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He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.
Crimson streaked saliva coated his skin. "What the fuck?"

"You've been a bad boy, Josh Kirby. And you must be
punished." I smiled, finding a queer humor in the situation. The
golden boy of Boise High was no longer in charge. I was.

"What's wrong with your face?" He struggled against
me, his movements forcing some of my talons to pop free and others
to dig in deeper. Blood blossomed across his t-shirt.

Everything had become clearer for me. I could truly
see
what was in front of my eyes. Josh no longer held his
shape; he no longer existed as a person. He became just one big
ball of swirling energy. The kaleidoscope of colors whirling and
dancing around him made me smile. And there was that red, so deep,
so opulent, enticing me. T
ake a taste
, it whispered to me. I
wanted to heed its call. I knew if I did I would finally feel
whole, complete.

And not so freaking hungry.

My stomach cramped at the thought and I almost
doubled over in pain. But it proved difficult with my nails stuck
into Josh's broad shoulders. Pulling them out with a soft, sucking
wet sound, I reached for his face.

He tried to back away but I was too quick, too
strong, now that I'd evolved into my true form. I pulled his face
down toward me. Soon, I would feed. Soon, I would feel full, and
not so empty. I opened my mouth and positioned it over his, making
sure there was a tight seal over his lips. I couldn't have his
life-force escape my meal, now could I?

Within seconds of swathing his mouth, I could feel
his energy drawing from him and into me. The taste was like
ambrosia on my tongue. He tasted even better than Jamie had. Purer,
sweeter, untainted by metal and ink.

He fought against me, but my powers made me stronger
than him. His attempts to push me back were futile at best. I held
onto his face, my fingers digging into his scalp and sucked the
life out of his body, soul and all. He didn't need it where he was
going anyway.

Greedily, I drank him in, euphoric on his vigor. He
fought me hard, whining and babbling incoherently to let him go,
but it was pointless. There was no escaping me. I was a being of
power now, of sublime infinite supremacy and this mortal was
nothing, insignificant. A food source.

Besides, he'd earned his fate. If he had let Salem go
when she'd asked him, we wouldn't be in the situation we were in
now. It was the boy's fault. Not mine, not Salem's. I was only
doing what nature intended me to do.

His thrashing ceased, and cradling his head I brought
him down to the ground. The gravel in the parking lot bit into my
knees but I didn't feel it, not as pain anyway. I felt life,
rushing through me. Everything became clearer, richer, deeper.
Sounds pulsed in my ears like music. It always came down to that,
didn't it? The music. The sounds of life and death. Infinite in
their certainty.

I wanted to inhale everything around me, to glory in
its magnificence. But I was going to have to wait for that because
I didn't see
him
coming.

He pulled me off the mortal, his strength equal to
mine, or greater. He was the same as I was. I knew him except he
didn't look too happy to see me.

Trevor glared down at me, his eyes as black as mine.
"I warned you, Salem."

Holding me by my hair to keep me still, he lifted his
hand. And that's when I saw the hypodermic needle. A clear liquid
dripping from its pointy tip. I threw up my hands in defense, but
it was pointless, the needle slid in anyway.

Chapter 13

I screamed as the liquid shot into my neck. A
searing, so excruciating I could hardly stay conscious, rushed down
my neck, through my body, boiling my blood.

"Hold still," Trevor hissed, as I thrashed about.
"You'll break the needle off."

I didn't care. The pain was immeasurable. Why was he
doing this to me? Why was he torturing me?

Finally, he slid the needle out and let go of my
hair. I fell in a heap on the ground and curled into a ball trying
to soothe myself from the agony ripping my body apart. Rocking, I
squeezed my eyes shut from the gush of tears.

I didn't understand how I could still be awake and
aware as this awful, dark pain tore at every fiber of my body. It
slashed and ripped and shredded, as if destroying me only to invent
me all over again.

I thought endorphins were supposed to kick in and
lull me into unconsciousness. I didn't think a person could
withstand such torture without going completely mad.

Maybe that was just it. Maybe I'd already gone stark
raving mad.

