The Price of Blood

Chapter 26

I don't even know what I am doing.  I start to run, heartbeat rising, unable to be slowed down by all the willpower I can give.  The screams are shrill and high pitched, and my heart slows down when I realize they are not Lauren's, they are Jess's,and then speeds up when I hear a shattering of glass and see a figure scarpering off into the distant, yet still limping slightly.  I know her outline.  She is trying to escape.  Before I reach the door,  I see it burst open and the rest of my pack standing, their eyes hungry and malicious.

"They never learn do they." Nate snarls hungrily, making the hairs on my arms stand up in distress, "We weren't doing anything and then they run off."

"Cheeky sod." Kelly mutters, her teeth baring slightly, before glancing at Jake, "What do you want us to do?"

Jake seems thoughtful for a moment, crouched down on the floor.  He seems to be concentrating hard, and I know immediately that he is trying to access her mind to work out where she is.  The first rule of escaping, I think to myself, use a MindScreen.  The second is to never run somewhere obvious.  Yet, panic can do strange things to a person's mind, and you can often forget one (or both) of those extremely important rules.

"What did she do?" asks Rhiannon, who had been unloading the truck with Kevin when the incident occurred.  I try not to read her mind, but Rhiannon is often the easiest to read, and her grotesque thoughts fill my brain, my everything.

Did you see anything? I hadn't thought about putting up a MindScreen but Jake's line of questioning seemed harmless enough. I heard a lot, I admit to him, A lot of screaming, but I think it was Jess, not her. Jake responds, You'd better be telling the fucking truth, otherwise I'll slit your throat. I believe him, and I mouth an okay to him, however know that I cannot keep quiet for much longer.

"What did she do?" badgers Nate, eyeing the small cut on Jess's neck. 

"Bloody nut-job put a knife on me and then ran out," yells Jess in anguish, boiling over.

 "What the hell is wrong with her, that little slut?" replies Nate angrily, "If she ever..."

"What is wrong with you?" I had bitten my tongue long enough.

Silence.

"All of you!" I can't keep the contempt out of my voice, "You think that you are better than everyone else, better than her!"

"But we are better than her." Jake says to me, as the pack slowly begin to walk forward, their eyes flashing dangerously, her voice dangerously soft.

"Fine then." I say in exasperation, and go back to being silent, but my revolution does not stop with the oral.  I concentrate on Jake's head, and almost scream at him : Why do you think its OK to finger someone without their permission?"

Jake looks up.  He walks over to me slowly, and I can sense he is trying not to slam me against the tree, or he is deciding what he is going to do with me when he has the opportunity. I decide to be brave and to communicate again. What are you going to do to me that could possibly not make me a happy man? I realize my desperation to leave this life behind has consumed me. Slit my throat, break my neck, split my skull, feed me the wrong kind of food-

"what!" I shout the last word for dramatic effect.  Jake begins to crack his knuckles.  Usually this would terrify me, but it doesn't now. Do your worst. I tell him, then I gulp as I see a small smile creep onto his handsome face.  He comes close to me, and then, without leaving my gaze, he begins to speak inside my head, and what he says strikes me down to the bone.

'Oh Brad, you have no idea.  You know Lauren? The love of your life apparently? Well, I was going to just find her, torture her and then kill her, but you've given me a much better idea, and for that, I am eternally grateful.  What if poor Lauren just thought that this was a big joke, and that I actually did still love her and then we become a couple again, and then when she is at her most vulnerable, I drink her blood and turn the love of your life into a corpse.  Just. another. corpse. How does that sound, little bro?"