Bleeding Hearts
Page 29

He crouched down in front of me. I scrabbled backward so fast I hit my head on the wall.
“What do you want?” I croaked, my throat so tight with fear it felt like I’d been eating knives.
“You’re safe, Lucky. We’re not planning to hurt you.”
“I’m not Lucy.”
He smiled a little. “We know your car.”
I’d been right to hate Lucy’s car. Her parents hadn’t been paranoid with their curfew. Now it was too late to tell them I was glad they took me in. Too late to decide if I wanted to be a poet or a tattoo artist. If I wanted to go to college right away or travel and see London and France and Prague first. Too late to see my mother sober.
Like hell.
I didn’t think; I just bolted into motion. My stomach went one way and my head felt like it went in the opposite direction. I wasn’t about to let dizziness or fatigue stop me. I was going to reach that door and then I was going to run down the street, screaming at the top of my lungs until someone stopped to help me.
I didn’t even make it halfway across the room.
The man was suddenly in front of me. I careened right into him, bruising the tip of my nose on his collarbone. I noticed a scar, long and old enough to look like puckered satin.
He sighed. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
His hands were on my elbows, trying to steady me. I risked a glance. Bad idea. He had way too many teeth. And some of them seemed to be getting longer. And sharper. If they got any sharper I’d start hearing the Jaws theme song in my head. I blinked, telling myself not to panic and not to get distracted. I’d probably activated the last of the drug in my system by running, and that plus the adrenaline pumping suddenly through me was making me hallucinate. It sounded very scientific and logical.
It still felt like gibbering, mind-numbing terror, though.
I opened my mouth to scream and lifted my foot to kick.
“Don’t.”
Something about the way he spoke, about his strange smell, made my mouth snap shut. I felt light-headed again. I actually leaned toward him. That couldn’t be a good thing. I knew I was terrified, but it didn’t seem to bother me. I felt kind of sleepy and languid, like I’d just had a really long, hot bath.
“You should know not to run when faced with a vampire, Lucky.”
Vampire. I giggled. Then I blinked, as shocked by that as by anything else that had happened to me tonight. I never giggled.
“Vampires don’t exist,” I told him. Even my tongue felt weird in my mouth, like it was swollen. “I feel funny.”
“Pheromones. It will fade.” He frowned. “There’s no use pretending you don’t know about us. We know about you.”
My head felt too heavy and it lolled back, exposing my neck. He licked his lips.
“You’re as reckless as they say.” His voice was soft, hungry.
“Huh?” I sounded like my mother after too much gin. That thought alone cut through the peach-fuzz, overexposed feel of everything around me. It was like being dunked in cold water. I even shivered. Then I clenched my fists, digging my nails into the palms of my hands, clearing the pain in my head. The smell of wet earth intensified. I gagged.
His eyes weren’t just bloodshot; they practically glowed. They were mesmerizing, like sunlight hitting rubies. I dug my nails harder into my palms with enough force that they drew blood. I felt the sting when sweat ran into the cuts. It pushed a little more of the fog away.
Which just left more room for the swamp smell.
The man didn’t seem to notice. He just inhaled deeper, as if tantalizing cookies were coming right out of the oven. “You’re bleeding.”
Something about the way he said it made me jerk backward, but he was still holding me in place. His fingers didn’t move at all, just encircled my arms like steel chains. I knew I’d have bruises later. Assuming there was a later.
“It smells … wait.” He stopped and frowned. “You smell … wrong.”
“That’s not me, asshat, that’s you.” There. That was more like me. I clenched my hands tighter.
“Stop,” he said, nearly as a plea. He sniffed again. “There’s only the barest trace of the Drakes on you. That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s what doesn’t make sense? Hello? You’re blue! And a kidnapper! And dude, you should see a dentist.”
“You keep to this deception?” He sounded mildly surprised. “Even now?”
“What deception? I told you, I’m not Lucy.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then took my hand and forced my fingers to uncurl. My palm lay exposed, covered with tiny drops of blood like red glass beads. I tried to pull back but his hold tightened on my wrist.
“Stay still,” he added, and his eyes were beautiful again. He was carved out of pale marble, mysterious and primal. He made me think of hunters and arrows and deer broken in the woods. When he lowered his head and lapped at my blood, I made only a small mew of protest. “You don’t taste of them, either,” he said softly, his dangerous teeth stained red. “And you are not immune to me.”
“Why, are you sick? Or contagious or something?” I wondered out loud. Of course he was sick. He was tasting my blood. “Oh God,” I said. In my head it sounded sharp and derisive but it came out dreamy and floaty. “Is this some weird vampire cult? Is that why you think I’m Lucy?” I concentrated on that instead of the fact that I was letting him run his tongue along my other palm. “Look, I know she’s into those books and movies and stuff, but she’s not nuts. She wouldn’t fall for this, either. She knows vampires aren’t real.”