The Run Down

Another of My Favorites.

 

 

I jolted awake, springing myself upright on top of my bed, with Owen sitting on the foot of it in the dimness. A look of mixed anxiety and grief tangled his dark eyes brows together.

            I was gasping for breath and drenched in sweat, with one of my blankets coiled around me. I wriggled the stupid thing off of me in haste, shaking from head to toe as I grabbed onto the patient Owen’s forearms.

            “I saw something Owen,” I whimpered, my voice unsteady and weak. “I saw something bad.”

            “What, Sophia? What is it?” Owen asked softly, smoothing the back of my bushy brown hair as I bit my lip to keep anymore tears from threatening to cross the threshold.

            “I saw the vampires this time. There were two of them. In the vision, I was one of them.” I was still clutching onto his thick, strong forearms, using them as support. “Her name was Lacey. She couldn’t have been any older than we are, Owen. And the other one’s name was Cassius. He was threatening me—I mean, he was threatening Lacey. I have a feeling she’s not like the others, Owen. I think she’s different. I don’t think she wants to be that!”

            “Shh, shh it’s ok.” He attempted to calm my growing spasms while still smoothing out my wavy hair. “Tell me what else happened.”

            “Cassius said he was taking immediate action. He said he was going to ‘kill the witch’ right in front of Lacey’s ‘pathetic eyes’,” I wailed, knowing Aunt Kat was probably on her way home from work and not in the other room, startled by my uproar. “They’re talking about me, Owen, they have to be. They have my scent now; they know how to find me. They’re going to kill me!”

            Owen had thrown me into a tight embrace as I broke out in tears, rocking me side to side.

            “Shh…no they won’t, Sophia, I promise you. I won’t let anything happen to you…” His voice trailed off at the last part, and I pulled back slightly so I could get a look at the expression on his face through my rueful tears.

            “What?” I demanded as he seemed to look straight through me, as though I were invisible. “What? What are you thinking?”

            He shook his head for a moment, and then looked at me once more, like he actually saw me sitting there.

            “I’m thinking…that I don’t want to lose you, Sophia. I wouldn’t be able toeven look at myself knowing I let something happen to you under my control. I just don’t know if I want to risk putting you in all this danger…” His voice trailed off again as he gazed out the window, like something was going to come flying inside at any moment, even though I had already seen three different wolves pass by on watch in that few minutes alone.

            “Owen, that’s stupid. Listen to yourself,” I said, tucking a strand of brown wavy hair behind my ear so I could get a better look at him. I was basically sitting on the edge of his thigh, and it still wasn’t close enough. All I could think of now was how we had come so close to sharing one, simple kiss. This incredible, heroic, gorgeous, all around good person had almost kissed me. I wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of me being beside him now.

            “No, it’s not stupid. Do you realize how close you came to being murdered the other night? You’re lucky you didn’t die in a car crash let alone be eaten by a bunch of bloodthieves,” he said, bringing the realness of death that much closer to me. “I don’t think you understand just how dangerous this is. We have about a dozen wolves out on the line for you right now, as it is. We’re putting them in danger as well. If I’m going to be the next King Lycan soon, I have to be putting my two cents into every decision that the pack makes. Seeing you…hurting like that, just minutes ago, was more than I can bear. When you hurt, Sophia, I hurt. I was born for you.”

            “Owen, honestly. I don’t want you to have to put your pack in danger, I understand that. But, I’m just confused now… you say you don’t want to lose me, but then you make it seem like…I’m causing more trouble than what I’m worth,” I said, the words I spoke hurt deeper aloud than when they were kept locked inside my head.

            “No, you are worth everything to us,” Owen disagreed, sending my heart fluttering at the mere way his lips moved as he muttered the words. “I just don’t want to make any mistakes at your expense. We’ll figure this out Sophia, we will. We’ll find a way to keep the pack safe. And there is absolutely no question that you will be kept safe.”

            Owen stayed there with me until I fell asleep. I woke up to see the black, brown, and white multi-hued pelted wolf slinking off into the shadows of my field from my window.

