Page 13 of Some Swans Don't Swim
My dead heart broke into tiny pieces and then froze, instantly, at the loud cracks and groans of the tree behind me. Frantic, I clawed at the snow around her trapped foot and hit something hard. An overturned cinderblock frozen to the concrete path below it. Her foot had twisted itself into the hole inside the cinderblock.
Ice-covered branches formed a cage around us, some of which snapped like bones. The tree groaned again, a constant, horrendous noise. I rose up slightly as if to catch the trunk with my back, but it was a huge fucking tree.
I pulled on the girl’s foot, but when she cried out and grabbed hold of my jacket, I quickly switched to Plan B. I wrapped my hands around the cinder block and wrenched it free from the icy ground. So she’d have a cinderblock foot now. It was better than being squished.
The tree leaned hard against my back, grinding against every vertebrae of my spine. Bent over as I was, I dug my toes into the snow and slid them wider to spread out the weight of the tree, just long enough to scoop the girl up in my arms and get the hell out of there. I shielded her face and body the best I could as we smashed through the branches caging us in. As soon as we cleared them, the tree crashed down.
I ran toward the swans and my vampires and Krampus, the little girl clutched tight in my arms. Her cinderblock foot slammed into my upper thigh. Her pompom hat went flying. Her blood-drenched hand weaved through the hair of my fallen bun, so close I could taste the sweet coppery goodness. Her warm neck was just inches away from my mouth—
Stop it. My thirst was the least of my worries, or it should’ve been, at least. My stomach needed to learn that lesson fast.
Once I rounded the jungle gym, I spotted the swans. But no vampires or Krampus.
“Sawyer? Jacek? Eddie?” I shouted.
Nothing.
Nothing except two familiar silhouettes across the street, standing on top of what looked like a post office. Eddie and Jacek. They blurred down the side of it faster than Spiderman and stopped to haul up something on the sidewalk. Where were Sawyer and Krampus?
I rushed toward them, cradling the girl’s head in my palm to keep her from baring her neck.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Home. Soon.” The words came out like a growl that made her whimper, and I instantly hated myself even more for not being able to control myself.
The thing Eddie and Jacek were dragging into an upright position was huge compared to them, and hunched over. Then the figure stood and eyed me over their shoulders with a head full of silky black curls blowing in the wind and a pained scowl on his lips.
Sawyer. He was hurt.
I sprinted toward them, put the kid down, and then pressed my hands to my favorite Brazilian vampire’s face. “Are you okay?”
“My knee went to battle with Krampus’s goat foot.” He took my hands and squeezed, a small smile dashing across his scowl. “I’ll be fine, but Krampus won’t be next time we see him.”
“Where is he?” I asked, searching the street.
“We chased him...off.”
I turned to Jacek beside me to see why he’d trailed off, and found his amber gaze stuck to Eddie on my other side. The little girl gazed up at him with her warm brown eyes, her soft curls, now free from her hat, twirling around her angelic face, and reached up to hook her pinkie in his.
“Hi,” she whispered. “I’m Francisca.”
Eddie winced and looked away from her, every emotion he’d ever felt at war on his face. My eyes filled with tears because I could name every one of them—regret, loss, heartache, love. Eddie’s little sister, who’d also been a slayer, had died, and Eddie, being Eddie, had worn the big-brother badge with pride and fierce protectiveness. This little girl obviously sensed that.
I caught his eye and nodded, as if giving him permission to feel everything he was feeling, and to take on the role the little girl wanted him to. Since she’d looked away from me, she’d already forgotten about me since that was how it worked with humans and vampires. But she hadn’t forgotten about him as she gazed up at him with admiration. I knew how she felt.
He flicked his eyes to her—not red like I was sure mine were since he was better at controlling his thirst—and smiled down at her, tightening his pinky with hers.
“Hi,” he said. “Let’s get that cinderblock off your foot and get you home, all right?”
She nodded and flashed him an almost toothless grin that wobbled one out from me as well. Apparently no female of any age was safe with their hearts around Eddie.
I steeled my spine again and tried to pretend I hadn’t just melted into a puddle. “So. Those swans didn’t work?”
“Funny thing about those seven swans...” Jacek came up to me with Night’s Fall pointed at the snow and brushed my wet cheeks with his thumb, a sweet smile on his lips. “There’s only six of them.”
