Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

And then she fell over.

I shoved her off and rolled, using the ground to push myself up to a standing position. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you? When’s the last time your food fought back?”

Nudging her with the toe of my boot, I saw a small bit of plastic resting next to her hand. It was a piece of capsule that still had some allergy medicine in it.

Benadryl. Fastest, easiest, cheapest way to take ’em down.

My phone vibrated again. “Andy, what do you want?” I hissed into it. “I’m in a movie theater.” No one at home knew what I was really up to.

“Dad needs you to get some birchwood. From the farm. He wants to carve some more stakes tonight.”

“I can’t,” I said hastily. “I have to—”

“Just do it, Jane. Dad needs it. How’s the movie?”

“Boring part. They just had a chase scene through the woods. Some guy with a chainsaw. Now the blond bimbo is suggesting they split up.”

“I thought you went to go see a chick flick? The Notebook or something.”

Andy, Andy, Andy. Always trying to trip me up. Too bad little sister is better at this game than you are. “Why would I go see that piece of crap?” I snorted. “I told you I was going to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Crazies. It’s a double feature.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right. I must have gotten the titles mixed up.”

“You got a chick flick and a horror movie mixed up? I might expect that from Dad, since he doesn’t watch horror movies, but come on, big brother. What chick flick has the word chain-saw or massacre in it?”

“What, you’ve never heard of My Heart’s Massacre or Chainsaw Beauty?”

He laughed and I did too, but then I saw something that made me stop laughing. Glancing at Polly Prissy Pants, I told myself that it wasn’t true. I didn’t see what I thought I’d seen. “He’s back with the chainsaw. I have to go.”

Her foot twitched. She was waking up.

“Have fun at your movie, little sister!” Andy’s voice was sick-eningly sweet.

“Oh, bait me,” I said.

Andy laughed so hard it made my ear hurt, and I hung up on him. Bait me was our replacement for bite me . . . in more ways than one.

Bait is what I was. Literally.

My family were hunters. Supernatural hunters. Everyone gifted in their own way with some unique power or skill. Everyone but me. And so I became the bait. It was my job to be the helpless girl in a dark alley. The clueless teenager with a flat tire. The lost hiker with a broken shoelace. You’d be surprised at how many demons, vampires, and vengeful spirits there are out there.

Normally, each hunt we went on had to be carefully vetted and approved by every family member. But this time, I’d wanted to do something on my own. To bring in a catch without them, and prove that I was ready to be more than just bait.

Bait me, my ass.

I had just enough time to turn, when the trees parted. Green berets and sashes came crashing through the branches as a swarm of hungry Girl Scouts caught sight of me. According to their badges, it was the rest of Troop 409.

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nbsp; And I was all out of meat.

“Shit.”

All those years of obstacle course training and nighttime avoidance maneuvers that Mom and Dad had insisted upon when I turned nine suddenly came in handy. I hooked left and started sprinting, jumping over roots and ducking under tree limbs as I went.

The Girl Scouts had a surprising amount of endurance for being so young. Either that, or I was getting soft.

But I still had a few tricks up my sleeve. I took out my knife and sliced my hand. Crisscrossing my path, I left traces of blood on each tree that I passed in order to confuse them. They were only capable of focusing on one thing right now: food.