bag. “Wish we could see what he has in there,” Cecile
murmured, as he got back into his car and pulled away. We
followed after him again.
Part of me wanted to snap at her, or maybe laugh at
her, but there was part of me that agreed. What one thing had
he gone to the store for? It seemed like there was a lot to learn from that little piece of information.
Oh, God. I was being obsessive.
I wished suddenly that I’d had more experience with
guys, so I could at least reassure myself that it was definitely
Cryder’s vagueness and mystery that was making me act this
way. That this wasn’t something about me. I didn’t want to be
the kind of girl who stalked my boyfriends, looking for
something to be wrong. I wanted to trust them.
I wanted to trust him.
“Maybe we should just go home,” I told Cecile.
She turned onto an empty street. “Shit.”
“Where’d he go?”
“I lost him.” She pounded the steering wheel in
frustration. “I knew we should’ve stayed on his tail.”
“Turn left here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I’m guessing.” If we didn’t find him,
we’d go home, I promised myself.
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Cecile swung the wheel—
BLAM! There was a sound like a gunshot, or an
explosion. The car veered precariously. A scream erupted, too,
and it took me a second to realize it was coming from me.
“Rena, calm down!” Cecile had both hands on the
wheel. “It’s a blowout. It’s okay.” A moment later the car was
stopped, and her hands were on my arms. “Hey. It’s fine. Just
the tire. We’re fine.”
I forced my breathing to return to normal. “I hate cars.”
It came out in a gasp.
“I know.” She squeezed my hands.
“Do you know how to change a tire?”
“I’ll call AAA”
Three sharp raps came on the window. My gaze darted
up. Cecile turned and rolled the window down just a crack.
“Need a hand, ladies?”
I sucked in a breath. It was the guy from the bookstore,
the linebacker type I’d met right before meeting Cryder.
“I’m Bristol,” he said, and smiled, showing all his teeth.
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
Chapter Eight
“WE"VE GOT THIS UNDER CONTROL,” CECILE
said. I could almost see her hackles go up. She hated unsolicited offers of help from men, never mind the fact that we actually
didn’t know how to change the tire and, if it weren’t for her
AAA membership, help would’ve been something we could
really use right now. It was the kind of thing that would’ve
annoyed me under ordinary circumstances—really, I’m a
feminist too, but there’s a time and a place—but Bristol creeped
me out so much that I was glad she was dismissing him.
“You sure?” He stepped back a little, toward the tire and
out of my view. “This is pretty bad. I think your rim might be
bent.”
“Shit. Really?” Cecile got out of the car. Immediately I
felt uneasy. I didn’t trust him alone with her. I scrambled out
the passenger door and around to where they were standing,
eyeing the blown tire critically.
“Look here,” he said, tracing a finger along the side of
the wheel. “See how it’s a little caved in?”
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“Not really…”
Bristol looked up at me, and for the first time I noticed
how dark his eyes were. I almost couldn’t make out the irises at
all. I didn’t remember this from our bookstore encounter.
Hadn’t his eyes looked more normal then? I wasn’t sure. “How
about you?” he asked. “You see it, right?”
I crouched down beside him to examine the wheel. “I’m
not sure.”
“AAA will handle it for us,” Cecile said firmly.
“I could do it.” Bristol’s face stretched into a smile that
seemed vaguely menacing. Was it just me? “Wouldn’t charge
you anything.”
“No thank you.”
“I’ll wait with you, then,” he suggested, rising smoothly
to his feet. “Two young girls shouldn’t be alone on the side of
the road.”
“We’re fine, thanks.”
“No, no. I really wouldn’t feel right.”
I started to stand up, to back Cecile up in her insistence
that we were fine on our own—this wasn’t exactly a bad
neighborhood, and anyway, it was daytime, for God’s sake—
but before I could rise, a couple of dark spots on the cuffs of
Bristol’s pants caught my eye.
Red spots.
The same red I’d seen on my fingers on my date with
Cryder.
Blood.
Oh, God. Could Bristol be the murderer? Suddenly my
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
thoughts were racing. I’d met him just before meeting
Cryder—Cryder, who was acting incredibly strange about the
entire incident, who had been nothing but vague and
suspicious with me. What if they knew each other? What if
Cryder was protecting Bristol, and that’s why he’d been so
hesitant to call the police? Or what if. .what if they were in
cahoots?
And here we were, stranded, alone with Bristol.
I edged close to Cecile. “Can we talk for a second?”
“What’s up?”
“Um.” I had to think fast, to come up with something
that wouldn’t make him suspect. “I need a tampon.” That
ought to put him off. Boys couldn’t handle periods, everyone
knew that.
