Good As Dead

Chapter Seventeen

I'm still alive.

That's about all I can make out through the haze of agony filling up my body. My muscles feel heavy, numb, but my veins and arteries burn like they're on fire. I don't think there's enough blood left in me to move, though I try, anyway, when Valentine hisses into my ear and draws my arm toward him. He untied my hands some time ago, biting my wrists until the pain turned into paralysis.

The stars swim in the sky, fading away as clouds gather, heavy and low, thunder rumbling in the distance. It turns the air sticky, humid, but even though I'm sweating, I feel myself shiver, too.

Valentine notices. "I know you're enjoying this, but we're going to stop soon. One of us better show some control, Nina."

When I bare my teeth at him, he laughs and shows me his own, testing my arm the way a lab technician does to find a vein to draw blood from. "Just one more for the trip home."

"Mercywing?" The word scrapes over my tongue. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to do anything except rip his heart out. But the small part of me aware enough to plan realizes there's a better chance of getting away in an area I know than in a strange landscape.

"You're still very alert," he says, and I can't tell whether he's pleased or disappointed. "Better take my time with this one."

As he holds my arm, head tilted like he's listening to the pulse, his teeth slide out. Fear flares up, giving me enough energy to flinch. He can change their shape and amount to whatever he wants. His mouth bristled like a shark's for the first bite, the one on my neck that throbs in agony with each breath. But sometimes, he gives himself fangs like a snake, puncturing my skin instead of ripping it open, leaving the flesh there numb, paralyzed.

His skin feels stretched and flushed as he prods at me, like he overstuffed himself on my blood. Nausea chokes up my throat. My body is cooler than his at this point, but even as he hisses in satisfaction over finding a good vein, I realize there's a warmth growing up my arm. It feels familiar, flickering bright and easy like... Like ink. I twitch as something drifts through me, rising above the numbing fear. Hope.

The warmth matches my pulse, and a glance at Valentine tells me he doesn't suspect anything. But I do. It's the same arm Gideon used to watch my heartbeat. No, how had he put it? Track my heartbeat. Is it really him? Do I have that much of a chance?

Valentine shifts his grip on my arm, and I have a split second to tense, something clawing up my throat as his teeth gleam despite the dark. Then he bites, lips clamping down to get as much of the blood as he can. I hear myself make a noise, the agony driving the breath out of me. The feel of him licking and sucking at my vein overwhelms any other sensation, and tears run down my face from pure frustration over losing the feeling of ink.

But after a few seconds, the warmth floods through my arm again, spiking into prickling heat where Valentine drinks from. He jerks back, snarling like he was burned by silver. Seeing him being the one to flinch gives me energy, and I use the last reserves in my free arm to scrabble at the collar around my neck, trying to find the catch. He notices and grabs my hand hard enough to make the bones throb. The look on his face is terrifying, but I've been terrified the entire fucking week, and now I'm coming out on the other side. He's going to hurt me anyway, so I'm going to dig into him as much as possible, and at least ruin his great night. "Go on, motherfucker. Keep drinking."

I'm rewarded for that with a punch to the gut that leaves me gasping, but I don't care. The pain from it simply merges with a strange sort of glee at seeing him gagging on my blood.

Lightning flashes close by, and thunder shakes the ground around us. Growling, Valentine drags me up by the collar, cutting off my breath as he pulls me backward toward his truck. My fingernails rip into his arm, stopping only when a lightning bolt strikes a nearby tree, sending us both flinching away. The air sizzles against my skin. Valentine must feel it, too, because he picks up his pace, and when I twist around, trying to get a better target on his grip, I can see the new wariness on his face, his confusion as he glances up at the roiling sky.