Connor heard truth in the words he hadn’t yet known from Alec. He had always suspected the elder vampire was merely playing the fool, wearing an impressive mask that held something else beneath. And as those thoughts played in his mind, watching Emery sob against Alec’s shoulder, the vampire tilted his head up, pale blue eyes centering right on Connor’s hiding spot.
If it hadn’t honestly felt like the temperature dropped around him, he might have offered a cheeky wave, but that stare felt like a warning. He nodded. Alec and Wendy had this one; Connor should have gone home. He’d do that now, give them the appropriate amount of time to head off, then leave in his Thunderbird.
Hiding more fully behind the tree when Emery finally pulled away from Alec, Connor couldn’t see what happened next for fear of being caught, but he heard murmurs of thanks from Emery, more comforting words from the others, and then their voices began to fade as they herded Emery away. Wendy would give Emery a ride home on her bike, while Alec glamoured the police escort not to take notice. Connor would have to hurry to beat them home, though he could always tell Emery he’d been detained by Mark for notes.
He had to see Emery when they got home, even if it was a school night. Connor could count on one hand the amount of times he’d seen his friend cry. Teary-eyed was one thing, but full on bawling dug in so much deeper. They’d been blessed with lives that rarely touched on trauma. Up until the murders, the worst thing that had ever happened in their small town was Michael losing his leg. And while that had been terrible, at least he’d lived, come out of it even more insufferably popular and cocksure, especially with Connor around to make legs for him.
Facing death week after week wasn’t good for anyone. Connor wanted to hug Emery as Alec had and never let him go. The world outside each other’s arms was getting scarier by the day.
Connor leaned back against the tree and checked his phone. 10:17. He’d give it three more minutes, then run to his car and take a shortcut home.
“You’re his friend, aren’t you?”
The phone shot up into the air and Connor fumbled to reclaim it, his heartrate skyrocketing. “Who the hell—?” he started before he’d even looked up, but then cut off.
He didn’t know the man who materialized from the more distant trees. He might have looked normal enough for these parts, like a deer hunter in matching dark green jacket and trousers, combat boots, and a hat pulled down over shaggy dirty blond hair, if not for the crossbow in his arms. Deer hunters didn’t load their bows with wooden bolts.
Connor tried to step back before remembering the tree was still behind him. A vampire hunter. His mind raced, jumbled, searching for the proper reaction. His friend? Yes, he was Emery’s friend. Was that a bad thing?
“I can’t track them directly from here,” the man said, stalking toward Connor assuredly, crossbow at the ready, brown eyes narrowed and face stern, “not with the older one tailing, and the other hunter with him. She’ll make me for sure, if the vampire doesn’t pick me off first. So you’re going to tell me where they went—where he lives.”
A few more misfires in his brain went off before Connor computed what was happening. He clutched his phone to his chest. “Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you see?” He pushed off from the tree to meet the hunter halfway. “They killed the other vampire. She was the real baddie. Em’s being set up!”
Barely a few feet remained between them as the hunter stopped... and grinned. “I saw. Who do you think hired the bitch?”
The ground fell out from under Connor, seemed to almost literally fall away as his stomach plummeted. “But…why? Em’s never done anything. He’s never hurt anyone!”
“But he was there. Leonard turned him to spite us, the clever bastard. Your friend was there. We can’t have any witnesses or loose ends.”
Connor backed away again, this time angling slightly left, hoping to bypass the tree. “We?” he said, and clutched his phone tighter, wondering how much he could risk before the hunter made to take it.
The school wasn’t far. They were out the back exit, where no cars were parked, but there were still a couple dozen kids inside, and Emery, Wendy, and Alec were still close. If only Connor could just sneakily call one of them, but he’d have to look down at his phone to swipe the pattern correctly on his lock screen.
“Oh, I’m not alone,” the hunter said, grinning wider as if to say he didn’t mind giving up that information, like it didn’t matter what he told Connor—that couldn’t be good. “There are several of us in town, and you’ll never tell us apart from another tourist or passerby, kid. That’s what makes us so good at what we do.”
Connor’s elbow hit the tree and he corrected further left, still moving, slow and steady, while the hunter pursued him at a matching pace. “I thought you had a pact. You only kill if they kill, and vice versa. Why setup the Leonards?”
“Some of the others with us care about all that,” he said, one hand running along the curves of his crossbow. With the speed at which something like that could shoot, it wouldn’t matter if it was wood; it would still feel like a bullet to Connor. “Me and the boss…we just like to kill monsters. Figure there are a few too many around now. Things have gotten too friendly. But make it look like the good ones are just as bad as the killers, and hey, every hunter around takes up the call.” His eyes were cold as he trained the crossbow forward. “We just got a little more cleanup to take care of before we’re out of this town and on to the next. So you’re going to tell me—”
Connor cleared the tree and took off running in the opposite direction, punching at his phone to pull up someone, anyone, and thanking every deity that might be listening that he had Alec in his phone. The older, bizarre, and sometimes terrifying vampire was at the top of his contacts.
