Wake of Darkness (3 page)

Of course
, she
thought,
I've never actually tried to rip someone’s throat out
.

She glared at the guy
through narrowed eyes and a nearly inaudible growl from deep within her chest
found its way up to her throat. Startled by the noise, she stopped her rage in
its tracks.  

She sighed wearily
against the boiling ire and closed her eyes. She rubbed at the side of her head
and tried to block him out, hoping it would work. Of course it didn’t. After a
fruitless moment, she dropped her hand in frustration and rolled her eyes.

The hair on the back of
her neck stood on end as she looked around, and she knew that her instinctive
hyper-awareness wasn’t without reason. In her sweeping eye, she caught sight of
the student in the corner again. He grinned at her until he finally paid enough
attention to her eyes to recognize the black look in them. They locked stares;
he immediately dropped his eyes and shifted nervously where he stood, avoiding
her glare. She rolled her eyes again.

Stupid boy,
she
thought, but he wasn’t why she was edgy.

That's when she felt other
eyes on her. She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw no one there. A chill
ran up her arms and she was suddenly overcome with a serious case of déjà vu…or
maybe it was something different. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel right; even
the air around her felt…
off
. She looked around anxiously and suddenly
felt uneasy, like she was walking into a trap, which was ridiculous.

Or, was it?
She
asked herself; her stomach churned in knots of faint, unexplainable nausea.          

She looked around the
room and her eyes rested on a random guy standing in shadows of a doorway,
directly opposite the first corner she’d looked in. She spun on her heel to
face him. She licked at the little beads of sweat that gathered on her top lip.
She focused her sharp eyes on him, as if he was the only thing in the scene
that mattered for a fleeting moment. She gripped the strap of her bag where it
crossed her chest, folding the stiff canvas as she crumpled it in her hand. He was
leaning against the wall and staring at her, sending a chill up her spine as she
scanned his face. He was no random student. He was there for a purpose.

His was smooth and pale,
not totally unlike hers, but also not quite right. He was unbelievably thin,
almost anorexic looking. Despite the distance, she could tell his eyes were
unnaturally black as coal.

He had a menacing,
dangerous look in his eyes and she instinctively shied from him, even from
across the large expanse of lobby that spread mercifully between them. She
looked about, and found that she was suddenly,
utterly
alone, except for
this man. The lower level of the building had emptied of bodies almost all at
once.

Had she been late to
class? She wondered fleetingly, but she didn’t take the chance to look away
from him to her watch.
This
was the most crucial thing now.
He
was the most critical.

He meant to harm her;
there wasn’t a question of it, and she didn’t take time to analyze the logic at
play. She felt the blood rush from her face as her heart pounded, sending the
adrenaline rushing painfully through her limbs. Her eyes flashed quickly to one
side and then the other, seeming to focus more sharply on her surroundings, unwilling
to turn her body completely from her predator. Where were her kind stalkers
now?

His lips spread into a
slow, snarling smile, a faint hiss almost impossibly touching her ears. Little
bumps ran up and down her limbs, and the adrenaline that coursed through her
veins quickened her breathing, as the fight or flight response kicked in with
more ferocity than usual. She didn’t second-guess herself.

This was serious.

There was
no way
she
was over-reacting, and her instinct was to run.

She took one step
backwards from him, but he was suddenly at her side, gripping her arm and
dragging her back into the darkened hallway with lightning speed, so fast no
one else would have been able to track his movements. He hissed like a devil in
her ear.

NO!!!!
She wanted
to yell, but couldn’t find the words in her surprised throat. Every fiber of her
being shouted non-existent words in protest, but her voice failed to utter more
than grunts and gasps as she clawed frantically and uselessly against his iron-tight
grip.

He tossed her like a rag
doll against the wall, knocking the wind out of her chest. She gasped painfully
for air and clutched at her ribcage where a jarring pain stabbed her before it
slowly began to ebb. She fought to remain standing through the pain, grateful
for a moment that her back was against a literal wall.

“Well! What do we have
here?” he snarled, circling in front of her. He didn’t break eye-contact, and
focused intently on her as he moved.

Gathering what little strength
she could muster, Sophie pushed away from the wall in spite of her protesting
back and broken rib. She stepped to the side to run around him. When she tried,
he caught her in his hard grasp, bruising her ribs further, and knocking the
breath out of her again in the same painful instant. She screamed.

“I don’t think so,” he
hissed in her ear, feeling her squirm in his crushing grasp. She gasped in
pain.

"Please…"

He shoved her against the
brick wall with such force that the rough edges of the bricks dug into her skin
through her clothes, drawing warm, sticky blood. Its scent filled the air,
mixing with his smell of decay.

The newly-identified smell—because
it just occurred to her that he smelled like rot—coming from him swirled around
her like heavy, disgusting perfume. He carried a putridly sweet odor, smelling
something of sugar and of death. When he breathed in her face, it washed over
her and she fought the urge to vomit at the repugnance.

She saw his eyes nearly
glow in anticipation of something that only her soul understood. She whimpered
in pain and closed her eyes against the inevitable for a brief, but seemingly
eternal, moment.

Oh no! Please! No!
She silently begged to no one and retreated into herself for a breath’s length.

She’d heard about victims
doing that, but had never understood how it was possible. She never thought she
would be the type to just disconnect like she did for a moment, there in his
arms.

Yet just as quickly, she
mustered what remaining mental strength she possessed, regained control, and
opened her eyes. She was determined to face her killer, and at very least look
him in the eyes as he killed her, if she couldn’t fight back.

