What Kills Me (21 page)

I twisted in my seat to look behind
us. “Where?”

“A black sedan,” he said. “Three cars
behind. Every time I change lanes, it shadows us.”

“Are you sure?” I inspected each of
the vehicles behind us.

“Yes.”

“Did you see who’s
driving?”

“I can’t get a good look at
them.”

“Well, step on it. Let’s get out of
here.”

“I’m not speeding.”

“Why not?”

“There are other cars on the road and
I don’t want to get into an accident.”

“Seriously?”

“Why do you always say that word? Of
course I’m being serious.”

“We’re being hunted and you’re driving
below the speed limit.”

“We have to stay calm. We can’t draw
attention to ourselves.”

“We’re being followed. It’s kind of
too late for that.”

He huffed. I twisted to the left,
leaned over him, and reached around his body.

“What are you doing?” he asked,
alarmed.

“I’m hugging you goodbye,” I said.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m putting your seatbelt
on.”

I pulled the belt across his chest and
wrestled it into the buckle. Then I sat back and fastened
mine.

“Seat belts save lives,” I said,
annoyed.

Lucas surveyed the highway and glanced
in the mirror, then made an abrupt right down an off-ramp. I
pressed my hand against the window to steady myself around the
turn. In the side mirror, I saw a black car follow us down the
ramp.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

The car’s windows were tinted but I
could make out two figures in the front seat. We sped down an
empty, darkened stretch of road. I heard their engine rev as they
pushed forward in pursuit. In the side mirror their headlights
rushed at us.

“Go faster!” I blurted.

They rammed us, smashing our bumper.
The shock of it made my teeth crack against each other. Our car
pitched forward but my seatbelt held my body down. I screamed,
drowning out Lucas’s cursing. He wrestled with the wheel, trying to
keep the car straight. I heard them accelerate to hit us again and
I braced myself. When the strike did not come, I searched the side
mirror for their lights. The road behind us was empty.

“Where…” I started.

I turned to Lucas and saw the black
car pull up beside his window. The faceless figures inside looked
at us. Their car moved away and then veered back.

“Watch out!” I cried.

Lucas jerked the wheel toward them and
the vehicles crashed into each other, metal scraping metal. We were
stuck together for a few seconds before separating and bashing
again. As our vehicles played bumper cars along the road, I gripped
my seat.

Then Lucas pressed the gas pedal and
our car jolted forward, edging in front of the black car again. His
side mirror, which dangled by a cord, banged against his door. He
gritted his teeth and grimaced, his fangs pressing into his lower
lip. The road curved around a rock face and we could hear the
rumble of approaching traffic. As we screeched around the corner,
the black sedan rear-ended us again, propelling us into the other
lane. The lights of an oncoming truck blinded us. It blared its
horn and I gasped. Lucas swerved but it was too late.

The truck clipped the back of our car
on the left-hand side and we were spinning. Everything was a blur.
There was darkness, headlights and then darkness again. And then
came an explosion. Glass burst inward and a blizzard of shards
filled the car. The thunderous crunch of metal rattled my brain,
and I saw Lucas’s head snap toward his window. The car skidded
sideways, skating across the pavement before stopping.

My ears were ringing. The windshield
hadn’t shattered, but, its surface had crackled into an intricate,
aquamarine cobweb. Immediately I looked at Lucas. His head was
flopped forward. With a trembling hand I touched his
shoulder.

“Lucas?”

He didn’t stir. Through his broken
window, I saw the black sedan about twenty feet away. Its front end
was crushed, the hood curled in to reveal its twisted
innards.

I tried to turn to him but my belt
trapped me against the seat. I fumbled with the buckle, pebbles of
glass falling out of my lap, and yanked the belt away. Leaning over
I put my hand on his chest and called his name. I held his chin in
my palm and gently lifted his head. A piece of glass jutted out of
his hairline and blood streamed over his closed eyes. Cuts on his
cheeks opened like fish gills.

“Lucas!” My voice was shrill. I pulled
the shard from his forehead. Almost three inches of it was stained
with blood.

The doors of the sedan opened and two
vampires emerged. They were mirror images of each other, clad in
black suits without ties, both tall and muscular, with sloping
foreheads and protruding jaws, like chimpanzees.

“Lucas,” I said, shaking him. “Please
wake up.”

I pushed open my door and climbed out.
Glass, metal bits, and pieces of plastic littered the road. My legs
wobbled. Bracing myself on the hood of the car, I ran to the other
side. The driver’s side of the car was crumpled inward; it was as
if a giant fist had punched the car into a U shape. The car, under
the red paint, was gray.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

I tugged the door handle but it didn’t
move. Lucas had yet to stir. I looked back at the approaching
vampires. They were unsmiling, their dark hair slicked back against
their scalps.

Crap.

I grabbed the handle and the window
frame and, with a grunt, I tore the door free. Staggering backward
I dropped the door and reached inside. When I ripped Lucas’s seat
belt buckle out, he groaned. The cuts on his face had healed and
the gaping wound above his forehead was closing, squeezing out a
clot of blood.

“Come on,” I said. When I took his arm
to pull him out, he gasped.

“Everything…is…broken,” he
said.

“Let me help you.”

I heard a voice yell at us. I glanced
over my shoulder and saw a man in jeans and a T-shirt. It was the
driver from the truck. He had parked around the bend and had come
back to check on us. He jogged toward the vampires, speaking in
another language.

“No!” I hollered. I waved at him.
“Run!”

