Page 16 of Blood Secret

5

Vale

The musicin the car was so loud, there was no chance of the driver understanding us if we spoke low enough.

I leaned closer, and she all but climbed through the window to get away from me. “I was sent to protect you. You don’t have anything to fear while you’re with me.”

“Protect me? From what? You’re the one who… who…” She shook her head and looked away. “How could you do that? No. It can’t be real. You can’t have done that. I was imagining things.”

“You weren’t.”

“You tore her head off.”

“I did. And I would do it again.”

“No, no.” She shook her head like a willful child. “You didn’t. That didn’t happen. Somebody slipped me something in the club, and I dreamed the whole thing. That doesn’t happen in real life.”

“It does, and it did.”

“And you know me? You know who I am? How is this possible?”

“What happened tonight was bound to happen. I’m surprised it didn’t happen before now, honestly, the way you’ve been taking chances by visiting those nightclubs. My job is to make sure that doesn’t happen again—and to do what I did back there if you’re ever in danger again.”

“I wasn’t in danger. She was trying to pick me up, for fuck’s sake! So what? I could’ve said no, thank you, and that would’ve been the end of it.”

“You think she was trying to…?” I frowned. Pick her up?

“She was coming onto me. Trying to, you know, hook up with me. She didn’t deserve that!”

“You have no idea what she was trying to do.” I didn’t know if I hated her naïveté or if it made me want to protect her even more. She was like a babe in the woods, absolutely without an understanding of the forces surrounding her. “That thing was trying to possess you. She was going to attack you, turn you into something like her. Or drain you and leave you for dead.”

She blinked as her mouth fell open. “You honestly believe that? This isn’t part of some little game you people play. That whole lifestyle isn’t real.” She kept looking down at my hands, then back at my face. “You killed her because you think it’s all real? Oh, help me, please. God, help me.” She started weeping.

“Stop crying,” I spat.

The car flew over a bridge and, I guessed, into Brooklyn.

I didn’t want her attracting attention from a passerby, especially when we reached her apartment.

“Stop asking for God to help you, while you’re at it. If some invisible entity was going to help you, don’t you think they would have when you were seconds away from being attacked by that bitch? I’m the one you should be praying to for help. I’m the one who saved your life.”

“You’re insane. You’re sick. Please, just get out of the car the next time we stop. Please, I’ll give you anything.” She fumbled in her purse. “My debit card. I’ll give you the PIN so you can use it. Just take everything.”

In the blink of an eye, she thrust her hand up at me.

There was a small, black item clutched in it.

My reflexes were much too fast to allow her to do more than drop the item on the seat between us as I twisted her wrist—not enough to break or even strain, but enough to make her wince in pain and surprise.

“I am not the enemy.”

“Who are you, then?” she asked as she rubbed her wrist. “Some avenging angel? A bodyguard? A superhero?”

“I’m someone sent to you to protect you, as I said. Who or what I am doesn’t matter. And I think we can agree that my presence in your life this evening is quite opportune.”

“Who hired you for this?” she whispered. “My mother? Of course, it was her. Only she would think I needed protection, and she would hire somebody like you. Crazy enough to take her literally when she tells you to do anything it takes.”

“You don’t know how close you are to the truth,” I muttered, looking out the window to check our progress while always keeping her in the periphery. She wouldn’t come to heel, at least not right away. “If you hadn’t run back there, none of this would’ve happened. I could’ve explained everything, and we might be someplace safe at this very moment. But no. You had to run away and get yourself into trouble.”

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