I rocked and rocked, mumbling incoherently, eyes
shut, fingernails digging into my legs, until finally, blissfully
the pain subsided and I could reason. Well, as much as I could
before.

I blinked open my eyes and stared up at Trevor. He
was standing over me, frowning, that damnable needle still between
his fingers, dripping menacingly.

"What did you do to me?" I mumbled, my throat raw
from screaming.

"I saved you from yourself."

I licked my parched lips, and tried to move, but my
bones and muscles screamed at me indignantly. Why was my mouth so
damn dry? "What did you inject me with?"

"Salt water."

I gaped at him, sure I heard him all wrong. "Salt
water? You stuck me with salt water?"

"Yes, the salt counteracts the changes you were going
through. It stops them, keeps them at bay. Something about demons
and hell and the purity of the mineral. I don't know the reasoning
behind it. I just know it works."

"Why in hell would you go and do that for? Are you
trying to kill me?"

He smirked. "Are you dead?"
"No."

"Then I wasn't trying to kill you." He put a cap on
the needle and slid it into his back jeans pocket. "I was trying to
stop you from killing him." He motioned to the right with his
head.

Sitting up, groaning as I went, I glanced over at
where Trevor indicated. Josh was on his back, his eyes closed, and
his chest barely moving.

I scrambled on my knees to his side, placing my
fingers on his neck to check his pulse. It was there, but it was
weak. Sitting back on my haunches, I looked him over, shocked at
his appearance. His face was pale and gaunt, his cheeks sucked in.
He looked like a ninety-year old version of his former self. Like
someone (well, me) had sucked the life out of him. I'd done that to
him. I couldn't believe I'd almost killed him.

"Oh, my, God." I pressed my lips together to fight
back tears or a scream; I couldn't tell which I wanted to do more.
"I did this. I'm a monster." I looked up at Trevor, beseeching him
to soothe me, to take this away. But the menacing look in his eyes
told me he wasn't going to do either. "Is he going to die?"

Bending down to examine Josh, he shook his head. "I
got to you in time. But he's unconscious, and I'm not sure how long
that will last. It could be days, or weeks, or...,"

I grabbed his arm. "Forever? Could he be like this
forever?"

Trevor shrugged. "I don't know. My first just came
out of her coma. I sucked on her about two years ago."

"Was she, you know," I touched my head, "okay?"

"I don't know. I never stuck around to find out."
Standing, he hooked his hands under Josh's arms and started to drag
him across the ground toward the passenger door on Josh's car.

I jumped to my feet. "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up."

"Cleaning up?" I tagged along behind him, unsure of
what to do. Did I help, or stop him from doing what he was
doing?

"We can't leave his body here. Someone will find him.
Or someone won't and he might die of hyperthermia over night."
Setting Josh down, he dug into Josh's pants pocket and pulled out
his car keys. He proceeded to press the keyless remote. The car
beeped once and the door unlocked.

"I can't believe this is happening."

Trevor pinned me with his dark and intense gaze.
"Well, it is, Salem. Deal with it. You can't close your eyes
anymore and think this is all a bad dream." He opened the car door.
"Help me get him into the car. We'll drive him to the hospital,
leave him in his car in the parking lot and make an anonymous call
to 911." I picked up Josh's feet as Trevor set him as gently as he
could onto the passenger seat. "That'll give you time to get home,
get some stuff and disappear."

I dropped Josh's feet, causing him to roll down the
seat onto his back, messing up all the work Trevor had just done to
get him in properly. "Screw you! I'm not going anywhere."

Like a wild man, Trevor came out of the car, grabbed
me by the arms and slammed me up against the side of the car. I was
getting sick of everyone man-handling me. "You are, Salem. You know
why? Because once Josh's body is found, the police will be called,
there will be an investigation, and the trail will lead back to
you. You were the last person to see Josh alive and well. What do
you think is going to happen after that?"

I stared into his deep dark eyes and realized he was
right. I couldn't go back to my regular life. I was different,
changed, and what I'd done crossed lines both legally and morally.
I'd go to jail for what I'd done.

