Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Pushing the Limits

Modern Day

Nikki Flynn tightened her ponytail, making sure her thick curls were securely held off her face, and glanced over at Jason Grant, who was checking the laces on his running shoes.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Oh yeah." Nikki jogged on the spot, getting into the spirit. "Don't hold back on me, though."

Jason grinned. "I won't."

"Kick his ass, Nikki," Renie called from where she stood a couple of feet away.

Edmond, Ludovic, Gideon, and Roux stood with her, their faces ethereally pale under the moonlight.

Nikki usually did her daily workout during the day, but Renie and Roux still couldn't be couldn't be outside when the sun was up, so hanging out with them away from Belle Morte had to be done at night. Nikki was okay with that. At sixteen, she was too young to work security at a vampire house, but that was still her dream, which meant there was a good chance that she'd work a lot of night shifts.

She checked her watch once more. She still had an hour and a half before she had to catch a train home, so Jason had driven them out to Oram's Arbour, a small park not far from the station, where Nikki could test her fitness against his. Most kids she went to school with weren't as dedicated to working out as she was, and she couldn't afford a gym membership, so a good way to track her progress was to compete against someone she knew was better than her.

"You ready?" Roux said.

Nikki and Jason both nodded.

"Go," Roux said.

Nikki ran. She knew that she couldn't outrun Jason – he was bigger, stronger, faster, and he had several years' experience on her, and the last time they'd run together, Jason had left her in the dust. What she wanted was to see how much she could keep up with him, to see how many circuits of the park she could see, to really push herself. That was why she'd warned him not to hold back. She'd never get a realistic idea of what she could do if she was running against someone who was holding back on her.

Her feet pounded on the ground, and a fierce grin spread across her face. She loved this. She loved the way her blood pumped and her muscles worked and her breath rushed in her lungs. She loved the burn in her legs, the way she could push past the moment when they started to hurt, and find a second wind. She loved the feeling of being active.

She kept her eyes on Jason's blond head as he bobbed ahead of her. He ran to keep in shape, not to test the limits of what his body could do, and Nikki was absolutely sure that there was less distance between them than there had been last time.

Fresh determination spurred her. Even if she couldn't catch him, she wanted to maintain this momentum.

They lapped the park again and again and again, until Nikki had lost track of time, and her legs felt like heavy weights, and her breathing had become a painful rasp, and then she finally slowed and came to a stop near her friends.

Jason, breathing heavily, his T-shirt dark with sweat, jogged back over to her.

"You're definitely faster than last time," he said.

Nikki nodded, waiting for her racing heart to slow before she spoke.

Her gaze moved past Jason, to the kids' playground behind the watching vampires, tucked behind a black iron fence.

"You want to keep going?" she challenged.

Jason's eyebrows shot up. "Running? Not really."

"I had something else in mind."