"Your shoulder can be fixed," Milo growled, and his nostrils flared suddenly. "Dammit, Alice.

You're bleeding."

"It's your fault." Nervously, I looked down at my knee, which was just starting to be doppled with little drops of blood. It hurt to walk on, and I was already slow to begin with. I looked behind us, expecting Lucian to be a few steps back, but there were only other club goers on the sidewalk.

"They're not behind us."

"Then they're in front of us." Milo stopped sharply, and I almost fell again. I could see in front of us, and I had no idea what he was talking about.

"What in the h.e.l.l is going on?" Jane demanded, her voice edged with panic.

"We have to get to the car." Without warning, Milo picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I let out a yelp of surprise, but I didn't protest. He was much stronger than me, and whatever he thought was best in this situation, I would go with. "Jane, you have to keep up. If you can't, I'm leaving you behind."

"What are you-" Before she could finish, he was moving again, this time even faster than before.

He had grabbed onto her hand and yanked her forward, but like me, she thought it better just to go along with what he did instead of questioning it.

Blithely, Milo jumped over the metal guard real into the parking lot, and Jane scrambled much less nimbly behind him. He was scanning everywhere, searching for any sign of them, and I could 126 feel his ragged breathing. He wasn't hurrying enough to be short of breath, and I knew it had to be because he was struggling with the scent of my blood. That meant that there was a chance that even if Milo saved me from Lucian, he wouldn't be able to save me from himself.

We had just about reached the car, and my heart was stupidly starting to soar because it thought we had really made it. Then out of nowhere, Lucian appeared, leaning against the drivers' side of the Jetta. He grinned c.o.c.kily at us, and Milo tightened his grip around me, so much so it hurt, but I was too scared to complain.

"Who is that?" Jane asked, and if she had it her way, she definitely wouldn't be running from him.

"Just go away!" Milo growled as forcefully as he could.

"You know, you've only succeeded in scenting the air," Lucian told him with a sickeningly sweet smile.

"It's the same thing they do with sharks. They bait the water with blood to attract them, and it puts them in a frenzy. Did you know that?"

"Please just move," Milo managed through gritted teeth.

"How are you feeling about now? A little frantic yourself?" Lucian took a step away from the car, towards us, and Milo got even more rigid than he was before.

"I'm putting you down, and you just need to get in the car." Milo started rummaging in his pocket for the car keys, and I gripped onto him, unwilling to let him set me down.

"But there's another one! Violet is roaming around somewhere!" I insisted plaintively.

"You just have to get in the car," he repeated as he handed Jane the car keys. "Jane, just get Alice in the car. That's all you need to do."

"Okay?" Jane replied unsurely.

"Milo!" I pleaded, but that only made Lucian laugh.

"Maybe you should listen to her," Lucian advised him, but Milo carefully started lowering me to the ground.

Once I was safely standing, with my knee threatening to give out and trembling horribly, Milo still kept an hand gripped on my shoulder, and if he was reluctant to let me go, then I probably had reason to feel as terrified as I felt. For a moment, he just stood there, staring down Lucian, and none of us moved. Then I heard the click of the keyless entry, and Jane doing some quick thinking unlocked the car doors.

Somehow that must've been a cue for go, because then everybody burst into life. Taking my hand, Jane started rushing towards the car, and Milo dove at Lucian. There was the sound of snarling and gnashing teeth, but I tried not to look at them. I felt hands like talons grabbing at my arms and legs, and I heard Violet's familiar high pitched squeal as she tried to capture me. I just kept running though, letting the panic and adrenaline burn through my legs as Jane pulled me to the car. She yanked open the door and practically threw me in before jumping in herself. She actually landed on top of me, but managed to slam the door shut, and Violet slammed into it, screaming in disappointment.

Jane locked the car door, and I slid all the away across the seat, pressing my back against the window opposite of the one Violet was glaring at us through. Jane moved with me, and when Violet slammed her open palms against the window, Jane and I both started to scream. Hysteria 127 was about ready to take over, and if Violet kept slamming on the gla.s.s with her superhuman strength, I doubted it would be long before she got in the car herself.

Suddenly, Milo was throwing her off the window, and past him, I could see a dent in the car next to us.

