Page 37 of Barely Breathing

“Take it easy, everyone. It’s just a blackout. Looks like it’s the whole block.”

I turn to the voice. Suddenly, I’m standing in a convenience store aisle in the dark. Someone holds their phone as a flashlight. The red dot is a device running on battery backup.

This is all too familiar. I don’t want to be here.

But I am here.

How? I remember this. It’s a gas station in Salina, Kansas. The bus I was on stopped here in the middle of the night. But this was months ago in an erased timeline.

The cashier sounds annoyed as she continues, “I’m calling my boss. Sorry, your purchases are going tohave to wait.”

I try to hold on to Costin and his room. I want to remember that this isn’t real. This isn’t happening. It’s only a memory.

The streetlights are out, but I see the running lights from the parked bus waiting for us. I’m alone in Kansas on the way to California to meet my birth mother. I left Paul and his daughter in Kansas City, where they should be safe.

“Please don’t steal. The cameras have night vision,” the cashier warns before muttering, “They don’t pay me enough for this.”

I ignore her. My eyes focus on the bus. I should never have gotten off.

“Where is she?”I hear a disembodied voice whisper. Costin? But he’s dead.

Time slides and bends. The glass doors blow open. Someone screams. I try to fight against the memory—I know how this ends, I don’t want to see it again—but Costin’s blood forces me deeper. Dark blurs fly around the store.

Vampires. Even though I know they can’t hurt me now, my body remembers the terror.

Suddenly, time jumps forward. I’m outside, pressed against an ice machine as I hide. Inside the store, metal shelves crash to the floor. I want to help the people inside, but there is nothing I can do.

My head is dizzy, and it’s all I can do to remain in the moment. I hear a light tap behind me and slowlyturn around to see a vampire standing in the window, smiling like a predator who just found his prey. He has a handsome face and short blond hair.

Time jumps again, and I run along the side of the building toward the back. I know it’s hopeless. The monsters are giving chase, and I can’t outrun them.

It happens again. Precious seconds disappear as time jumps. I’m behind the gas station. My skin feels raw from having landed on my hands and knees in the gravel. Three impressively large male vampires and a much shorter female tower over me.

The woman is vaguely familiar. Though she wears tight leather, and her straight black hair is severely angled at her chin, I picture her with longer curls and a blue gown. I’ve seen her in a painting in a book. Recognizing her is not a good thing. It means she’s probably old and extremely powerful.

“What happens next?”Costin’s voice whispers.“Show me.”

I blink in confusion, unable to answer him. None of the others show they can hear him.

I lift my hands to defend myself. I know it’s pointless, but I have to try. Blood runs down my palm from where I cut it on the gravel. I hear a collective inhale as the vampires get a whiff of my blood. I wipe it against my shirt as if it will erase the temptation.

“Please,” I beg. “You’re making a mistake. I didn’thurt Costin. The fire was not my fault. This is all a misunderstanding, and I promise I will do everything I can to figure out who is responsible. I lost people too in that fire.”

The woman taps her fingers against her thigh. She’s unimpressed with my pleading.

“Humans,” she rasps in disgust.

Usually, vampires have an air of boredom to them. Like the centuries have just added up to create a long eternity of nothingness that they’re trying to fill. But right now, the way they’re looking at me, they’re not bored. They have a purpose, which is more terrifying than anything I can envisage. I can only imagine that what they have planned for me is not an easy ending.

“I had no reason to hurt Costin,” I say. I hear more vampires landing around us, and I put my back to the gas station wall to keep them all in my sights. “We were… We were on friendly terms.”

“You’re braver than most blood sacks. I can see why my brother liked you,” the vampire answers, flicking the back of her nails against her short hair. “Although Costin always did have questionable taste in pets.”

“Costin was your brother,” I state the realization out loud.

“You can call me Elizabeth,” she says.

Another half dozen vampires join us behind the gas station.

---