 

The next night Bryan was invited over for dinner. It was a sign of grateful graciousness, Kat explained to me, because Bryan was kind enough to help Aunt Kat lease a new car, since I destroyed her last one. This car was an older model of an electric blue Subaru WRX STI.

            We were sitting there at the tall oak kitchen table—the three of us—nibbling on our Chicken Parmigiano, which Kat so graciously made for us. She never made me Chicken Parmigiano any other night. I was usually on my own with a bowl of Lucky Charms, or something.

            The conversation was sort of dry at first, but Kat went on to explain to me that Bryan Morgery was actually a surfer boy, and worked at both a surf shop down in San Diego where he normally lived, and a tattoo parlor as a tattoo artist.

            I never would have guessed this from the first impression I had of him, but then again, starring at someone from the other side of a second story window isn’t a very good first impression in any respect. Now, taking a better look at him, dressed in his black polo which was tight against his bulging, brown muscles, I could definitely see the surfer in him, especially upon looking at his wavy blonde hair. And I could see from sitting at the right side of the square table from him that he had a string of big, bulky tattoos on his large biceps of various designs.

            “Hmm…interesting, Bryan,” I said, only feigning interest as I took a sip from my water glass.

            “Sophia is interested in art, as well,” Aunt Kat said enthusiastically across the table from me as she took a bite of her Chicken. Oh, Kat. I thought. She was so excited. And she looked so cute with her black hair out of its usual confinement of the twisted bun. It was straightened and reached just below her shoulders, and she had it sort of flipping out at the ends, while the front few strands were pulled to the back of her head. Her short bangs for once weren’t frazzled out of control, and she was wearing a pink cardigan of all things. And pearls.

            Goodness, Kat.

            “Oh really? Well, that’s dope,” he said with a grin, which I could tell was forced, even though Kat couldn’t.

            “Yes. Yes, it is dope,” I mimicked, taking another sip of water. What was he, sixteen? I nearly spit my water out of my mouth like a full forced hose towards Bryan, as I looked out the glass door behind Kat and saw the red wolf which was Isaac (the one who always seemed to have a permanent smile on his snout) scurry across the yard in the dark. Instead of spitting the water every where, I managed to control it somewhat so it only dribbled from my lips and down my chin, like I had Novocain in my mouth. Or was just horribly retarded.

            Kat stared at me like I was the latter, as I scurried to grab my napkin to wipe away the mess.

            “So that’s great you got Kat a job at a tattoo parlor,” I commented to him, pushing the chicken parmigiano I cut up in my plate around, but not eating any of it. “Is that where you guys were the other night when I had that accident? At the tattoo parlor?”

            Bryan exchanged an uneasy look with Aunt Kat, who looked rather abashed by this question.

            “Well, actually, the place closes at 9:30. Kat was only at the parlor until like, 10:00 ‘cuz they needed her to stay a little longer. But we went out after her shift,” Bryan explained honestly, something I couldn’t have received from Aunt Kat.

            “Thank you, Bryan. I was wondering about that…” I turned a stone cold look on Aunt Kat after that; she looked back at me apologetically.

            “Let me explain, Sophia,” She started, pushing her plate away to give herself more room to use her hands as she spoke. “Bryan drove me to work, right? Well neither Bryan nor myself had gotten the chance to eat any dinner yet, so we went out somewhere after that—”

            “My dad sometimes doesn’t want me coming home too early,” Bryan blurted out over top of Aunt Kat.

            “Huh?” I probed. “Why would Mr. Morgery not let you in the house if you’re visiting him? He’s your father…”

            “Yeah, dude, that’s what I thought. But yeah, sometimes he’s just like… ‘Hey Bryan, why don’t you go find something to do.’ I think that’s partly one of the reason’s he introduced me to your godmother, Sophia. To get me out of the house,” Bryan said, picking up his iced tea and shaking the ice at the bottom around in habit. “And he especially seemed to need me out of the house the night you got in the car crash. He was like, mean about it, almost.”

