Heartbeat (Morta Fox Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “What the hell do I need to do around here to get some sense into that thick skull of yours?” Bugz didn’t waste a second.

  “You’re overreacting,” Hammer mumbled while he walked right past her and came to me, a smile already playing on his beautiful lips.

  “Hey,” he said and stopped too close to me. I didn’t even mind, which wasn’t exactly all right. “I got you new things.”

  He handed me something. A black plastic bag I hadn't even noticed in his hand. Guess I was caught up looking at his face, and everything else blurred.

  “I got everything I could find. Go try them on before we leave,” he said, the smile never leaving his face. I didn’t know what to say.

  “You have got to be shitting me…”Bugz whispered.

  Hammer leaned close to my ear. “Go,” he mouthed.

  But I wasn’t about to. No, I was about to shout at Bugz again, but he disappeared from in front of me and went to her side.

  “You and I are going to have a talk,” he said.

  He sounded like someone else all of a sudden, not the guy who gave me clothes seconds ago. But I grinned at Bugz’s face. She was going to get her share of Hammer, and I didn’t even have to bother. I headed back to the basement.

  “I can't believe I’m saying this, but I think I liked Chandra better…” she mumbled while she followed Hammer into the darkness. And there was nothing I could’ve possibly thought to say to that.

  The clothes Hammer got me didn’t all fit. But I got two more pairs of pants, one of them crazy cool jeans, ripped around the knees, color faded blue. They became my favorite item of things I owned. I got three more blouses and a shawl. It was red and matched my lipstick perfectly. I put it on, together with the jeans and a white, long sleeved blouse with a tiger face printed on the front. I hadn't been dressed better since before my house burned down.

  The rest of the things that fit me went into my bag before I went out again. Hammer and Bugz were nowhere in sight. I listened as far as I could, but I got nothing.

  I stuck around and drank whiskey, because I had nothing else to do. I was dying for a cigarette, but Hammer hadn’t left me any. Time passed, and the beautiful moon moved in the dark, cloudy sky as my impatience grew. I didn’t want to go find them, afraid of what I might hear when close enough, but I couldn’t take standing there, doing nothing, fearing that some vampire might come after me. So I took my bottle and the bag, and I started forward.

  Good luck isn’t really my thing, but that night, I considered the fact that I stayed behind to be very lucky. Because the second I took the first step forward, something whistled from behind me.

  I hid behind an old, green car to the side of the road. When I looked back, I almost peed my pants.

  Four cars, huge and deep blue, filled with six RO soldiers each, were driving very slowly, coming my way.

  And then they stopped. One soldier got out of the first car and threw something that flew right past me and another fifteen feet ahead. It was a metal ball, small enough to hold in my palm, with a green light blinking right in the middle.

  I held my breath and waited, sure that there would be an explosion. I looked back at the soldier, who held a small device with a screen.

  “Clear for another mile,” he whispered to his colleagues. He got in the car again.

  I looked back at the beeping green light coming from too far away, and I knew that it was the same as the devices that the soldiers had attached to their belts. The triangle-shaped ones. Only this small ball was something else. They threw it, and it searched a whole mile around it for vampires. I saw the guns they were each holding. Snipers. They didn’t even have to get close to shoot. Oh, shit.

  Hammer and Bugz weren't even going to hear them coming.

  Suddenly, the idea of killing them all came to mind. They’d never see me coming. Their machines couldn’t detect me.

  But, of course, I came to my senses soon after. I had to wait until the four cars passed right by the one I was hiding behind, before I ran as fast as I could into the darkness.

  I ran even faster than I did last night when five vampires were on my tail. While I begged my legs to move faster, another ball, just like the first one I’d seen, flew right by me, but its light never changed. It remained green.

  I heard Hammer’s voice. I passed the ball and thanked God for the darkness. If there had been just a little light, they would’ve seen me running. They’d see a silhouette at least.

  “… I don’t know why I even bother,” I heard Bugz’s voice, so she could hear me, too. The problem was, they were shouting.

  “Hammer…” I started with a whisper. “Hammer, humans are coming your way. You need to run left and get high.”

  A second passed, and no answer.

  “Hammer, please,” I pleaded, raising my voice. I needed him to live. He had to kill me. He had to stick with me until we found my Lord, and then he had to end me. He couldn’t die now.

  They were closing in on us, and I heard the ball fall, no more than ten feet away from me. They were too close. Impatience got the best of me.

  “Hammer!” I shouted. “Run! Left, up!”

  I cursed both him and Bugz for going so goddamn far. What did they think, that I was going to try to eavesdrop on their conversation?

  “Morta…” Hammer said my name, and relief covered me from head to toe. He heard me.

  “Let’s go,” Bugz said next, and when I finally heard them run, for no more than three seconds before they became thin air, I stopped. I almost slammed my head against a brick wall.

  “We got movement! Stay alert!”

  I hid inside a building nearby. Now, I just had to sit tight and wait for them to pass me.

