Destined for a Vampire (Blood Like Poison 2)

No, she would have no idea that any of those things were going on in her remaining daughter’s life. But the worst part was that, even if she did, she likely wouldn’t care, any if at all. Her heart was in the Westbrook Cemetery, buried beneath six feet of earth with the decaying body of my sister. She had nothing left for those of us who lived, nothing but a few hours of pretense every weekend.

My growl bounced off the ceiling of my quiet car. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Ridley,” I ground between my gritted teeth.

Wrenching the car door open, I got out and slammed it behind me. I was all but stomping up the sidewalk, angrily preoccupied, when I heard the shuffling noise in the yard to my left.

I stopped mid-stride, my pulse beating heavily inside the lump of terror that had lodged in my esophagus. I was almost afraid to look, to see who or what was coming for me this time. But on some level, I knew I didn’t really have to look to know who it was. On some level, I knew. It was Summer.

When I looked in the direction of the noise, she was ambling across the yard toward me. She wasn’t moving very quickly or even in a manner that was distinctly threatening, but it scared the crap out of me nonetheless.

With a yip, I somehow managed to contain my full-fledged, five-alarm, wake-the-dead scream as I bolted for the door. My frantic hands fumbled for the key that opened the front door, the one I’d been considerate enough to lock behind me when I left. Despite my mother’s drastic changes since Izzy’s death, I still didn’t want any boogers walking right into the house and eating her.

When I found it, I tried to steady my trembling fingers and slide the key into the lock. I glanced back over my shoulder; it was the only mistake that I had time for.

Summer’s almost casual lumbering disappeared as she crouched down and flew across the grass toward me. She was upon me before I could fill my lungs with enough air to let out the scream I’d been holding inside.

She moved incredibly quickly. Not vampire quick, but much faster than I imagined most humans could. And when she reached me, I knew instantly that her strength was enhanced as well. When her claw-like fingers wrapped round my upper arms, it felt like giant talons sinking into my flesh. I actually felt the density of my bones giving way. I wondered if I didn’t have Bo’s blood still giving me a little extra umph if she would’ve broken my arms.

In a motion so fast it made my head spin, she threw me to the ground and jumped on top of me. The rest was a blur. It seemed that she had ten mouths and dozens of hands and they were all biting and pinching and ripping and tearing, all at once. I felt pain from my navel upward.

I thrashed and batted my arms, kicked my legs and bucked my hips, but she was impossible to dislodge. Nothing I did seemed to have any effect on her. I couldn’t fend her off and I couldn’t slow her down.

I heard an eerie, hair-raising giggle and I knew that she was actually enjoying herself, playing with her food before she got down to the business of eating. And that put the fear of God into me. What would happen when she stopped playing?

Sucking in as much air as my compressed lungs would hold, I opened my mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream. Rather than scare her off, however, it seemed only to incite Summer. Her movements became more pointed, more frantic and vicious, like she knew her time was limited, that help might be on the way.

But then she stilled, stopping to look down at me. Her mad eyes met mine for one breath, one long heartbeat, during which I knew that she was aware, she was malicious, and she was determined. She was going to kill me, but not before she tasted my flesh, ate her fill like she did with Carly. She wanted me to feel fear, to feel pain, to feel her teeth.

And then she was gone.

When her weight was suddenly no longer holding me down, I lay on the ground, confused, for several seconds before my freedom sank into my addled, terrified brain. When it did, I scrambled to my feet and ran straight for the door. I didn’t care why or how it happened; I just cared that I had a brief reprieve and I had no intention of wasting it.

I had just unlocked the door and was about to step inside when I heard a crack that sounded like thunder, one that shook the front step. Against my better judgment, I looked behind me.

I saw Summer pick herself up off the ground where she’d landed in a heap at the bottom of a splintered thirty-foot-tall oak tree. Quickly springing back onto her feet, Summer stood. I thought she was turning back toward me, but she kept swiveling until she was facing a huge bush that loomed just to the left of the front porch.

“Just who I wanted to see. What did you think of my handiwork?” Summer asked in a child-like sing-song voice.

“She was my grandmother,” a low feminine voice said from behind the bush.

I knew that voice.

“And she was delicious.”

“How could you do that to an old woman?”

“How could you do this to me?”

For several tense seconds, an uncomfortable silence stretched across the yard.

But then I caught movement from the bush.

“I’m not finished yet,” Trinity said, stepping from behind the bush.

“Give it your best shot,” Summer said, her lips twisting into a cold sneer.

With an animal-like scream, Trinity bolted across the grass. To my eye, she was nothing more than a pale streak that smelled strongly of dank earth.

When she hit Summer, the thud of flesh meeting flesh reverberated through the air. Trinity wrapped her small body around Summer’s and went straight for her throat. It looked as if Trinity’s teeth were buried deep in Summer’s neck when Summer brought her hands up to Trinity’s mouth and dug her fingers in, yanking Trinity’s lower jaw with one bone-crushing jerk. Trinity cried out, letting go of Summer and stepping away. I could see that her jaw was broken. It hung limply from her upper teeth, jutting sharply off to one side.

Bringing her palm to her chin, Trinity tried to push her mandible back into place, but Summer wasn’t finished. Launching herself at Trinity, Summer knocked her to the ground and pinned her arms to her sides. I could see that Trinity was struggling to free herself, but she could barely move, not much more effective than I’d been against Summer.

Summer’s chilly laughter floated out around her as she taunted Trinity.

“What? Aren’t you strong enough to take care of little ol’ me? You didn’t seem to have any trouble when you bit me the first time, now did you?”

Trinity wrestled, to no avail. She grunted and groaned, but she never said a word, unable to speak with her jaw in the shape it was.