The Chase

The Chase Ch. 3

 Thad's P.O.V

It was strange, being asleep. I wasn’t really asleep, I suppose, considering I don’t sleep. I think. I hadn’t really tried. Either way, I just felt light, like my whole body was suspended in some kind of thick, yet light liquid. I briefly wondered if this were a dream. I was conscious, yet I couldn’t open my eyes. The harder I will the muscles to pull my lids open, the more frustrated I became that I had no control. My lids merely twitched and flickered as if I was having some kind of violent seizure.

“Thad…Thad…” some far off voice called. It sounded so familiar and warm, yet I couldn’t remember it no matter how hard I tried. The sound was almost like a distant memory calling to my conscious mind from some hidden part of my brain.

“Thad….” The voice sounded farther off now, almost like it was slowly being pulled away, the vowels of the name being elongated. The liquid I had felt around me before was slowly flowing away, like when you pull a stopper out of a drain. Swirling whirls of liquid brushed on my skin, and the heavy weight on my eyelids started to lift. I was starting to wake.

Fire. That’s what it felt like when I finally came to. I didn’t really notice anywhere in particular that hurt, just that there was a lot of pain.

“Uhg,” something kind of like a low grunt escaped my lips when the shock of the pain hit me. My vision was blurry at first, but it soon adjusted itself. The first thing I noticed was that I was indoors, mostly because of the dull, artificial lighting that slightly messed up my eyesight. It didn’t hurt my eyes or blind me like sunlight, but it was enough to give me a slight headache.

Footsteps. Whoever brought me here must have heard me stirring. Two of the humans from last night entered the room, one male and one female; both were carrying guns at their sides.

“Look, it’s awake Ginger!” the male said. He appeared to be a couple years younger than the female, and had a rosary swinging from his neck, as well as a crucifix which his was clutching in his hand. What was I supposed to be, a demon or something? The female approached, and I flinched, trying to pull my hands but realizing they were tightly chained. My chest burned whenever I moved to try and free myself, so I glanced down at it. A shiny, dagger-like piece of metal was jutting out of the left side of my chest, leaving the skin around it purplish and bloody. The bullet wound on my shoulder, however, was almost completely gone.

“What’s your name,” the girl demanded, though I could sense a slight twinge of fear in her voice. I thought back to the dream.

“Thad,” I grunted, figuring the dream the female had induced had granted me with a human memory.

“Sadie,” she pointed to the girl in the back that I had attacked last night, “Is she going to be a monster when she wakes up?”

“Hell if I know,” I tried to shrug, but it hurt too much.

“What do you mean?” she said while approaching me. She grabbed the edge of the dagger in my chest and twisted it sharply to the side. I let out a sharp yelp of pain as the half healed wound reopened. “You have to know if we can save her!”

“Look, woman, it’s not like I’ve read the ‘official vampire rule guide’ or anything. In fact, all I know is I’m hungry and I want to feed. So if you could just get off my case, that would be nice,” I spat.

“Of all the pitiful bloodsuckers we could have caught, it had to be one that’s an idiot didn’t it?” She said, getting really close to my face, the warmth of her breath hitting me. I tried to break the chains around my wrists, but for some reason they wouldn’t even bend. The female just laughed. “Those are silver chains; they’ll mess with your blood and prevent you from breaking them.”

Her face was really, really close to mine now. I lunged forward, instinct taking over. I thought I would have had her, but my injuries must have slowed me down. My fangs only scraped across her cheek, leaving a small, bloody gash on her face. Her face showed fear, mixed strongly with anger as she stumbled away.

“You may have me restrained and you may have things that could kill me but that’s just it,” I yelled at her, “If I were to break free, I wouldn’t need weapons to kill all of you, I’d do it with my bare hands,”

“Luke, get Donovan” she snapped to crucifix boy, a slight shake in her voice, “Just in case.” Luke dashed out of the room, stumbling a little bit as he left the doorway.

“Do you know anything that could help Sadie?” Ginger said, looking a little defeated.

I thought back to the city, and all the buildings I had stayed in to seek refuge and to hunt. The streets were, rough and the competition for food was even rougher. There were many vampires far stronger than me. A few weaker vampires and I had sought refuge in one particular building many times.

Maybe I did know something that could help, but I wasn’t about to give up my information for free to something that could potentially be a nice hot meal.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked her, mulling over my options at the moment. Escaping was probable, but there wasn’t a high enough chance of success for me to want to risk it at the moment.

“What could you possible want from us?” she hissed. I could tell she didn’t feel like negotiating at the moment.

“Blood,” I smirked while licking my lips hopefully. What else would I want? Certainly not the companionship.

“No,” she snorted, treating it like it was the stupidest idea ever, “Why don’t you just drink your own blood or something?”

“Okay, and why don’t you eat your own limbs next time you’re starving,” I retorted, “And besides, my blood’s completely different from yours.”

“Okay, new idea,” she said as Luke reentered the room with a tall male, “You tell us what you, and we don’t kill you.”

“Seems reasonable,” I said with a nod, I could get what I wanted later. All five of them would make a nice meal.

“You’re just going to let him go like that?” The older male demanded. By the way the woman looked at him, I could tell she meant to double cross me. How naive did she really think I was? It was okay, I would get what I wanted.

“So what do you know?” She said walked back over to me.

“First,” I said motion towards my chest with my head, “get this thing out of my heart. If it heals like that it’ll feel so disturbing when I have to rip it out.” She actually did what I asked and pulled quickly out. I grunted a little bit at the pain.

“Okay, there is this old library, near where the city hall used to be before it was burned down in the panic. I used to stay there off and on with a few other vampires. Some of the older guys used to read these old books and talk quietly about it. I didn’t care at the time; I was too thirsty. The information you’re looking for might be there.” I told her truthfully.

“Sounds easy enough,” she nodded, looking at the others. They nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, too bad it’s probably crawling with starving vampires,” I added.

“Then you’ll just have to come with us,” she shrugged.