  The soldiers took their time to check everything, and I got stuck in the building for almost an hour. They were being extra cautious. The second they turned their backs on me and got into their cars, I jumped off the building and I ran. I didn’t know how I was going to find Hammer, but I just kept running until I was sure that I was at least ten miles away from them. I concentrated only on my hearing.

  Nothing.

  Panic started to fill my lungs like the air I breathed. I couldn’t stand there, which probably would’ve been the best idea. But I couldn’t just stay there. So I ran again. I ran and ran, without any idea where the hell I was going. At some point, I even embraced the possibility of running into vampires. Big vampires that wanted to kill me. This time, there would be no Hammer to throw me away and fight in my place.

  Just as the thought left my mind, I heard steps. Lighter than those of a normal vampire, but still steps. I stopped, heart in my throat.

  It’s fine, I told myself. I could handle my own. And I would.

  But then, I heard the heartbeats, and I almost cried in joy. They were humans!

  Or so I thought before I turned around and saw.

  They weren’t humans.

  They were lions.

  Lions that were almost as tall as I was, with their dirty, greasy fur around their beautiful, terrifying faces and yellow eyes. I asked myself: what do you do when three lions are in front of you, looking at you like a giant piece of steak, dripping fresh blood, and you could read the desire in their yellow eyes from ten feet away?

  The answer was simple. You run.

  I turned and jumped forward and screamed in terror from the growl that blew my hair away, coming from the fourth lion, the one that had been standing behind me. I hadn’t even heard him at all. And now they had me surrounded.

  Another one growled. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying. There was nowhere to go. No buildings to jump on for at least twenty feet on each side. And when they started to step towards me, I wished I had kept the knives I took off my body and Hammer’s the night before.

  Enough wishful thinking. I was there, all alone against four big lions. I’d seen lions before at the Boston zoo, and even they had scared me, but I had my teeth now. I felt them sharpen immediately, as if getting ready for bat
tle.

  I opened my mouth to show them that I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

  But nothing could’ve prepared me for when the first one jumped at me. Claws in front, they would’ve torn me apart if I hadn’t jumped to the side in the last second. Now was time to recognize the speed of my body and the strength of it, and for the first time, I was hoping it was as good as I was expecting it to be. I pushed my foot up and caught the lion’s ass. He jumped. No, he flew to the side and spun twice before he was able to get up on all fours again.

  The others got mad. Their anger showed clearly when they jumped at me together, all at once. I threw myself back and landed only a step away from them, but it was enough to encourage me. I had made it out of the circle they’d put me in, and I could run.

  The problem was, they could run, too. Just as fast as I could. I wasn’t catching any break.

  Pain sliced through my butt cheeks, a hundred times worse than the knives. I lost balance and fell on my face, but I had been running too fast, so I rolled and rolled and rolled until the pain completely stopped. Another fucking pair of pants.

  The fucker had scratched me, right under my butt cheeks. When I finally stopped spinning, I rose to my feet and turned around to wait for them. Apparently, running wasn’t getting me anywhere. So, feeling braver than reasonable, I put my fists forward and aimed for the first open-mouthed lion that jumped at me.

  I hit it right in the jaw. One of its teeth made a huge hole through my palm, but still. It healed fast, and the lion fell back, growling in pain. With the next one, I wasn’t so lucky. I tried to hit him, but I got thrown back instead. I could swear my ribs broke, but it was a good thing I healed fast.

  The second and the third came at me, fast and angry, and I prepared both my fists again.

  Come on, come on, come on…

  They never came. Hammer’s body simply appeared in front of me, and taking all the fun away from me, he charged at the lions, and they fell back much farther than the one I’d thrown.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I hissed, pushing his back. I saw Bugz grinning to the side. She had the third lion hooked with her glowing dark eyes, and they circled each other, each one convinced they had the upper hand. And then Hammer grabbed my arm, and he pulled me forward.

  “They’ll catch us!” I said. I’d tried running before, but I ended up ruining my new jeans. But Hammer didn’t stop. He kept running and running into the darkness, and then he jumped up.

  Since my hand was in his, I got pulled without any warning and fell on a hard surface, face first.

  The pain was incredible, but I thanked God a million times that it stopped exactly three seconds after it started.

  “Come on, we need to jump from building to building until we lose them,” Hammer said.

  “They can run as fast as I do. I was going to fight them—”

  “You don’t fight lions, Morta,” he said like I was supposed to know that.

  “You do if you have no other choice. I ran and they caught me. I was doing fine on my own. I knocked one out, didn’t I?” I hissed.

  “We’ll talk when we’re safe,” he said, and took my hand again to jump to another, lower roof ahead.

  XXI

  I fell asleep on his back again. By the time the sun was less than five minutes away from taking over the deserted, burned and practically dead view in front of me, my legs gave up on me.

  But Hammer didn’t. He put my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his hips, and he ran. I couldn’t see where we were, though the picture was brighter than it had been all night in front of me.

  When I woke up, he was there, too. Even unconscious, it was as if I knew I’d see him when my eyes opened, and I couldn’t wait for it to happen. But I almost jumped back when I saw him leaning against a dark red, faded wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest, watching me. Just…watching me. And smiling, but only a crooked half-smile.

