First Bitten (23 page)

“
But I thought you were clear.” Dad’s tone is imploring. “I paid off your debts. You promised you’d stopped gambling.”

“
Yeah, well obviously I didn’t.” Cal stares hard at dad.

My head is swivelling between them both. I feel like an extra in my own fucking show. My eyes settle on my dad. “You knew?” My lips have gone numb.

Dad sits back down with a slump and emits a tired sound. He suddenly seems years older, like they’ve finally caught up with him.

He looks at up me with sad eyes. “I only knew about the gambling, not about Alex.” He shakes his head. “If I’d have known, well it would never have happened.” He pulls his lighter out of his shirt pocket and starts turning it over in his hands. “Erin came to me a few months ago in tears. Cal had gambled away everything they had and remortgaged the house without her knowing. They were broke and with the baby coming, well she was desperate. I gave him the money to pay his debts off … ” He looks directly at Cal. “You promised me you’d paid them.”

“
I did.” His shoulders hunch over as he looks down at the carpet and says in a quiet, almost desperate-sounding voice, “I just made new ones.”

“
Am I the only one who didn’t know about his gambling problem?” I bellow, clutching the back of neck with my hand.

“
No,” Sol says in a disappointed voice from behind me. “I didn’t know either.”

“
I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping you both out of it.” My dad looks between Sol and me. “Never in a million years did I think he would do something like this. Jesus Christ, Cal!” My dad shakes his head disconsolately. “How could you do this to Alex?”

“
She’s a blood sucking Vârcolac for crying out loud!” Cal shouts, getting his gusto back. “Am I the only one that sees that? I really don’t see the problem here. She’s with her own kind.”

I spin around on the spot. “You’re a fucking idiot! Is that what you’ve made yourself believe, to make it acceptable for you to sell her to them?” I grip my head in frustration, pacing the floor. “She doesn’t know the likes of them. She can’t even hunt fucking animals, let alone … ” I shake my head, disconsolately. “She has no concept of the arena you’ve just dropped her in. She won’t survive.”

“
They won’t kill her.” He sounds so fucking cocky right now, it’s taking everything in me to not pummel him to death.

“
No, you’re right they won’t kill her.” Sol’s mouth crooks down at one side. “The Originals will just keep her prisoner and force her to have sex with them. They are going to rape her, repeatedly, over and over, so she can breed more of them, for the rest of her life. She’ll give them a nice little start to their collection of pure breeds while they conduct tests on her to figure out what makes her so special that she survived the change, so they can replicate her, getting themselves some more Alexes and building themselves the grand fucking army they’ve longed for, for the last four hundred years.”

And I see it. The flicker of emotion in Cal’s face. He hadn’t actually allowed himself to really consider what he was doing to Alex. He couldn’t see past the money and that makes me hate him even more.

Sol has just said everything I already knew they would do to Alex, but hearing it out loud like that is making my gut twist into knots. I need to get her out of there but I don’t know how. I’ve never felt so completely and utterly helpless as I do now, and I’ve faced some pretty fucked-up situations in my life.

I turn away from Cal. I can’t bear to look at him anymore.

“
I always knew you were selfish,” I say in a low tone, staring out of the window as the remainder of the day sets to fade. “But this … ” I shake my head. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Cal.”

I turn back just in time to see the mask sweep down over his face and I know whatever remorse he was feeling is gone, and he’s back full of his usual shit and swagger. “I know what this is about,” he gives an ironic snort. “The fact you’ve been desperate to tap up Alex since the moment you laid your eyes on her, and you’re just jealous the Originals are gonna get to do what you’ve never had the balls to do.”

I’m moving before I even realise. J jump over the armchair and I’m on him. Whatever self-control I had left is gone. I know it’s my hand travelling toward his face. I know it’s my knuckles cracking as they crash into his cheekbone. I know I’m punching him repeatedly over and over, but I feel detached from my body, like it’s someone else hitting him and I’m just an observer sitting on the periphery, watching.

