“Get in the car,” he shouted.

I turned and ran to the car. Ben was already backing it down the driveway. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. I began running with the car. Was he mad? How was I going to get in the moving vehicle?

“Slow down so I can jump in,” I yelled.

“Just jump in the fucking car, Jo!”

I grabbed onto the inside door handle and tried to jump in, but the car was moving too fast. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Fernando staggering out of the front door, holding his head, a bloodthirsty expression plastered on his face.

“Shit. Get in! Get in!” Ben’s voice cracked.

“Slow the fucking car down, will you?”

As the car slowed, I tried again, grabbing onto the inside handle and slid my left foot in when Fernando flew through the air and landed on the hood. The car jerked and I lost my footing, the car dragging me down the driveway as I held on. Then Ben slammed on the brakes and Fernando’s body slid off the hood onto the pavement while my head hit the bottom of the door.

“Come on, Jo. Get the fuck in the car—hurry!” Ben said in a frantic voice.

I was going to kill someone today and it just might be Ben. With the SUV now stopped and the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I stood up, jumped in, and shut the door. My heart raced as I tried to get my backpack off my shoulders.

Ben stepped on the gas and the car flew out of the driveway onto the street. I kept my eyes focused on Fernando’s body, which lay motionless next to Tripp’s car. I wasn’t sure if he were dead, but since he was a vampire, I didn’t think a fall like that would kill him.

The car fishtailed as Ben shifted into drive, then floored it. We sped off down the street, passing Olivia’s Jeep, but neither Olivia nor Fehherty was anywhere in sight.

“Where’re Tripp and Sloan?” I asked.

“No clue. Don’t care right now.”

“Ben, slow down. There’s a stop sign ahead,” I shouted.

The car decelerated, and out of nowhere someone fell on the hood. The dent from Fernando only got deeper when the flying brute landed on the Explorer. Ben slammed on the brakes and the vampire flew off, skidding across the pavement in front of us. My body jerked forward, my hands plastered against the dashboard, keeping me from going through the windshield. Then Olivia appeared out of the blue, eyes pitch black, fangs in full view. She bent down, hoisted up the new vamp, then threw him onto the lawn of the corner house.

Ben and I watched in amazement as the broad-shoulder vamp, who Olivia just planted into the grass, stood up as if nothing fazed him.

“Do these vamps ever die?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know,” I added.

“Uh oh.” Ben was looking in the rearview mirror.

I gaped behind me and Tripp was in a dead sprint toward us.

“Ben. Maybe we should wait for him.”

“Are you insane. I’m not hanging around any more of these vamps,” Ben said, stepping on the gas.

The car bucked. I grabbed the seatbelt and strapped myself in. We had just crested a hill when the front of the car rose in the air.

“Shit. Tripp’s on the trunk,” Ben bellowed.

I craned my neck and Tripp had both hands on the trunk, pulling the car toward him. He couldn’t stop the car like that, could he?

“We really need to stop,” I said, bracing my hand on the dashboard.

“Look, the safest place for us right now is anywhere but here,” Ben said in the calmest voice.

The engine revved up and sounded as if Tripp were holding back a wild lion.

I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. I didn’t want to hurt Tripp, but maybe Ben was right. Maybe we weren’t safe around them. In a flash, the front of the car dropped, the engine whined and we pitched forward. I turned. Tripp had his cell phone at his ear, probably calling Lt. London.

I said another prayer, thanking God it wasn’t Tripp’s blood on the floor in the kitchen. But whose blood was it? We’d just passed Olivia fighting the brute, who I assumed was a Plutarium. Where were Fehherty and Sloan? The last time I saw Sloan he had disappeared around the back of the house, while Fehherty had stayed in the Jeep.

I covered my mouth. Was that Sloan’s blood on the floor? I shook my head a few times. I didn’t have time to worry about Sloan. Ben and I needed to stay alive. Besides, I wasn’t ready to be a prisoner again, not yet.

“Where should we go?” Ben asked, shifting his glance between the road in front of him and the rearview mirror.

I thought about it for a minute. With the vampires behind us, this was our chance to search for Sam without vampires breathing down our necks, especially Lieutenant London. We were free for the moment.

I was determined to take full advantage of it.

Chapter 15

B
en and I made our
way through the State Forest. I hadn’t told Ben yet where we were going. I really didn’t want to go back to the funeral home. It was creepy, and all signs were flashing that Neil was a Plutarium, given the tattoo on the back of his neck. But, if Sam were looking for Neil, he might’ve tried to go back to the funeral home. I didn’t have a clue how to get there, though. It was dark when Neil drove Sam and me to it the other night. The only landmark I could remember was the park, but that wasn’t going to help me.

“Okay, we’re in Westport. Where to now?” Ben asked.

“Foster’s Funeral Home,” I replied.

“What?” Ben snapped his head towards me. “A funeral home? Why?”

I didn’t know if Sam had told Ben anything about our hospital escape, how we hid in a funeral home for a night, or that we were running from a large man who turned out to be a vampire. Given his surprised reaction, it didn’t appear so. Besides, it wasn’t as if I were releasing any top-secret information. Heck, the sheer knowledge vampires existed certainly classified as top secret, and Ben already had that in his arsenal.