            “Hmm…” I thought out loud. “How interesting….”

            How interesting indeed. How weird. Was Mr. Morgery trying to hide something? Or was he just needing some R&R for a while and needed Bryan out of the house?

            “Why didn’t we invite Mr. Morgery over for dinner?” I asked, taking another sip of water, still having not touched my plate.

            “Oh, well I don’t know Sophia—”

            “I’ll go over and check on him,” I declared, interrupting Aunt Kat. “Maybe he’s lonely, or something. And we have enough extras. I’ll be right back.”

            I was up and out of my seat, heading towards the front door before either of them could even call out one word to try to stop me. This would give me an excuse to get away from the love birds, and to see what had Mr. Morgery acting so weird. I really hadn’t got to speak with him since I showed him The Rose and Two Thorns.

            It was already very dark outside, but it seemed extra dark because black storm clouds were swelling in a foreboding fashion overhead. I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself, wishing I had worn a jacket over my grey button down shirt. Thunder rolled off in the distance like the sounds of a marching band, but the sound was so loud I could feel it reverberate in my throat. An eerie wind tangled my long wavy locks around as I continued walking, and disrupted the pinwheels Aunt Kat placed in the front yard by the walkway.

            The walk was not by any means short, and I hadn’t even gotten to where the evergreens divided our two yards yet when I heard a low growl behind me. Turning around I saw one of the wolves who was on guard at that time. It was gray with some brown speckles in its pelt, and I had no idea who he/she might have been. It was crouched low in the grass, watching me, making sure I was the only one that saw him.

            “I’ll only be a minute, I promise,” I assured him calmly, hoping no one would happen to drive by and see me talking to the grass. “I want to check on Mr. Morgery.”

            The wolf was snarling by this point, shaking his head from side to side repeatedly, like he was trying to shake off a bug.

            “Please. I’m really worried. It’s just a little further ways down,” I whined. The next thing I knew, the red wolf who was Isaac was prancing towards me, not even bothering to crouch down low in concealment like the other wolf. I smiled at the friendly face, but knew the other wolf must have telepathically called on Isaac for assistance in reprimanding me. Isaac stood there and stared at me with that stupid smile. The wolf was almost up to my shoulders, (a little higher than my elbow) just on all fours—I couldn’t imagine how big he might be when he stood on his hind legs.

            “Are you coming with me then?” I asked him.  The two exchanged a look with each other, panting with their tongues hanging out.   I slowly began backing away towards Mr. Morgery’s house, and as I did so, Isaac automatically took a step towards me, as though he couldn’t let me more than a few feet out of his reach. I continued walking down the street, the giant red wolf crouching along on his belly at my side. 

As we finally approached the house, I started running my fingers across the dark picket fence with my left hand, until Isaac gently placed my right hand in between his jaws, stopping in his tracks. He didn’t mean to cause me any pain, but that’s what he did, mainly because I wasn’t expecting the abrupt halt.

            “What? What’s the matter, Isaac?” I hissed, turning around to get a look at his face.

            His big yellow wolf eyes were full of worry, as well as the expression pulling on every muscle in his face. He whimpered, pulling backwards on my hand again, more urgently this time. “Hey—cut it out! That hurts!”

            I turned around to see if Mr. Morgery had turned any of the lights back on in his house—when I suddenly noticed movement on the rooftop.

            My breath went ragged as thunder rolled solemnly once more, followed by a streak of white lightening that shattered across the sky, illuminating the shadowy, prowling vampires crawling across the rooftops on all fours.

            Hunting me.

            But somehow, all I could think of was Mr. Morgery. Mr. Morgery was alone in his house, with the exception of Toby, and there were about three or four vampires on his roof. He was a dead man.

            “Isaac, we have to save Mr. Morgery!” I hissed, bending down to the wolf’s eye level, just as I noticed car headlights coming from up the hill, at the forest enclosed road closest to my home. “We have to do something!”

