Unchanged (Morta Fox Book 3) Page 2

  “Tomorrow,” Sid had said. “There’s no time tonight.”

  The key was still in my hand, but my arms were growing heavy, same as my lids. The sun was already up. The vampires closed their eyes, but they weren’t gone yet. I could tell by the way their eyes moved behind their lids. All I had to do was keep mine open for a little while longer. I had to, there was no other choice. Giving up sounded so, so easy. While unconscious, I would feel no pain. No hunger. Nothing. But Morta deserved better. Sharps deserved better. Everybody deserved better, so I kept my eyes open until theirs no longer moved.

  “Fuck you, Sid,” I whispered. He didn’t react. “Fuck you!” A little louder. Still nothing.

  It would’ve been better if I had another few minutes to wait, but I didn’t. My hands were freezing. It took me a couple seconds just to get them up to my neck, and a few more to find the keyhole. My fingers burned, and I hissed to try and ease the pain but couldn’t. The smell of burnt skin and flesh nearly made me lose it and give in to unconsciousness, but I found the keyhole on the right side of the collar, and by some miracle, managed to get the key in. My burned fingers took the collar off me. They didn’t heal even after the thing was on the ground, away from me. Getting to my feet was a battle in itself and having to walk all the way over to Sid to get the keys to the door was a disaster. I fell more times than I took steps.

  Four minutes past sunrise. I could manage fifteen without breaking a sweat on a normal day. On a normal day before the Red Dimension. Shivers washed over me as I thought of that place because I felt now as I had when the flames took me. Burned. Broken. Exhausted.

  The door opened and a large set of stairs greeted me. With every step forward I took, giving up became sweeter. Holding on to memories, motivation, was becoming a real pain in the ass.

  An eternity passed before I managed to climb the last stair. I was on the ground floor. I didn’t care to look around, but I could feel the sun right outside the door in front of me. If I opened it, I would burn. There was no more strength left in me to take the pain and still be able to run.

  No, I had to find another way out. I turned to the left and walked aimlessly, as fast as my legs would move. Inside a door and out another. Two more steps and I fell to the ground.

  For the first time in centuries, I wanted to cry. I wasn’t going to make it. I could no longer stay awake. The last thing I remembered was Morta’s face—the tears in her eyes as she watched me getting dragged away from her. Then, I collapsed.

  IV

  Blood.

  I needed blood so, so badly. Everything hurt. I smelled awful—burned flesh. When my eyes opened, I felt worse. I couldn’t hear anything yet, but I knew they were close. I’d managed to pass three doors at least, but I was still in the same building.

  Shit. I already knew I wouldn’t get another chance. They’d watch me much closer now, and I was too weak to even stand up. Fighting them wasn’t an option. I was completely spent, my wounds still open.

  I pulled myself to my knees barely. If I stayed there, they would find me, but if I tried to move…at least I’d feel better about myself.

  When I stood up, my legs shook and I fell against the wall. That’s when I heard the footsteps. I cursed everyone and everything in my head.

  The door in front of me opened.

  Cooper walked in.

  His eyes grew wide when he saw me, barely holding myself upright against the wall. Anything I would have said would’ve been too much. That, and the others were probably not far behind. They’d hear my voice.

  Walk away, I said to him with my eyes. A wasted effort because he couldn’t read them. For a long second, he just stared at me. The process of making up his mind about what to do with me lasted longer than I would have wanted. I almost wished he’d tell the others I was there so that I could get on with it. I was as good as dead without blood anyway. I maybe had an hour left before my body gave up on me and control slipped from my fingers for good.

  “Clear,” Cooper finally said.

  I didn’t move a single muscle as I watched him take a step back and close the door again. My legs shook harder, but I didn’t dare fall on the floor. They could still hear me. Cooper wasn’t going to lie to them three times for me, though he did it because he was afraid I’d tell Sid how I got the key.

  I owed him, anyway. I would return the favor if the world survived, I promised it to myself. He gave me another chance. A last chance.

  On the third minute, I could no longer take it. I fell down.

  Another ten was all I was willing to give them to be far away from me so I could move without being heard. Then, I crawled to the nearest window.

