I swear. If I have to start carrying a damn sword everywhere…
At least the gun dude’s anger at me is stronger than his want to kill Hunter. With his buddy holding me, he walks right up and puts the gun to my forehead. Apparently, he’s forgotten legs exist. I punt him in the balls, doubling him over, then kick him in the head, flinging him face first into the side of the restaurant like fifteen feet away.
I growl, not at all liking the sensation of being squeezed by a damn forklift. Mohawk is seriously strong. Grunting, I pour as much vampire power as possible into making myself stronger. We spin in circles. He struggles to contain me while I’m losing my damned mind. The damn instant his grip starts to fail—I stop fighting due to the touch of a gun once again pressed to my head.
“Aww, shit.”
We make eye contact.
Mr. Pistol offers a brief ‘gotcha’ smirk.
Hunter lands on the dude’s back, tackling him off to the side an instant before he fires. The gun might be small, but it going off two inches away from my ear is not cool. I resume trying to force Mohawk’s arms apart, and slip down to my feet. Mr. Pistol reaches up over his back, grabs Hunter by the shirt, and hurls him into the restaurant again. Hunter slaps into the concrete horizontally, four feet off the ground, with a thud that hurts me to hear, then falls into the bushes.
“You bastard son of a bitch!” I spin, grabbing Mohawk’s crotch with my claws and squeezing as hard as I can.
His face goes from corpse pale to bright red in an instant, eyes bulging—then he rams his forehead into my face. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back, blood gushing from my broken nose. At least, it feels like it. Vampires don’t really bleed as much as mortals, but ow!
Okay, I think my face broke. There’s pain in places I didn’t know pain could be. Having a little trouble seeing, too. My eyes are probably pointing in slightly wrong directions thanks to bone damage. Hunter hasn’t moved since he hit the wall. These two bastards are definitely going to kill him if I don’t win this. Snarling, I launch myself upright and swipe at Mowhawk’s throat. He catches my wrist, flipping me around in a jiu-jitsu type throw. A quarter-second before I hit the pavement, I fly forward, twisting over and kicking his legs out from under him.
My attack breaks his left knee and flings him into the air. It’s enough to ruin his grip on my arm. Shit, the guy can fight. And he’s scary. You’d think shredding a dude’s nether bits with vampire claws would maybe stun them for a minute, but the guy’s over it already. Crap. He’s probably a Fury. I just pushed his buttons—literally. When the rage wears off, he’s going to cry for an hour. Wait, no. I haven’t been broken in half yet. He can’t be a Fury. How the hell is he not on the ground crying after having his groin shredded?
These two aren’t idiots like the ones from the parking garage. It’s pretty obvious I’m not going to win this fight. It’s physically possible for me to flee, but I can’t leave Hunter defenseless. Overcome by the need to protect him—I fly into the bushes… all of ten feet away.
I grab Hunter, dragging his unconscious body upright. Mohawk jumps on me from behind again. Shit! With only a split second to come up with something, I surge forward, dragging Hunter as well as the dude holding me staggering over to the door. Mohawk lifts me off my feet as I kick it open, but not before I toss Hunter into the restaurant, sending him sliding down the hall to the kitchen.
Mr. Pistol also jumps on me. “Damn bitch.”
Blur warns of an incoming punch to the face. I’m fast enough to catch his arm before he smashes my skull… but he’s not punching me. He’s put a gun to my forehead.
“Aww, fu—”
Crack.
Ever have a headache like a searing hot knitting needle jammed into your skull?
I wake up with one of those. To be fair, it’s not ‘searing,’ merely too hot like McDonald’s coffee. Wait, no. Can’t be that hot… I’m not screaming. The scent of wet earth and tree sap floods my sinuses—along with blood and gunpowder. I’m starting to really hate the taste of gunpowder. Also, whatever special little magical thing my brain does to give blood appetizing flavors does not work when it’s my blood in my mouth. For a second, I think my eyeballs are missing, then it occurs to me the process of seeing works much better when my eyes are open.
Tree bark hovers blurrily in front of my face.
