I’m a mile away from home when it happens.
Tires screech as a sports car careens around a corner, loses control, and heads straight for me.
I leap out of the way, but the car jumps the curb. I don’t make it more than a few feet before something slams into me from behind. Bones snap, the horrific cracks echoing throughout my body, and I go airborne.
I land in a heap, my body bouncing, then I skid along the rough pitted road, shredding flesh and leaving behind a smear of blood.
Funnily enough, I don’t feel pain.
At least not yet.
A car door slams, footsteps approach, then a guy swears viciously. Even from ten feet away, I can smell the whiskey oozing from his pores.
Get up!
Run!
But I lie, stunned, my body unable to process the orders from my brain.
The tones of a phone being dialed ring in my ears, and I release a shuddering breath of relief.
Help is coming.
But my relief is short-lived.
“Douglas, I fucked up.”
The murmur of voices rises and falls, and I’m horrified to realize the asshat didn’t call for help.
“Okay, yeah, got it.”
Instead of asking if I’m okay, he hurriedly backtracks, his retreating footsteps and heavy panting the only sounds I hear. Then a door slams and the car takes off with a chirp of tires before it disappears down the street.
I struggle to push myself upright, but my body buckles under the strain. Conscious the sun is only a few minutes away from setting, panic ricochets through me, and I desperately drag my battered body off the street. Even the smallest movement is like sticking my whole body into an electrical socket…then being dropped into an ice water bath.
Blinking sweat from my eyes, I watch as the sun finally vanishes, and my breath hitches when the last of the light fades from the world.
I yell for help for a minute before accepting the futility of escape. Though I’m surrounded by buildings, no one dares to venture out of the safety of their home to investigate the accident.
It would be suicide.
While I understand, it doesn’t stop me from cursing the cowards under my breath.
I debate going to the bar—it’s close enough that I might make it—but it would be like delivering them a delicious snack.
Desperate to find a place to hide, adrenaline gives me strength, and I use the wall for support as I haul myself to my feet. Even as I drag myself up the steps to the closest building, sweat and blood making my clothes stick to my skin, I know it’s too late.
The building is locked down tight, the lights off, the windows dark. Even if I want to break in, bars decorate every window, while the doors are reinforced and sealed with metal beams from the insides.
I frantically bang on the door, my shattered bones shuddering with each blow. The door rattles, thethudreverberating in the silence, but no one answers.
No one would risk inviting the wrong person into their house, the common trap used too many times in the past.
I’m panting, dizzy from pain and blood loss, before I finally give up.
I have minutes at most to find a place to hide, someplace where the vampires won’t be able to smell my fear or hear my heart thudding against my ribs.
A place where I can disguise the smell of my blood.
