Heartbeat (Morta Fox Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  The human. Whose heartbeat I didn’t feel against my back.

  My eyes popped open, and I inhaled deeply. That was enough to tell me that I wasn’t being dragged by a human. I was hanging limply in Hammer’s arms.

  I knew his scent of honey and citrus the second it touched my nostrils. So I closed my eyes again and let go.

  I trusted him, more than I liked to admit. Maybe I trusted that he needed my help to find my Lord. Either way, all thoughts of being captured and tortured by humans left me as soon as I knew it was him dragging me. I realized it wasn’t safe to put your trust in someone like that, let alone a vampire. But who else did I have? Hammer was going to kill me after I found my Lord. I was aware and welcoming of that.

  When cold air touched my skin and its freshness filled my lungs, I opened my eyes again. There was only darkness around me, but we were outside. Hammer stopped dragging me. I heard voices. Human voices coming from all sides. I felt the folders slip from my arms, but I couldn’t see where they went. I felt so heavy…because of the sun. The sun was rising.

  Hammer appeared in front of me and put my arms around his neck. My chest pressed against his back.

  “Hold on tight. Can you do that?” he whispered. It actually felt very nice to rest my head on his shoulder blades. I didn’t speak, but I wrapped my arms tighter around him. He took my legs around his hips. He held my ankles together, and I didn’t have time to even think about smiling before he started to run.

  Wind blew all over me and removed the rubber band that held my hair in place. He was running so fast that I was having trouble breathing. By instinct, I buried my face on the back of his neck right under his hair, and I tightened my grip as much as I could. I loved the feeling of being pressed against him.

  The sunrays felt like they were winking at me as they slowly rose. I didn’t know where we were, but Hammer was still running like mad.

  When the sun was about to rise, I realized that everything looked better. Simpler, not complicated. In that moment it didn’t matter that Hammer was a vampire who was going to have to kill me, sooner or later. It only mattered that I liked to be held by him and rest my head on his body.

  XIV

  Whispers reached my ears before my eyes opened. I recognized Bugz’s voice immediately. She was trying to keep her voice down, but I could still hear her. I was lying on a cold, concrete, muddy floor, but my head was resting on something soft. Hammer’s leather jacket.

  They were both a floor under me, and they were fighting.

  “She nearly got us both killed,” Bugz whispered. I knew she was talking about me, and suddenly, what happened the night before came back to me.

  She was right. I would never admit it, but she was right. I nearly got them both killed.

  “She didn’t get us killed,” Hammer said in a defeated voice. “She got the files, didn’t she?”

  “You know very well that if it wasn’t for me and you, she’d have never made it out of there alive,” Bugz hissed. So it was them that had come to help me. Why was I even surprised?

  “Yeah, so?” Hammer mumbled.

  “So? So?!” Bugz raised her voice. “Who the hell is she? I mean, I’ve never seen you like this. It’s like you…care—”

  “You can come down now, Morta,” Hammer cut her off. It took me a second to understand his words. I squeezed my eyes shut and slammed my head to the wall a couple of times before I went downstairs.

  Hammer was leaning against the wall with his hand wrapped around his chin while Bugz paced in front of him from one corner of the house to the other. The room was big and completely empty. The folders rested on the floor by Hammer’s feet together with two bottles of whiskey. My whiskey.

  I ran to them first, but I was too embarrassed to look up at Hammer. I wasn’t supposed to hear Bugz’s speech. She said care like it was a bad word, like it was the most incredible thing she’d ever said. But the point was, did he really care about me?

  “Well, you are very welcome, Morta, for having me run like a monkey in front of soldiers that have guns that could make me disappear in a second, just to save your ass. Don’t even mention it. It was nothing!” Bugz hissed.

  I didn’t mean to be a bitch, really. But my brows shot up and my mouth spoke before I could stop it.

  “I don’t remember asking for your help, Bugz, so whatever you did, you did it all by yourself.”

  She started to laugh, looking up at the ceiling. “Would you look at that? Not only is she stupid, she’s ungrateful as well!”

  She did not just call me stupid.

  I moved way too fast to give my brain time to register what I was doing, but I successfully held my hands down and not around her throat when I stopped in front of her face. Hammer was by my side the next second.

  “Okay, this is—” he started to say but I wasn’t going to let him finish.

  “Listen to me, you filthy vampire. I don’t care who the hell you think you’re talking to, but I will not put up with your bullshit. I’m a month old, keep that in mind. You can bet your ass that you couldn’t have done half the things I did in there when you were my age! So don’t you dare lecture me about ungratefulness! I didn’t ask you to come with us to Boston or to help me. I’m not asking you to stay here now.”

  I was tempted to give her a push, just to tell her that she should leave, right now. But I didn’t think Hammer would appreciate that. He’d been awfully quiet throughout my speech, and frankly, I didn’t remember half the things I said to her, but I blamed it on the anger. And then Hammer started to laugh.

  Why the hell was he laughing? I still couldn’t take my eyes off Bugz, and she just kept staring back with her lips parted.

  I took my bottle, and I ran upstairs again.