The life I'd known as Salem Vale, daughter of Lynn
and Charlie Vale, sister of Kyle, best friend to Chloe and Jamie,
social outcast, and general nuisance, was gone. Sure it had been
ripped from my hands without my consent, but it was dead
nonetheless.

My bottom lip started to tremble and I could feel the
tears gathering, ready to fall at any minute. "Where will I go? I
only have about three hundred dollars in my bank account. That's
not going to take me far."

Releasing me, Trevor finished stuffing Josh in the
car. He slammed the door shut and palmed the keys. "You'll come
with me." I followed him around the car to the driver's side. He
opened the door and motioned for me to get in the back seat.

Before I got in though, I looked at him, and asked,
"Then what?"

"Then we'll catch up with Malice on the road and you
can help me kill them."

Chapter 14

After Trevor dropped that bomb, he shoved me in the
back seat. He got in the car, slammed the door, and peeled out of
the parking lot, gravel shooting up from behind the wheels.

I stared at the back of his head, not sure if I heard
him right. He didn't really mean what I thought he meant, did he?
"You're joking, right?"

He met my gaze in the rearview mirror. "No. I'm
not."

"We can't just go around killing people, you know."
My gaze flitting to Josh's unconscious form and I swallowed. I
guess I should've heeded that before now.

"They aren't people. They're demons and they deserve
to die."

I wanted to ask then, what that made us. Were we
still people? I still felt like a person. But I didn't ask him. By
the stony look on his face, I assumed we were done talking about
that particular gem of information. I'd save my questions until
after we'd gotten Josh to the hospital. Maybe then, I could
coherently put my thoughts together. Because right now, my mind was
a mess.

All the way to the hospital, I was on the verge of
tears. I couldn't wrap my mind around the events that had just
happened. In a matter of minutes, my life had been obliterated. I
had almost killed a boy I liked and I was now being forced to leave
my home, my family, and go on the run with a different boy, who
from just a few encounters, I knew I didn't like at all.

Trevor couldn't have been much older than I was.
Maybe nineteen. But everything about him, the look in his eye, the
way he spoke, told me he'd seen more than any person his age should
ever see. He'd become hardened because of it, I was sure.

I wondered if I was going to become like that. I
really didn't want to. I couldn't imagine going through the rest of
my life with that stoic coldness possessing me, making me as rigid
as an iceberg.

Trevor pulled into St. Luke's parking lot. He drove
around looking for a spot that was furthest from the doors and
shrouded in shadows. After two circles, he found one and parked.
Thankfully, the lot was not full and we were fairly obscured from
view.

"Are you wearing socks?" he asked.

I frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Socks. Are you wearing them? We need to wipe our
fingerprints from the car. A sock will work as good as anything."
He took off his beat-up runner and slid his sock off his foot. Then
he started to wipe the steering wheel clean.

Panicked, I unlaced my boot, slid off my black sock
and proceeded to wipe it across the back of the driver's seat,
mimicking Trevor's movements. I didn't think I touched it but I
wanted to make sure.

"Are you sure this will work?"

Trevor opened the car door, let me out, and then
wiped down the interior of the door, the door handle, and all the
buttons. "It'll smudge our prints at least."

I watched him work as I stood on one foot, still
holding my sock in my hand. "What about skin cells? They'd be in
our socks wouldn't they?" I'd watched a lot of
CSI
with my
mom. It was one of her favorite shows.

He glanced at me, his eyebrow arched curiously. "I
don't think we have to worry about that." Using his sock over his
hand, he rubbed down the car keys, tossed them into Josh's lap, and
then shut the car door.

I sat down on the ground and put my sock back on,
then my boot. I watched as Trevor did the same. "Why don't we have
to worry?"
"Because even if they did manage to get some DNA, they won't have a
clue what they're looking at. You're not exactly fully human
anymore, Salem."

"You mean my DNA's all screwed up?"

"Yup." He stood, then putting out a hand toward me,
he pulled me to my feet.

"This just gets better and better," I mumbled.