Page 9

Ruby

I had been with Shelley all afternoon, sitting in her backyard, drinking beer and talking about what was happening around us. Shelley was leaving the next day, she was convinced that the vampires would come to town and kill all of us while trying to get to the shifters.

She’d heard that our men were being trained to fight in armies in the east and north. None of the men we knew were particularly good at working with others in a team. They were good fighters, but they weren’t organized.

Inside, we could hear her family packing. She was living with her sister and two nieces. Both her brothers were in the motorbike gang working for Tomás. The whole town was working for him. All of us would be seen as being on the side of the shifters.

“My grandma told me what it’s like when the vampires come,” she said in a low voice. “It’s a feeling you get. You don’t see anything, but suddenly, you become cold all over. It’s like…you freeze, you’re unable to move. It’s terrible,” she said.

“Then you hear this, like, screeching noise. It cuts into your soul, she says, filling you with a kind of terror you can’t believe. When you do see them, it’s like a black cloud and that’s all you see before they rip into you, tear you to pieces.”

Shelley’s grandmother had survived a vampire attack on her family when she was a child by hiding in a basement. Her entire family had been killed and she had fled to a neighboring town, but she’d never lost her hatred of vampires.

I thought of Luc and how sweet he’d been to me but when the guards attacked him, he had become something else. Something quite dangerous and lethal. I couldn’t deny that I had felt frightened then, that a part of me had been afraid of him.

“You should come with us,” she said, leaning closer to me. “Don’t stay here.”

“I need to move my mom first,” I said, biting my lip. “I can’t leave her.”

I left Shelley’s later in the afternoon and walked slowly back to my little house. I had lived here all my life but I wouldn’t miss it. I had longed to be free of this place for so long. I was about to go into my house when Danny called my name and I turned around.

“Where’ve you been!” he asked, walking up to me and grabbing my arm.

“You’re hurting me,” I said, twisting free and walking into the house.

He came after me and my heart skipped a beat. He seemed unhinged, out of control. His eyes were blood-shot and he looked even more unkempt than usual. I could see he hadn’t slept in days. He told me they’d been out in the Swamp, hunting vampires and that patrols had been set up around the towns, to protect women and children.

“I’m taking you to Carol up at the ranch,” he said. “Pack your things.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not going.”

Danny lived on a small farm outside town with his parents and brothers. I had been there before and hadn’t liked what I’d seen. The men, sitting outside around a fire, drinking while the women kept away as much as possible, cowering and subservient.

“I am not asking!” Danny said, glaring at me. “Pack your things!”

“No!” I knew better than to talk to Danny like this, but I couldn’t help myself. Still, I hadn’t expected him to snap the way he did. He moved so quickly, grabbing me by my hair, yanking my head back.

“You stupid bitch!” he sneered at me. “You think I don’t know about you and the vampire?”

I could barely speak, pain was radiating across my scalp.

“What?”

“You opening your legs for that…fucking monster!” he screamed at me, spit flying into my face. “Don’t even try to deny it! I can smell him everywhere!”

He threw me in a corner. “Now, pack your bags!”

I got to my feet and carefully made my way into my room, pretending to pack things while really looking for any kind of weapon to defend myself. I knew if I let Danny take me to the ranch I’d never make it back alive. He’d probably lock me up in one of the cages as punishment. I’d seen those cages they had on the property. Sometimes they kept animals there they had found or captured. I had seen them put people in there, boys they caught stealing. Once, a girl whom they’d accused of sleeping with someone other than her partner. She’d been kept in the cage for days I think, outside, without any blankets. I was sure this was what Danny had in mind for me.

I couldn’t allow him to take me.

But he was strong and mad and I could see he’d been drinking too, you could smell it on him. I would have to move quickly and be sure that I was able to incapacitate him enough to get away. Locking a door would not be enough, he could break that down easily.

“Come on, hurry up!” he came into the room, casting a wild eye around. “You don’t need anything else, we have to go,” he said, pulling on my arm and trying to drag me out of the room.

“I’m not going,” I said in a firm voice.

“What?”

He came towards me and shoved me against the wall, pushing me with his body. I could feel him harden against my body. I turned my head away.

“I don’t want to leave my house,” I managed.

“You waitin’ for him here?” he asked, taunting me now. “Is he coming for you again?”

His voice was low and mean. “You want some more vamp action, is that it?”

His shoulder pushed into me, pinning me against the wall, while his other hand grabbed my breast then pushed between my legs. “He touch you, make you come, baby?” His voice was nasty now. “You want me to fuck you like him, because I can you know. I can be all cold and dead. Treat you like the shit you are.”

I kept myself completely still, refusing to respond to him. Sex with Danny had always been rough. It was about power and control for him, he wanted to dominate me and feel me submit to him. It had been so different with Luc, I couldn’t even compare it, it didn’t feel like the same act. Pleasure and joy had never been part of my relationship with Danny. With Luc it had been wonderful, for the first time in my life.

He shifted his weight, trying to get his pants off and in that moment, I had some room to move and I acted fast. I was smaller than him and used the top of my head to head butt him, knocking into his jaw with as much force as I could muster.

It was a technique my dad had taught me many years ago, a few self-defense moves for when I needed them. Danny staggered back and fell to his knees. I pushed past him and ran out of the house and down the street. I didn’t know where I was going and I knew I would have to come up with a plan, fast. Danny would recover quickly and he would be enraged, I didn’t have much time. If he caught me now, he would tie me up and take me to the ranch and I would not be able to escape again.

I turned off into a side street and looked for a good hiding place. There were some empty shops and closed-down business buildings that I ran to, trying the doors until I found one that opened. It was empty inside, some abandoned office. I ran through it and found a door on the other side with a staircase and I went up, all the way to the roof.

I could hear the door opening downstairs.

I heard him calling, “Ruby!”

My heart sank. It was Danny. He had already found me.

“You know you can’t hide, right?” His voice echoed through the empty space. I could hear him coming closer.

I tried to open the door to the roof but it was locked or jammed, I yanked harder, willing the door to open but it remained shut.

“You know I have your smell in my blood…” Danny was saying. “I can track you anywhere, find you wherever you go. You can never get away from me. Never.”

I sank onto the floor with my back against the door.

I couldn’t see a way out of this and Danny was coming closer. I didn’t want him to catch me. I’d rather die than let him take me out to the ranch and lock me up in a cage like a fox.

“There you are, darling,” I heard him say. He stepped onto the stairwell, a trail of blood running down his face.

“Why did you run from me? Don’t you know that I want what’s best for you?”

I didn’t answer. This wasn’t really a conversation, after all. He didn’t care what I thought or what I wanted. He wanted to own me, possess me. My wishes and desires had nothing to do with him.

I closed my eyes and heard him coming up the stairs.

I had one last course of options.

In my pocket, I had a small pair of scissors that I’d grabbed before I left the house. They were for sewing and had belonged to my mother, but if I could jam it into the right place, I could do a lot of damage. I knew that I would die fighting.

Suddenly there was a rush of air and the sound of wings or something in the stairwell. I opened my eyes and saw a shape attack Danny. I couldn’t make out limbs or anything recognizable. It moved too quickly. I heard Danny scream and I knew he was in trouble.

Then I realized that it was Luc attacking Danny and killing him.

I also knew that if I had to choose between Luc and Danny, I would not choose the man who had been about to force himself on me back at the house, who had hurt me, talked down to me, treated me as less than him.

I would choose Luc.