  “Hey,” I breathed. I tried to straighten my hair with my fingers, because I had the impression that it was all over the place. Luckily, it didn’t feel that bad.

  “Morning,” he said, and his smile only grew. I looked around to find something to distract myself with, to get a moment to catch my breath before I turned back to the intensity of his gaze.

  But I saw nothing. I even tried to take in my surroundings, but all I could concentrate on were his eyes.

  Finally, I had to give in. That didn’t mean I got any more comfortable.

  “You’re staring at me,” I mumbled, pretending to move around as if I was looking to make myself stand straighter.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in all of my three hundred years,” he said, his voice as light as a summer breeze, piercing the air in the humid night, and blowing on my face. My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know how to react properly so I reacted in the only way I knew how.

  “I’m not a thing,” I said, but it didn’t come off as dryly as it should have. It was merely a pathetic whisper. I was unable to give more. And when he started to laugh, I couldn’t keep my eyes on the ground anymore. I had to look up at his shining face and his perfect, small mouth.

  “Figures that’s the only thing you’d hear,” he said before he dragged himself the few steps it took to get to me. I wanted to move away out of sheer awkwardness, because I didn’t know what to do. How to act. But I couldn’t. Good thing he put his arm around me and pulled me to his shoulder because my body immediately started to relax.

  “I got chased by lions,” I stated in pure wonder. I didn’t think I could get any more surprised after that.

  “Yeah, four big lions,” Hammer said, nodding his head before he started to draw circles on the surface of my arm with his fingertips.

  “I didn’t know they came around these parts.”

  “Not normally, but they must’ve lost their way or something. Looking to feed,” he said. “By the way, what the hell did you think you were doing, stopping there in front of them?”

  “I had it under control.”

  I hadn’t had anything under control. If he hadn't come, I would’ve been dead by now. Eaten by lions. What a weird way to die that would’ve been.

  “Sure you did.”

  “I did,” I insisted. “I told you before, I can take care of myself.”

  “You know there’s nothing wrong with needing help every once in a while, right?”

  “I know that.”

  I didn’t know that. All my life I learned to always depend on my own strength.

  “Then stop trying to kill me every time I save your ass.”

  I heard the smile in his voice, but that didn’t stop me.

  “I don’t ask you to save me, Hammer. I didn’t ask you the first time, and I didn’t ask you the last.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m still glad I did.”

  He gave me a small peck on the top of my head. It felt weird on so many levels fighting him while at the same time lying against his shoulder, wrapped in his strong arms. But normal didn’t fit anywhere in my dictionary so I didn’t let myself look into it too much.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  The hand that was slowly caressing my arm stopped.

  “Really?” he whispered. And I asked myself the same question. Really, Morta?

  “Seems so,” I mumbled and buried my face under his neck. It was just too much embarrassment to face something I was so dead set against just a few days ago.

  Unfortunately, a few days ago I didn’t know I could actually feel for another being. True, I did feel for Hammer the second I saw him. But that was pure lust. What I felt that morning, or night, while lying there in his embrace was so much more than lust. It was trust and safeness and almost a sense of joy.

  “Are we…are we leaving soon?” I said, thoughts of Brazil still a little blurry in my mind. I wondered where Bugz was, since I knew she was coming with us. But Hammer didn’t answer me.

  “You saved me last night. Both of us,�
� he said instead.

  “It was no biggie.”

  I didn’t want him to thank me. I couldn’t handle it. I just couldn’t. He must’ve gotten it from the way my body stiffened at only imagining it, because he switched topics, saving me from a whole lot of…even weirder emotions.

  “What were those things they were throwing?” he asked me.

  “Balls. I don’t know, I didn’t see one from close up. They were small and round with a green light in the middle, something like an eye. The soldiers threw them in front and waited until it told them that there was nothing within a mile around.”

  “Interesting,” he whispered.

  “What? You didn’t know about them? I thought you knew everything about the humans,” I said.

  “I do know a lot, but I’ve never heard of these things. Must be new,” he said, and shivered. “They were looking for us.”

  “Do you think they saw us?” I asked, heart in my throat. I wasn’t ready to start running again. At least not so soon.

  “No, I don’t think so. They were just looking for vampires around,” he said.

  I rested my cheek against his chest again.

  “Morta, you…” he continued, his voice changed. He was back to being the sweet, good-hearted man he must’ve been before he turned.

  “What?”

  He sat up straighter and took me with him, both hands wrapped around my shoulders as if to keep me there.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You said some things last night. To me,” he said, an almost sorry look on his face.

  Weird. I didn’t remember saying anything after I leaned on his shoulders while he still ran with me on his back.

  “What things?”

  “You said you…”

  He stopped again. He sighed and leaned back against the wall, but he didn’t pull me with him.

  “What did I say, Hammer?” This couldn’t possibly be good.

  “You said you didn’t want to die.”

  Holy hell. My eyes closed, but I forced them open the next second. And then I tried to play it for a joke.