Scorned (21 page)

“Do you think you can run from me?” the
vampire asked.

I shook my head, but turned, took two giant
leaps, and smashed through the glass door that led outside. I
hadn’t thought my momentum would be enough to break it, but it
clearly wasn’t reinforced. The handle bar in the middle caught on
my hip and flipped me as I fell through, so I landed on the
concrete in the glass on my back.

Perdita roared with anger. “Stop her!” she
screamed.

I crawled to my feet, scrambling on the
glass as I tried to gain some traction to run. Those glowing eyes
came out of nowhere and I screamed.

“Roman!” The word came out of my mouth as
one of the giant wolves leapt at me. I ducked and covered my head,
and it sailed over me, but I knew they weren’t going to be tricked
by this many more times.

A second wolf leapt at me, but I wasn’t in
control of myself any longer. As it flew at me I reached out and
grabbed it by its stomach, digging my fingers into its flesh. My
nails dug in with little difficulty and the wolf whimpered and
tried to pull out of the dive, but it was too late. I already had a
firm grip, and when it pulled back, I pulled a chunk of flesh away.
The wolf howled in pain and the other two looked at me uncertain
for a moment.

I ran for the back door of the church and
almost made it before Perdita was there in front of me. I had to
pull up short or run into her, and I almost wasn’t able to stop
myself before I planted my face in her chest.

“You are not going in there,” Perdita
growled, and her upper lip curled up to show her fangs.

“
Almost there.”
Roman’s voice was
more welcome than it had been in a long time.

“Why not?” I asked, trying to stall until he
arrived. “You can’t go in there, can you?”

She hissed and that was enough of an answer
for me. She wrapped her arms around me and pinned mine to my sides
with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible. But she wasn’t
human and that shouldn’t have been possible either.

“You are not going in there,” she hissed
again.

Perdita’s fangs were in my neck. They
pierced my skin like knives and I knew when she reached the vein.
It was like some pressure valve released, and I felt my blood
drain.

My body jerked and spasmed in the vampire’s
grip. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did she didn’t care. The
seizure came on faster than any I’ve ever endured.

The moon shone directly above me, its beauty
haloed in the mist of my own mind. I stared up at the sky and
thought vaguely that I shouldn’t be dying like this.

Perdita’s body jerked and her mouth lost its
grip in my neck. I felt myself roll from her suddenly limp arms
onto the ground where I fell hard and solid and lifeless. Two
vampires were fighting over me and all I could think was I needed
to get inside the church where I would be safe. The vampires
couldn’t get me in there. By some miracle, I was able to push
myself up to my hands and knees, but when I tried to crawl away, I
fell to one side, limp as a rag doll.

“LeKrista!” a voice shouted, and I
whimpered.

Glass shattered around me, rained down on
top of me and I shut my eyes tight.

“Get inside!” the voice shouted.

Inside? He
wanted
me to get inside?
And then I remembered Roman. Roman was here. Roman had saved me and
he wanted me to get inside.

I pushed back up to my knees and crawled,
slowly, painfully. My body jerked and I lost my balance, falling
flat on my stomach and smacking my chin on the concrete. Glass
burrowed into my chin and I cried out as more of my blood spilled
onto the concrete. I had to get away from the hungry vampires.

I pushed myself up a third time, determined
to make it this time, but I was swept up by an arm and tossed. I
sailed gently through the air and came to a skidding halt on the
concrete. No, not concrete. Carpet. I was inside. Roman had done
this. Roman had tossed me inside. I was safe. Safe from the
vampires. Safe from the wolves.

I landed on my side facing the door where
the vampires fought just outside, ripping each other to pieces.

“Pierce,” I whispered as pain spread through
my limbs and another seizure racked my body. “Pierce, I need you.”
But Pierce wasn’t there.

“
Hang on, LeKrista. Hang on, my
sweet.”

Screaming filled the air and I looked.
Perdita and Roman stood less than a foot apart. She screeched for a
long moment before she flew up and back into the air. Roman watched
her go, then turned to me, wanting to help but not sure.