  “Did she just say filthy vampire?” she said to Hammer. I was sure she knew I could hear her. That only made Hammer laugh louder. “She did…she called me a filthy vampire,” Bugz continued in wonder. And then she started to giggle. I couldn't believe how weird they were.

  “You’re a filthy vampire, too! Keep that in mind!” she called to me. She was right, of course. I was just as much a monster as she was.

  I stood by the cracked window and sipped my whiskey. There were humans out there, which told me that we were close to the wall. Hammer probably didn’t make it far before the sun rose all the way.

  I couldn’t believe how much he risked for me. Twice now he risked exposure to the sun to get me to safety. Something tightened my chest when I thought about that. And that was all I could think about for a while.

  Until I heard steps and then the door behind me closed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me, though he saw that I was fine. I felt so fucking terrible. My chagrin wouldn’t let me turn to face him. And so I did what I always did when I felt trapped.

  “What? You, too, want to tell me that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you two?” I hissed.

  “What? No…Morta, you’re being ridiculous.” He seemed sincere, but I had twenty years of life behind me. Twenty years of never being able to trust anyone but myself. Twenty years of hearing not one single sincere word from anyone. So in my mind, I thought it reasonable that I simply didn’t know how to deal with something like that.

  “Oh, I’m being ridiculous? I went inside the ROB building! All by myself, to help you find my Lord.” I wanted to shout, but my voice stayed its same cold self.

  “You wanted to go all by yourself,” he said and came closer to me.

  “And you let me!” I turned around to face him when he came close enough.

  “What the hell are you saying?! I just asked you if you were okay!” He looked like he wanted to hit something, his amber eyes getting darker and darker as he watched me, unbelieving of what I was saying.

  “I’m fine!” I yelled.

  “Then why the hell are you yelling at me?”

  My God, I couldn’t believe how incredibly gorgeous his small, full mouth was, and I couldn’t believe how much he pissed me off.<
br />
  “Because,” I said, too stubborn to admit that it was my fault. “She’s just…I didn’t freaking ask her…”

  “That doesn’t mean you can throw what she did out the window.”

  “She had no right to yell at me like that! I had just woken up, and she didn’t even give me the chance…”

  “What, to say thanks? Would you have said thanks, Morta? Would you?” I hated that he knew my head so well.

  “I didn’t ask her…” I started again, because there really wasn’t anything else I could say.

  “You didn’t ask me, either. Does that mean I should’ve just left you there to die?”

  That made me flinch, and he saw it. For a second, the thoughts from last night, the images that passed through my mind of people capturing me and torturing me, passed in front of my eyes.

  “You know very well why you didn’t want to leave me there to die,” I said.

  He needed me to find my Lord, and he knew I knew it. His eyes widened, and his hands clenched into fists. I couldn’t believe I just said that to him.

  But then again, I couldn’t believe I was even thinking that way. Sure, he might’ve saved my life more times than I could count, but he did so because we made a deal. A deal he couldn’t break.

  “Is that what you think?” he asked me in barely a whisper. I turned my back to him. “Do you think I would’ve risked my life, over and over again just so I could get to kill you myself? Do you think I’m stupid?”

  I moved so fast, I practically disappeared and appeared again in front of him, too close to his face.

  “Then, why? Why do you do it? Why do you save me?”

  He didn’t move away from me. He just watched me watch him. I was dying from curiosity to know what was on his mind. I wanted to rip him apart as much as I wanted him to hug me. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder and just forget about all that happened, just like last night before unconsciousness took me.

  But never in a million years did I expect him to kiss me. Which is exactly what he did.

  Air left my body, and my mind went completely blank. I felt like I simply ceased to exist. I didn’t move, though I wanted to either push him away or wrap my arms around him. I could do neither because two very important and contradictory thoughts were fighting with me in my mind. But I had never, ever, experienced something like this. It was as if I was wind. Not seen, not touched, just felt.

  And then he let go of me and took a step back. He looked at me like he was expecting me to say something. But what could I say? That that was the most amazing thing I’d ever experienced in my miserable, pathetic life? Or that I felt like I should’ve been nailed to a cross for enjoying it so goddamn much?

  “I didn’t…” he started to say in a whisper, but he didn’t finish, which left me a lot of space to fill in the blank.

  He didn’t mean to? He didn’t want to? He didn’t think through what he was doing? But each answer to those questions was the same. It was a mistake, something he did on impulse.

  “Then don’t,” I said, and forced myself to look at him. “Ever again.”

  XV

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Bugz said from behind me.

  I was about to jump off the window of the fourth floor. I was just sick of standing there by myself, drinking, listening to them whisper a floor below. It felt like they were talking about me, and when they laughed every now and then, I wanted to explode. So I thought, why not take a walk? I didn’t want to go downstairs to even see what I’d brought back from the ROB, or if Everard’s name was in the files at all. I had no idea what they were planning to do, but it was already midnight and I knew that we weren't moving at least for another night.

  “Well, you’re not me,” I said and jumped on the ledge outside the window.

  “You know, you don’t have to be like this,” she said and pushed the door closed. I had no idea where Hammer was, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he went out to feed.

