Page 41 of Bitten By Desire
I touched the side of my neck again. I knew it was more than what I’d said that caused the nightmare. And my heart was still pounding. The dream had felt so real. “You should have seen the way Callum stared at me last night. He was scary. He wasn’t acting like himself. Like he was about to snap or something. Like maybe he was…hungry?”
“For blood?!”
“I don’t know! And then Bennett got in my head because he kept asking me not to see Callum again. Basically implying that he needed to be there to protect me.”
“Do they know each other?”
“I don’t think so. Bennett said he didn’t like the way Callum was looking at me.” A chill ran down my spine. “Callum did look at my neck last night. I know he did. And I think Bennett saw him do it.”
Zoey shuddered. “But there’s no such thing as vampires…right?”
“Right.” I was pretty sure it came out as a question. I wanted to calm her down but I didn’t know what to believe. And she looked as uneasy as I felt.
She slowly shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how sure are you of that? Because the more I think about it…the more it kind of fits. Maybe that’s why Callum disappeared ten years ago. Maybe he hurt someone else and had to disappear. And change his name. I never looked up murders at that university.”
Zoey shook her head. “I think we would have heard about someone dying at our rival school.”
“Yeah…probably.” But I was itching to grab my phone and look it up. “And he doesn’t look any older. He looks exactly the same. Like he hasn’t aged at all. That’s a vampire thing, right?”
Zoey took a deep breath. “Vampires don’t exist. You were just spooked last night. You found a freaking hand in that hay maze. Shit, look.” She pointed to the breaking news banner on the TV. She turned the volume back on.
The police had found several severed body parts in the maze last night. And now there were two people who’d been reported missing this morning. They were still waiting for forensics to see if the parts were a match.
“I swear this stuff never happens here,” Zoey said. “There’s no crime in Crooked Point. None. I don’t even lock my front door.”
Well I didn’t love the sound of that. “We should lock it tonight, I think.”
“Definitely.” She grabbed a pillow and held it to her chest. “I can’t believe any of this. It’s horrible. Those poor people and their families.”
“I know.” I wanted to say I hoped the body parts weren’t a match to the missing people. But…they still belonged to someone, somewhere. Or multiple someones. This was horrifying.
We were a both quiet for a moment. And I was wondering if she was thinking the same thing I was…Is Callum responsible for this?He hadn’t hurt me. But what if he’d hurt someone else?
“Okay…enough news.” Zoey grabbed the remote and switched it off.
“That’s probably a good idea.” I didn’t want to have any more nightmares tonight as realistic as the one I’d just had.
“I have the perfect way to distract us.” The smile slowly grew over her face. “House hunting.”
“Zoey…”
“What? You’re smitten with Bennett. You’re obviously staying.”
I wasn’t obviously staying. Yes, I liked Bennett. But it wasn’t that simple. “There’s a murderer loose in this town.”
“And like I said…this never happens here. So it’s probably never going to happen again in our lifetime.”
“Or maybe it’s a vampire.”
“We just talked about this. Vampires don’t exist. And I seriously doubt Callum had anything to do with this. Bennett and I were in the maze too and you don’t suspect us.”
“Fine. But maybe it’s not just a murderer loose in the town. Maybe it’s a serial killer.”
“Why would you say that?” She threw the pillow at me.
“Because it seems like there are already multiple victims. Which means there might be more.”
