Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 25 - Gimme War

"Amber, you don't want to do this."

Eli was on his feet now, backing away from her, but there was nowhere for him to go.

"Oh, but I do, Eli. After what you did to me in the caves, I really, really do."

Her voice was trembling, almost more a growl than anything else, and her breathing was forced and ragged. Except for the wicked grin on her face, she looked almost more like a zombie than a vampire.

"Oh, so you two know each other?" the vampire leader asked.

"Oh yes, we go way back," Amber replied as she continued inching closer toward Eli. She was moving slowly, as though she didn't fully understand yet how to move her limbs, which just added to the zombie-like appearance of the woman. At another time, Eli might have been fascinated about what this might mean for the nature of relatively fresh vampires, but in that moment, he was much more concerned about where he would run once his back hit the wall.

And like that, his back hit the wall.

The smile on Amber's face, impossibly, widened. She moved closer, walking so slow, and Eli was beginning to wonder if her movements we so slow in order just to torment him.

"Please, Amber," he whispered, when she was close enough that he felt maybe only she would hear, "you don't have to do this. Please don't do this."

"Oh, are you going to beg me, Eli?" Amber mocked, not bothering to match his volume. "Really? You're going to beg? After what you did? After the caves? After I sat there, begging you? And what did you do, Eli? What did you do when I begged you to end this? Did you listen to me? Did you do what I asked? Did you make me beg and you still did what you wanted to do? If you had listened to me, if you had done what I begged you to do, neither of us would be here right now. Neither of us. But by all means, Eli," she had reached him now and had stopped walking, but she leaned in close to him to whisper one last word, "beg."

Eli looked down, his eyes wet with tears, but he didn't cry. He just stood there silently, letting her make the next move.

Amber seemed to grow frustrated at his lack of response. "I said... beg!" Her left hand rose and she slapped the concrete wall behind Eli with her open palm in time with the word "beg," so hard that the fleshy smack of the sound reverberated like thunder in his ears. He winced at the noise, his whole body seeming to tense, but beyond that he still didn't move for several more seconds.

Finally, he straightened. Blinking the tears from his eyes, he lifted his head and stared straight into Amber's black, lifeless eyes.

"You should run," he said, quietly but clearly enough that there could be no doubt about what he had said.

Amber jerked back a little in surprise at the words. She turned and looked to the vampire leader, as though these words might have somehow shifted the balance of power in the room. But the leader just shook her head and shrugged.

"Drain him dry already!" snapped Vallen. "Or I will!"

Amber turned and looked back at Eli. "Just remember, you brought this on yourself."

She opened her mouth wide, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Eli's mind flashed back to the caves, to lying on the ground with her over him, freshly turned, equally ready to feast, slowly overpowering him.

Something boomed in the distance, a roll of thunder in the night, but loud enough to draw everyone's attention, even Amber's, away from Eli.

"What the hell was that?" asked Vallen.

"Just a storm," the leader replied dismissively, turning her attention back to Amber and Eli.

"There was not a cloud in the sky," another vampire said, the one that had taken away the bed spring back in the barracks.