  “You don’t get to tell me how to be or not.”

  “You act like the whole world hates you. You don’t see what’s in front of you,” she said with a deep sigh.

  “Oh, you’re lecturing me again? Did Hammer put you up to this? Your opinion isn’t needed, in case you didn’t notice,” I spit coldly.

  I just didn’t want to see her. How dare she tell me how I act? She didn’t know the first thing about me. She was right; I knew the whole world hated me. But that didn’t mean that she knew how it felt.

  “Stop being so blind, for God’s sake!” she yelled.

  “Trust me, I see much clearer than you do.”

  I knew what I was, and I knew how I needed to end up, as opposed to her. And Hammer. And probably every other monster out there.

  “Then what the hell are you doing?”

  “I just want to go for a walk,” I said. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

  “No, I mean with him. What the hell are you doing with him? Can't you see? The things he does for you, he’s never done them for anyone before. And you don’t even ask or appreciate them.”

  “You have no idea what I appreciate or not,” I said and jumped back in the room.

  “He cares about you, Morta. I sure as hell can't understand it, but I have never seen him—”

  “You don’t know a thing about me and Hammer. You don’t know his motives like I do. Just stay out of this, Bugz.”

  I didn’t intend for my words to sound like a warning but they did come out that way. She had no idea what she was talking about. She didn’t know that we made a deal. She didn’t know that Hammer saved me just so he could have me find my Lord. She didn’t know that he gave his word to kill me after I did. So her words meant nothing to me.

  “You know what? Fine! Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said before she disappeared out the door.

  I shut the window and sat on the floor again, bottle in hand. Why the hell did she have to come and mess with my head? It wasn’t making any sense to me. This wasn’t a love story. This was a horror story with a happy ending, where the bad guy dies at the end. The bad guy being myself. So why did I feel like my story had taken a whole new direction? A direction at the end of which stood a beautiful monster I couldn’t get my mind off of.

  XVI

  Back on the road. Running like mad, I stayed a little behind at all times. Let the two of them have their space. They both hated me anyway.

  That night, after the discussion I had with Bugz, we hit the road immediately. Hammer came back from his feeding session after he saw soldiers, hundreds of them leaving the wall, guns in hand.

  Looked like Bugz had caused a lot of trouble and they were still on alert. So we ran to Hammer’s place. I took the same old room I occupied the last time I was there, and I didn’t speak to either of them. I avoided them as much as I could, but bottles of wine kept me company since my whiskey had run out.

  Tonight, we stocked up and left as soon as we woke up, just as planned. According to what Bugz told me, the files I took from the ROB were a huge help. They didn’t specifically state Everard’s name, but they reported about a highly dangerous vampire caught in New York on the same day Hammer heard that Everard was captured. We had to assume it was him. And so we were on our way again.

  Hammer barely looked at me throughout this time. Yet, even without talking, he made sure I had a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a filled bottle with me at all times. I hated that he came to my room before we left and gave me a makeshift bag filled with wine. He just tied it around my hips and left the room. The worst thing of all was that I knew I was guilty. I never did handle guilt that well. So, instead of trying to speak to him, I cut him off completely.

  But I missed him. Missed our talks, but mostly, I missed our fighting. I missed his easygoing nature and his laugh, even his teasing. Still, I was too stubborn to admit it.

  “Four, five…eight!” Bugz whispered. I was running three steps behind them, but I heard her, though I had no idea what she m
eant. “Divide. We meet east,” she whispered, and then just like that, she turned to her right and ran in the other direction.

  “What the hell just happened?” I asked Hammer.

  He stopped and grabbed my arm before I could pass right by him. I was still looking in the direction Bugz had disappeared.

  “Be as silent as you can. Follow me,” he mouthed without making a single sound. And then Bugz’s words made sense to me. Eight. Eight vampires were around us. I turned to look at all sides, my old friend threatening to freeze my limbs.

  Hammer took me to the left behind a broken building. Not even the first floor stood anymore. I didn’t know what to do so I just watched Hammer. He had his eyes pinned to the darkness, and he didn’t make a single move. He was listening to whoever was around us. I tried that, too, but his hearing was considerably better than mine so I didn’t catch anything.

  “They’re moving away…” he said, and the word fell short from his tongue. He turned and looked at my chest, and darkness covered his light eyes.

  Oh shit. My heart. They had heard my heart.

  “Run,” Hammer whispered and almost tore my arm from my torso when he pulled me from our hiding place and to the other side of the road. I followed him and held his hand tightly. He was a bit faster than me but held on and pulled me. I gave it my best, concentrating only on my feet and legs, urging them to move faster and faster.

  This was a big deal. I could see it by the way Hammer ran. But I couldn’t let myself go there. I just focused on my legs.

  And then I heard them, too. I turned my head while I ran, and I really shouldn’t have done that. Four vampires were running after us, their eyes black and their teeth sharp and bare. They were as fast as Hammer, but I was slowing him down. He kept holding on to me. The vampires, the way they looked while they chased us—I was sure they were trouble.