“You will not.”
“I will damn-well stay where I want to stay, Karson!”
“It’s no longer safe, Amelia. If one of them got your scent and decided you’d make a nice snack, they would find you. And I will force you to stay with me if I have to.”
How exactly he would force me I didn’t know, nor did I like the thought of it. Becoming someone’s snack sounded somewhat worse, though. Reluctantly, I relented.
“Fine, but Dahlia is staying too,” I snapped. I didn’t know what she was; I just knew she’d saved me, and I wanted her around.
He said to Dahlia, “Get her stuff and meet us there. I assume you know where I live?”
She inclined her head and moved off, disappearing into the night. Apparently she didn’t need any information on where I was staying, nor the key to get in. That wasn’t creepy at all.
Karson turned left up an alleyway enclosed by old brick warehouse-style buildings. I lagged a few feet behind him, scanning pointlessly for any means of escape. Cars ambled past, but even if I cried out and they heard me and stopped, what could they do against a vampire? It’d be like leading lambs to slaughter. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t fight, I could only follow, forcing one foot in front of the other.
We’d almost reached the end of the alleyway when he halted, pressing a button on his key ring. A black garage door whirred and rumbled, opening up into a cavity of pitch black. Karson moved ahead and opened the front passenger door of a car, causing the light from the interior to illuminate the immediate surrounds. I stepped inside, keeping my eyes focused on the light, and slid into the car. He clicked the door shut behind me.
When he got into the driver’s seat, I shrunk myself against the car door, placing myself as far away from him as I could, and rested my head against the cool windowpane. I stared out the side window, the image of the vampire’s head on the floor flashed behind my eyes.
He blinked. He. Blinked.
A fresh bout of nausea churned my stomach.
“Are you coping?” Karson’s tone was soft—in complete contrast to what he was, to what he’d done.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. A lump lodged itself in my throat. I thought of the blond girl’s face, pale and lifeless. I swallowed down the lump and drew in a raspy breath.
“Am I coping? Yeah, I’m just dandy. You’re a vampire, and you killed another vampire like he was nothing. You kill people . . . That poor girl is... is dead. I’m just fucking fine,” I choked out.
He didn’t respond, but a muscle in his jaw tensed.
I turned my head, pushing it hard against the glass, and watched the buildings and dim streetlights blur by. I started counting them just to try to hold together my unraveling mind.
Ethan, my friend, who made me pancakes and held me until I fell asleep. He couldn’t be a vampire, surely? I lived with him; I would have seen something that told me what he was. After a prolonged silence, I asked, “Is Ethan a . . . is Ethan like you?” I couldn’t pull the wordvampirefrom my lips, like if I said it out loud, it’d be real.
“Yes.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead.
One word, and it sliced through me like a blade.
“Well, Ethan is going to kill you,” I seethed, “when he finds out what you did to Katrina and Robert.”
He snorted. “I did not kill Katrina or Robert. I had no need to, and trust me when I tell you, Ethan is no match for me.”
“If you had nothing to do with their murders, why didn’t you notice their car was still at the ball when you left? You told me you thought they left early,” I accused.
“Because it wasn’t there! When I left, there were a few cars remaining, but theirs was not one of them.”
“Why did you lie about what time you left the ball then?”
“That’s not an answer you need concern yourself with,” he answered bluntly.
I glared at him. “Why? Because you have something you’d like to hide?”
He cast an angry, unyielding look across the car. I fought the urge to curl further away. “I did not have anything to do with their murders, which is all you need to know.”
I wondered what he’d done that he didn’t want to admit—sleep with Rebecca? Maybe. Did he drink her blood?
I turned my head back to the side. A couple walked hand in hand with their golden retriever down the street, happy, oblivious to a world around them that was much darker than their eyes would hopefully ever see.
