Page 112 of Bitten By Desire
“What are you doing?” she said as she peered over my shoulder to see my phone. “Come on, Emma. Let’s just sit down and talk.”
I couldn’t talk! I’d taken a blood oath! But she was staring at me like I was the insane one, rather thanherfor living in this town. She was staring at me like everything around her was normal but me. Like she thought all of this was…
Oh.
Shit.
I stared at her staring at me. And I had this terrible, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was in on it. All of it. Was she a werecat too? Or a vampire? And why weren’t there any flights out of here until tomorrow afternoon?!
There was no way I’d make it to morning with at least five werecats, a vampire, and a serial killer…
God, the severed hand.There was no serial killer. Bennett had told me vampire fangs weren’t responsible for something like that. Because heknewthat it was werecat claws! I pictured the scar down Titan’s face. And the cut on Bennett’s lip. And the gash he’d just gotten on his chest when Otto swiped at him.
Bennett or one of his friends had killed people in that hay maze! Crooked Point didn’t have a serial killer problem. Just a monster problem. “It was him. Or them. Or one of them. They’re responsible for the hay maze massacre.”
“Who was what? I love that name for it by the way. The hay maze massacre. That’s catchy AF.”
I just stared at her. The flippant way she’d disregarded the serial killer in the town. Even the way she just joked about the name I’d come up with.Don’t play games with me, Zoey.She knew all of this. I was suddenly sure of it. Or else I was still more drunk than I realized. “There’s a train station in this town, right? I’m going there.”
“You’re not going to the train station in the middle of the night.”
“You can’t keep me here, Zoey.”
“I’m…not. I’m just suggesting that you sleep this off. You had a lot to drink and…”
“Because you spiked my coffee?” I glared at her.
“I really thought you knew about that in college.”
“Of course I didn’t, Zoey! If that’s even your real name.”
She laughed. “Wait, are you serious? What the hell is going on?”
“You tell me!”
She stared at me like I was crazy. “You’re the one that was going to hang out with Bennett. You’re the one that’s supposed to have the answers. Just tell me.”
“He’s a…” I started choking.
“Just spit it out already! He’s a what?”
It was like she was just testing me. Like she knew I couldn’t say it. And was just trying to torture me or something. “He’s…”Cough.“A…”Cough.“W…” I started choking and my knees buckled. I fell to the floor and caught myself just in time to not faceplant the carpet.
Zoey put her hand on my back. “Should I call the town doctor?”
That sounded like a trap to me. The doctor in Crooked Point was probably a descendant of Frankenstein. “Don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth.
She dropped her hand from my back like my skin burned her. It probably did. Some kind of weird blood oath magic or something.
I leaned over and tried to take a deep breath but coughed again.
“You need a cough drop. I’ll be right back.”
I watched her head up the stairs. I had my purse with me. Which had my camera, my wallet, and my phone. That was all I really needed. This might be my only chance. I stood up, ran to the front door, and threw it open.
I took a deep breath of the fresh autumn air and my lungs seemed okay again. I’d passed by the train station on the taxi ride here from the airport. It was right on the edge of town. I turned left, heading in the opposite direction of Main Street.
The fresh air soothed my nerves slightly. And there was a small piece of me that thought I might be overreacting. To the Zoey thing. Not the rest of it. Bennett and his friends were for sure monsters. Callum probably was too. And I threw Zoey into all of it because of her close proximity. What were the chances that she hadn’t been bit yet though? Was that even how werecats worked? God, was everyone in Crooked Point a monster?
