The Vampire Diaries: A Cage of Burning Light (Kindle Worlds Novella) (9 page)

In the
back of the truck, Damon could hear everything. He knew it was Elena following
him. He’d recognized the sound of Bonnie’s car, but it wasn’t Bonnie’s
heartbeat that accompanied it, or Bonnie’s blood scent. It was all his Elena,
and he started cursing under his breath as he realized she was trying to stop
the truck. The truck swung back and forth, and Damon rocked from side to side,
the legs of the chair nearly coming off the ground so he had to keep shifting
his weight to stop himself from being knocked over. His skin was being rubbed
raw from the chains and started to bleed as he did, filling the truck with the
smell of his own blood.

He didn’t
care about that. The rush of fear in him for Elena’s safety had the vervain
burning out of him faster than before, but he still didn’t have the strength to
break his chains. He wasn’t sure he could even if he
had
been completely healthy. There was still no slack to give him
leverage.

“Elena!”
he yelled. “Don’t be a fool!” She could hear him, he knew that, but as he
listened to her engine’s volume increase, he realized she’d taken his warning
as a reason to try and stop this truck even more. “Damn you, Elena, I don’t
need your help!”

He was
about to say more, yell out anything he could so as to not have her risk
herself like this, even if it was something she might not be able to forgive
him for later, but he heard the sound of her car moving up beside the truck and
even blind and bound, he
knew
what
was going to happen.

Greedy
swerved the truck into the side of Bonnie’s car, and oh, he was going to die
painfully for that. Damon heard Elena fighting to keep control of the sedan,
but there was too much uneven ground at the edge of the road, and every echo of
her car crashing down the side of the hill and into the trees felt as if it
were a stab in his heart.

“Elena!”
he shouted.

Forget
waiting to meet this Jennings
person. Damon needed to get free
now
and make sure that Elena was okay. The universe wasn’t in agreement with the
needs of one Damon Salvatore, however, and between his own frantic struggles to
free himself and the noise of the truck’s engine, he didn’t know if she was
still all right.

She
really should have been wearing her seatbelt.

Elena
shakily picked herself up from where she’d landed after being thrown through
the windshield of the car when it slammed into a gnarled old pine tree.

Her
clothes were torn, and her hair was a tangled mess, but she was fine. Elena
looked down at herself in amazement, at her dirty, blood-streaked, and utterly
undamaged skin. She’d felt pain when she went through the glass, but by the
time she finished rolling, it was gone.

Elena let
out a long, slow breath. She’d known that vampires were near instant healers
for many types of wounds, but to actually experience it was very different and
left her shaken.

She
clenched her fists. “Get it together. Damon needs you.” She’d heard him
shouting her name from the truck’s back. She’d been too focused to make out
what he was saying, but there was no way she wouldn’t recognize that voice.

Farther
down the hill, she could see the cube van making its way along the switchback
road, already a mile away from her and invisible through the trees to all but
her supernatural senses. Elena focused on it, letting herself trust that she
did know where it was, and with a final nervous glance back at Bonnie’s wrecked
car, she started to run.

It wasn’t
a race she ever would have hoped to win before. Her running pell-mell down a
steep slope through a thick forest, dodging trees and brush while trying not to
trip over anything and go tumbling to the bottom, all to catch a truck.

That
truck, however, was slow, especially on these winding roads, and she was fast
enough to keep up with her own feet as she all but flew down the slope, angling
to catch up before they escaped.

What
she’d do once she did catch them was something she still had to work out. For
the moment, all she could think about was not falling, not tripping over some
stupid hidden root and breaking a leg despite the fact she knew she couldn’t,
about not getting lost, about that truck reaching the bottom of the hill and
racing away faster than even vampire speed could manage.

She came
to a break in the trees, a level stretch where the road ran, seconds after the
truck passed, headed for the next switchback. She turned her head to look at
it, but kept running straight forward, back into the trees.

She
really hoped they didn’t see her. She needed every advantage she could get.
Rather, she needed every one she was willing to accept. She could feel the
blood thirst rising with her rage, demanding she shut off her humanity and just
tear into them, making them pay for what they’d done to her and what they
planned to do to Damon.

Elena
didn’t give in to that. The thought of what that would make her was terrifying,
but at the same time, so was the thought of what could happen to Damon if she
didn’t. All she could do was to try and run faster, try to catch up to that
truck before it got away.

Despite
her doubts about whether she could manage it, she did. She reached the road on
one of the last few turns before it straightened out into the flat valley ahead
of the truck, which surprised her enough to actually manage a gasp that sounded
very much like a giggle.

She
didn’t have much time to absorb her victory. The cube truck came around the
corner and immediately the driver swerved it toward her.

Elena
gasped and ran onto the shoulder of the road, around a tree, and back onto the
road as the truck went by. The driver had it floored, and she ran as hard as
she could, feeling the blood she’d drunk earlier burn through her as she
sprinted after the vehicle.

