Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Ryet just stares at me, unblinking.
“We have to go. And I cannot get us out of here. Do you understand me?”
“You—”
I point at him. “Fuck you! Just… fuck. You! I didn’t do anything! I was tricked! And I’ve only been feeding you to keep you alive. But if you would like to die, then I’ll go. And leave you here. And you can spend the rest of your miserable demon life writhing in pain because you won’t have my blood to save you. But it you don’t want to do that, if you want to live like I do, then get the fuck out of this bed and get us the hell out of here!”
There is a long moment of silence as we stare at each other.
Enemies?
Lovers?
Just two people stuck battling a war together that they never signed up for?
Number three, I think.
But he gets up, slowly swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He has to pause here and lean over. For a moment I think he will throw up the blood I just gave him and I say a silent prayer that he won’t, because there are only two bags left and I don’t have it in me to feed him again.
Then he stands, leans on me, and I pick up the cooler of blood bags as we leave the room together.
No one is up in the house. Ryet mumbles something about lazy fucking halfbreeds, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. He leads me through the upstairs of the lodge until we get to a locked door.
Then he presses in a code, opens it up, and we walk in.
It’s an apartment, I guess.
When I glance at Ryet with questions, he just says, “Paul’s.”
Inside the bedroom there’s an open panel in the wall. For a moment I think we’re going through there, but Ryet, who is still leaning on me, directs us to an opposite wall. He does something with his hand on the panel and it slides open, revealing another exit.
He’s losing strength quickly, but he manages to point at it. “Garage.”
“OK.” I nod. And then I help him down the passageway. It’s a long passageway—a quarter mile at least, if I had to guess—and most of the time I’m practically carrying him. But then lights come up, fully illuminating a massive garage with lots of trucks and cars. I take us over to the closest truck and put him in the passenger seat, then get in the driver’s side. “Keys?”
He flips the visor down above me and keys fall out. I catch them in my hand, but it’s an electric start, so I tuck them into my pocket, start the truck, and pull forward.
Ryet is already passing out again. I reach into the back, take out a bag of blood from the cooler, bite off the top, and hand it to him. “Drink it. Quick. Because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing or how the hell I get out of here.”
He grabs it roughly, then stares at me, so many, many accusations in that stare.
But he doesn’t say them out loud. Just drinks a little to muster up the strength to guide me to the door, out onto the mountain, and down the long blacktop driveway to a highway.
Then he just… passes out.
And that’s it, I guess.
Enemies on the run from evil.
Aren’t we the fuckin’ evil?
My life, I swear.
It only takes me about five minutes to realize I have nowhere to go, so I just pick a direction and drive. We can’t go back to White River because those are Paul’s people. I don’t understand how they’re all connected, but they are his and that’s all that matters.
Plus… culty. We nailed it.
I sigh and look over at Ryet. He’s sleeping now, but not peacefully. He’s got his whole body angled towards the passenger side window so I can’t see his face, but I know he’s in pain because every minute or so the muscles in his back will spasm and he’ll arch and buck for a moment as he moans. Then the contraction, or whatever, will subside and he’ll relax and breathe deeply.
It reminds me of a mother in labor. Not that I have any first-hand experience of that, but just in general, from what I’ve seen on TV. A short moment of intense pain, then a rest.
Everything about what we’re doing right now is stressful for me and my whole body feels like it’s buzzing. I try to rationalize this—I’m nervous. I’m scared. I’m… lost.
And it’s all logical. The buzzing could be from all that.
But it could also be from the blood I drank. Paul’s blood.
Whenever he comes up in my mind, I try to push his face away. Blur him out. Obliterate him from my history. Cancel him from my life.