Valley of the Shadow

Chapter Six

Carmen passed out some time later, after somehow managing not to puke at all. Switchblade, however, wasn't as lucky. He wasn't as good at not puking as she was, something she hadn't gotten to rub in his face in a while.

Either way, she passed out in her bed, drunk, but not really feeling much better.

Her phone vibrating woke her up several hours later. She ignored it until the ringing stopped, and tried to drift back off to sleep, but it immediately started buzzing against her side again. She angrily sat up, and answered the call.

"Hello?" She spat.

"Hey, Carmen—"

Carmen sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to rub away the pounding in her head and dryness on her tongue. 

"Huh— Maria?"

"Carmen, can you come pick me up?" Maria said. Her voice was shaky, and barely audible over all of the background noise. "I'm sorry, I know you're mad at me. Please?"

"Wh— of course I'll come pick you up." Carmen said, sitting upright in the bed. "Wait, where are you?"

"I'm, uhm, at a party." She said, "Hold on, I'll text you the address."

"Are you okay? Did something happen?" Carmen asked.

"Yeah, uhm— I'm okay." She said, although she certainly didn't sound oaky,, "How long will it take you to get here?"

Carmen pulled up the address and looked it over on the map. It was out in the county, at the end of a long dirt road.

"Probably about fifteen or twenty minutes." She said. She sat up and grabbed her keys off of her nightstand. "I'm leaving now."

"O-okay." Maria said.

After about fifteen minutes of driving, Carmen came up on a double wide trailer on a cleared out lot, on the left side of the road. There were at least thirty people hanging around in the yard and country pop music was playing from the speakers of one of the trucks that was parked nearby.

"Ew." Carmen said at the sight of all of the drunk college freshmen wandering around, and clinging to each other. "Teenagers."

She pulled out her phone and dialed Maria, but the call went straight to voice-mail. With a sigh, she turned off the engine of her car, and stepped out. No one paid much attention to her, something she was thankful for.

She tried calling Maria a couple more times as she walked around to the back of the trailer, but it went straight to voice-mail every time. She could only assume that her phone must have died. Just as she was starting to panic, the glittering of Maria's top caught her eye in the distance.

Taylor was standing between her and some guy in a navy polo, and it sounded like they were yelling, though Carmen could quite make out the words.

She broke into a sprint and ran over to them.

"She said to fuck off, so why are you still here? Get lost!" Taylor drunkenly yelled at the man. She reached out, and gave him a half hearted push.

"If she meant that, she could tell me herself. Why don't you back off and let me talk to her?" The man said, trying to duck around Taylor.

He reached out, and grabbed the strap of her top. Maria yelped in response and stumbled backwards.

Anger flared through Carmen, and she ran over, and snatched the man backwards by the collar of his shirt.

"Do I need to rip you fucking throat open with my teeth?" Carmen shouted at him. "She said to fuck off!"

The man's eyes widened, then narrowed as he focused on her mouth, clearly eyeing her fangs.