Lucian wasn't in sight, but there were b.l.o.o.d.y scratches all up and down Milo's torso. He hit the window, this time so we would unlock the doors, and Jane leaned over and did. Surprisingly, she had managed to be the clear head in all of this.

Milo opened the car door and Violet lunged at his back. She bit into his neck, using her razor sharp incisors, but he seemed to just shrug her off, and she crumpled to the ground. Quickly, he hopped in the driver's seat and instantly locked the doors behind him. Blood was streaming down his neck, but I knew in a few moments, it would close up, and he didn't even really seem aware of it.

"You're bleeding!" Jane gasped.

"Give me the keys!" Milo shouted, holding his hand out towards. Violet threw herself on the windshield and started pounded at the gla.s.s with her fists. Her crazy purple eyes were staring right through me and she was purposely baring her teeth.

"Get us out of here!" Jane screamed handing him the keys.

He started the car, and it peeled out noisily. Violet flew off the windshield, landing somewhere I couldn't see and didn't care about. Milo squealed out of the parking lot with little regard for other traffic, but everybody just made room for him as he sped off into the night. We weren't going in the direction of home, not his house or mine, but by the way he kept glancing in the rearview mirror, there was probably a reason for it.

"Milo, you are bleeding!" Jane repeated.

We were flying down the road, and she finally felt safe enough to move away from where she had me pressed up against the door. She glanced down at me and my tattered dress, and without even asking, she tore off the bottom half of my skirt. Balling the fabric up in her hand, she put against the wound on his neck, and he jerked away from her touch.

"I'm trying to stop the bleeding so you don't die!" Jane sounded a tad wounded.

"I'm fine," Milo growled, and his eyes darted back up the rearview mirror.

"Are they following us?" I panted.

"I don't know. I didn't see him, though. And I can't imagine he would just give up." His words rang truer then I would've liked, and I had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up.

"What is going on?" Jane asked, but she sounded more scared than anything else. Leaning in between the seats, she still kept the rag pressed against Milo's neck. We both knew that she didn't need to do it, but it seemed like more work to argue with her than to just let her do whatever made her happy.

"It's hard to explain," I said and felt very much like Jack.

I sunk lower in the seat, trying to keep myself out of sight from the pa.s.sing cars, even though I'm sure that Lucian already had a good look of the car, and even if he didn't, he could see Milo driving. Tearing off more of my skirt, I pressed it on my own wounded knee and the scratches Violet had inflicted on my legs, trying to stop the scent of my blood from filling up the car. I wanted to crack the window, but for some reason, letting any of the night in terrified me.

128.

"They looked like vampires!" Jane continued, and my heart skipped a beat. Milo's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, and neither of us knew how to address that topic. "Did you see the fangs on that girl? And those crazy eyes? She must've been on something."

"Yeah, probably," I agreed hastily.

"What did they want with you guys? They looked like they were obsessed or something!" Jane looked back at me, hoping I would give her answers, but I just avoided her gaze and shook my head.

"I don't really know." I swallowed hard, because that wasn't exactly a lie. I'm a.s.suming they just wanted to drink my blood, but they were after me pretty intensely. It made me wonder if there was something more to it.

"You should call the police or something!" Jane suggested, but Milo just shook his head. "Well, at least go to the hospital. You're covered in..."

She was looking over his chest, and I knew she was getting that sense of confusion and disbelief that I had had when I saw Jack's wounds disappear. There was still blood left from where he'd been cut, proving that she wasn't insane, but there were no cuts. Slowly, she pulled back the rag from his neck, and she gasped. Where there had just been a hideous gouge, there was a pink raised flash, like a fresh scar from the wound.

"How did you do that? How can you possibly do that?" Jane was shaking and all the color had drained from her face.

"Jane, look at me!" I snapped. "You're just gonna have to trust me on this one! You don't wanna know!"

"Of course I want to know!" Jane insisted, and she looked as if she might cry.

"Not right now, okay? After everything that's happened. Can we just let it be?" I pleaded with her.

I didn't think I could handle a revelation like that, and I doubted she could either.

"Are you guys okay? Are you... normal?" Jane asked in a quavering voice. I lifted the rag off my knee, revealing my sc.r.a.ped and b.l.o.o.d.y injury.