There was
a step mounted under the rear bumper to make climbing into the back of the
truck easier. Elena jumped onto that and grabbed hold of the side of the truck,
where someone had bolted handles at different heights, to make it easier to
climb in and out. She suspected, however, that they were normally only used
when the vehicle wasn’t moving.

A bare
second after she found a grip, the truck started to swerve from side to side,
and it was all Elena could do to keep holding on.

Sternes
swore as he looked into the wide wing mirrors of the truck. He couldn’t see the
vamp, but he knew she was back there, riding the truck like a limpet. If he
left the crazy bitch alone, she’d get the truck open and the other one out, and
even with the monster’s ring in Wilson’s pocket, it was getting late enough in
the day that they might have both of them in the cab with them, and Sternes had
no plans to become some vampire’s supper.

He looked
at Wilson.
“Take the wheel.”

Wilson blinked at him,
looking more surprised than Sternes had seen him so far in their short
acquaintance. “What?”

Sternes
didn’t wait for him to figure out if he was serious. He unbuckled his seatbelt
and opened his door. Wilson
yelped as he grabbed the abandoned steering wheel, and Sternes grinned as he
swung himself out of the cab of the truck and started to climb up onto the
roof. Wilson
was such a bland, humorless sort, but his veneer was cracking. It’d be fun to
see it shatter, give him someone to laugh at on the flight back.

Sternes
climbed up onto the roof of the truck’s cab, his thinning hair blowing in the
wind that made his eyes squint and water. Wilson
had the truck under control already and looked to have the good sense not to
slow it down. That was very good. He wanted that vampire too focused on other
things to notice him coming up on her.

He was
going up from the roof of the cab to the top of the cube shaped cargo section
as Wilson took the truck rather awkwardly through the last turn on the hill and
the ground leveled out underneath them into a straightaway that would take them
to the main road and then the airport. Sternes hung on until it was traveling
straight again before he started forward again, crawling to the back edge of
the truck. The truck wasn’t going at anything he’d consider to be speed, but he
wasn’t sent out on jobs like this because he was stupid.

He looked
over the edge and saw the vampire crouched on the back step, hanging onto the
side with one hand and struggling with the awkward length of chain and lock
he’d used to secure the door with the other. She hadn’t seen him, and Sternes
grinned as he pulled one of his guns out of its holster at the small of his
back.

A bullet
wouldn’t kill a vampire. It took a stake or sunlight for that. A lot of times,
a bullet didn’t slow them down, or it made them madder. However, a bullet
straight into the head would make her let go since they couldn’t pull that
instant healing crap of theirs if they had something foreign messing with their
motor control that their body needed to shuck out first. She’d be up again in
minutes, but by then they’d be halfway to the airport, and she’d never catch
up.

She still
hadn’t seen him. She had to be new to the bloodsucking world, he decided, which
made this so much easier. He carefully cocked the pistol and aimed it at her
head. It wasn’t the most powerful gun he carried, but he needed the bullet to
stay in her head, not travel all the way through.

“Elena!”
the vamp inside the truck shouted. “Look out!”

Sternes
fired, but the vamp was already moving, swinging in an uncoordinated way that
caused her to lose her footing as his shot missed her. She screamed as she was
twisted by the speed they were going so she was hanging by one arm with her
back to the truck, her butt only a foot off the road and right behind the rear
tire while her feet kicked at the pavement. She tried to get them under her,
but every time she did, the truck’s momentum just made them fly out from under
her again. She was half hidden between the step and rear wheel well, however,
which made her an even harder target.

“Elena!”
the trapped vampire yelled. He sounded wild with rage.

The
vampire kept scrambling to get her feet underneath her as the momentum of the
truck twisted her back and forth and she flailed for balance with her free
hand. It brought her perilously close to the back tire, but the only clear shot
Sternes had at her were those legs. Given how badly they must be being abraded
against the asphalt, Sternes doubted she’d even feel a bullet there.

Still,
lying flat on his belly, Sternes spread his legs and braced his feet against
the top of the truck to keep himself steady and gripped the pistol with both
hands. His next shot missed, but she shrieked again, and he hoped it scared her
enough to not be able to get back up on the truck.

The truck
went around a turn, less sharp than the ones on the hill but still enough to
make Sternes glad he was braced as he slid a few inches. They were on the main
road now, a four lane deal that passed through exits to suburbia and strip
malls before it crossed a bridge and reached the airport. It was flat but also
occupied by other drivers, and he cursed this vampire who was too stupid to
give up. They were definitely going to be spotted, and someone was going to
call the police. Still, they couldn’t be able to respond too quickly in a hick
town such as this, and once they reached the plane, they’d be able to drag
their prisoner aboard and take off before the cops got there. Just as long as
they got rid of this vamp
now
.