I had a stake in my hand, but I didn’t know if I could kill him, even with everything he’d done. I knew that members of my pack had shed blood in self-defense, in defense of the pack, but I didn’t know if I could. With a choice between sinking the stake into his chest and getting away, I just wanted to get away. If I could get out of the basement, I could run to the book shop, get help, tell Jane and Dick about Greg and his stupid plans.
Greg wrapped his arm around my waist, yanking me off of the stairs. I squirmed out of his arms, repulsed by the sensation of his cold hands on my skin. He backhanded me, sending me flying into the pile of boxes again. He tried to grab the stake, but I clung to it as if my life depended on it.
“You don’t have to be alive when he gets here, you know,” he seethed. “It works either way for me.”
“Neither do you,” I panted.
“You don’t have it in you,” he said, laughing. “It’s why I picked you first. You’re not a killer. Every time I watched you, you let someone push you around. You’re not even fighting me with your full strength. I could probably let you go, and you’d come right back and tie yourself up again. You’re weak.”
My arms dropped and my shoulders slumped. There was a certain amount of shame in the fact at, at one point, he’d probably been right. I was weak. I spent far too much time letting people control me, worrying about whether I was loved, whether I would be accepted.
But I’d changed. I’d done things in the past months that I’d never believed I’d be able to do—establishing a real adult life of my own, loving the person I chose, making real friends. I was a hell of a lot stronger than the girl who had nearly been crushed by a falling bookshelf.
He’d stepped closer, watching my shoulders fall, thinking that he’d gotten to me. I gripped the makeshift stake and lunged forward, shoving it into his gut. “Not anymore.”
He screamed, dropping to his knees. He glared up at me. “It’s supposed to be the heart, you stupid bitch.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I told him, kicking at the violin neck so it sank even deeper. He yelped and flopped to his side. “I just want to slow you down. I don’t want your dust on my hands.”
He rolled on the floor in agony as I grabbed one of the UK sweatshirts and threw it over my head. I ran up the stairs and out the unlocked door. By the time I’d reached the outside of the empty building where he’d held me, I had the time to be a little insulted by his not locking it. Did he really think I didn’t have a chance of getting out? Also, was this the business he just couldn’t stand to leave behind? An abandoned Circuit City where he stored a weird assortment of stolen merchandise?
Why was I even thinking about that sort of thing? Maybe he’d hit me a little harder on the head than I thought.
I glanced around the empty parking lots surrounding the former Circuit City. I was about a half-mile from the Half-Moon Hollow Mall, a dying collection of retail stores that was steadily losing traffic to the downtown area. But there were still enough cars circulating the dark streets that I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of walking through it, only wearing a sweatshirt.
Changing in the middle of town would definitely be noticed, I thought. Or someone would call Animal Control on the giant wolf running down the highway. As I mulled over my options, I heard my name called from behind me.
“Tylene?”
Alex was standing in the parking lot, his phone in his hand, surrounded by vampires. Dick was carrying a First Aid Kit the size of a microwave. I did not know where or how he’d gotten it. Gabriel appeared to be holding Jane in some sort of gentle wrist lock to keep her from running into the Circuit City. Andrea was carrying a baseball bat. Cal, Nik, Gigi, Iris, Meadow, Erik, they were all there. Hell, there were some vampires I didn’t even recognize. And then a black van marked Undead Emergency Response Team pulled up and some SWAT types came pouring out in full gear.
“Hi,” I said, waving weakly. “Does anyone have some spare pants?”