Page 34 of Bitten By Desire (Crooked Point #1)

Tuesday

Huxley pulled me toward the front doors of the bank. “You need to go. Now.”

Bennett growled at the top of his lungs.

Huxley stepped in front of me.

“Get her out of here!” Titan yelled as he grabbed the pocket watch off the ground and tried to control Bennett again.

But I was frozen in place staring at Bennett. He was…a…a werecat. He was a monster. They all were. Even Huxley, who was standing there trying to protect me from a monster just like him.

And that pocket watch Huxley claimed to need didn’t do a damned thing to control them. I stared at the blood on Bennett’s chest where Otto had swiped at him. They were vicious. Uncontrollable. Violent.

Bennett jumped off the counter and prowled toward us.

“Run, Emma!” Huxley yelled as he opened up the doors for me.

He didn’t need to tell me again. I ran right out of that bank and down the front steps. The door closed behind me, but I started running even faster past the cute shops that had just added to the facade tricking my head.

Bennett was a fucking werecat! And that meant paranormal creatures did actually exist. Which meant Bennett might be telling the truth about Callum too. Shit.

I sprinted toward Zoey’s house. Five werecats, a vampire, and a serial killer were hanging out in this town. It sounded like the start of a bad joke. But it was real. All of it.

And I was getting the hell out of Crooked Point.

I pushed open Zoey’s white picket fence. I knew all this shit was shady. I freaking knew it. Even though I was completely out of breath, I ran up to her front door and banged on it.

She opened it almost immediately. “Oh my God, what happened? You look like a hot mess.”

Rude. “Bennett and his friends are…” I started choking. “They’re all…” I hunched over, but not from the sudden cramp in my side. But because I physically couldn’t keep going. “Bennett is…” I dry heaved.

“Is what?!” Zoey grabbed my arm and helped me inside. “What the hell happened? Jesus, Emma, you’re bleeding!”

I looked down at my hand. The tissue in my palm was covered with blood. Zoey grabbed a few more and exchanged them for the dirty one.

I closed my hand into a fist.

“Did Bennett cut you?!”

“Yes. I had to take a…” I started dry heaving again.

Okay…so…the blood oath I’d taken was real.

Because of course it was. Because paranormal creatures existed and so did magic and this town was fucking cursed!

I couldn’t tell her any of it. I physically couldn’t.

It felt like my insides were twisting every time I even tried .

But she had to know. She needed to get out of here too. “Zoey, we have to leave. They’re all…” I hunched over again. “They’re…ahhh!” I screamed.

“Calm down, I think you’re hallucinating,” Zoey said. “Here, come sit down.”

“No. I’m leaving.” I stood up straight. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because this town is insane!”

“You can’t leave. It’s almost midnight. You just need some rest…”

“I don’t need rest. I need a flight.” I grabbed my phone and started searching for flights for two.

I’d drag her out of this creepy white picket fence town even if she put up a fight.

It was for her own good. She was surrounded by monsters and I couldn’t tell her any of it. I just needed us to get out.

“What are you doing?” she said as she peered over my shoulder to see my phone. “Come on, Emma. Let’s just sit down and talk.”

I couldn’t talk! I’d taken a blood oath! But she was staring at me like I was the insane one, rather than her for living in this town. She was staring at me like everything around her was normal but me. Like she thought all of this was…

Oh.

Shit.

I stared at her staring at me. And I had this terrible, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was in on it. All of it. Was she a werecat too? Or a vampire? And why weren’t there any flights out of here until tomorrow afternoon? !

There was no way I’d make it to morning with at least five werecats, a vampire, and a serial killer…

God, the severed hand. There was no serial killer.

Bennett had told me vampire fangs weren’t responsible for something like that.

Because he knew that it was werecat claws!

I pictured the scar down Titan’s face. And the cut on Bennett’s lip.

And the gash he’d just gotten on his chest when Otto swiped at him.

Bennett or one of his friends had killed people in that hay maze! Crooked Point didn’t have a serial killer problem. Just a monster problem. “It was him. Or them. Or one of them. They’re responsible for the hay maze massacre.”

“Who was what? I love that name for it by the way. The hay maze massacre. That’s catchy AF.”

I just stared at her. The flippant way she’d disregarded the serial killer in the town.

Even the way she just joked about the name I’d come up with.

Don’t play games with me, Zoey. She knew all of this.

I was suddenly sure of it. Or else I was still more drunk than I realized.

“There’s a train station in this town, right? I’m going there.”