He leered at her, and
literally
licked
at the air. His eyes rolled back into his head like a
Great White’s before an attack. Her hands pushed against his chest as he craned
his head blindly toward her neck. His lips trembled in excitement as his hands
coursed lustily up and down her arms.

Panicked breaths rose in
her lungs and she tried to push against him with all the force she could
muster, using the inexplicable anger that suddenly boiled in her hot, healthy
veins. A feral growl ripped through her throat as she felt his body being torn
away from hers, by a force that was not her own. She looked down at her hands
in confusion.  

A familiar man hurled the
attacker into the opposite wall, denting the metal door that caught the weight
of his thrown body. She tried to run, but her rescuer wordlessly grasped her
arm and pulled her into the fire escape stairway around the corner before she
could argue. She was completely stunned when he pulled her close to his own
body before speaking to her in a quiet, calm voice.

“Close your eyes,” the
deep voice commanded as he pulled her closer and cradled her head against his
chest. He was much taller than she’d originally taken him for when she’d first
seen him weeks before.

But Sophie couldn’t gain
control of any part of her body—let alone her eyes—so she stood limply in front
of him, her arms hanging lamely at her sides. The very muscles in her face
seemed to have been paralyzed, and so she just stared up at him in shock. He
released an irritated sigh and covered her eyes with his hand before she felt a
gust of wind swirl around them. And almost as suddenly, his hand was gone, revealing
where they stood.

She would have collapsed
into a puddle on the floor if he hadn't been holding her up. He held her tight
against his chest as he growled quickly into his cell phone. She couldn’t focus
on the words, but he didn’t sound happy. She straightened up a little, but he
still held her too closely for her to move away from him. She wasn’t a petite
little thing, but his shoulders were easily twice as wide as hers, and she
couldn’t move. Her eyes, at least, were free so she looked around the
unfamiliar room.

“What happened?” an oddly
frail-looking woman asked, suddenly appearing from around the corner.

She had dark, straight
hair and fragile features, and spoke in a brisk, strangely metallic voice. Sophie
recognized her immediately.

A younger girl was fast
on the other woman’s heels. The man she’d seen earlier on the corner with the
redhead was suddenly there; it was like they popped up out of thin air. Sophie
still struggled to pull away from her rescuer, as she looked from one familiar face
to another.

What’s going on?
She
thought, in a half-shocked state.
Where am I?

She glanced out the front
window, her sharp eyes taking in the houses that stood opposite the house. Her
breath caught as she suddenly realized where she was. A tremor of shock,
something close to fear shot through her as she tried to figure out how she had
gotten there, who these people were—everything. She felt like she was having an
out-of-body experience and the room began to sway a bit before the world
suddenly flipped sideways.          

“What’s happening?” she
asked weakly.

It didn’t make sense for
the world to suddenly turn on its side, and her mind was usually quicker than
that. It took her a few seconds longer than usual to realize that the man who
had rescued her was suddenly scooping her easily into his arms. He moved
swifter through the space than he should have been able to and soundlessly
placed her on a couch in the next room before she could protest.

He ignored the comments
of the others and quickly inspected her for injuries as she gaped at him like
an idiot. He brushed her hair back from her face, and turned her arms over in
his firm hands, looking quickly at every inch.

When he let go, Sophie
folded her arms across her chest; she didn’t like the way he scrutinized her,
and she squirmed a little under his gaze. He smiled subtly as if she’d spoken her
thoughts out loud. She narrowed her eyes at him incredulously. His green eyes
looked over her body, looking for blood and broken bones. His slightly curled
blond hair fell haphazardly across his serious brow. He was dressed for work,
in slacks and an Oxford with the sleeves rolled up. As she watched him, Sophie
was struck by his seriousness until his voice cut through her reverie.

“Laney,” he suddenly said
to the young girl, “bring me a washcloth, please.” His voice was deep and
strong and rang with authority, yet it was also non-threatening.

It was safe.

“Are you alright?” he
asked, carefully reaching up to smooth Sophie’s hair back from her sweaty
forehead as she stared at him.

A stunned, pathetic nod
was all she could manage as she flinched back instinctually from his touch. She
wasn’t used to men touching her, even in a non-romantic, medical kind of way.
Not that it ever actually happened. She’d always had perfect health—so perfect
in fact that she never remembered having ever gone to the doctor.

Out of the corner of her
eye, she caught a glimpse of a big athletic, frat boy looking guy that she’d
seen earlier on the courtyard. He’d literally come out of nowhere—not unlike
the way she’d gotten there, once she thought about it. He was followed into the
room by the exceptionally graceful redhead who moved like a dancer. Her
shocking blue eyes watched Sophie carefully from her towering height—she was
easily as tall as the men, but her heart-shaped face and delicate features
seemed better suited for someone much smaller.

“Is she okay?” The jock
asked, as he stood behind the couch with his hands on his hips, watching her
with mild concern. 

“She seems to be alright,”
the older looking woman said in a calm voice with a frantic, uncontrolled wave
of her hands.  

Sophie watched her in
fascination. Even through her shock, the other woman’s contradicting actions
didn’t make any sense to her.

The one called Laney—a
bright-eyed teenager with an impossibly high ponytail—came bounding back in the
room and handed Sophie’s rescuer a wet washcloth. He took the washcloth from Laney
and then handed it to Sophie who suddenly wished she knew his name.

“Here, use this to cool
off,” he commanded before looking back at Laney. “Will you check her back and
make sure the bleeding has stopped?”

Sophie watched numbly as
the younger girl danced to her back. Laney paused, the hem of Sophie’s shirt in
her hand. Sophie looked questioningly at the man who sat in front of her. How
did he know she’d been bleeding? Her shirt was black and wouldn’t have shown
any of the blood.