Page 58 of Deal with the Devil

She froze as all the doors locked around her.

“Well, fuck me,” she snarled, launching across the cabin of the car to the doors. The locks were gone and the door refused to open. Amelia threw her weight against the side of the car, hoping to shake it enough to catch Doug’s attention.

Was the driver a rat too? Was Doug? She chewed on her own organs as panic rose in her throat like vomit. It burned everything as tears welled in her eyes.No, no, no, no!She’d always been so careful. She’d clocked Knox’s goons the second Penny pointed at them. Amelia suddenly felt so stupid. This was a trap. Knox asked her to stay put and she’d put her whole ass into a car and told herself it would be fine.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted, grabbing the seat belt and smashing the metal clip against the window. It clinked to no avail. Amelia dropped onto her back against the leather seats, kicking at the windows and door. Nothing. She rushed to the partition and tried to force it down. Nope. She grabbed herphone and prepared to have nothing to use to call Knox, arm raised to break it against the glass… when a door opened.

Amelia lowered her arm, eyes wide.

“No…fucking…way.” She stared at Rick, alive and fucking well, smugly smiling back at her. He winked from the door and sat down into one of the seats. Rick left the door open a crack, clearing teasing her with his escape. Amelia sat down in the seat across from him. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Funny how that works!” He giggled wickedly, folding his arms in his lap. “How are you, Amelia? How’s the book going?”

“I stabbed you.In the fucking neck.” She eyed him from crown to toe. His skin was sheet white, his red and purple veins pushed up against the surface like it were wet cotton. She could probably poke him and feel his muscles twitch with effort. His eyes were sunken in and rimmed with red, splotchy rings. His nose had a black bruise across the bridge and his lower lip was busted. Otherwise, he was alive and breathing.

“You did a good job too, took my master a good amount of time to stitch it up. You buried it in deep,” He laughed, pulling down the turtleneck. He exposed an angry spot on his neck, purple and black bruising surrounding circular stitching. A patch of flesh filled in the spot where she’d buried the knife.

“Whose skin is that?” Amelia recoiled.

“His, you see, my master—er…Declan, since I know you know who he is now—he’s indestructible. So, you can skin him, and it’ll just grow back. He was generous with me, gave me some of the skin off his belly. Fit like a glove.” Rick touched the skin tenderly. Piss yellow puss pushed out between the two types of skin, dribbling down Rick’s neck.

“So, you’re infected…like him. You’re a vampire?” Amelia checked the windows, finding no one nearby. Penny was still inside the bank. The driver was gone.

“I’m better than that. Normal vampires have to avoid sunlight.” Rick pushed the door open and let the light cascade over him. “We’re evolved.”

“Is that why puss comes out of your wound and you look like death warmed over?” she sneered, lurching forward. Rick pulled the door closer to him, showing he wasn’t afraid to lock them inside. Amelia curled her lip up in an angry snarl.

“You always were the more vicious sister,” he let out a low whistle, trailing his eyes down her body. It left her shivering in disgust as she dug her fingers into the fabric of her seat. “You know, I did like Penny. Truly, I did. She’s a sweet girl, and Brayden’s a strapping kid, must have gotten that from me…but you’ve gotta know none of that was real.”

“Oh please, we’re past believing any of it was real you two-faced, lying, conniving shit stain!” Amelia growled, situating her legs better. Her muscles were primed and ready to launch.

“You’re not about to try and kill me again, are you? Because it didn’t stick last time,” he snorted with a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

“We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” Amelia didn’t let him answer, instead launching across the cabin. She used the momentum to shove her back into the door before he could slam it shut. They both tumbled out into the parking lot. Amelia swung first and she swung hard. Knuckles to his face, she landed her blow directly to his nose. He knocked her off him with his feet. She tumbled across the asphalt.

Amelia landed with her back against someone’s bumper. Rick flew through the air, pinning her to the metal with dagger-like claws. Amelia screamed and thrashed as the pain hit her like a ton of bricks. He dug them deep into the meat of her shoulder. She planted her feet against his knees and kicked with all her might. Something cracked. Somethingimportantcracked. Rick planted his face into her as she twisted. His fingers still buriedin her flesh. She death rolled with him until she had his head locked between her thighs and his arms above him. One snap and his right arm fell limp against her. Two snaps, she crossed her ankles in front of his torso and squeezed her thighs. His arms hung at impossible angles, bones poking out of his rotten flesh.

Rick smelled of death. Decay and rot filled the hot summer air around her. Amelia tried not to gag on it.

“You can’t defeat me,” Rick hissed, popping the bones in his arms back into place. If she wasn’t putting everything into cracking his skull like a watermelon, she’d shudder. They were on backwards now. His hands flew at her, snatching her face. His claws dug into her forehead and cheeks. She screamed as she thrashed around, trying to swat his claws away from her face.

“I’ll just have to keep killing you till it sticks!” She punched him in the top of the head.

Something cracked between her thighs. Blood gushed out into her lap as she squeezed even tighter. Tears welled in her eyes as she beat his head left and right. His hands faltered. Then, suddenly, they stopped. But she didn’t stop squeezing. Not until he burst. Like a sickening can of soda, she was sprayed with his brain and blood.

“Amelia!

She gasped, scrambling backward away from Rick…and watched in horror as his skull began to crawl back together. “Dragons damnit!”

“Rick?” Penny stopped a good foot away from the gory scene. Amelia was still drenched in blood, and Rick was piecing himself back together.

“Where’s Doug?” she barked.

“What just—where’s the driver?” Doug stumbled up behind Penny.

“I’ll kill him too! Call Knox!” Amelia snatched up a massive piece of skull off the ground and chucked it as far as she could throw. Soaked down to her skin in blood, she scanned the horizon, finding the driver popping out of sight around a building. “Stand on his head! Don’t let him heal! Penny, tell Knox to meet us here! Right! Now!”

And Amelia saw red as she chased down the driver through the city, covered in Rick’s blood.

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