“You’re not going to the train station in the middle of the night.”

“You can’t keep me here, Zoey.”

“I’m…not. I’m just suggesting that you sleep this off. You had a lot to drink and…”

“Because you spiked my coffee?” I glared at her.

“I really thought you knew about that in college.”

“Of course I didn’t, Zoey! If that’s even your real name.”

She laughed. “Wait, are you serious? What the hell is going on? ”

“You tell me!”

She stared at me like I was crazy. “You’re the one that was going to hang out with Bennett. You’re the one that’s supposed to have the answers. Just tell me.”

“He’s a…” I started choking.

“Just spit it out already! He’s a what?”

It was like she was just testing me. Like she knew I couldn’t say it. And was just trying to torture me or something. “He’s…” Cough. “A…” Cough. “W…” I started choking and my knees buckled. I fell to the floor and caught myself just in time to not faceplant the carpet.

Zoey put her hand on my back. “Should I call the town doctor?”

That sounded like a trap to me. The doctor in Crooked Point was probably a descendant of Frankenstein. “Don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth.

She dropped her hand from my back like my skin burned her. It probably did. Some kind of weird blood oath magic or something.

I leaned over and tried to take a deep breath but coughed again.

“You need a cough drop. I’ll be right back.”

I watched her head up the stairs. I had my purse with me. Which had my camera, my wallet, and my phone. That was all I really needed. This might be my only chance. I stood up, ran to the front door, and threw it open.

I took a deep breath of the fresh autumn air and my lungs seemed okay again. I’d passed by the train station on the taxi ride here from the airport. It was right on the edge of town. I turned left, heading in the opposite direction of Main Street .

The fresh air soothed my nerves slightly.

And there was a small piece of me that thought I might be overreacting.

To the Zoey thing. Not the rest of it. Bennett and his friends were for sure monsters.

Callum probably was too. And I threw Zoey into all of it because of her close proximity.

What were the chances that she hadn’t been bit yet though?

Was that even how werecats worked? God, was everyone in Crooked Point a monster?

I ran past an old lady walking her dog. She stared at me like I was crazy for running around town at this hour. But she was out too. And she was probably a witch or something. Was she whispering something under her breath at me? This freaking town!

I picked up my speed.

Luckily the train station was exactly where I’d remembered it.

Even luckier was the fact that there was a train leaving in ten minutes. It was going in the opposite direction of my home, but I didn’t even care. I just needed out of this town as fast as possible.

Bennett was a werecat. I’d seen him transform. Otto too.

My heart was racing even faster than it had been when I was running. Standing here alone at the train station was just freaking me out even more.

Werecats weren’t real. They weren’t. And yet…they were real. And I’d kissed one. I’d done more than kissed one.

My phone started buzzing like crazy. A combination of calls from Zoey and Bennett. I was right. They were definitely in cahoots. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. It was so obvious. Zoey lost her mind and moved to this town because she was a werecat too. That made perfect logical sense.

I stared down as my phone buzzed again and a text came through from Bennett: “Are you okay? I know that was a lot. But we can talk about it now. Come back to the bank.”

Was he out of his damned mind? I wasn’t going anywhere near that bank ever again. I was never stepping foot in this town again. I pushed out the back doors of the train station and outside to the tracks to wait for my train.

I was the only one out here. The train station was as cute as the rest of the town. But the flickering light was very out of place and made me feel increasingly uneasy.

Seriously, the whole town oozed adorableness to lure innocent people here. So why was this light flickering?

Probably because people only ever relied on trains as a last resort when they were fleeing from a monster town.

I swallowed hard. I felt like I’d walked into some kind of trap. I tried to ignore the flickering light. The train would arrive any minute now and I’d be gone. I’d be safe somewhere, anywhere but here.

Unless I didn’t make it out and my hand got taken off the rest of my body or I ended up in a body sized freezer. Stop it.

I started humming to myself, hoping to distract myself from my horrifying thoughts. But it wasn’t working. Instead I just kept thinking, “This is where I die,” over and over again. It was almost a perfect tune with the flickering of the light .

Halloween was over but I’d never felt more scared. I should have trusted my gut as soon as I stepped out of my taxi. This place was creepy. I’d known it and I’d stayed and…now I was definitely going to die.

My phone buzzed again and I ignored it.

The light started flickering more. I wrapped my arms around myself. Was it colder all of a sudden too? Or was it just in my head?

A chill ran down my spine.

Oh no.

I knew that feeling. And I knew exactly who caused it. I turned around to see Callum standing there.