"I'm still me. Okay? I haven't changed at all," I tried to soothe her. She nodded and sat back in the seat next to me. That was apparently enough rea.s.surance for the time being. Or so I thought.

Turning to look at me, her eyes wide and frightened, I saw the tears pooling them. Her fingers were shaking as she pushed a strand of hair from her face, and in a trembling voice, she whispered, "They're vampires, aren't they?"

"Jane, there are some things it's better if you don't know," I told her. She bit her lip and nodded, but I didn't know if she took that at as a yes or what.

"I wish Jack were here," Milo breathed nervously and ran a hand through his dark hair.

"I think we all do," I admitted dully.

"I mean, I know I can take care of myself," Milo nodded more to himself than to us. "But protecting you two, against two others... I don't know. I don't think I'm ready."

"We're okay," I insisted.

129.

Sitting in the backseat of a locked car speeding down the highway, I did feel reasonably safe. But Milo had a point, and the fact that he was letting his guard down enough to admit he was scared was frightening in and of itself. Jane took my hand in hers and squeezed it tightly, and there was a reason she my best friend. Despite all her shortcomings, she had saved my life tonight, and she let me keep secrets when I needed to most. There had to be something said for her.

"Okay. So. Here's what the plan is. I'm going to drive around for awhile. I don't want to take anyone home. Then, when I decide it's safe or we're about to run out of gas, we'll go to my house. And Mae will know what to do," Milo decided.

"That sounds good, Milo. That sounds really good," I told him as encouragingly as I could. It did sound like a good plan. But even if it didn't, it was the only one we could come up with.

My whole body was still trembling and the adrenaline was wearing off painfully. Milo kept his eyes fixed on the road and the rearview mirror, and somehow Jane managed to start drifting off after awhile. She rested her head against my shoulder, and I stared out the windows, at the world pa.s.sing around us, wondering if the car next to us might be full of bloodthirsty vampires.

When I started getting tired myself, that's when I started to feel unsafe. I didn't trust myself to stay awake, and I didn't know what would happen if I fell asleep. Carefully and quietly, I pulled my phone out of my bra, which was the only place I could put it when I wore a dress and went to clubs. Purses were too likely to be lost or stolen.

You need to come home. Now. I think we're in trouble. I text messaged Jack. Then, all I had left to do was wait.

Chapter 18.

Milo stopped to get gas, and Jane woke up from the lack of movement. Before getting out, Milo instructed to stay in the car and keep the doors locked, no matter what happened. He went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk, pulling out a tee shirt that had been stowed back there. It was a little big and it had a picture of poorly drawn cartoon dinosaurs on it, so I a.s.sumed it was Jack's. Jane and I sat rigidly in the backseat, tightly holding each other's hands, as if that could really protect us from anything.

After I had seen my little brother take on a vampire, throwing him so hard into the car next to us that it had left a huge body-sized dent, I couldn't exactly feel as nervous for him as I had before.

He was stronger than I had ever imagined he could be, and smart enough to know that that wasn't enough. In all honesty, he could handle himself with Lucian and Violet, even if they teamed up against him, but it would be nearly impossible for him to guard both Jane and I while warding them off. So he had ran off, instead of trying to finish a battle royale.

As he pumped gas into the Jetta, his eyes flicked nervously around. Under the bright white lights of the gas station car port, it was hard to tell if the sky had started gradually bluing, and I had been half asleep when we pulled in, so I couldn't say for sure. The streets were still pretty deserted, and the gas station itself was still closed, so Milo was paying at the pump with a credit card.

A semi-truck sat idling in the parking lot, and an SUV with one headlight drove by, but otherwise, there wasn't any traffic. A kid wearing a gigantic hoodie even though it was seventy-degrees out was talking loudly on a cell phone. Otherwise, we were alone. I let go of Jane's hand and moved so I could look the way around the car. It would be almost impossible for someone to still be following us, even if that someone was a vampire. We'd been speeding all over the metro area, so they couldn't follow by foot, and I'd be able to see a car idling behind us.

130.

Milo knocked on the window so we would unlock the doors and let him back in, and Jane jumped.

