Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (11 page)

I rose to my feet instantly, ready to pummel
him, but of course, he anticipated my moves. Instead of stopping me, he shifted
his body forward in his chair, and as I cocked my arm back for the blow he
stuck his face into the path of my fist and said, “Go ahead, but it still won’t
change my beliefs that you’re good.”

I hated him for his confession. His words
slashed through me so deep that they would leave a permanent scar on my soul,
my damned soul. The backs of my eyes burned and the lump in my throat grew
heavy. He was wrong. I couldn’t be good if I was doomed to be a monster.

My fist came down hard on his temple and his
head gave a little upon the impact, but he turned it back toward my face and
looked me in the eye with compassion, empathy, with…, with… I couldn’t place
the emotion underlying all the rest. It was too deep in those ocean blue eyes.
They were darker in the dim light of the fireplace and kitchen lights.

His expression changed then, almost
saddened, and something in it reflected my own emotions, but I turned away
before I could place it. I paced away from him widening the space between us by
a good ten feet. I couldn’t deal with my issues right now. I’ve gotten by just
fine all these years with myself and my existence, and I didn’t need him
stirring shit up. All I wanted from him were answers, not psychoanalysis or a
freaking character review. I did my best to be the professional he didn’t think
I was capable of being and I continued where the conversation left off.

I ignored the lump in my throat that kept me
from speaking up sooner and found the best business-like voice I could manage.
“So these assassins? They’re super buff, and they are sent out to kill any
threat to vampires. Were you planning on telling me you were one of them before
killing me, or was this some sort of nice act to butter me up first before
making a surprise attack,” I finally turned back toward him to deliver the
accusation to his face.

He looked stunned, but quickly burst into
gut-clenching laughter. He was the one with the death wish now. “It makes
perfect sense!”

“Yes, it does,” he agreed, “if you only
present the evidence against me, but what about the big fact that you’re not
dead. I’m not buttering you up for anything. I’m not playing you.”

“I didn’t hear a denial in all that,”

“I’m not an assassin sent to kill you.
There. Does it honestly put you at ease to hear the words?” he asked exhausted.

“No. It doesn’t,” I replied sharply.

“Will you come somewhere with me?” he perked
up with a new idea and asked with more eagerness. “I want to show you
something, and perhaps, it will help you to see that I am not one of the
Firsts’ hired hands.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. I was never sure
when it came to him because there was only one person I trusted- myself, and
when I was around him, I didn’t know if I could even trust me. When I was near
him, my feelings were haywire and so mixed up and confused that I didn’t know
if I wanted to kill him or to… never mind that. I refused to go there. But in
this case, my curiosity was peaked and getting answers was my recent goal if I
wanted any chance of taking down the First and their minions.

Since killing Gavin wouldn’t get me any
closer to those answers, I was going to have to keep my up-and-down feelings in
check, suck it up, and just give up a little control in hopes that he won’t
screw me over and he delivers me the answers I need, or like Shane, I would
have to kill him if he stops being useful. This felt different than with Shane,
though, because I never relinquished any control with him. Something in me told
me that I could get more out of Gavin, so I would just have to invest more in
him. He hasn’t asked for anything in return, yet, so I still didn’t trust his
intentions.

“I guess. Will we be taking the bike?” I
asked trying to contain my excitement at the thought of another adrenaline
rush.

He noticed that tiny change in my mood and
smiled, “Not tonight. We’ll have to take the Bugatti. Don’t worry. It’s even
faster than the bike.”

“Let’s go,” I shot up quickly and headed for
the door before he could see the smile that broke free on my face. I loved to
go fast, really fast. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with my wandering hands
feeling up his disgustingly perfect abs.

We drove in silence at my request. Since he
was all about me getting the most out of life, he acquiesced. All I wanted was
to get whatever pleasure I could out of this joy ride. The midnight blue Bugatti
was parked in the next-door, highly secure parking garage. He had so many cars
that they took up an entire level all to themselves. I had thought about asking
him where exactly he got all that money from, but I didn’t want to ruin the
peaceful drive.

We had taken interstate 70 to the north and
switched over to interstate-64. I hadn’t realized we were headed out of town
until we switched to the on-ramp and I asked him how far away this place was.
All I got was one of his vague non-answer answers when he mumbled, “A ways.”

After about an hour of racing by several
late-night commuters and truckers, we pulled off onto an unmarked exit that
could be easily missed if no one was looking for it. We slowed to a more
reasonable speed, and as I looked around, it felt as if we were driving straight
into the middle of nowhere.

We made a few more turns, and I had been
anticipating any signs of nearby life, but there was nothing. We began driving
by shops and buildings that radiated the feeling of desertion. Everything was
dark, not even a single street light was visible as far as I could see.

“Where the hell are we?” I gasped, unable to
suppress my curiosity any longer.

He pulled off into an abandoned driveway and
flicked off the lights quickly once under the car port by the dark unlit home.
This place felt eerie. I compared my life to a horror movie a lot, but this was
different. That was my life, but this felt like I actually stepped into the
world of Alfred Hitchcock. It was unusual.

