Chapter 31

“You want another deep-fried squash blossom?” Bryce held the cheese-stuffed, beer-battered flower towards Cora’s mouth.

They were at the squash fair, in a food tent, surrounded by talking, laughing people. Bryce and Flint had waylaid Cora in the BBOC after she changed out of her training gear, talking her into a night out to celebrate her first successful day. They wouldn’t take no for an answer.

At first she’d been peeved, but now she was glad. It would keep her mind off… him. She refused to think his name.

Cora held one hand over her mouth, the other placed gently on her belly. “No more food, Bryce. If you put one more thing in my face I’m stabbing it with my vampire knife.” It was an hour till fair closing time, and the humans were thinning.

Bryce snatched the treat into his mouth. “You don’t have to make it personal just because you’re a lightweight.”

On Cora’s other side, Flint snickered, but his mind was obviously far away. He was just dialing it in, barely paying attention to her or his brother, barely eating any of the delicious food on offer. He kept looking at his phone, although Cora hadn’t once heard it make noise. He spoke softly to his brother, an undercurrent of anxiety in his voice. “Not everyone goes through life doubling as a garbage disposal, Bryce. Give the girl a break.”

Cora’s phone buzzed in her purse, a text message that rang as the chorus to Concrete Blonde’s ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)’. She’d changed it only an hour ago, kind of as a joke, but now that she heard it, she liked it.

She wasn’t gonna answer it, though. Wasn’t even gonna check it. If it was from Jameson, she wouldn’t be able to help herself from reading it. And if his message was sweet, she would give in to him, guaranteed. But she didn’t want to give in. What she wanted was to kill a vampire in front of him, without his help, show him she could do it. Then, maybe, they could talk. Not a scenario that’s going to happen any time soon, girl.

They finished eating, then the brothers pulled her to the games, each taking turns at playing when she didn’t want to. She frowned when she realized that one of them always stood right next to her as she watched. If she wandered off, they stopped their game to run after her. Stuck to her? Babysitting? The thought burned her somewhere deep, but she shoved it down.

Flint and Bryce hit a duck-racing game, plopping down to sit in front of matching water-shooting rifles. Cora stood to the side, just next to Flint, and cheered as the bell rang and the brothers each aimed their streams of water at the target.

Raw hatred shot through her, sharpening her focus. She turned her head slowly, looking for the source, her eyes watering with the intensity of the emotion. Vampire. Somewhere close. It manacled her, pulled at her. She followed the pull, reaching in her purse for her weapon, her resonant.

Flint, then Bryce called her name. She darted behind a booth and scooted to its edge, peeking around the canvas flap to spy on them. She realized she didn’t even know what kind of animals they shifted into. Something big. They would be like Jameson, would try to carry her away from the vampire, not toward it. No way. The hunt was on.

The Undoing, some soft voice whispered in her mind.

She struck off toward the vampire, not knowing where he was, but feeling when she was heading away or toward him. A deadly game of hotter or colder. With someone’s life the prize.

Cora’s hand clutched the hilt of her knife, her arm elbow-deep deep inside her purse. Some part of her knew that when she was closer to him, she would no longer care about keeping the knife hidden. She’d be under the control of the Undoing, of her purpose, much like a woman at the moment of birth who no longer cares who sees her naked because she is too focused on getting the damn baby out of her! Energy flowed through her muscles, pulsing like blood, hardening her bones. She would find him. Soon.

“I am the weapon,” she whispered. “The weapon comes for you, vampire. You die tonight.”

The rage intensified, propelling Cora’s body forward until she was jogging through the tiny dark alleys behind the vendors and carnies, passing a long line of empty port-o-johns, her eyes peeled for the vampire. Any vampire.

She saw him at a picnic table. Garner. Her own personal vampire. Kill. Eradicate. Rational thought failed her, but a primal instinct flared to life as she circled the covered area he was in, skirting it, noting his lack of goons. Although she couldn’t possibly think of why he wouldn’t have bodyguards, she was glad he didn’t. He was hers.

A wall of violent bloodlust overtook Cora, stronger than anything she’d felt before, pushing all else from her mind. Except her Prowl. She’d given Flint and Bryce the slip, the ones who were supposed to keep her from killing innocents. Maybe that was good, since she couldn’t imagine fucking either one of them. She would have to do something else. Run, maybe. Something told her it could work, if she could control herself enough to choose. Of course she could.

The vampire. He was right there. Cora crept in for the kill, the rage sweeping down on her the second her decision to move forward was made. She tightened her hold on her weapon and let her purse fall to the ground, her keys making a muffled jingle as it hit.

She wanted the element of surprise, mentally willing the energy that thrummed inside her to help her move with stealth, eyeing the spot on the vampire’s back where she would plunge her knife.

Strong arms snagged her from behind, gripping tight and lifting her clean off the ground, running with her the other way. Cora struggled madly, trying to stab behind her with her knife, maybe connecting with something, throwing her head backwards, meeting with solid chest.

“Cora, it’s me. Jesus, it’s Bryce. Ouch! Fuck! Stop kicking!”

Cora heard every word but could not heed them. She kicked and fought Bryce, but couldn’t get away. The vampire turned and made eye contact with her, dark eyes going steely. She had to get back to him! She turned her head and snapped her teeth near Bryce’s cheek like an animal, trying to reach flesh and bone. “Let go of me,” she snarled.

Bryce snatched his head away from hers with a look of horrified disbelief. “What the fuck, Cora! Hell naw, I don’t do this kind of crazy.” He surged to the left, headed straight for the port-o-johns.

He ripped open a door and stuffed her into an empty plastic box, then shoved the door closed and held tight, yelling for Flint, his jock’s voice carrying far.

Cora’s body blazed with agony. Her vision clouded until all she could see was the image of the vampire, the green walls of her tiny prison gone. She beat against them, not seeing them, as her bloodlust stung her like a thousand wasps. She could feel him, Garner. He was up, moving! She would lose him! He would live on! The monster, the bloodthief!

She beat on the door and walls with her fists, then slashed her knife at the thick plastic, seeking to convince the one who kept her inside to let her out. His name? She fumbled for it and found it in the red haze of her rage. “Bryce! Open the door! You can’t keep me from him! This is betrayal!”

Bryce’s panicked voice came back to her. “Hang on, Cora, hang on.”

Thousands of needles pricked her skin, her muscles, her organs, her bones, and she screamed in anguish and anger, stabbing with her knife again, making a hole. She yanked at it with her fingers, widening it, as the jagged edges opened wounds in her fingers. Her own blood smeared the plastic, spattered in her face.

From outside, Bryce yelled to someone, “She’s freaking out! I got her trapped in the port-a-potty!”

There was a pause, then Bryce exhaled a curse. On his phone. “Get here now! We gotta get her out of here. The cops are gonna come. Or the vampire. Someone’s gonna see us. Or she’ll kill me! My pants! She stabbed my fucking pants! ”

Cora’s panting breaths reverberated in the small space, the echo searing through her overcharged brain. Her conscious mind shrank into her pain, her primal brain urging her to fight, to defend herself against the assault. She couldn’t. There was no way to protect herself. Could the agony of her own bloodlust kill her? Cora howled out her pain.

Bryce swore from outside. “Jesus, Cora!”

She twisted in agony and anguish, clutching her resonant, to her chest, blade out. She took the deepest breath possible and screamed with every bit of girl-power she had, “SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF THIS SHITBOX!”