            Isaac pulled me backwards with greater force; before I could tell him the tug was too rough, my skin was broken by his teeth, and blood was seeping through the tears. 

The screeches could have been heard from a mile away; I knew Aunt Kat and Bryan would have heard them from the kitchen table up the road from me. They smelled the blood leaking from the small wound on my hand; the hunt was on.

            Without warning, Isaac squatted down, looking over his shoulder at me, as if to say, ‘Hop On’. With not a second to lose, I clung onto his furry back as he bounded right into the middle of the road, straight towards the small truck that was now ready to fly past us. Isaac increased his speed, and to my great surprise, started chasing the truck. In no time at all, he was air borne, soaring straight for the bed of the truck. Isaac and I crashed into the bed of the truck in a disgraceful heap, as all the air escaped me. I could see as the truck continued flying down the road and we passed Mr. Morgery’s home, the vampires had leapt from the roof. They were now following the truck down the abandoned road, completely uninterested in Mr. Morgery’s blood, clearly. Looking up through my disheveled dark bangs, I could see Mariellen, Tyler, and Blaise were already crouched low in the truck bed as well, each wearing big hoods that covered their faces with the shadows.

            “Sophia! Quick, rub this all over you,” Mariellen tossed me one of Owen’s old sweatshirts he used to clean his dirt bike which happened to be laying in the back of his truck, covered in grease. “It’ll disguise your scent somewhat.”

            “How did you—how did you know—”

             “Isaac called for us telepathically,” Blaise replied calmly. Too calm for the situation we were in. “You’re just lucky we had been in wolf form—”    

            “Hey you, pedal to the medal in there, big guy, they are right on our tails!” Isaac shouted, who must have turned back to human, pounding on the little window that separated the bed of the truck from the driver’s seat, where Owen was piloting and little Amery was sitting in the passenger seat. And sure enough, the vampires were right on our tails; we could hear the screeching sounds literally right behind us, but I didn’t dare look behind me, or even get up off of my stomach.

            “Put some clothes on, Isaac.” Mariellen tossed him a pair of cut off jeans. Thunder growled menacingly once more, shaking the road and the little Ford Ranger. Following suit, a thick bolt of lightening shot down from the sky, and I watched it hit a large tree on the right side of the woods up ahead of us. The sound was like a dynamite explosion as the streak blasted the tall oak tree—it was enough to deafen the ear drums. Both Mariellen and Tyler screamed as up ahead we could see the sky scraper-like tree wavering sideways in the night, ready to come crashing down like Goliath the giant.

            “Floor it!” I heard Amery scream from the passenger side. “FASTER OWEN WE’RE GOING TO BE KILLED!”

            Simultaneously, everyone started screaming at the top of their voice as we were now only twenty feet away, and the top half of the tree had broken off with a sickening crunch and was free-falling to the spot we’d be under in just a matter of seconds.

            My heart was in my throat as the three ton object continued hurtling to the road ahead of us, as Owen’s truck continued rattling in protest of the speed and the screams of everyone except Owen in the truck grew louder and louder…

             I could feel the air resistance tugging the tree downwards as we just barely skimmed underneath it, the force of the crash both smashing the attacking vampires behind us and causing the little black truck to kick in the back. The five of us sitting in the truck bed collided with each other like bumper cars.

            Please, God, not another car crash. Please not another car crash. I thought urgently in my mind, as the truck spun out of control, tires screeching nearly as loud as the vampires had been. The memory of Kat’s Honda Accord came flooding back to me.

            I shut my eyes tight, feeling the poor little truck go skidding over the small embankment into the woods as everyone continued yelling. With another lurch, the truck came to a stop, apparently because we were stuck in the mud.

            That’s when I noticed it was also tilted on its right side, and I was sitting in Isaac’s lap. I couldn’t see much of anything else as I tried to squirm my way off of Isaac before Mariellen got upset.

            “Is everyone okay?” Mariellen was the first to ask with a moan of pain.

            Owen wretched his truck door open, jumped out of it, and impatiently pulled Amery out through the driver’s side by the collar of his red shirt.