He raced for the ditch where Emery had been fighting moments ago, but an overlarge bolt sunk into the ground just ahead of him, narrowly missing his foot. A warning shot, but the jolt of it, of jerking back and trying to avoid tumbling over the protruding projectile, only unbalanced Connor worse than if he’d tripped over it.
His ankle caught in the thick grass and bumps of the hill leading out of the ditch. He hit the ground hard on his shoulder and rolled twice, winded as he came to a stop on his back. His phone slipped from his hand but he could see it blinking, dialing. A photo from Nosferatu pulled up.
“Alec!” Connor cried just before a foot came down and crushed it, silencing his only lifeline.
His left hand remained outstretched toward it, exposing the silver, hard plastic fingers of his Terminator prosthetic. The hunter hovered over him, eyes drawn to the hand. He huffed a taunting laugh and bent down on one knee. One hand still held the crossbow while the other yanked back the sleeve of Connor’s long-sleeved shirt to his elbow, where his prosthetic connected.
“Convenient,” the hunter said. He dropped Connor’s arm back to the ground and stood. “See, kid, now I can do this—” he said as he stepped onto Connor’s hand with a crunch.
“Hey!”
“—and not even hurt you. But I bet you’d rather I didn’t destroy this thing, wouldn’t you, since it seems you need it. Be a little hard to grapple with only one arm.” He pressed more weight onto Connor’s hand, and there was a loud snap amidst the continuing crunch of plastic.
“You should try it with only one testicle, asshole,” Connor spat, and swung his free fist up between the guy’s legs as hard as he could.
The hunter gasped and hunched over, surprised enough that Connor was able to reach over and release his prosthetic at the elbow. He slipped free, leaving it and his phone behind. He rolled to his feet, but didn’t get more than a step before the man had him by the ankle, and he fell right back to the ground face first.
Connor kicked and kicked and fought with every fiber in him, but the man’s strength was like a vice in his fury. He flipped Connor over onto his
back again and planted a knee in his chest to hold him still.
“You little brat,” the hunter growled, still panting from the punch. “I might have let you go if you’d just given up the monster’s location.”
Connor readied every insult he could think of, because Emery was not a monster, never, never would be, but his struggling ceased when the hunter brought the crossbow up to point between his eyes.
A blur zoomed past Connor’s vision and the hunter was gone. His breath caught, gasped out of him, as he shook and shook and tried to tell himself to just pull it together, stay calm and get up, get up! He rolled to his feet once more, scrambling up from the ground, and darted his eyes around the ditch until he saw the bowled over hunter several yards away, still shaking his head from whatever had hit him.
Alec stood nearby, reaching down to retrieve Connor’s crushed prosthetic. He looked at the arm, one finger dangling that had snapped beyond repair, and tossed it back to the ground with a snarl. “Some men have no sense of decorum,” he muttered. He whirled on Connor then and grabbed onto him at lightning speed. “We have to go. I can’t guarantee your protection if there are others.”
Connor saw the hunter stir over Alec’s shoulder and start to get up.
“Wait—” Connor protested, when the world lurched like a punch to the gut, a whirlwind of sounds and wind and dizziness. When it finally stopped, Connor blinked at his surroundings to find himself standing in his bedroom.
“No!” he turned on Alec, who was already on his phone, dialing Emery. “You have to go back! The hunters, some of them are in on it! He knows everything! You have to stop him!”
Alec held up a hand as he spoke into the phone, “Emery, Connor is with me in his room. Come when you can,” and ended the call just as swiftly, though Connor was certain he’d heard a muffled cry before the call ceased.
He barreled into Alec, pushing him toward the window. “I’m fine! Go! You have to go!”
“Connor—”
“He wants to kill him!”
“Connor!” Alec grabbed Connor by the shoulders and pulled him in like he had done to Emery, squeezing almost too tightly to still Connor and force him to calm down. It only served to choke something like a sob from Connor’s throat, and screw that! He didn’t have time to cry; someone had to be the strong one.
“Please,” Connor said, clinging to Alec, because he was still shaking, and not really breathing, and he could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his ears.
“Connor? What happened?” Emery’s voice was tight with panic as it called from the window. Vampire powers sucked at times like these; Wendy had to have already gotten Emery most of the way home, and he’d gone all Flash speed for the remainder.
Connor pushed Alec away from him, which seemed ineffectual because he was so used to wearing his prosthetic. His misshapen elbow didn’t reach far enough to touch Alec’s chest in sync with his right hand, the sleeve dangling uselessly. Alec allowed him to dislodge from his arms, and Connor looked up at the vampire with a pinched expression.
“You have to go back,” Connor said, ignoring Emery.
Alec nodded.
“Wendy’s making a perimeter search around the neighborhood,” Emery offered when Alec moved to take his place at the window. Connor didn’t miss the way his friend’s eyes trained on his empty sleeve. “What happened?” he asked again.
“I’ll be back,” Alec said, and disappeared into the night.
Left alone with Emery, while his long-sleeved shirt, without his prosthetic to fill it out, flopped at his side in the way he most hated, Connor felt incomplete, like he was broken. But he couldn’t afford to be broken, not now. He turned away from Emery to find another shirt.