“I think there’s one in my purse,” Cecile said.
“Great, would you mind?”
“You can get it.”
Oh my God, could she be more difficult? “I don’t want
to go in your purse, Cecile.” I met her gaze and widened my
eyes, hoping she’d understand what I meant—that there was
something I wasn’t saying right now. If she pointed out that
we went into each other’s purses all the time, I’d be screwed.
The pause was excruciating. Then, “Okay. Come on, I’ll
see if I have something for you.”
I followed her around the car, heart in my throat. Cecile
opened the back door and we both leaned in. “What’s up?” she
hissed. “This isn’t really about a tampon, is it?”
“No. It’s Bristol. He has blood on his pants.”
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“What are you saying?”
“I think he might be the murderer, Cecile.”
She stared. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I met him once before and he was super shady then.
He doesn’t go to our school even though he’s the right age.
Now he shows up and wants to hang out with us while we’re
stranded? This feels really dangerous, Cecile. I think we need to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave the car!”
“AAA’s coming. Lock it and we’ll run. Into the woods,
okay? When we’re safe we’ll call AAA and explain what
happened.”
“Fuck.” She exhaled hard. “H
e is creepy.”
“We need to move now before he catches on.”
“Okay. Okay.”
We backed slowly out of the car. I put my hand on the
open passenger door and mimed slamming it, then pointed to
the woods behind us.
Cecile nodded.
I held up one finger. She palmed her key fob, her
thumb over the lock button.
I held up my second finger.
We both breathed in.
SLAM!
The door locks beeped as Cecile pressed down on the
key fob, but I was already in a dead sprint. I heard her behind
me, gasping, her footfalls heavy against the packed earth. I
couldn’t tell if Bristol was following us or not, but I didn’t dare
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
look back. Main Street was on the other side of these woods,
about a quarter mile from where we’d left the car. If we
reached it, we’d be surrounded by people. We’d be safe.
Run, Rena. Keep going.
I wasn’t an athlete. I’d never been able to run long
distances, and when we did the mile run in gym class I usually
finished near the end. Cecile would have been surpassing me
easily right about now, except she was wearing heels. I
wondered if she’d had the sense to kick them off when we left
the car. Running barefoot through the woods certainly wasn’t
ideal either, though. Her feet could be getting all cut up.
Again, I was tempted to look behind me, to make sure my
friend was keeping up. But I didn’t dare.
Then I heard a roar of outrage. The voice was deep and
powerful and definitely didn’t belong to Cecile. Bristol. So, he
was chasing us. Which meant. .which meant he had to be the
murderer. If he was truly just a friendly passerby trying to help us with a flat tire, he’d be baffled by our flight. He wouldn’t be in pursuit. I felt a fleeting sense of vindication—we were right to run—followed by abject terror. A murderer was chasing us
through the woods. I bore down and tried to run faster, but my
breath burned in my lungs and my torso felt like one giant
cramp. I was going to give out soon.
We’re not going to make it.
Cecile’s breathing had taken on a sort of whimper, and
I wondered if she was starting to wear out too or if she’d hurt
herself. If she fell, there was no way I’d be able to carry her and keep up anything resembling my current pace. We must be
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almost to town, right? I thought desperately. But the truth was, I had no clear idea of how far we’d come or how far we had yet
to go. Worse yet, I didn’t know how close Bristol was. For all I
knew his hand could grab my shoulder, pulling me back
toward him, at any moment. Never in my life, not even when
I’d woken up alone in the hospital after my parents’ car crash,
could I remember feeling such abject terror.
I had to know. I risked a glance over my shoulder.
There was Cecile, right on my heels, her face contorted almost
unrecognizably by fear and exertion. I didn’t see Bristol, which
gave me a moment of relief, but then he roared again. It
sounded closer than before.
A fresh thrill of fear shot through me. He’s gaining on us.
Suddenly my body pitched forward. I jerked my head
back around as the ground rushed up to meet me. I tried to
take the impact on my hands, but my forward momentum
propelled me over and into a roll. I came up on my knees,
vaguely aware that my palms were skinned and full of dirt. In
some far corner of my mind that wasn’t swamped with fear, I
was surprised it didn’t hurt more…
Then I saw what I’d tripped over.
A girl lay on the ground, limbs sprawled awkwardly
around her, hair tangled and dirty. She was about my own age,
probably, and so pale that she was almost translucent. A split
second later I saw the blood, cold and tacky, on her neck and
shoulder. Her eyes were slightly open. She didn’t move.
She was dead.
“Oh my God.” Cecile’s voice came from behind me,
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
wavering all over the place. “Is that Caitlin Bessier?”