But one of the vampires grabbed the
man’s throat and snapped his neck.

“No!” I screamed.

The vampire tossed the man onto the
road. Slowly the vampires turned their heads to stare at me with
their black, unblinking eyes. Then they started running. Desperate,
I searched for a weapon, a distraction, and I picked up the car
door. They were closing in on me. With a cry, I launched the door
at them. It sailed through the air like a disk. They both leaped to
avoid it, but it caught one of them in the midsection.

The vampire appeared to jump over it,
but just his top half flopped over and he fell to the ground in two
parts. The door kept flying through the air, and a split second
later embedded itself into the side of the black sedan with a
crash.

Both I and the vampire were
immobilized by shock. Someone grabbed my wrist, startling me. It
was Lucas. He was still sitting in the car but he had seen what
happened. “What the…” he started.

The remaining vampire howled. He drew
his sword, his beady eyes on me. Lucas squeezed my hand,
wincing.

He’s coming.

The white sword on the floor of the
car caught my eye. I leaned over Lucas’s legs, grabbed the handle,
and whirled around to face the vampire. He was almost upon us. I
looked him in the eyes—he was seething, spittle spraying from his
mouth—and unsheathed the sword. I moved toward him, putting my body
in front of Lucas.

The vampire spoke to me in another
language.

“Get the hell away from her,” Lucas
snarled.

“You are the one that the Monarchy
seeks,” said the vampire.

“I don’t want to fight you. Please
walk away,” I said.

He spoke through his clenched teeth.
“You’ve slain my brother. I don’t care if the Monarchy wants you
alive. You’re going to die.”

“Please don’t do this,” I
said.

“You’re going to pay,” he said,
ignoring my pleading.

I had no choice. I had to
protect us.

With a howl he charged. Steeling
myself, I positioned both of my hands on the sword handle. He
swiped wildly at my neck, but he wasn’t as fast or as graceful as
Lucas or the soldiers. I gasped, swinging my sword, knocking his
blade away. He paused, slightly surprised, his blade quivering from
the force, before attacking again. I ducked under his blade and
batted away his strikes, stumbling back a few steps. My shoulders
had crept up to my ears in fear.

The vampire hissed through his teeth,
drawing backward for another charge. He rushed at me, his sword
high above him, and slashed downward. Raising my sword I turned it
sideways to block my head. Our blades clanged together, our elbows
touching, our faces inches away. His onyx eyes bulged; his lips
were pulled so taut that they curled under, disappearing. He opened
his jaws as if to try to bite me and a rasp vibrated in his throat.
Suddenly his arms fell, his sword dangling at his side.

“What…?”

I looked down between us and saw a
blade through his heart. In that instant I felt Lucas behind me and
I understood. Relief flooded my body. Lucas’s hand was on my back.
He moved me aside. As the vampire began to lift his weapon, Lucas
pulled the sword from his body and beheaded him. The head bounced
and rolled under the wreckage, and the headless body fell into a
sitting position, propped against the car.

I turned to see Lucas stagger and fall
to one knee. His left arm was pressed against his chest.

“Lucas!” I knelt beside him. “Are you
okay?”

“Yes. Still healing. I’ll be fine in
another minute.”

After a moment he stood, stretching
his neck and maneuvering his arm in its socket, his joints and
bones cracking.

“Thanks for saving my life,” I said.
“Again.”

“Who saved whose life?” he said,
nodding at my sword. “You did pretty well.”

I smiled but because I did not feel
happy, smiling made me feel crazy. I slipped my sword back into its
sheath. “I can’t believe I had to do that,” I murmured.

We stood in front of our
doorless car. “I can’t believe you did
that
,” he said, pointing to the door
stuck in the sedan.

“I didn’t know that was going to
happen.”

Shaking his head he looked at me. “How
strong are you?”

I shrugged.

“Were you hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

He looked at the car. The metal was
crumpled and puckered like aluminum foil. “How is it that you don’t
have a scratch on you?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Maybe I
do feel a little bit sore.”

“That accident destroyed me. I had a
skull fracture. My ribs punctured my organs. But you. You were
unharmed. You walked out of the car, ripped the door away, and
threw it like a Frisbee.”

He was still shaking his
head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I
said.

“Like what?”

“Like you did when Lettie told us that
story.”

“I don’t mean to. You’re
just…”

“Just what?” I snapped.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why are you
getting upset?”

I didn’t understand why I had reacted
so strongly.

“I’m not upset,” I said. “I just can’t
stand that look.”

“Zee…”

“I don’t want you looking at me
like…”

“Like?”

“Like I’m a monster,” I
said.

I preferred his look of disdain. Or
his irritated scowls. But to see him so shocked, so alarmed, made
me feel alone. It made me feel like the apocalyptic legend about me
could be true. He walked over to me and took hold of both my
arms.

“Hey,” he said. “You are not a
monster.”

“I’m not like you. I know,” I
said.

“No. You’re not like us. You are
different. But you are amazing.”

He lifted my chin with his finger. I
looked up at his face, searching for sarcasm. Instead I found a
softness in his expression, something I’d never seen before. Even
in the dimness his emerald eyes were brilliant. A line of dried
blood marked his cheek like remnants of a tear. I had no words and
he didn’t need to say anything else.

But then he broke the beautiful
silence with this: “Don’t be a baby, okay?”

He winked and I frowned, shaking my
head. Suddenly my legs seemed to liquify.

“Whoa,” he said, holding me up. “You
must be starving.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I lied.