The Hunt

2

"I saw you playing."

After the dark of the cellar, the sunlight was dizzying. The faint smell of petrol in the carpark was sickening, the corporate car red stinging her eyes.

Mickey looked up at her from the boot of the caravan. It was a beat-up honda, the denigm of the sofas so pale it was almost white. She could imagine Mickey sitting there, making music.

She loved his music.

Mickey lit the cigarette slowly. His long, intelligent hands were steady as they held it, smoke concealing his face in a nicotine mirage.

"Good gig."

His eyes were settled on a point just beyond her.

Charlie felt her palms spring with moisture, and cursed herself, trying to wipe them discreetly on her skirt. Why wasn't he looking at her? Was he embarrassed, annoyed? Everything in her body was screaming at her to just ask for an autograph, a silly signature so she could take it and run without a fuss, but she had done so much, come so far for this one moment...

"Do you know where the bathroom is?" For a moment, the question seemed to diffuse her into perfect calm, before she shuttered into a whole new dimension of distress. Waterfalls were gushing from her brow.

"No." Mickey took another long drag, the word another stake through her heart.

"Hey."

Angus. She could recognise that voice, alto to Mickey's tenor anywhere.Sure enough, he was just over her shoulder when she turned, so close she could literally see his pupils dilate. Cady felt faint, her existence in that moment a far-flung stone, returned to her.

"You got the speakers?" Mickey put out his cigarette on the boot's thick carpet – not the safest, Charlie thought – and looked over her shoulder. "The amp?"

"Who's this?" Angus was still just behind her. She could smell his sweat, his cologne as he jerked around her. "Mickey, you said - "

"She's not." It was almost a snarl, said just as quickly as the hand that flashed up to the cross around his neck. Charlie wondered if he was religious, and if she should have known that. He tugged at the chain so hard, it formed a little valley in his skin, blooming red along its line. "She came to me. Eagar as anything."

"Oh!"

A sharp pain had shot through her stomach, she stumbled back, cluching the swell of her abdomen.

Angus looked at her in alarm. "Woah – you ok?"

"I don't..." Another stab of pain. Groaning, she watched as Mickey's eyes seared blue behind Angus. "I don't..."

Then her knees seemed to buckle, her world give way.

"Mickey, come over here, quick – oh hell."

-

"Spiked drink."

Earlier, those words might have made Charlie recoil in shock. But now, lying on the weed-smelling foam of the band's caravan sofa, watching as Angus cursed a pan of baked beans – she only felt a dull mirth. Maybe that was the beer from earlier, too. The spiked beer.

Angus's broad back stretched his t-shirt, making it warp to strange shadows.

"I don't do things like this a lot." Her voice was croaky – but the silence was too much too bear. She tried not to stress about it. She had an excuse for ugliness after passing out. He wouldn't guess that this was her speech's usual state, rusty from misuse. He wouldn't guess this was the first time she had ever been alone in a room with a male vaguely close to her own age.

"I can see that." He looked over wearily. His eyes were very slightly close set – but not in an edgy way, like Mickey's. It just made him look concerned.

"Listen." He put his entire two hands over his face. Then he dragged them away. There was a tattoo on his wrist, an eye. It watched her steadily.

 "You'd understand, wouldn't you, if I asked you to go now."

An eye. The sign of virgin vampires.

When Charlie didn't reply, he sighed. She wondered why, how he'd decided to never eat a human.

He began to pull back his lip. "I know what you -"

Mickey burst in, slapping the tiny door against the wall with a plastic thud. "The guy's still not paying up! He – "

Then he noticed Charlie, splayed out on the sofa, and stopped. She still hadn't moved a single limb, and felt her cheeks burn as she realised her skirt was hiked up, revealing her white shanks. She wanted to tug the fabric down, but didn't want to be suggestive. So she lay there, looking back at him without moving. He wasn't wearing his cross.

"Oh." To her mortification, Mickey's eyes flicked to the calf immediately. Electric blue, vibrating rapidly. Mesmerising. Charlie felt herself being pulled from the couch, sliding so she began to tip-

"Mickey!" Angus was in front of him, hands on either shoulder. Mickey shook his head, blue eyes rolling.

Angus fixed Charlie was a gaze so fierce, she felt her face burn. "Go. Now."

"Hold on – " Mickey pushed Angus aside, so hard, the boy stumbled into the mini kitchenette. He wiped his mouth, eyes fixed to her, and Charlie realised he was drunk, properly drunk. "Last time I knew, you weren't the leader of this band..."

"Mickey, when I tell you, don't go near her – "

"No, you're not right this time..." He stumbled closer, and Charlie sat up. He flopped onto the empty space, and stuck his face right next to hers, sneering to expose those sharp, white teeth. "She's not like Lidia..." His breath smelt like beer and mint gum.

"Get away from her!" Angus tackled him just as he leant in, and Charlie sprang up, shocked. Her skin crawled with his heat, his long glossy hair, his flash of white skin – the hungry look in his eyes as he'd learnt in so quickly.

Angus glanced up at her in fear, running between her and Mickey, shouting with such anger she didn't need to be told twice.

"Go! Now!"

-

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