Page 64 of This Blood That Binds Us
And I thoughtmylife was complicated enough, with a vampire trying to kill me. I couldn’t even contemplate the things Luke said. The questions kept bubbling up in my mind. Who was the girl Luke was talking about? What happened to him to make him so scared? All of that was overcome by the growing fear that I needed to find Aaron as soon as possible.
“Hey! Sorry about that. I cleared everything up.”
Aaron’s voice startled me. Relief washed over me, seeing him perfectly fine next to me. I did a quick once-over to make sure he was still in one piece. His hair was a little wild, but he looked fine.
“What do you mean? What happened to Luke?” I said.
“Luke?” Aaron looked behind me and responded like he was citing a well-rehearsed speech. “Luke’s fine. He got upset before we talked to William and left.”
“I saw him come down the stairs,” I said.
Aaron shrugged. “If he did, then it must have been after I left.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! None of this is making any sense,” I said.
Something in Aaron’s expression didn’t look right, and every time I tried to dig into my memory to try to investigate, I couldn’t pull anything up.
“There’s nothing to worry about at all. He is not the vampire. I’m one hundred percent sure.” Aaron smiled, but it didn’t match his eyes.
Something about his words didn’t comfort me like I’d hoped. I looked back toward the stairs, and as I did, William descendedthe stairs. Without a word to Aaron, I pushed through the crowd. I had no idea what I’d say, but I knew he had the answers I needed. In the blink of an eye, I lost William in a sea of dark-haired boys.
Aaron was hot on my heels. “Where are you going?”
“To find him. There’s something we’re missing. I know it.”
As I made my way through the crowd, yelling outside the building stopped me in my tracks.
“Come on.” Without any explanation, Aaron grabbed my hand, leading me through the crowd and toward the back door. I knew I should have been more focused on the surrounding chaos, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than Aaron’s hand on mine. It was warm. Comforting. Heat flushed in my cheeks.
Despite the music, the sound of commotion grew louder and louder as we neared the door. One by one, people funneled outside to look at something.
Once outside, we arrived at an open circle in the mob. Guys were mauling Presley, at least ten of them. In the midst of his shuffle, Presley lay on the ground, protecting his body with his legs and arms.
It was a relief knowing he wouldn’t be seriously hurt, but that didn’t stop my stomach from churning. Aaron left me at the edge of the circle and went in to pull the group off of his brother. A gasp of horror escaped my lips as they relentlessly punched and kicked Aaron as he tried to pull Presley off the ground.
A fire ignited under my feet, and I went to step in. For a moment, I lost all sense of reasoning. He didn’t need my help, yet my body leaped into action.
Chelsea grabbed my arm. “You don’t want to get in the middle of that.”
I wanted to push her off, but I knew she was right. The two were becoming overwhelmed. Probably too afraid to fight back in fear of exposing themselves.
“What happened?! Why are they fighting?” I said.
Chelsea grimaced. “I don’t know. Some guy just punched Presley out of the blue and then everyone started jumping on him.”
Ellis tried to jump in and help but was also punched and thrown to the ground a few feet away. I ran to his aid.
I pulled him from the gravel driveway. “Are you okay?”
He dusted himself. “I don’t know what happened. We were walking to the car, and this guy just sucker-punched him. They won’t let me through.”
Ellis wiped the blood from his chin with labored breath. This looked bad. I wished I could tell him he didn’t need to worry about Presley. He looked like he was about ready to jump back in.
“Wait here. I’m going to get help,” I said.
The music was still blasting from inside, and I went for the door to go get more help, when Zach appeared.
“What the hell is this?” Zach barreled through the crowd, wasting no time by flinging people off of Presley and Aaron.
