“Shhhhh.” There was another group of people, maybe a little older but with equally wild appearance, coming near us from a side street. Our paths would intersect soon. “Do you have to say that so loudly?”
Lucas’s steps slowed. “How do you feel right now?”
“This second? I’m fine, I guess, but—”
“Good. Get ready to run.”
“What are you talking about?” But then I saw what Lucas had seen: a third group of people, all dressed in similar rags, were approaching from across the street. This wasn’t random. We were surrounded.
Then I recognized a man in the third group, a guy with an aquiline profile, skin as pale as mine, and long, reddish-brown dreadlocks. Shepherd.
“That guy,” I said. “He hunts for Charity.”
Lucas grabbed my hand and squeezed. “The bus stop. Go.”
We started to run. As soon as we’d taken two steps, the vampires around us gave up any pretense of just hanging out. They swirled around as fast as a flock of birds, right on our heels. And they weren’t laughing any longer.
Lucas sped up, calling on his enhanced speed to propel us forward. I clasped his hand as tightly as I could, once again cursing my stupid sandals, but I couldn’t quite move as fast as Lucas. Before, I usually outran him. Not anymore.
The footsteps behind us pounded closer and louder. I could hear their belts and bracelets jangling. Lucas kept trying to tow me after him. By now we both knew we weren’t going to get back to the bus stop in time, not with me running so slowly. So I wrenched my hand from Lucas’s and took off running to the right. “Bianca!” he shouted, but I didn’t turn back.
I had thought the vampires would split up, half chasing Lucas and half chasing me. Lucas would be able to escape from his pursuers, and as for me—well, maybe I had a chance if I only had to fight half. Instead, from the sound of it, they’d all followed me.
Lucas, please get away, please get out of here! I didn’t dare look back to see if that was what he was doing. They were too close, so close, getting closer—
A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me around. I stumbled and nearly fell, but Shepherd caught me.
“Smile for the people,” he whispered. “They want to think we’re just kids playing around. So you smile and make them think that. Or else we’ll make you scream.”
There were ten of them and one of me. I smiled. Nearby, in the park, I saw a young couple with a stroller shrug and keep going, satisfied that nothing was really wrong.
“Let her go!”
Lucas pushed his way through the vampires, like they were any other crowd of punks. Nobody fought him, but the vampire didn’t let go. Shepherd said, “We’re taking her for a ride, or we’re taking her out, here and now. You know we can do it. It won’t be any trouble to take you out, too.”
We didn’t have stakes or holy water or any other weapons. We’d come out for my birthday, not for a fight. Lucas’s eyes met mine, and I could see him recognizing the hard odds we faced.
Shepherd continued, “So you have two choices, hunter. You can come for a ride with us, or you can turn around and go home like a good boy.”
“Lucas, please,” I pleaded. “They’re only after me.”
But he shook his head. “Where you go, I go.”
They walked us around the corner to a slightly less busy street and pushed us into the back of a truck. I thought for a moment of our escape from Black Cross, but that hope died instantly. We didn’t have Dana to help us this time, and the cab of the truck was completely separate from the metal box we had to stay in. When they slammed the doors shut behind us, blackness fell, save for a few lines of light around the corners of the doors.
Once I’d had nearly perfect night vision. That was starting to fade.
“Hang on, Bianca.” Lucas put his arms around me as the truck rumbled into motion. “We’re gonna have to think fast when they open those doors back up.”
“They’ll still outnumber us,” I said. “And they’re taking us to a place where they’ll be more in control than they were here.”
“I know. But we had zero chance out there. We have to hope the next situation is going to work more to our advantage.”
I didn’t see how that was even possible, but I tried to follow Lucas’s example and think like a fighter.
It seemed to take an incredibly long time before we reached our destination—a large, one-story building that had evidently been abandoned for a long time but had been either a health club or a gymnasium. Several of the windows were broken, and graffiti striped the walls. This building was waiting to be torn down, and apparently some vampires had decided to take advantage of the delay. They tugged us out of the back of the truck—four vampires flanking each of us.
“Let’s head to the pool,” Shepherd said. Lucas and I shared a look; I knew he was telling me to look out for anything we might be able to use for weapons or an escape. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to take out that many vampires at once, but we had to remain focused.
The pool area looked even more torn up than the rest. As we walked inside, I could see that was where the vampires had chosen to stay. Beer bottles littered the floor and windowsills, and every corner had become a trash heap. It smelled like cigarettes. In the center of the room was the swimming pool itself, long emptied of water; the abandoned high-dive board stood above, lonely, with a cobweb dangling from the end.