I sighed. “The night I landed in the hospital, a bunch of weird things started to happen. When Sam—”

“Jo,
weird
isn’t the word for what happened to you.”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t disagree, but Ben annoyed me when he cut me off in mid-sentence. He had done that a couple of times yesterday. “Anyway, when we were in the hospital room, Sam was trying to find a way we could get around the cop. Remember the one in the coma?”

He nodded.

“Well, we heard banging and grunting, so I peeked out the door and there was this tall dude with a blue bandana and pitch black eyes. He had the cop pinned up against the wall by the throat.” I paused.

He didn’t flinch. His attention was focused on the road, driving slowly. Then he tilted his head slightly, shifting his gaze from the road to me.

“Well, is that it?” he asked.

“Did you hear what I said? The guy that had the cop in a chokehold, the guy that put the cop in the coma was Jonah. The one you hit with a baseball bat at Crest and Skylark. Remember?

“You’re kidding? You mean the vamp?”

I nodded.

The car slowed to a crawl. It was as if Ben were in a trance. I was learning Ben was moodier than an athlete on steroids.

I flinched.
Was
Ben on steroids? He had great physical form, sculpted arms, broad chest, not to mention that he was one of the best players on the high school baseball team with a batting average of .385
,
constantly hitting homeruns.

“What happen next?” he asked.

I peeked at the speedometer and the needle fluctuated between twenty and twenty-five miles per hour. Forty miles per hour was scrawled on the sign up ahead.

“Are you going to go any faster?” I asked, turning to survey the road behind us.

Ben checked the rearview mirror. “There’s no one behind us. Go on.”

I had to think for a second where I stopped. “Oh…then Sam and I somehow made it out and ended up in the hospital’s boiler room. That’s where we met Neil Foster. Sam was convinced Neil was the janitor at our school. Neil drove us to his parents’ funeral home for the night. But, in school last week, I overheard two boys talking about a red truck and a dead body the police found in the forest.” I paused to moisten my lips.

Ben looked over at me. “Whose body was it?”

“Not sure. But one boy mentioned the red truck the police found was registered to the janitor of our school. At least, that’s what the police told his dad. I told Sam what I heard and he said we would talk about it at lunch. But we never made it to lunch. I assumed when Sam didn’t show up in your dad’s office, he was trying to find Neil. Then Webb showed up and you know the rest.”

“My dad told you that Arlan is the janitor, not Neil.”

“But that’s what I don’t understand. Sam knew Neil, like they were best friends. Sam even told me he trusted him.”

Ben slapped his hand down on the console, making me flinch. “You know, Arlan has a couple of dudes that come in occasionally to help out when we have practice or a ballgame. Maybe this Neil guy is part of Arlan’s crew.”

“But it still doesn’t add up. I get how Jonah fits into the picture, but I don’t understand how Neil fits into it,” I said, shaking my head. “Jonah was chasing us; Neil was helping us, or at least I think he was, but he seems to also be one of them.”

“You think Sam went to the funeral home looking for Neil?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know. It’s the only place I can think of that Sam might go,” I said as my body trembled.

“You okay?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. There was always something about the funeral home that gave me the creeps.”

“Well, duh. It’s a funeral home. You know, with dead people?”

I dropped my head in my hands. Just the mention of Sam and dead people didn’t mesh well. I sensed Ben was trying to make light of the situation, but he had a streak of being a smart-ass as well.

“Hey. I’m sorry. I…didn’t—”

I raised my head. “What if Sam is—”

“He’s not. Don’t even think that,” Ben said. “We’ll check it out and see what we find. By the way, is Neil part of the fang gang?”

“Huh?”

“You know.” Ben sucked in his lower lip and pulled back his upper one, teeth protruding out. “Get it?”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re weird. I’m not sure. He has a tattoo on the back of his neck. It’s the same symbol that Jonah has engraved on his ring.”

“Tattoo? What tattoo?”

“Some type of symbol with the letters ‘P’ and ‘L.’ I think it stands for Plutarium.”

“I still don’t get the whole planet thing either.” Ben flipped on the right blinker and he turned the car onto a side street. He brought the vehicle to a stop alongside an embankment of low brush and bushes.

“Are we lost?” I asked.

“Um…not exactly sure where you want me to go.”

A roof of a house peeked out in the distance. The street had several tall maple trees, which dominated the wooded area along the side of the road. The hair at the nape of my neck rose as the trees rustled in the wind, and a shiver skidded up my arms.
Odd.

I turned my head slightly and a black SUV approached from behind, slowly moving in our direction. My heart sank.

“What’s wrong, Jo?” Ben asked. “Did you see a ghost?”

“You could say that. The SUV behind us,” I flicked my thumb over my shoulder. “It looks like the same vehicle that I think followed Sam and me last week on the way to your house.”

“There’s a lot of people who own black SUVs,” he said, adjusting the rearview mirror.

“That may be true,” I said, letting out a deep sigh. But then why was my brain screaming at me, telling me to get the hell out of Dodge?

The SUV inched past us. I’m sure they could see us, but the dark-tinted windows kept us blinded from them.

As the SUV passed, Ben shifted into gear, looked in his side mirror and eased out of the parking spot, following behind the black SUV.

“See. Nothing to worry about. If they were vamps, they would’ve been out of that car so fast we’d be vamp meat,” he said.