“I can’t,” I said quietly. “I can’t...” I
didn’t finish the sentence. I passed out.

Footsteps. I woke to footsteps and fear
gripped me around the middle and squeezed the breath from my lungs.
I scrambled to my feet and tripped as I tried to run through the
nearest door. I forgot the abuse my body had endured and moving
made everything worse. I was sore from the seizures. I was sore
from running. I was sore from being thrown. I’d lost a good amount
of blood, and I was still twitching a little.

The room I managed to make it into was the
women’s bathroom. The door slammed behind me and I flinched. They’d
know where I was. Too late now. I went to the farthest corner of
the room and huddled between a toilet and a wall. They’d find me
anyway. There was nowhere to hide. The light flipped on and I
closed my eyes, hiding my face, afraid to see who’d found me.

“My God, LeKrista!”

It was my pastor. For a moment, I was
embarrassed that he’d see me covered in blood, scratched and
bruised and bitten, and huddled on the floor of the bathroom. Then
I came to my senses. I had nothing to be embarrassed about. I was
safe, finally. I began to cry from sheer relief.

“LeKrista.” Pastor Steve came to me and
gathered me in his arms. “What’s happened to you?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to lie to my
pastor in church. It just didn’t sound like a good idea, especially
with everything going on.

He took my chin and moved my head from side
to side, catching a glimpse of the bite on my neck. “What is this?”
he asked. “LeKrista, what happened to you?”

I just cried, because I wanted to tell him
but I couldn’t.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’ll
call an ambulance and get you to the hospital.”

“NO!” I screamed and tried to pull away, but
he was stronger than he looked. “No! We can’t leave! Not until
daylight!” An overwhelming fear of the night came over me and I
knew I couldn’t leave. Not until the sun came up.

“
Don’t leave the church, LeKrista,”
Roman confirmed.
“She’s waiting for you.”

I shook my head vigorously and tried to pull
away again. Pastor Steve wouldn’t let me go, and it was a good
thing, because if he had I would have landed on my butt on the
floor.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “We’ll call an
ambulance to come look at you and then take you to the hospital in
the morning.”

I looked at him and stopped struggling. I
nodded.

“Okay?”

I nodded again.

Pastor Steve turned on the sink and while he
waited he accumulated a stack of paper towels on the edge of the
counter. I watched and my legs grew weak. I wanted to sit, to
sleep, anything but stand there, so I sank to the floor, pressed my
back to the wall, and felt my body sag into sleep.

Wolves. Wolves were chasing me. Snapping at
my heels, biting my ankles. I was running, but I was losing. They
were faster.

I cried out, “Roman!” But no one came to
rescue me from death.

“
Roman, please!” But he didn’t hear me.
He didn’t hear me because he was too far away, or he didn’t care.
He wasn’t coming to save me.

It was too late. One of the wolves caught my
foot in his mouth and tugged, yanking me off balance, yanking me
off my feet. I screamed, and let death wash over me.

I woke up screaming, my heart pounding in my
chest. My blood raced through my veins. The fluorescent lights were
bright, the tile was cool. I was still alive.

Pastor Steve crouched in front of me.
“LeKrista, wake up. It was just a dream.”

But it wasn’t just a dream. He didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything.

“Calm down,” he said. “There’s some glass
stuck in your chin. I’m going to go find a first aid kit and some
tweezers, okay?”

I nodded. I wasn’t afraid to be left alone.
I couldn’t be afraid to be left alone. I was in the church. They
couldn’t get me in the church.

Pastor Steve left, though I don’t think he
was happy about leaving me alone. Exhaustion moved in to take me
away again.

I was in the church. They couldn’t get me in
the church. They weren’t supposed to be here but they were. I
huddled on the floor in the bathroom with wolves pawing and whining
at the door. Why didn’t they just come in? Why didn’t they come get
me and finish me off?

A wolf howled, as if he was wondering the
same thing, and laughter echoed through my mind.

Perdita.

Tears leaked from my eyes. This wasn’t the
way it was supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to die this
way.

“
Roman!”

“
Why do you keep calling for Roman? He’s
not the one who can help you.”