            “Is Sophia alright?” Owen barked, coming around to the back of the truck to help us each out.

            “Yeah, I’m fine, Owen,” I mumbled, taking his hand as I was the last to be helped out. He stared me straight in the eyes for a minute, like he didn’t believe me almost. Then he loosened a few more buttons on his taupe and plum plaid collared shirt, and ran his fingers roughly across his face and into his hair.

            “What were you thinking, Sophia?” He nearly yelled in my face, scolding me for my foolish actions. “Did you even think about what you were doing? What possessed you to think it was perfectly fine to walk down the road at night all by yourself, when you know there is a coven of vampires trying to kill you? Didn’t we just talk about how dangerous this is? They have your scent now; they know where you are, at all times!”

            Thunder crashed severely all around us as the rain started to fall in the woods, emphasizing his anger. I hid my face in shame. 

            “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was…worried about my neighbor, I…” It seemed too foolish for me to even try to explain what I had thought when Bryan mentioned Mr. Morgery wanting the house to himself at night, so I decided to keep this part to myself. “I just wanted to make sure he was ok. I thought the other wolves had things taken care of.”

            Owen seemed to scoff at my words, pacing the length of the truck with his hands still knotted through his brown, disheveled hair.

            “Come on, lay off, Owen,” Amery pleaded for my sake, but Owen completely ignored him.

            “And you, how come you couldn’t smell them earlier? What was up with that?” Owen snapped at Isaac this time, throwing his hand out in disgust.

            “Hey, man, don’t get on me about this, it’s not my fault,” Isaac defended himself, standing there shirtless in the drizzling rain. “I couldn’t smell them at all until I heard them on the rooftops, Owen. They came out of no where!”

            Mariellen shrunk to his side, rubbing his defined bicep affectionately.

            “It’s true, please don’t take it out on Isaac,” I begged, stepping closer to Owen, almost afraid to touch him now even though we had just nearly kissed each other the night before. I held up my bleeding hand for proof. “He tried to stop me, he really did. It’s really all my fault, I’m sorry.”

            Owen took my hand softly, examining it from every angle thoroughly, a look of horror suddenly on his face.

            “Sophia, are you ok?” He spat out quickly.

            “What? Yeah, I’m fine! Why—” Suddenly a horrible realization came crashing down around me, as another streak of lightening lit up the terror on Owen’s face.

            “Owen, I swear, I didn’t do it on purpose!” Isaac suddenly cried, running forward, trying to get a look at the wound on my hand as well. But by that time Owen’s expression had twisted to something a little less dangerous.

            “No…I think we’re ok…I don’t think enough of your saliva even reached the wound before she rubbed it off on your fur,” Owen said, still holding my hand limply in his. Where his fingers wound around my skin felt like it was burning, but it wasn’t from the bite.

            It was Isaac’s turn to run his hands through his shaggy red hair, this time in relief.

            When Owen let go of my hand, I wanted to scream in protest for him to hold it longer.

            “Do you smell that?” Tyler suddenly said from behind Blaise’s tall, lanky figure.

            “Damn it,” Isaac cursed. “I smell it too. There’s more of them coming, Owen. What are we going to do?”

            Owen’s pacing started quickening again, and then he froze right in front of me once more in front of the embankment, although his eyes fell upon Tyler’s petite form which was cowering behind Blaise.

            “Tyler, take Sophia. You’re the fastest. Get her out of here—go the back way to our woods. I’ll have someone waiting to take care of her,” Owen demanded authoritatively. “Amery, you can go with them.”

            Amery stumbled down the hill and came closer towards me, as Tyler stepped out from behind Blaise near the end of the truck.

            The rain was becoming more persistent, and you could feel it even through the enclosure of many trees, and my grey button down shirt was soon becoming soaked.