Well, now I understand why I’m smelling it, and what the rough texture against my cheek is.
My faculties gradually return over the span of a minute or so. My arms encircle a fairly thick tree. Something’s wrapped around me, holding my body and legs tight against the trunk. Can’t move much at all beyond a little squirming. I appear to be in the woods, far enough away from civilization for there not to be any sign of electric lights.
The tree is a little too fat to see my hands, but it feels like I’m wearing three or four pairs of handcuffs. Oh, and there’s a thick tow chain wrapped around me so many times I’m basically a steel mummy.
“She’s awake,” says a fairly generic sounding male voice.
“Took long enough.” Another man groans as if stretching.
“You did shoot her in the forehead.”
Man two—who I assume to be Mr. Pistol—laughs. “You’re complaining? She almost ripped your dick off.”
“Would’ve done it, too if it was big enough to find,” I mutter.
Mohawk walks up behind me on the left, giving my butt a condescending little double-pat. “You’re about to learn there are rules, bitch. Mr. Bianchi is done putting up with your bullshit. Nothing is more important than tradition, and he won’t be made a fool of any longer by a little girl. Especially one loyal to Wolent.” He winks. “Enjoy the sunrise.”
Okay, nothing about his butt-patting came off the least bit sexual, but it’s so damn infuriating, I lose control of my anger. Snarling, I try to break loose. The men find my struggle to free myself funny, which pisses me off more.
“Let her calm down and tell us all about how we’re making a big mistake and big bad Aurélie is going to kick our asses for being mean to her,” says Mr. Pistol in a patronizing tone.
I stop fighting the chain, giving a hard exhale. Old habits. Not like air does me any good. “Seriously? Do you realize how childish you sound?”
Crack.
A hot lance stabs into my back.
Ouch, that’s my kidney.
I snarl, growling as deep as a mountain lion.
The guys find this funny, too.
“Keep running your mouth, kid. I got eleven more bullets.”
Gasping, I swallow the pain, speaking in a half growl. “Real tough when I’m chained to a tree, aren’t you?”
Mohawk butt-pats me again. “Yeah, you’re such a total badass, you ended up on a tree. Feel kinda sad for that kid you were with, though. Looked like a nice boy.”
Hunter? Fuck! No. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”
“Bet you’d love to find out.” Mohawk waves. “Chow.”
“What?” asks Mr. Pistol.
“Chow, you know. It’s Italian for ‘see ya later.’”
“Ciao,” says Mr. Pistol.
“That’s what I said, dumbass.”
The guys walk off arguing about Italian pronunciation.
“Hey! Assholes! What did you do to my boyfriend!?”
They ignore me. I keep struggling and screaming at them to tell me what happened to Hunter until a car engine starts a fair distance off behind me. Doors close, and the soft crunching of tires on forest floor trails off to silence.
Shit. Sarah. Think!
I rest my forehead against the tree bark. One pair of handcuffs, I could snap no problem. Not having any luck here. Can’t tell if it’s the giant tow chain pinning my arms to the tree and killing my leverage, or if breaking three pairs at once is asking too much of my vampiric strength. A little fumbling around blindly later, I realize they’ve used hinge-style cuffs. Grr. No little chain I could snap using my fingers. Still, they went way overbo
ard with the tow chain mummification. Even if I got my hands loose, it wouldn’t make much difference. I’d have to be as big as Aziz to break this. My only chance would be if these morons put the padlock somewhere in arm’s reach of me… which they probably didn’t do.
Can’t see it. Granted, my face is mushed into a tree.
Not knowing what happened to Hunter drives me into a frenzy of pointless thrashing. I’m not sure if it’s a few minutes or an hour later by the time I break down and sob. What the hell was I thinking? Throwing him into the restaurant for ‘witnesses’ wouldn’t matter to vampires. They’d blank memories. Stefano wouldn’t have any reason to kill Hunter, would he? If anything, maybe they only made him forget ever knowing me. Stefano’s all about tradition and keeping the secret of vampires as protected as possible.