“
Pierce.” I said his name softly, gently,
as if just the mention of his name would make him appear. But he
didn’t.

“
What makes you think you can turn your
back on the one that was given to you, then call on him when you
need him and he’ll come running? It doesn’t work that way. No,
you’re on your own.”

The tears came faster this time. “Pierce,” I
sobbed, but Pierce wasn’t coming either.

I woke with a start and a name on my
lips.

“Pierce.”

The bathroom door opened and Pastor Steve
stepped in. “Are you alright?” he asked and I shook my head. He
frowned but I don’t think he took it too seriously. He knelt in
front of me and said, “I’m going to pull the glass out of your
chin. It’s going to hurt.”

I nodded.

“An ambulance should be here soon. I told
them it was no rush, though because you were conscious and most of
the bleeding had stopped when I found you.” He turned my head to
the side and eyed the bite. “Except for this.” He handed me a
towel. “Bite this.”

I put the towel in my mouth and bit. It hurt
when he pulled out the first piece of glass, but that pain paled in
the light of the pain that the rest of my body was in. I flinched
each time, but each time it hurt a little less. There were six
shards in all, ranging in sizes, and he put them in my hand before
he pressed several paper towels to my chin to staunch the blood
flow.

“Alright,” he said. “Now this one.” He
pushed my head to the side again, and bared my neck and the fang
marks to the light. I expected him to dab at it with wet paper
towels or press something to it to stop the blood seeping into the
neck of my t-shirt, but he didn’t. He poured something on it,
something warm and thicker than water. Anointing oil.

The moment the oil touched the fang marks,
fire spread from my neck and went straight to my head. I writhed
and screamed into the towel. My back arched against the wall and my
feet kicked out straight, striking Pastor Steve where he knelt in
front of me.

“Jesus, help us,” I heard him pray before
the world went mercifully black.

I woke to the sun beaming in my face, bright
and warm, and I looked around. I lay on a bench outside the
sanctuary. Pastor Steve sat on the floor, leaning against the bench
with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. At first, I thought
he was asleep, but when I moved, his eyes opened and he turned to
look at me.

“Good morning,” he smiled, but he had that
tired, peaceful look that said he’d probably been up all night
praying.

I smiled back. “Good morning.”

“You look much better than you did last
night.”

I shrugged, unsure of what to say.

“LeKrista, we need to talk about what
happened last night.”

I would have refused, denied it, whatever,
but there was a look in his eyes that said he had an idea of what
had happened and he wasn’t about to take “no” for an answer. I
looked away, down the hall, up at the ceiling, out the window
beside me, anywhere but at his face.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and wasn’t completely
sure why I was apologizing.

“For what?” Pastor Steve wanted to know and
I shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m just sorry. I’d pay you
back for all of the damage, but...I don’t have that kind of
money.”

Pastor Steve waved a hand at me. “Forget
that. We can handle that. I want to know what happened last night.
Something was chasing you. Something tried to kill you.” He paused.
“Something gave you that bite on your neck.”

I looked into his eyes, a look that said he
needed to be careful how much he figured out or he might be next.
The look he gave back said he didn’t care.

“LeKrista, what are you mixed up in?”

I laughed, but it wasn’t humored. “Too
much,” I answered.

“LeKrista...”

“If I were you,” I said, “I’d start wearing
a cross,” I told him, and I looked him dead in the eyes as I said
it. “Bless it and never take it off. Not even in the shower or at
the beach. It’s only going to get worse.”

There was fear in his eyes then, but not for
himself. He was afraid for his church.

“And do something about the youth,” I told
him, “because Christ isn’t in that building over there. It was no
refuge for me last night.”

Pastor Steve’s eyes slid shut. “I’ve known
that for a while,” he said. “I just had no proof.”

I turned my head so he could see my neck
when he opened his eyes. “I’m your proof. Do what you have to do,
and get everyone to start wearing crosses,” I said. I should have
been wearing mine. It would have helped me last night. I had to
make sure I found it when I got home. Better than that, I should
just go get some for my entire family. I might even get one for my
dog.