Page 41 of How to Entice a Fiend

Lifting the naked man up, I drape him over my shoulder and keep running. Maybe I can hit the city soon and reach the VRC… but where the hellisthe city? I don’t hear cars, I can’t see houses. The fields around here aren’t farmed, they’re overgrown grassland and brush.

Nausea rolls through me. Maybe I shouldn’t have drained that deer. It’s not like I can’t consume other blood, but when I’m in this condition, vampire blood is probably the only thing that will heal me. Slowing to a walk, I draw my shirt down, exposing my shoulder that I’d been shot in and revealing how my veins show black through my skin.

Hell, maybe this thing is just taking its sweet time to kill me. Just because it didn’t kill me immediately doesn’t mean it’s not going to. I don’t know how much of the drug was put into it or if it would even be affecting a true vampire to this extreme. All I know is that weakness is washing through my body, and even the blood I drank doesn’t seem to be the fix I thought it would.

“How about you carry me some?” I mumble, but maybe he would have if I hadn’t triedeatinghim. “I’m going to be so pissed if I carry you all this way for you to just fucking die off.”

I try not to notice the way guilt eats at me at that thought. It wasn’t like I meant for it to happen. I never meant for any of it to happen. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have to live with the consequences of it.

Positive that whatever direction I pick will lead me farther from civilization, I pick a random route and start moving, just making sure I’m going the same way without getting turned around. Exhaustion weighs down my limbs as I run until my legs shake, and when I trip, I go down on my knees again, unable to get back up. When I try to rise, I can’t even get my legs under me.

Deciding I’ll just take a short break, I lower Mads off my shoulder and onto the ground before hitting down on my side as the world spins around me.

We’re both just going to be lying here when Abel finds us. He’s going to drag us back and that darkness is going to take us.

You know you can’t outrun me, right, Ender? Where would you even go? You know I own your life. I own you. Icreatedyou. You’re special because I chose to let you exist. I chose to let you be. And you have one purpose.

To kill.

No, no, I don’t want to kill them. I don’t want to. They were kind to me. They took care of me and now their blood coats my fingers. I can taste it on my lips. Their pleas, their cries tearing through me.

A hand brushes my cheek, and I reel back because that monster is here. I let him invade my life. I’m lying here because I’m weak. I’m so fucking weak and he found me.

“Shhh.”

My eyes flash over to what’s made the noise, and I realize that the hand slumped against my cheek belongs to Mads and I’m just caught back up in a dream of a life I’d do anything to forget.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MADS

I’m not sure whether it was the thrashing vampire that woke me, the feeling of death descending upon me, or something else, but when I open my eyes, I find that Ender is lying on the ground next to me, apparently caught up in the darkness of his dreams.

That fucker tried to kill me. Maybe he’s dreaming about how much of an asshole he is.

His face shows true fear, and I decide that even if he tried to kill me, I can’t just lie here and watch him suffer. “En… der…” I whisper, struggling to even find my voice. It’s no wonder he doesn’t hear it when I barely can.

I try to roll to my side and the world spins around me as I discover that we’re no longer in that room but surrounded by trees that whirl around me. And then I’m consumed by blackness that debates taking me down and not letting me up again.

Enderbegsto be let go, to be free of the darkness, and it draws me back into the world enough that I reach out and cuphis face. I meant more to give him a push, but it’s hard when I can’t seem to control my hand. “Shhh…”

I plan to tell him it’s okay, that he’s fine, but I can’t find any words.

He jerks awake, and for a split second, I’m convinced he’s going to attack me. Fear spikes inside of me as I realize that I’ve just woken the man who is partially responsible for putting me in this state. Maybe he was taking me with him as a snack for the road. Maybe I’m like a fucking bag of M&M’s he was taking along for a mid-travel nibble.

His eyes are unreadable for a moment and I grow anxious that I might have fucked up before it seems to dawn on him that it’s me. But more importantly, he doesn’t have that cold, dead look in his eyes that he’d had when he’d attacked me.

“Mads,” he says before grabbing my face. “Mads, you’re… Mads…” But before he can complete what he was going to say, he stills. His hand clamps over my mouth and I drift a bit before his look turns to anger. “Fuck. They found us.”

Ender picks me up and I groan as I realize the wounds in my stomach haven’t fully healed yet. Likely due to the lack of blood.

“Fuck,” I hiss.

“Quiet,” he says as he shifts me so the weight is off his bad shoulder and I sink off into the darkness. I can tell we’re moving, but I can’t seem to open my eyes to even tell where we’re going.

The next time I come to, he’s smacking me.

“What the fuck?” I groan.

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