Page 9 of Bitten Vampire (The Bitten Chronicles #2)

Chapter Nine

I awaken in darkness, lying on something lumpy that digs into my spine. It reeks of rot, making me gag. I slide my left arm out until my hand meets a wall; it thuds hollow under my palm. Plastic? A coffin? Have I died?

With my right hand, I touch my throat. Pain flares. The skin is ragged, but not bleeding. My mind flashes to the red mouth, the fangs… Oh God!

Feverish and leaden, I force myself upright, bang my head and feel the ceiling shift. Not a coffin. A bin. Memory sparks: the huge bins beside the houses. And now I realise what they are for. Not to store household rubbish, but to store bodies.

Body bins sitting casually next to their houses like our green compost bins .

Surely not. That can’t be right—the authorities would notice mass killings. They must serve another purpose.

Yet the fact remains: I’m in a bin.

The vampire drank my blood and threw me away.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see a limb. I’m not alone in this bin!

Heat floods my mind, emotion clawing its way up my throat. I feel this primal urge to scream. To scream and scream and scream. I clap a hand over my mouth.

Winifred, get a bloody grip. You are in a no-win situation—if you panic now, you really will be dead. Charging into the street, screaming for help, would be reckless. What if the day-walking vampire is still close?

But I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I have to get out!

I shove the lid a few inches and realise, with growing horror, that night has fallen. All the vampires are awake. I peer through the crack. A fence, a wide gate, the street beyond.

Fear mingles with numb resolve. I scramble over the rim, almost face-plant, then steady myself against the fence. The wood digs into my back as I edge to the gate. It isn’t locked. I ease it open.

Silence—only distant traffic.

I slip through, closing the gate behind me. My car waits at the kerb. Keys are in my pocket; my phone is gone, probably lost when he grabbed my hair… I whimper. Don’t think about it, Winifred. Don’t think about it now. I fight the overwhelming urge to shrink into myself and crawl to the car .

Please, let no one see me.

Head high, keys ready in my hand, I walk the same path I skipped down earlier. My filthy hair hangs in a crooked ponytail; I shake it loose to cover the bite.

Inside the car I tremble. My clothes are intact, so he must have wanted only my blood. I should change my top, pull on a jacket to hide my neck, but fear pins me to the driver’s seat. It takes every ounce of courage to start the engine.

Please, let no one see me.

My mind stays carefully blank as I drive. Eyes forward; nothing to see here. Nothing at all. At the border the tag chirps; the lane light flashes green. The tyres bump onto the rougher Human Sector road.

Five minutes later, I park and stagger to the front door.

The house shudders, doors rattling in panic. Frightened. The house is frightened.

“I’m all right,” I rasp. A lie. The hospital would be sensible, but it’s too late. I knew it when I crawled from the bin, when I felt the stillness in my chest.

I’m not breathing.

Kicking off my trainers, I head for the stairs, miss the first step and crash to my knees, terror ripping a sob from me. Hand to chest, no heartbeat.

The vampire killed me, yet I’m still here.

It’s not possible. I was not a living vampire—the tests when I was fifteen proved that. I lack the necessary DNA.

I should be dead—or worse, mindless—yet my thoughts are clear. Newly dead vampires lose themselves for months, their minds dulled to nothing but hunger.

The hallway door creaks, and Baylor bounds out, tail low. He halts, nostrils flaring, ears pinned flat, a thin whine escaping him.

Oh God. “Hi, buddy. It’s okay, I know I smell funny, but it’s just me.” He slinks towards me. I sink my fingers into his fur. I can feel him. I can think.

I’m not mindless.

But I have no idea what I am.

I stay crumpled on the floor for so long that the house lifts me off the floor and carries me to my bedroom. Magic crackles over my skin, scrubbing away grime and knitting the torn flesh at my throat. Unseen hands guide me into my pyjamas.

Baylor hesitates in the doorway, most of his bulk still outside, panting in ragged bursts. I haven’t seen him this anxious since Amy died. He whimpers, and I try to soothe him, but no sound comes out. I don’t know what to say.

I sink into the mattress. “What about the windows?” I whisper. “What about sunlight?” Dawn is only a few short hours away.

A gentle pulse of magic strokes my cheek. You will be safe, it seems to say.

“Your wards can really stop it hurting me?” My voice is a croak.

Part of me almost doesn’t care; let the sunlight take me. But the thought of burning like that vampire’s arm—charred skin, living agony—terrifies me. I always pictured dying old and grey, holding the hand of someone I loved, not like this.

Not like this…

“I don’t understand. I was tested. I’m a derivative mutt with traces of every creature’s DNA. I barely carry any vampire, not enough for thrall status, let alone a full turning. How did this happen?”

I bury myself beneath the covers, hugging the pillow.

“I don’t want to be a vampire.”

Becoming a vampire is supposed to be a bureaucratic circus—licences, paperwork, permissions. Clearly, I’m a clerical error, a freak tossed in a bin like rubbish.

No one—least of all the vampire who treated me as a ‘takeaway’—expected me to walk out alive… undead.

“I’m so frightened,” I breathe. “How do I work like this? Do I keep delivering in the Vampire Sector and pretend I belong, or go back to the city and fake being human? What happens when I get hungry?” The idea of hurting anyone makes me shudder.

I’d rather be dead. They hurt Amy, they hurt Max, they hurt me.

I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be this.

Magic fingers comb through my hair.

The mattress dips. Baylor climbs up and drapes himself across me like a weighted blanket. I wrap my arms around him—gently. Do I have super-strength now? I don’t know.

Apparently vampires can cry. Tears slip hot and steady down my cheeks.

Just when I thought I was getting my life back, thought I’d turned a corner, the ground opened beneath me and dropped me even deeper.

I’m now so far down, I will never see the light.