            “Mariellen and Isaac, you guys take the woods on the right of the road. Go back through and look for any other vampires at the Morgery’s.  Protect his home. Blaise and I will fight off anything else that’s trying to get past this point so Sophia can go free. Sophia; Blaise and I will find a way to meet back up with you,” Owen instructed as Isaac’s nostrils continued flaring at the smell quickly approaching. “Don’t worry about finding back ups, I’ll have them coming your way. Go now.”

            Mariellen and Isaac instantly took off across the street holding hands, vanishing into the woods on the other side of the road. Tyler grabbed my hand as she, Amery and I took off deeper into the woods we already were in. Turning back once to look behind me, I could see Owen and Blaise pushing the black Ford Ranger out of the mud and back onto the street with little difficulty, lightening flashing brightly on the street before them with another loud crack.

            I turned around to face front again, afraid to know what would happen to my friends, afraid to know that it would all be my fault if anything ever did happen.

            I had troubles keeping up as we tore deeper and deeper into the black woods, and as we flew down steep dirt paths I tripped a few times here and there over stray roots and rocks and tree branches, because everything was literally black. Tyler and Amery were able to dodge these obstacles expertly with their wolfy night vision, as they pranced from rock to tree branch to earth ground with animalistic elegance and agility—just how I saw the people jumping through the woods in my vision weeks ago.

            It was obvious my clumsiness was really setting us back.

            “Sophia, Amery is going to change into the wolf so you can just ride on his back while I run, ok?” Tyler offered, coming to a stop. Before I had time to even turn around, Amery was in the form of a big, all brown wolf, his gold eyes the only luminance in the woods at the time.

            Shutting my eyes, I clung to the fur as we set off again, neither of them wasting anytime to give me a second to adjust myself on Amery’s back. We continued the bumpy ride as I squeezed around his neck, holding on for dear life through all the deadly twists and turns.

            Suddenly, the ride of terror came to an abrupt stop. I opened my eyes quickly to see we were in front of a wire fence, which stood about twelve or so feet high. There was a gate door, it looked like, but it was heavily chained down.

            Tyler’s normal tiny, chocolate like eyes were suddenly large and full of panic. To my displeasure, I could see that her nostrils were flaring.

            “They’re following us, Amery!” She whimpered as her body trembled head to foot. “They’re closing in, don’t you smell that? How on moon did they get past Owen and Blaise?”

            My stomach twinged at this speculation.

            Tyler ran over to the fence doors, which appeared to be chained shut, and started desperately yanking on them to little avail.

            “Amery, jump the fence.”

            Amery was in boy form again, before I even had time to spin around, and with the greatest nimbleness and ease, he leapt up, latching onto the wired fence like he was Spider Man, and rapidly made his way up it as it clanged and rattled in response, landing gracefully on the other side.

            “Ty, you need a key to unlock this, I can’t—”

            “I know that, Ames,” Tyler snapped with her muscular arms crossed impatiently at Amery, standing on the other side of the fence. “You’re going to stand there and catch Sophia when I toss her over.”

            “Excuse me?” I spat out.

            Tyler put a knee down into the dirt, and placed her hands outwards, palms up, like we were about to do a cheerleading lift. Her eyes were like brown, tiny stones—firm and set on what she was doing.

            There was an unpleasant cacophony of another lightening strike and the distasteful, shrill cries of the vampires off in the distance. I raced to Tyler in that instant.

            “Going up,” she warned, and then she launched me into the air, as I fought my hardest to keep from screaming when the ebony tree tops came closer to reach. It was especially hard on the fall, as the rainy wind pushed cruelly down on me. Amery caught me gingerly in his arms, and sort of rocked me once or twice like I was a baby.

            “And this is how it will be when we’re walking from the chapel on our wedding day,” He smiled goofily, finding some bit of humor in the situation. Tyler was already behind me, without even breaking a sweat.

            “Don’t you think there was a less drastic way of getting over that?” I gasped as Amery set me back on my feet, trying to calm my heart back down to a more acceptable pace.

            “Yeah, sure. And all of those ways would have gotten you eaten by a bunch of bloodthieves!” Tyler hissed at me from under her bright blue hood. “Come on, there’s a path here. I think this is someone’s property.”   