“This is Gem City, or what’s left of it,” he
answered after killing the engine. “This is the aftermath of a human threat to
vampires. It was once a normal town, but recently, vampires were exposed to the
humans, and this is a case, where the humans tried to fight back. Word got back
to the First of the situation, and within hours the town was crawling with
assassins. They killed off all the unruly vampires involved in leaking the
secret and then drank the town dry to keep the secret contained. Once they are
sure the town is secure, they will set fire to it burning all bodies, leaving
no evidence of vampirism.”

“Wait, you mean they’re still here?” I
asked, my voice screeching. “Why are we still sitting here?” I jumped out of
the car, instantly picking up on the stench of corpses both dead and undead. My
stomach twisted when I sensed them, and I stalked down the sidewalk, lightly
treading to reduce noise. What if there were survivors?

“Lucy,” he hissed behind me. “Get your ass
back here. You’re not taking them all on tonight! There are probably dozens of
them.”

He caught my arm and spun me around. I
looked up into his face just inches from mine, his nostrils flared and his
eyebrows furrowed. “I kill vampires. You know that. It’s what I do so if you
don’t let go of me, I’ll have to take you down too. If there’s a chance people
might still be alive, hiding out, then I’m going to-”

“You’re not going to do anything. You can’t
save everyone. You really need to accept that and stop trying to shoulder the
weight of the world. Stop blaming yourself every time someone dies from vampire
attacks. Live with it,
please
. You need to learn to live, period,” he
begged.

“I can’t live with myself. Haven’t you
figured that out yet? I’d rather die trying to save everyone than live with
myself,” my voice was getting shaky, even though I spoke low, and it was barely
audible.

He sensed a nearby vamp a half a second
before I did and wrapped an arm around me, picking me up effortlessly and
dragging me into the shadows of the house where we parked. I could see tiny
wisps of my breath floating through the icy air. His other hand shot up to
cover my nose and mouth to keep it from traveling. I think it was mostly a way
of keeping my mouth shut, in case I decided to do something stupid like give
away our location.

Yes, I was stubborn and set in my ways, but
I preferred to be the hunter, not the hunted, and I began to feel more and more
like the prey in this situation. It wasn’t comforting to see Gavin so rattled,
and to top it off, I felt more vamps closing in on us, from all directions.

“Shit,” he whispered, a low sound only for
my ears. His mouth brushed the sensitive skin in the hollow just below my right
ear. The light friction of his lips against my skin created goose bumps down my
neck, and I instantly felt a surge of electricity shoot through my body. I
decided to register that as anticipation of the impending fight. Now was not
the time for those wishy-washy feelings. Turning them into anger would benefit
me more. His arms tensed around me. He sensed them too.

His hand slid slowly away from my mouth, his
fingertips lightly brushing my lips, slightly tugging at my lower lip as they
dragged softly across my face. Okay, that was deliberate and unnecessary, and I
jammed my elbow into his ribs, turning to give him an evil look. The hand that
was on my face moved toward his mouth.

I realized he was trying to silently get my
attention when he brought his index finger to his lips in the sign to be quiet.
Under his finger, his lips twitched into a sideways smile as if he understood
my reason for the elbow to his side. It was still an unnecessary way of getting
my attention and he knew it, so I didn’t regret it, even though my elbow
bruised against his ribs of steel. At least it healed instantaneously.

I felt his hands grasp my arms hard, and the
next thing I knew I was on the ground a few feet away from him, but he was
already in the middle of a blurry battle with a vamp that looked almost as fast
as he was. He was still faster, and I saw the burst of flames as he took out
the assassin.

Another came just as quickly behind the
first, and as they became another whirlwind of kicking and jabbing, I sensed
one coming at me fast, too fast. I twisted to face the assassin, at the same
time his foot came into view and smashed across my cheekbone.

I stumbled back on my hands, still in a
seated position. Just then, I heard a faint scream coming from somewhere in the
ghost town. I couldn’t tell where, but it was definitely a human scream. There
were
survivors. This reminded me exactly why I was here.

I channeled all my super strength, lunged to
my feet and let him have it. I laid into him with all I had, which went over as
well as a fly trying to stop a fly swatter from smashing it. His arm sliced
through the air and his back hand landed across my face, sending me flying
across the front lawn of the neighboring house.

As I stood, he moved toward me with
lightning speed, but, luckily, I was faster getting to the spike under my jacket.
He tackled me at full speed, running himself straight into my spike, and I
landed with a ball of flames covering me. It was by sheer luck that I was still
alive. I’m not even sure how I managed to pull that off, but I didn’t have time
to speculate.

I stood to brush off the ashes, and another
came from behind, reaching around me and grabbing my neck, lifting me off my
feet. He turned me toward him, and I looked down into those jet black eyes. They
were fathomless, simmering with only anger and hatred.

His hand squeezed tighter, and I knew what
was about to happen but was powerless to stop it. I felt the pop and heard the
crack as he clenched his fist, and I knew my neck had snapped.

“NOOO!” Gavin’s pained response rang out
loud in my head before everything went silent, apart from the muffled, faraway
noises around me.

