“We’ll get him,” Ophelia said. “Don’t worry. He’ll pay for this.” I gave her a hard look as cold suspicion burned inside me.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked.
“The bloodsucker called us,” Jack said. “Can you believe that shit? Told us where to find you. He thought giving you back to us alive would be some sort of truce. What a joke. He knows everything about the Brotherhood. Like we could ever let him live. This is a fucking mess.”
“He called you,” I said and it felt like a hole was burning through my gut. He’d called them. He’d… he’d left me bloody and exposed to let them draw their own conclusions. He’d left. He was gone.
I pushed Ophelia off me and got off the bed. My knees were weak, making me wobble. She dashed at me, clicking her tongue in annoyance as she helped keep me standing.
Jack was trying and failing to not look at the vampire bites across my thighs and cock. He winced and finally looked away, cursing behind his hand.
“Did he… “
“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Ophelia hissed at him. I stumbled towards the door, trying to shake Ophelia off. It was still light out—evening. Sebastian couldn’t have gone far last night. I’d fallen asleep when it was nearly morning. I’d catch up.
He couldn’t move during the day so it was now or never. I’d lose him forever if I didn’t catch up to him before nightfall.
I couldn’t lose him. He was everything. He was the only thing. My eyes burned as I struggled from the room.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ophelia snapped. “Look, I know you're pissed but you’re in no condition to fight.”
“Fight?” I spat out, my words rich with anger. Anger and fear that was burning my stomach. Damn him. How could he do this?
“Can you help me with him?” Ophelia asked Jack. He groaned and stomped forward, his hands hovering over me like I was too tainted to touch. Ophelia shot him another look and he relented, grabbing my arm and tugging me back towards the bedroom.
“Come on. Clothes and water. We already called this mess into Hackmann. There are a bunch of them on the way, an old team. They’ll find him. Stake right between the eyes. But hey, maybe they’ll let you beat the ever-loving shit out of him if you want. I’d sure as hell want to. Fucking Christ, who knew the bastard would be such a sick fuck. Never seen anything like that.” He kept going on but I was silent. My mouth sealed shut as a realization dawned on me.
I got dressed and drank water when they handed it to me. I stared at the wall and didn’t talk. Both of them kept shooting me looks of pity and disgust.
I wasn’t going to find Sebastian.
It felt like I weighed three times as much as I did. It felt like Sebastian had reached into my chest, gripping my heart until it stopped beating. My throat was closing up and my eyes burned. It started to feel like the bites on my neck were itching even though I knew they weren’t.
I wished I was capable of hating him but I didn’t. It just hurt. It hurt that he thought this was what needed to happen. I wasn’t even sure why exactly. Was it because he was a vampire and I was still a hunter? Or was it because I admitted I’d stalked him, that I loved him?
My chest ached.
Hackmann and the others came into the room a couple hours later and I snapped to attention. I knew what I had to do. I had to stop them from finding him. They would be relentless. They’d burn the whole town down if they had to before nightfall. They didn’t need much time to set up a perimeter to cut him off. Sebastian knew the Brotherhood hideout, he knew the members, he knew everything. They wouldn’t stop until he was dead.
I couldn’t let them get to him. Which also meant ruining any chance I had of finding him.
Hackmann kneeled in front of me and dropped his hand on my shoulder, his eyes boring into mine.
“What the fuck happened?” He asked and I lunged forward, grabbing his gun from the holster and darting away from the bed, quickly walking backwards until the wall was behind me and I could see everyone in the room. Someone reached for their gun and I shot their foot. Everyone else was quiet as he dropped to the ground groaning in pain.
“No one is leaving this room,” I said.
“Fuck, he’s lost it,” Jack sighed. My eyes darted to the clock beside the bed before snapping back to the people swaying slowly, holding their hands up calmly. This wasn’t going to last, they were trained, they were just waiting for the time to strike, probably plotting something with gestures behind their backs already.
I was right, I could see them slowly moving into a formation. My lips peeled away from my teeth and my breathing picked up.
“Okay, let’s calm down,” Hackmann said. “Just… tell us what happened.”
“Nothing,” I snapped. My eyes darted to the clock again.
“Why do you keep looking at the clock?” Hackmann asked. My eyes snapped to his and I saw the realization wash over him. First shock, then anger. He reached for his gun and I shot at the ground next to his foot.
“Don’t move,” I said calmly.
