A War Zone
It didn’t come. I heard the van roar up the street, I opened my eyes. Sucked in a hot breath. The van swung at one-hundred and eighty-degree angle, slamming to a halt behind him. The side door slid open, grating into the night.
Someone yelled, “Get in the fucking van, now.”
My only hope was to walk toward the van and get in. I stared into the black cavity. The shadows of two of the men peered out from the layers of the darkness, like monsters in waiting, ready to do unimaginable things to me.
If I got in, I might never get out. Karson would save me, he would, I argued with myself. But it was a pointless argument. I didn’t move, because I couldn’t. Fight and flight had evaporated, and I was frozen.
I shook violently. My legs wanted to drop out from under me. I had to get in the van or he would shoot me. Then I noticed, they weren’t looking at me, they were looking at the man. He hesitated, gripped the gun tighter. His teeth clenched. He glanced up the street and noticed Karson’s car coming. He didn’t drop his aim. When he looked back his eyes were filled with rage. Like a rabbit in headlights, I didn’t move.
“Fucking. Get. In,” someone roared.
He made a furious, guttural sound. “I’m going to come back for you, bitch.” His words sounded like a ghastly prophecy and I flinched.
He jumped in the van. The door slid shut, the shrill sound of tyres spinning split the night air. They took off, disappearing into the deep of night as Karson slammed his car to a screeching halt. The smell of rubber rolled up my nose. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. I dropped my hands down, shaking and dazed.
They’d left the other man behind. Big nose stood bamboozled for a moment then turned foot and took off back into the alleyway he’d come from. Loyalty, apparently, was not their strong point.
In the blink of an eye Karson was out of the car. He lifted his nose and visibly sniffed like a hound beginning the day’s hunt. His eyes moved immediately to my blood-stained side.
I saw fury, dark and intense, storm in his face. Silent rage penetrated his eyes until they became cold, coal black.
“Are you hurt?” he whispered, his voice a mixture of anguish and barely contained rage.
I knew he would know the scent of blood that climbed into his nostrils wasn’t mine. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Shock had imprisoned any cohesive words, preventing them from being released from my mind. I simply stared at him, wild-eyed and dishevelled.
“I’m going to kill them.” Once again, his voice came out so quiet, I barely heard him. But it was punched with a deadly promise.
It was then I realized my face was most likely a mess. As if the realization sprung my conscious mind awake, my face began to throb. It felt hot and swollen. My left eye needled and wanted to close. Each beat of my heart sent a painful pounding to my head. My nose and teeth ached. I became aware of blood trickling frommy nose. I reached up and gingerly ran my fingers over the side of a hot, hard, swollen cheek. Stale blood tainted my mouth, the corner of my lip stung and blood seeped down my chin.
“Amelia, are you hurt?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the air choked my throat and no sound came out. I swallowed.
He grabbed my arm and sought answers in my eyes. There was a beacon of concern in the darkness of his gaze, like a distant lighthouse perched at the head of a vast terrain of night. I felt a tremble in his grip. “Please, Amelia speak. Tell me you’re alright.”
“I’m fine,” I finally croaked.
Profoundly and utterly, I was not fine.
He scowled but seemed to accept my word. “Get in the car.” He guided me toward the door and opened it. I climbed in. He slammed it closed behind me. The sharp noise fired bullets into my head. I moved my hands up to my face and cradled my aching nose. Pain stung my eyes and dragged salty water to their surface. I pressed my fingers into the sockets and held them there.
In a heartbeat he was seated in the driver's seat. The car shot forward with a dragon’s squeal. The force threw my body back into the seat. Fire ravaged my chest. I gasped, reaching across with shaking hands and fumbling the seatbelt into the slot. I got out the baby wipes and held the cool cloth against my nose. I should have felt safe nestled in the car but my heart boomed. Instead, a cold dread seated itself across the back of my sweaty neck and swept down my spine as if it were yanked in the threads of his fury. He didn’t head toward home, he didn’t go to the hospital either, and I knew his threat wasn’t empty.
“Karson.” My voice was raw and barely audible. “No, don't.”
He didn’t respond. His head was tilted away, toward the side window. In that window, against a coffin of black, a set of eyesappeared. The eyes reflected back were not the eyes of the man I’d stared into, they were not soft and gentle, nor jet black and angry, these eyes were something entirely different. These eyes were red, and they glowed in a screaming, hellish summation of impending doom.
My throat closed.
Beware of the man with glowing eyes, he'll come for you, he'll come for you. So much blood, so much blood.
My veins turned to slush. “No . . . p-please . . . call Matt,” I stammered.
He was so still, I didn’t think he was breathing. A predator’s stillness. The night scenery whirled by as the car gobbled up the road. I felt sick. My ears rang. My head boomed. The person beside me was not the man I fell in love with, not the man who cradled me tenderly to his chest. There was no sign of anything human. He was vampire, and he was hunting his prey with a vengeance.
You knew what he was,my mind whispered,you always knew . . . but you buried it. Well, here he is, the beast, the predator. Now what? Now what?