  There was no space in my mind to worry about being heard. I tore the thick fabric that was nailed to the frame of the window. The glass was unbroken. I was on the first floor. No time to think twice.

  I went through it, head first. The window broke and I fell on a layer of broken glass on the other side. Outside. I didn’t feel it if shards had cut me. It was a miracle I managed to stand up again.

  The night was silent. No footsteps that I could hear. No smell, except for my burned flesh.

  Humans. I needed to find humans, but I had no idea where I even was. How far away could humans be? I had a little over forty minutes, if I was calculating it right. Control was already so hard to maintain. My teeth kept growing sharp then going back to square every few seconds.

  As I put one foot in front of the other with what felt like a fucking ship attached to my back, it occurred to me that I’d never been in a position such as that before. I’d never lost it. I’d seen vampires who had, and it wasn’t pretty. There was nothing to separate them from hungry animals. They attacked anything that came before them, vampire or human. I never actually thought I’d allow myself to be in that position, and now there I was. So close to it I could taste it.

  I wanted to scream. Shout at the fucking night to just get it over with. Take my mind away. Again. When I heard it.

  A heartbeat.

  Talk about a fountain in the middle of a dessert. My senses enhanced in a little less than a second, and my body gave me the false impression that it could hold me up, so when I actually stood, I fell against a building first before I was able to take a step.

  A miracle, nothing short of it. Two heartbeats that I could hear, each racing, pumping that delicious blood that could bring me back to life in a second. I lost count of how many times I fell against buildings, cars, tripped on my own feet and stood up again. If I could trust my voice, I would’ve stopped right there and shouted, but I didn’t. I had the feeling I would barely be able to whisper.

  The terrible thought of dying at the hands of those humans flashed in front of my eyes, but I ignored it. I couldn’t afford to think about how easily they could kill me if they wanted to. Attacking them while I still had my mind under control was out of the question. But if they refused to help me and I lost my control…I would hunt them. Kill them until all their blood was in my veins.

  Shit.

  A trap. A goddamn trap I was walking into, but I had no choice. I had to try it. And when the two heartbeats became six, I convinced myself that at least one of them would help me.

  Why? The ugly voice in my head said. Why would they help a vampire?

  “Oh, God. I knew it. I knew they were going to close it,” a woman’s voice said. She was crying.

  “Shut up, Ester!” another woman whisper-yelled. A few more steps and I would be inside the building they were in. It was right across the street from me. Just there! I could do it.

  “Mommy, I’m hungry,” a voice said. A little boy.

  “I know, honey. Just keep quiet, please. The sun will come up soon,” the woman said, but though she tried to hide it, she was scared, too.

  “We’re dead,” the first woman said, her voice breaking. “We’re so dead.”

  “Ester! Shut it!”

  “Help,” I whispered. My voice was worse than I thought it would be. I barely heard
myself.

  I was so close. A step and a half until the door.

  “Did you hear that?” a man said.

  “No,” said the woman. “What?”

  “Hush,” the man said.

  “Help!” I called, a little louder this time. I reached the door. It wasn’t locked, but there was something on the other side of it. Something big. Something I couldn’t push away.

  “W-w-who’s there?” the woman said.

  “I need…I need blood.” I fell against the door.

  “Oh, my God…” Ester breathed and started to sob.

  “Who are you?” the other woman said. I heard her stand up and take a step toward the door.

  “My name is Hammer. I’m a vampire. I need your blood. Please,” I whispered. My throat hurt so badly as if every word that came out was made of a thousand thorns.

  “Layla, what are you doing?” the man said, voice filled with panic.

  “Stand back,” Layla whispered. “I’ve got a gun filled with silver bullets. You better get on your way.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t move. I need your blood. Please, I’ll do anything.” Anything at all to keep myself from turning into an animal. I would get the damned blood, but they would no longer be there.

  A second of silence. The woman didn’t even breathe.

  “Anything?”

  “Layla, get back here!” the man called, and the little boy began to cry.

  “Yes, anything. Anything at all, you name it,” I whispered. If she could just open the door and see me…

  As if she read my mind, whatever was behind the door moved just a tiny bit, and the door opened a crack. A big blue eye was all I could see through it.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Please, just a drop.”

  “And what do I get in return?” she said.