These two guys kicked my ass soundly. They’re the kind of heavies I’d expect someone like Stefano to send. Maybe those two at the parking garage were idiots on purpose. Aurélie didn’t believe he really sent them. So when they find my smoking skeleton stuck to a tree, she’s not going to suspect he had anything to do with it. He’s created the appearance someone’s trying to set him up.
Even if I manage to carve ‘Stefano did it’ into the tree, she or Wolent would discard it as attempted misdirection. Son of a bitch. He’s really going to destroy me and get away with it. I lose another block of time surrendering to blind panic and impotent squirming.
Ugh, so much chain. It would probably have held Garret Alder down. What the hell do they think I am, a 300-year-old Fury? I sigh at the bark in front of my face. Great. I’ve become a tree-hugger. Well, this is Seattle.
Again, I wriggle, but can’t move much at all. Good thing I don’t really have to worry about blood circulation. Chain digs into my body everywhere. Not being able to get away from the painful pressure is maddening.
And… shit. My nose wants attention bad.
The headbutt broke my face. Yeah. Nose is healing. Massive itchies.
Ow. Trying to rub my nose on the side of a tree to scratch it is not comfortable.
I drift from anger to fear to heartbreak over Hunter and eventually settle on despondence for my family. How ironic. I went home to spare them the grief of losing me, but doing so ended up causing it. Meh. Didn’t make much difference either way. No regrets. At least we had ten more months together.
No, I’m not giving up… just… what the hell can I do here?
There’s clearly no one around. By now, someone would’ve heard me screaming.
Already feels like sunrise is minutes away. I must have been unconscious for hours from a gunshot to the head. Okay, guess my panic blackout wasn’t really an hour long… just felt like it. Explains why they used such a dinky little pistol. They wanted me to wake up fast enough to see the sun one last time, maybe have a few minutes to contemplate my inescapable fate.
Hang on. Wait just a moment.
Stefano Bianchi is aware I’m an Innocent. He knows the sun isn’t going to incinerate me right away, if at all. It’s also pretty damn unlikely he’d make sure his men told me who sent them if he didn’t expect me to be destroyed. This can’t be intended as non-lethal torture. Otherwise, I’d for damn sure go to Aurélie and tell her what happened.
It doesn’t make any sense for Stefano to try to ‘execute’ me by sunlight… at least not without chopping me into tiny pieces first so my powers can’t protect me. Leaving me not only intact but conscious gives me a chance. I grunt, straining to shift myself enough to look upward. The forest is fairly dense. It’s not exactly an Amazon jungle canopy, but I’m way better off than if they’d left me in a California desert.
Okay, I can do this. Power of positive thinking, right?
Oh, yeah. I have a Dalton.
Doubt he can do anything in the maybe six minutes left before sunrise, but… it’s enough time to make a phone call. I close my eyes and concentrate on our mental link. Every vampire has a telepathic connection back to the one who gave them the Transference. I’m too freaked out for words, so I send thoughts of where I am and everything screaming around my brain.
A tiny bullet emerges from the hole it made in my back and tumbles out of my shirt. Great, just what I needed. Another itch out of reach. I scream-growl in frustration and tug at the chains. Ashley’s kinda into the whole ‘being tied up’ thing. Totally confuses me. I do not understand how she gets any kind of thrill out of helplessness. Being chained to a tree is about as opposite from fun as anything is possible for me to experience. Granted, Ashely’s dates aren’t typically trying to kill her… and she does seem to be a fair bit more adventurous after her tryst with Aurélie.
Yeah, don’t get me started. All kinds of weird. It’s like having a sister who hooked up with my stepmother. Exactly. I shudder merely thinking about it. The only thing keeping me from really freaking out over it is I barely knew Aurélie at the time, so she didn’t really feel like my vampire stepmother then. And I don’t mean like faerie godmother. Well, maybe. I mean she is into cute dolls. She probably likes faeries, too.
Sigh.
Know what else is twisted? A woman as delicate, beautiful, and seemingly harmless as Aurélie tearing guys apart like a ridiculously gory anime movie, one where a dude just pokes another dude with a single finger and he explodes like a dynamited tomato.