I saw a burst of flames several feet away,
and my eyesight became spotty and distorted. The flames appeared as a
strobe-like light. As the nerves to my vision became frayed, the flashes of
light looked like sparks.

My eyes briefly connected with Gavin’s as he
ran toward me. I noted the blackness in the abyss, but with his eyes, there was
always something lurking in the depths. Whatever it was that I might have seen
there had been dragged down in the undercurrents and replaced with pure rage. I
really did not want to be on that man’s bad side.

I felt myself being thrown to the ground,
and the pain finally registered. It felt like my entire head was severed. My
whole nervous system sent out waves of pain as it knitted itself back together,
and it left me immobilized, crumpled on the ground, unable to control the violent
spasms that racked my body. After slipping in and out of consciousness, I tried
to piece together everything going on around me to catch up with the most
immediate danger.

When I began to regain full consciousness, I
tensed when I saw another burst of flames close to me, then I felt a familiar
set of arms around me and relaxed. The ground beneath me disappeared, and as I
felt my motor functions return to me, I fought to stand on my own two feet. He
resisted, and I understood why when I realized we were speeding toward the car.
There were people here, and he wanted to just stick his tail between his legs
and run.

“Put me down! We have to go back for them.
They’ll die!” I shouted, not caring who found us.

My breaths were labored, and I felt dizzy. I
wasn’t sure I could even stand on my own at the moment, but I wasn’t about to
share that information.

“No, we don’t. You may not care whether or
not you live or die, but I do,” he said angrily.

He held me tightly against his body,
allowing for slim to no resistance, and it was like pushing up against a rock
wall. There was no give, and my muscles, already drained, ached as they
strained to break his hold.

“Lucy, stop! We can’t save them without
being killed ourselves. It was probably a trap they used to bait us when they
discovered we were here,” he said halfheartedly, as if he was just making
excuses to get me to comply.

I knew he made sense, and it was an
impossible situation, but I owed it to everyone that I never saved to give it my
all. I owed them all my life.

He shoved me roughly into the passenger
seat, and closed the door. Before I had time to react, he was in the driver
seat, with his arm pinning me to the seat. I grabbed for the door handle. It
was open a few inches before he muscled it shut. He tore the car into reverse
and threw it in drive once on the street.

“Take me back. We can drive to where the
people are,” I said anxiously.

He sped further away from town, ignoring my
pleading. I fought against him, lashing out at his side, which left him to
defend himself with only one arm. He steered with his left hand as he watched
the road, and easily fought off my attacks with just his peripheral vision and
one arm.

Jesus, this is pathetic
.

I actually ended up turned against his side,
under his arm, which was currently wrapped around my neck, cutting off my air
supply. My left hand was wrapped around his neck, but apparently ineffectual.

In a defiant and desperate last attempt, I
swung a leg up above my head aiming for his head. I nearly slammed my foot into
his temple before he dodged it. It made him swerve into the other lane of the
road. We were still near the town and could go back.

After another moment of my useless attacks,
he let out a sigh of annoyance and jerked the car over to the dirt shoulder, slamming
on the breaks. As soon as I felt him release me, I heard my door open and felt
his hands gripping my legs, pulling me out of the car.

I kicked at his face and landed one across
his jaw and another one to his chest. His expression grew colder, and his hands
bit hard into my flesh as he grabbed my upper thighs and yanked me free of the
car.

He hoisted me over his shoulder, and my body
flailed in his arms. I had a good look at his back side but figured it wouldn’t
do me any good to use my hands to fight back in this position. I heard the
sound of a latch released and couldn’t believe he was doing what I thought he
was doing.

“Don’t even think about putting me in there.
You’ll regret that.”

“I doubt you’d fit,” he said dryly.

At that, I peeked up at my surroundings and
noticed we were at the front of the car, and from the angle in which I was positioned,
I could barely make out the tiny storage compartment that passed as the trunk.
He bent to retrieve something from it and the sound of metal clanking drew my
curiosity. When he pulled his hand out of the trunk, a set of very heavy duty
chains came with it.

He tossed me back over his shoulder sending
me straight to my ass, and as I fought to sit up, he yanked me up before I
could react. Even after I felt the shackles at either end of the chain close around
my wrists, I kept shouting.

“Don’t even think about it! I’ll kill you!”
My voice became hoarse, but he still ignored me. “I know you can hear me! Why
did you even take me there? You knew I would fight… unless you wanted to fight,
too! That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted to fight! Let me go!”

I struggled to move my limbs out of his
tight grasp. When I wiggled them free, I punched and kicked out at him as much
as I could, and I just kept going like the Energizer Bunny. That little tirade
only landed me back on my ass. He gathered me up just as roughly as before and
grasped my legs again, pinning them together so I couldn’t kick him.

He pulled me into his chest before I could
end up back on the ground and roughly backed me against the front of the car
after slamming the trunk shut. One feeble attempt at a double-fisted punch
later and he pulled on a T-chain that was connected to my shackles, quickly
jerking my hands down.

I continued fighting against him, but he shoved
me further back with his body. The force of it shook the car. I eventually realized
fighting him was pointless at this moment and began to settle. When I did, I
noticed I wasn’t the only one breathing hard.