Under the harsh light, I saw how pale he looked. His hands were shaking as he opened the car door, and in the rearview mirror, I noticed his eyes had a frantic quality to them. There was even perspiration standing on his neck, and he had the air conditioning on in the car so high, I was freezing out in the backseat.

"I think we're in the clear," I tried to rea.s.sure him.

He didn't say anything, but his jaw tensed tightly as he clenched his teeth. I was trying to get a read on what was going on with him, watching the nervous way his eyes flitted about, and the shallow way he was breathing. He started the car much harder than he needed to and the engine brayed in protest. At the moment, watching the vein pop in his neck as his body tensed up, I realized what he reminded me of; a junkie in need of a fix.

"Milo, are you okay?" My voice belied how scared I was as I watched him struggle to get a hold of himself. I knew we didn't have very much time, and I hurried to think of a quick and easy solution.

"I lost blood, Alice, and the adrenaline did something to me," he said through gritted teeth. I don't know how he had even held on this long. Maybe getting out of the car and realizing that everything was alright let his other senses kick back in, and he finally noticed how hungry he truly was. "If I hold off my longer, it's going to be dangerous."

"What is he talking about?" Jane flashed her big blue eyes at me, and then met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Are you okay?" He locked on her eyes, and I saw her breathing change, getting deeper and more sensual.

"No, no, Milo, let's go back to the house!" I suggested. Anxiously, I gripped the headrest of the pa.s.senger seat so tightly, my fingers hurt, but I barely even noticed. I saw what he was planning to do and I had a very short amount of time to stop it.

Ignoring me, Milo put the car in drive, but that only made me panic more. Instead of turning out onto the road, he drove behind the gas station, where everything was hidden in darkness. He was going somewhere to do it in private, which made sense, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up when he put the car in park.

"Milo, come on. There's other things," I pleaded with him, but his mind had been made up. His hunger was too strong to ignore any longer, and there was nothing I could do to persuade him.

"Alice, shut up," Milo told me quietly. His eyes rested briefly on me, and there was nothing of my brother in them. They were all primal thirst, and nothing else. "Close your eyes. Or get out if you need to. This will only take a minute." Then he fixed his eyes on Jane, who was staring at him with stupid adoration. "Jane, do you trust me?"

"Yes," she nodded, sounding like a brainwashed zombie, and I suppose she kind of was.

Gently, he placed a hand on her neck, rubbing her veins with his thumb for a second, and then very abruptly, he yanked her towards him. He was half leaning in between the seats, and with extraordinary swiftness, he sunk his teeth into her neck. She inhaled sharply, and there was the subtle sound of tearing flesh.

Closing my eyes tightly, I pressed my back up against the door as far as it would go. Jane moaned softly, and I wanted to throw up or cry or scream or laugh.

It started feeling like forever, but I'm sure it couldn't have been that long. I had stayed in the car because I wanted to be sure that he didn't go too far. Almost unwilling, I opened my eyes, and somehow, in my reflexive urge to escape, I had ended up standing on the backseat. I was all crouched down, with my knees bent and my back against the window with my head pressing 131 against the ceiling, but my bare feet were on the seat, as if it would help me somehow make a run for it if I really needed to.

Jane's eyes had rolled in the back of her head, but I could hear breathy moans, so I knew she was still alive. It was pleasure that had caused her eyes to roll back, not death or unconsciousness. Milo's fingers were knotted in her hair, pushing her neck hard against his mouth. Thankfully, he was turned away from me, so I couldn't see his face, but I saw the way his mouth was on her, the way the blood leaked around it. All I could think of was the time I saw a starving dog eating a dead racc.o.o.n on the side of the road. The way the dog held the leg in his mouth was the exact same way Milo held her neck.

"Okay, Milo, that's enough." My words came out small and tiny, sounding nothing like myself.

I had been bitten before, but it was an entirely different thing to watch a vampire bite someone else. It was terrifying and nauseating. When he ate, it became really obvious to me for the first time that vampires weren't exactly human. They may have possessed the appearance and some semblance of humanity, but that a my brother a feeding on Jane, that was pure animal.

"Milo! Stop!" I repeated. Jane's eyelids started to flutter, and her breath was getting shallower.

She was starting to pa.s.s out, and death wouldn't be that much farther behind it. "Milo! You're killing her! Stop!"