“Sure.”
“Mollie Jean McConnell. And yours?”
“Michael Paul Wright.”
Mollie nodded, finished off her water, and wiped her hands on her jeans before digging into her pocket for the pack of gum. She slipped a piece into her mouth and offered one to Mike; he took it. Mollie almost laughed at a vampire chewing gum, but she was too tired to laugh. She returned the dwindling pack to her pocket and examined the woods.
A sad thought occurred to her as the trees swayed in the breeze and tendrils of sun slipped through to dance across the forest floor. “The other humans who escaped with us, they’re probably starving, aren’t they?”
“I’m sure they’ve found some way to eat. The survival instinct can make us do things we never believed possible.”
“True,” she agreed. “But I doubt they have a vampire catching food for them, and I don’t think they had any weapons.”
“They could have teamed up to work with a vampire.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “I wish we could find some of them.”
Mike preferred to be on their own unless they located Jack and Doug. He’d set the others free, but he didn’t trust any of them, not even the humans. “We should go.”
Chapter Nineteen
A few hours later,a crashing sound ahead of them halted Mike. Grasping Mollie’s elbow, he drew her behind the trunk of a large maple. The cliffs were only fifty feet away on their right. The woods continued to go to the edge of the cliffs in this area of the forest, but he did not want to retreat toward them. He would survive if he were forced over the edge; Mollie would not.
Mollie swung the rifle from her back and lifted it to her shoulder. They stood at the top of a small hill, and the sound came from the thick underbrush below.
“Don’t fire unless necessary,” Mike whispered in her ear.
Mollie nodded and kept the barrel aimed at where the noise was coming from. Then a man burst from the underbrush. With his hair in tousled disarray, his chest heaving, and his eyes rolling in his head, he looked as if the end of the world was nipping at his heels.
Mike rested his hand on the barrel of Mollie’s gun and pushed it down while he studied the man. “Human,” he told her.
The man looked left and right before turning to his left and running in that direction. He only made it ten feet before something leapt from the underbrush and pounced on his back. Mollie’s breath sucked in, and she tried to jerk the rifle back up, but Mike kept it down as the man started screaming.
The vampire, perched on his back like a vulture on carrion, had eyes the color of rubies, and blood trickled from its mouth. Mollie didn’t know if the blood was from some other unsuspecting victim or because the vamp’s fangs had sliced open its bottom lip.
“We have to help him!” Mollie whispered as the man howled.
Mike had been preparing to lift her and run from here. The man’s screams would only attract more Savages, and he couldn’t have Mollie anywhere near them. If Mollie weren’t involved, he would intervene, but he wasn’t about to put her life at risk for some stranger.
The sun hadn’t set yet, but the shadows of the woods offered some protection from its rays, and he suspected this was a newer Savage, one more tolerant of the sun. It might even be one of the vampires they turned loose, which meant there could be other, newer Savages out there too.
“No, please!” the man pleaded.
Mollie tried to jerk the rifle away from Mike, but he wouldn’t release it. Giving up on trying to get it free, she shoved the gun at him and released it. Then she ran toward the man. Mollie only made it five feet before Mike’s arm slid around her waist and he jerked her back against his chest. Before she could voice her protest, another vampire burst from the woods and raced toward the man.
Mike clapped his hand over Mollie’s mouth when she gasped. The second Savage fell on the human and tore into his wrist. The man wailed as the first Savage bashed his fist into the cheek of the other and knocked vampire off.
“Mine,” the first snarled in a voice more animal than human.
The second one launched at the first, and they tumbled onto the man’s legs. Sensing a chance to get away, the man clawed at the dirt. He tried to pull himself free of the creatures scrambling to kill each other over which one of them got to eat him.
Mike held Mollie tight as she struggled to get free. He eased his hand away from her mouth, and she turned her head to glower at him. “We have to help.”
She lifted her chin defiantly as her striking eyes blazed with fury. And in those eyes, he saw the truth; if he carried her away from here, she would never look at him the same again. She would forever see him as a monster.
“Stay here!” Mike hissed in her ear.
Mollie relaxed against him when he set her down. Mike pushed the rifle back into her hands and strode away. Her relief over his willingness to help the man vanished when she realized he’d be going down there withtwoof those things. She’d witnessed his strength numerous times, but two on one wasn’t good odds.