I looked again. Caitlin was a year behind us in school,
and I didn’t know her well. She was a lively, bouncy, flirtatious girl, always immaculately dressed and wearing a dazzling
smile. It was hard to square that image with this pale, lifeless
girl. Still… “I think that’s her skirt. I think I’ve seen her
wearing that.”
“Shit,” Cecile breathed.
I got my feet under me. “We have to go. We have to go
now.”
Cecile squatted down. “Rena, look at this.”
“Cecile!”
“Look.”
It was her I’m-not-taking-no-for-an-answer tone, and I
knew it would be fastest not to argue. I bent down. Cecile had
lifted a clump of Caitlin’s hair away from her neck. “What is
that?”
I stared. Two small wounds, each about the size of my
smallest fingernail, sat side by side on her neck. “Snakebite?”
“What the hell kind of snake.. .”
There was a crashing in the brush behind us. Bristol.
“Can we talk about this later?”
“Yeah.” Cecile jumped to her feet—she was barefoot, I
noticed—and set off running again. I ran after her. Maybe it
was because of the break, or maybe I was just in shock, but my
muscles and lungs weren’t complaining as loudly as they had
been. All I could think about was the dead girl in the woods,
the second body I’d encountered in a matter of weeks. What
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was going on in this town? And why did it seem to be
following me around?
Getting to town ahead of Bristol suddenly took on
new importance. This was about more than just keeping me—
and Cecile—safe from whatever he intended for us. The police
station was on Main Street. If we kept ahead of him, we could
go straight there and tell them everything we knew. We could
tell them about Bristol’s sudden appearances in suspicious
circumstances, the blood on his pants, and how he’d chased us
through the woods, and surely that would be enough to render
him a suspect. We could prevent anyone else from dying.
God, Caitlin. She was only a sophomore. All my
memories of her were tinged with mild annoyance—she was
too loud, too perky, and too giggly. She was like Cecile, but
without brains or wit. But of course, I’d barely known her.
Had we ever even had one conversation? I’d judged her and
completely written her off without ever giving her a chance,
and now she was gone.
Cecile overtook me with a cry of, “Come on, Rena!” I
focused on her pounding footfalls and forced myself to run
harder. I could hear a lot of rustling now, the crunch of leaves
and branches being shoved out of the way, and the thump
overlapping thump of feet hitting the earth. How close were
we? How close was he?
“There’s. .steeple!” Cecile gasped out, pointing ahead.
Through a gap in the trees, I could ma
ke out the tall white
peak of the Main Street Chapel. We were almost there…
Something struck my back with incredible force,
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
driving the air out of my lungs and propelling me forward so
fast I didn’t have time to get my hands under me. I landed face
down in the dirt, sending a bolt of pain through my body.
When I tried to scramble to my feet, I couldn’t. A strong arm
held me down.
“Gotcha,” Bristol’s voice grated out, deep and laced
with a sinister delight.
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Chapter Nine
HIS BREATH WAS HOT ON MY NECK AND
his fingers dug into my shoulders so hard I was worried they
might be about to draw blood. “We met too early,” he said, his
voice almost a hiss. “You weren’t ready for me then, were you?
But you are now, you’re nearly ripe…”
Cecile screamed, her voice seeming to come from very
far away, and I heard the wet crunch of a body taking a blow.
Bristol’s weight shifted on my back, but not enough to let me
up.
“Cecile, go get help!” I half-cried, half-gasped.
“Cecile,” Bristol said, “If you move an inch, I’ll kill her so fast you won’t even see it happen.”
Fear spiraled out from my heart to each of my limbs. I
flexed with it. It should have given me power –adrenaline-- but
Bristol’s strength was too much for me to hope to overpower
him. Somewhere behind me, Cecile was breathing in short,
whimpering gasps and I knew she’d been too afraid to run for
help. He’s going to kill me anyway, I thought. He’s going to kill
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
me, and because she’s not a threat, he’s going to take his time. And then he’s going to kill her.
I thought about the puncture wounds we’d seen on
Caitlin’s neck when we’d passed her body in the forest. What
made that kind of mark? What was Bristol about to do to me?
And what had he meant when he said I was nearly ripe?
As if in answer to my silent question, he stroked two
fingers along the side of my neck and began to speak. “You’re a
danger, you know, Rena,” he said. “Such a little girl, but you’re a threat. Did you know that? Do you know how many of us
live in fear of you?”
I couldn’t make sense of his words. I wasn’t sure I
wanted to. Maybe he was insane.
He shifted his weight again. “Stand up.”
Yearn For Blood (Blood Origins Book 1) Page 7