Chapter 17
Connor wasn’t wearing his prosthetic. I glanced around the room, remembering he’d had the Terminator one on today, but I couldn’t see any sign of it. Alec had looked too stoic before he left, the same way he’d been with me outside the school. The echo of what happened was too fresh in my mind, like a gurgling of acid in my gut.
Connor turning away from me, rummaging through his dresser with only the use of his right hand, made it so much worse, and I didn’t even know what had happened.
I walked to the bed and sat down. Our parents would be wondering where we were, and with the cop on my tail diverted for the rest of the night, and both me and Connor up in his room without having used the door, we didn’t have much time. I wanted to sit and not think for a while, because whenever I thought about what happened—chanting inside my head that it had to be done, Wendy and Alec were right, there was no other way—I’d hear my mother’s voice.
“If it feels wrong, honey, it probably is.”
I looked at Connor, who’d changed out of his long-sleeved shirt into a T-shirt, his left arm ending just below the elbow. I’d seen it plenty of times like this, but he never seemed to meet my eyes when he wasn’t wearing a prosthetic. He looked around his room searching for a replacement, before sputtering a stream of curses.
“They’re all in the workshop,” he bit out, running his right hand back over his buzzed hair, eyes trained on the floor.
“Connor…”
“It was stupid,” he interrupted, and proceeded into a tirade about what had happened, how he’d followed us, watched the fight, and been caught by one of the hunters—a hunter who was part of the setup, working against the other hunters and me, and he wasn’t the only one.
It wasn’t stupid; it was terrifying.
Both of us, me on the bed, feeling sick and small; Connor pacing, not looking at me, fidgeting with where his arm should be. We both felt wrong. We should have found some solidarity in that, but Connor finished his rant with a huff and turned away, like he wanted me to leave. Then he spun around, arms crossed, hiding his elbow behind his good arm, and his expression cracked.
“I’m sorry, Em. You shouldn’t have to deal with my freak out when you’re having your own.”
“What?” I gave a humorless laugh as I stood. “You said he had a crossbow on you. He broke your arm. He might have killed you if Alec hadn’t found you. Your freak out’s more justified than mine.”
“Em—”
“Connor?” Georgia’s voice made us both jump as she opened the door, carrying a basket of laundry. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “How did you get up here? I didn’t see either of you come in. Emery, it’s a little late to be over, don’t you think, considering everything? Should I call your parents—”
“No!” I didn’t want to make them worry any worse than they already were. I wanted to stay, to talk to Connor about this, but adolescence and overprotective parents were against us. “Sorry, George,” I said, mustering a smile I also cast on Connor. “It was just a long day and we had something to talk about. We’ll catch up tomorrow. Right?” I eyed Connor hopefully.
His eyes danced with dread, and the way he tightened the hold on his elbow made my stomach twist. He didn’t have to hide his arm from me.
“Sure, Em. First thing. Nothing to lose any sleep over.” Which translated to him being certain he’d have nightmares about this, but that he, in no way, wanted to bring it up on the ride to school tomorrow. I planned to convince him anyway.
“Sorry, George,” I said again. “I’ll get right home. Night, Connor.”
“Night, Em.”
Georgia smiled and shifted the laundry to one arm so she could grab my shoulder when I walked past, kissing my cheek, so much like my own mom.
As I headed down the stairs, I heard her ask Connor, “Sweetheart, what happened to your arm?”
I just wished tomorrow would come quickly.
~
Connor
Connor managed to convince his mother that he’d messed up his Terminator arm at play practice. He told her not to worry, that he did
n’t feel like replacing it when he just wanted to sleep. She dug out a pair of his jeans and a couple shirts from the laundry basket and set them on the bed before kissing him goodnight.
“I’m just bummed about the arm,” he said when she gave him that ‘if you want to talk, I’m here’ expression. “It was my favorite, ya know?”
“Okay, honey. Get some sleep and don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s an excuse to finish a new design, right?”
“Yeah.”
Connor lay back on his bed on top of the covers, having kicked his laundry to the floor. His mom would scold him if she saw, but he didn’t want to deal with anything right now. He glanced at the walkie talkie on his dresser, wondering if Emery would try to talk to him, hoping he wouldn’t. He felt sticky with sweat from the mad dash and subsequent fight with the hunter, the pulse of adrenaline fading and making his joints stiffen. The room felt stifling around him, and the silence of being alone closed in, making him feel like he couldn’t breathe.
He jumped off the bed and tore over to his window, throwing it open to gulp in some of the cooler, spring air. It helped—marginally. Then he heard a stuttered breath. A whimper.
“Em?” he whispered, even though he knew the voice didn’t sound like Emery, but who else would be out on Connor’s roof?
His bedroom window opened up onto an overhang, offering access to the upward slant that led to the main roof. He’d been chastised more times than he could count when he was younger for climbing out there, but in recent years his parents had given up thinking he didn’t sneak out on occasion. Sometimes he and Emery would lie up there under the stars, usually on summer nights with nothing else to do but keep each other company.
Life as a Teenage Vampire Page 14