It’s dad that pulls me off him.

And as I’m been dragged backwards, I look down at Cal, seeing my handy work. His face is a mess. He’s covered in his own blood. It doesn’t make me feel any better. And he’s looking back at me with genuine shock in his eyes, like he can’t believe I really just beat the crap out of him. I’m only shocked that I lasted this long.

And this is the exact moment I know everything has changed between us forever. We’ll never recover from this.

I shake myself free from my dad’s hold and sit down on the floor, resting my back against the sofa. I put my head in my hands. Dad leaves the room, muttering he’s going to get the first aid kit.

Sol comes and sits down on the floor next to me. “It’ll be okay, Nate, we’ll find her.” He tries to sound sure but I hear the weakness in his voice.

I move my hands away from my face and stare over at Cal. I’m past fighting, now I’m ready to beg. “Please, Cal, just tell me where she is,” I implore him with quiet resignation.

Cal bends his leg up, resting his arm on it. “I don’t know where she is. I know you won’t believe me but it is the truth, and before you ask, I have no idea where Jake lives - he’s the blonde one you mentioned - but even if I did, I doubt he’d take her to his house. He’s a smart bloke. I know him from the poker games I go to.” He pauses, catching a run of blood from his nose before it trickles into his mouth, and wiping it away with his hand. I watch it run off his finger and drip down to the carpet. I look at my own hands and see Cal’s blood all over them. I don’t wipe them clean.

“
Jake heads up the Vârcolac set in this area,” Cal continues. “Last night, when I got home, after we’d talked ... well I was frustrated and I needed the money, desperately.” He looks down to the floor. “You wouldn’t even consider handing her over to them for a reward.”

“
Why didn’t you just tell me?” I ask, my voice rough. “I’d have given you the money, no questions asked. You know that.”

Cal snorts, satirical eyes on me. “What, and hear about my failure for the rest of my life from Nathan the fucking war hero? No thanks.”

“
So you’d rather sell Alex for money,” I blast, “than swallow your pride and ask your brother for a loan?” I narrow my hatred at him. “You fucking disgust me.”

My words must have some kind of effect on him because he starts talking quickly. “You don’t understand, Nate. I owe a lot of money to people who won’t wait to be paid, and they won’t just come after me, they’ll come after Erin and the baby. I panicked and I rang Jake,” he shrugs in a helpless way, “but he wanted to see her for himself before he made a call to the Originals, and when I saw you both this morning, and you said you were taking Alex out, it seemed, well ... ideal.”

I hammer my fists into the floor, growling out the rage I want to take out on Cal, silencing the room.

Dad comes back in and sits down beside Cal, opening up the first aid kit.

It’s a long moment before Cal speaks again. “After you and Alex left, I rang Jake and told him where you’d be. He said he’d transfer the money into my bank account once he had her. Then he hung up.” Dad starts to clean the blood from his face.

“
Jake been in touch about your money?” I ask bitterly.

“
No.”

“
Looks like you’re not getting it then, doesn’t it?” I laugh hollowly. “I hope those people you owe the debt to cut you wide open.”

“
Nathan!” Dad’s head snaps around. “He’s still your brother, no matter what.”

“
No.” I look Cal in the eye, shaking my head. “Not anymore, he’s not. That ended the moment he made that phone call.”

Cal wipes his sleeve across his face, hiding whatever look was on there.

I lay my head back on the sofa and stare blankly up at the ceiling.

How am I going to find Alex now? Cal was the only hope I had. An intense feeling of failure grabs me, stinging straight to the bone. All that training I had in the army and here I sit as useless as fuck.

“
You want me to take a look at your face?” Dad asks me from across the room.

“
No,” I answer stonily, unmoving.

“
What are we gonna do?” Sol asks in a small voice from beside me. He sounds like a little kid again.