            I stayed locked in between the two for a sense of protection, for the remainder of the way down the short dark dirt path, as rain began pouring down around us. My thoughts were scattered all over the place at this point; I feared for Mariellen and Isaac back at Mr. Morgery’s, I was sick to my stomach for Aunt Kat and Bryan, I was worried about the rest of the pack fighting the vampires in the woods by my home, but most importantly, I was traumatized at the thought of something happening to Owen and Blaise.

            If I never got the chance to express to Owen how I really felt for him—even though I wasn’t quite sure how that was—I don’t know what I would do with myself. If I couldn’t have the opportunity to at least see if he could learn to love, I would die.

            I would die if there was no more Owen, I’d just lie down and die.

            And this was a horrible realization to come across when death was lurking around every corner.  

            Both Amery and Tyler came to a second abrupt halt, and it was then that I lifted my gaze off each step of my muddy black ballet flats and looked into the field before me, noticing a huge brown barn up a ways to the right and a dozen huge hay rolls scattered across the dying, deserted, barren farmland around it. The skies were swelling murderously, and the wind was picking things up out on the field, creating small dust twisters. The rain continued to mercilessly punish the fields as the thunder seemed to echo throughout the grounds like perhaps this area was the storm’s brewing point.

            But I guess this wasn’t what Amery and Tyler were standing there gawking at. Their nostrils flared aggressively at the four vampires slowly approaching us. They were snarling at the bone-white skinned people, who seemed equally as startled as I was, but were not showing the slightest bit of aggression like Amery and Tyler.

All four of the strangers were in their bare feet.

            “Wolves?” The only boy called out from the group, a tall, skeletally skinny boy I recognized seeing at school, with short, wavy black hair and freckles strewn across his placid face. His eyes were deep mahogany.

            “Don’t come any closer to us, or I swear I’ll rip your throat out,” Tyler growled, her eyes no longer dark brown, but the thick, liquid honey gold color of the wolf, and her fangs curled over her bottom lip.

            The boy and the three girl vampires before us each stopped in their tracks, and the tallest girl held out her hands, as a sign of surrender or peace.

            “Please, no,” She said, her elongated black hair was straight and past her waist, and her pretty, lilac eyes were closer to blue than any of the other vampires I had ever seen. “We don’t mean you any harm. We want to protect you.”

            “Protect us?” Amery barked through the rain, his voice thick with apprehension and apparent suspicion, as he stood there in his brown cargo shorts he had been carrying in his mouth while in wolf-form, bare-chested with a mini-six pack of his own. “Why would you protect us?”

            The shortest girl stepped forward at that time with her hands behind her back, ignoring the crouching, aggressive stances both Tyler and Amery fell in on cue.

            Her hair was a light, almost honey brown and also long like the dark haired girl’s, except hers was wavy, and her bangs were swept to the side. She was wearing a plain grey dress, and her eyes were the oddest color I’d seen yet on a vampire. They were a faded, pale yellow, barely noticeable upon the white of her eyes. Something about it seemed very pure, to me at least. I did not fail to notice she was by far the frailest of the four—even the skeletal-like boy behind her. 

            “Sophia, I promise you.  I have never experienced the taste of human blood as long as I have lived. Literally, you can tell I am speaking the truth by looking into my eyes. I promise you this. But we do not have much time; the others are quickly approaching. Please, let us help.” She let her arms fall from behind her back, and I could see a long red scar present on her right forearm.

            I had heard her lofty, airy voice before.

            I had spoken through this vampire’s voice before…

            “Lacey?” I gasped. “Is that you?”

            We heard the sound of frantic, frenzied screeches ripping the night sky apart as another flash of lightening scattered and grew like white tree branches through the sky, lighting up the entire field like it was day.

            And then without another word, we followed the four vampires into the brown barn.

Reviews

[deeps]

Such wonderful Grapic details and awesome imagery
I can see the events unfold.
Wonderful action and suspense.
I like this alot.