I fantasize about her shredding Mohawk and Mr. Pistol.
Sun’s gonna be up in a few minutes. Hunter could be dead. My family has no idea where I am.
And shit, I still have to write that paper for English class.
I hug the tree for another minute or two before my sunrise alarm goes off. Yeah, thanks. I know. Can’t panic. Have to stay focused. As much as it’s possible for someone to Zen while chained to a tree, I focus my mind entirely on the idea of not burning up in the daylight. Every bloodline has a primary power they’re known for. Mine happens to be really good at pretending to be alive. My ‘big gun’ vampire power is tolerating sunlight. On paper, it sounds wimpy and boring. Not like turning into a wolf or charming a whole room full of people at once, or even being a vampire mystic capable of raising zombies.
Screw paper.
In this superhero roleplaying game Sam likes, ‘water breathing’ is considered a pissant power… right up until your character is chained to a rock at the bottom of the ocean. I’m presently chained to a tree in the middle of—well almost the middle of—daytime. My options are pretty damn limited. Only thing I can do is clench my jaw and hope.
This could potentially suck.
17
Behold the Power of Spite
Vertigo hits me for only a second.
At the moment of sunrise, my vampire butt normally goes right to sleep as fast as turning off a light switch. It doesn’t come with much sensation beyond a split-second feeling of falling, like I’m standing on a trapdoor and it opened out from under me. On most nights, I’ll experience a little vertical dip and the next thing I know, I’m awake—unless I have a dream.
Vampire dreams, by the way, are super weird. They’re extremely vivid, detailed, and often impossible to tell apart from reality until something unusual happens. Considering the way my unlife is going—floating kittens and all—my ability to tell dream from reality has taken a beating.
Unfortunately, I’m almost positive being chained hugging a tree is not a dream.
I’d take being a ten-year-old stuck in a day job over this any day.
Hell, give me naked in a morgue cooler.
I swear to the Universe, if I get out of this alive, I’ll stand naked on top of the Space Needle.
Well, not alive. You know what I mean.
Sunlight creeps across the forest floor toward me.
It’s like being in a James Bond movie deathtrap and having the laser slicing the table on its way to me. I realize the sun is not moving as fast as I think it is. I’m having some weird time compression issues due to feral panic. Think I’ve broken both my wrists from struggling, but I can’t feel much.
The line of glow meanders toward me, simultaneously too fast for my liking and mockingly slow. Like, come on… get it over with already. I feel like a little kid at the pool for the first time, about to be shoved unwillingly into the water. Focus, Sarah. Focus. You can do this. I have dominion over sunlight.
Sunlight cannot harm me.
It bends to my will.
It—I scream in agony.
Smoke peels off my right arm. For agonizing seconds, it’s like I’ve been flung face first into a deep fryer. I force myself not to thrash. If I shatter my wrists now, they might stay permanently broken. C’mon tree. I love you. To keep myself from self-injury, I cling to the trunk as tight as my muscles permit. Roasting dials back from a holy-effing-shit scorching to a Gordon Ramsay burn. Yeah, the meat is undercooked… the meat also happens to be me. Maybe once my subconscious realizes I’m not being a moron staying out in the daylight and literally can’t go to safety, it stopped trying to punish me. Dunno if my sun resistance is a power I can ‘flex’ like making myself stronger or faster, but I try pouring energy into it while giving off a low scream-growl past clenched teeth. It’s like I’m some kind of monk firewalking over hot coals. No matter how much it hurts, I have no choice but to press on.
No idea if it’s minutes or hours before the continuous burning pain makes me consider giving up and letting the sun take me out. Ever have a headache so bad eating a bullet felt like a serious option? Expand that over the whole body. Wait, no. I can do this. I am doing this. What’s the line from Dune? Something about mind over pain or fear killing minds. Only, it’s not my hand in an agony box. My entire body is stuffed inside the thing the creepy witch lady is holding.
Usually, a woman has to hit like fifty or so before she’s worried about randomly bursting into flames.
Vampire Innocent | Book 11 | How To Stop A Vampire War In Six Easy Steps Page 15