I turn my head to the side, looking at him. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I don’t know where to even start looking.”

“
What about where Cal plays poker?” Sol suggests, a pitch of hope creeping into his voice. “We could go there, ask around.”

Cal mutters a disapproving sound, getting to his feet. “Not a good idea,” he murmurs in a voice I don’t like, a voice that hints at knowing more than I do.

I let my coarse gaze roam over him. “You got any better ideas?” I snap.

He looks to his feet.

“
I didn’t think so.”

Then an idea filters into my mind. A prickle of hope sparks in me. It’s a long shot but worth a try. I sit up straight and pull my phone from my pocket and press speed dial on the number of the only other person in the world I know who might be able to help me find her.

The familiar Mancunian accent bellows down the line at me, the background noisy. “Nate, my man! How the hell are you doing? It’s been, what, two months since we last spoke?”

“
Three,” I say. I take a deep breath. “Sorry to interrupt but I need your help.”

“
Wait a minute,” he says at my serious tone. I hear him moving, the noise disappearing, leaving only silence in the background. “Okay, go on.”

“
My friend, she’s in trouble. She’s missing, and I only have a short window to find her before things get a whole lot worse.”

“
How long?”

I glance down at my watch, thinking quickly. It’s quarter past six now, they took her at about, what, three, half-three. That bastard Jake said it’d be fourteen hours before the Originals arrived. If I have any hope of saving her then I need to do it before they get to her. I’ve got under eleven hours.

“
Eleven hours at the most.”

“
Guess I better get a move on then.”

“
Craig, this is big what I’m asking you to get involved in. It’ll put you in a difficult position and ... there might be no coming back from it.”

“
You need my help?” His question is blunt.

“
Yeah,” I sigh.

“
Then I’ll be there in just a little over an hour.” And the line goes dead.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

Ambrose Redmoon

Chapter 19

Spiders Web

I run my fingertips along the bare brick wall, watching in the dark as a fly struggles in vain to free itself from a spider’s web in the far corner of the windowless room. I’m locked in but all the fly manages to do is trap itself further.

We’re not so different, the fly and me. We’re both trapped, we’re both as dumb as hell, selfish (well that’s just me not the fly), and we’ve done absolutely nothing to help ourselves from landing into the situation we now find ourselves in. The only current difference between the fly and me is that I’m in a position to set one of us free.

I drag my weary body off the bed, put my bare feet to the tiled floor and, interfering with nature, drag my fingers through the web, freeing the fly. It zooms off in blind panic and flies straight into the wall, knocking itself out, dropping straight to the floor.

Like I said, dumb.

I sit back down on the bed and rest up against the cold wall. Regret steam rollers over me.

I left Nathan there. I ran and left him to fight my battle like the coward I’ve always known I am. I know he told me to run but I shouldn’t have listened. I should have stayed and fought too.

I just can’t get the image of him laid there on the ground, battered and bruised, from out of my head. I did that to him. It might not have been my boot coming down on his face but I was the reason it was happening. I’m the reason all bad things happen. I see that now. People who care about me either die, or end up suffering, and I guess me being here, trapped in this hell, is my penance.

Tears slide down my cheeks, dripping off my chin, but I can’t move my hand to wipe them away.

My only hope is that Nathan is okay. I won’t blame him if he doesn’t try to find me. I just pray to god he will, if only so I can tell him how sorry I am.

But even if he does try, he might not be able to find me. I have absolutely no idea where I am.

I was dumped in the boot of the car they dragged me to, my hands bound behind my back with wrist ties. I listened as hard as I could while they drove for anything to tell me where they were taking me, but after a while things went pretty quiet, and I guessed we were where people don’t go. Then the boot was opened and a blanket was thrown over me, covering my head before I could get a glimpse of my surroundings, and I was carried from the car, kicking and screaming, and thrown in this hell hole, and here I’ve been ever since. While it feels like days, it’s probably only been hours.