  “What do you want?”

  “What do you have?” What did I have?

  Nothing! I was dying. Couldn’t she see?

  But that wasn’t a question she wanted to be asked. She wanted an answer.

  “I’m a vampire. I can help you…”

  “Can you get us to Brazil?”

  Shit. “Yes.” There was no room in my mind to think about why humans wanted to go to fucking Brazil.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “I’m dying,” I hissed. “You could just kill me, right now. I can’t even move my arms. I’d owe you my life.”

  If that wasn’t good enough, I was in deep shit.

  “You’re a vampire.” Her voice was laced with disgust. “I’d be a fool to trust your word.”

  Clear as day. Of course it was. I was stupid to even ask for their help. They had no reason to believe in any word I said, let alone save my life.

  “Kill me,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You said you had silver bullets. Put two through my forehead, then cut my head off. Burn the rest.”

  The kid kept crying. It drove me nuts.

  “Or I can just leave you out there to die,” the woman said.

  “No, you can’t. I have minutes left before I lose control. I’m going to turn into something you won’t like. I’m going to kill you. All of you. You don’t want that, so before that happens, make sure I’m dead. Head off, burned body.”

  Damn it, it hurt so much to speak.

  “Layla, do it,” the other woman said. Ester. “Just do it!”

  “Shut up,” Layla said. She was…thinking.

  “For the love of God, woman!” the man cried.

  “Do it, Layla. Get it over with before it’s too late.”

  “Shut up!” she said to me, too. She seemed to love those two words together.

  “Mommy,” the little kid kept calling, but Layla wouldn’t move. I could no longer see her eye through the door, but I could hear her heart beating, so fast it turned into a drum in my head.

  The thing behind the door moved farther away. Everybody inside called Layla’s name, panicked. The door opened a bit more.

  A hand came out, the wrist small, the veins inside it calling my name. I saw nothing, heard nothing, only felt the second my teeth sunk into her flesh.

  When the first drop of blood fell on my tongue, the whole world regained its color.

  “Stop it! Stop it, you monster!”

  The voices came from far away and reached my ears like a song. The blood slid down my throat and into my stomach, and my strength began to grow. My wounds began to close, and my mind began to clear.

  “Stop it!”

  “Mommy?”

  Everything came to a stop. The kid’s voice rung clearly in my ears. It was almost as if I’d heard it before. I’d heard David Junior call his mother the same way. I remembered him, jumping in her arms as if the whole world was his the second she hugged him.

  I let go of the wrist and jumped to my feet. I pushed the door open, the burned couch on the other side sliding all the way to the stairway in the middle of the hall. The woman with the big blue eyes sat down next to the door, holding her wrist against her chest, while the others called out her name in tears from a room not two steps away.

  “Quiet,” I said. They not only stopped calling and crying, they stopped breathing all together.

  Layla was breathing heavily. I squatted down and took her hand in mine again. She shuddered and let out a weak cry. Tried to drag herself away, so I licked the mess I’d made of her wrist, and the next second, it healed.

  I grabbed her hand in mine. “Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life. I’m in your debt.”

  Her mouth opened and closed too many times to count, but she couldn’t say a single word. I stood up.

  “Stay here and keep them quiet. I’m going to check if anybody’s heard us. I’ll be right back. Okay?”

  But she couldn’t find her voice yet, so all she did was nod. She looked surprised more than scared. She was in fact shocked that she was still breathing. No matter how many times I told her that she would be alive as long as I was, it would only make things worse, so I kept my mouth shut. I got out, closed the door, and began to run.

  Even the air tasted different. I hadn’t had nearly enough blood because I’d had too many wounds that needed healing, but it was enough for a couple days. The world had lifted from my shoulders. It was the only time in my life that it occurred to me how I took blood for granted. How I took life for granted.

  It was never going to happen again.

  I ran a full mile around the house where Layla and the others were. I was almost sure I’d run into Cooper and his friends, but I didn’t. Cooper was someone else I owed a huge favor to. I just hoped I would be alive long enough to be able to repay it.

  When I went back to the house, Layla had gone into the room the others were in. I opened the door as slowly as I could, and when I did, I was as surprised as they were. All of them sat in the very corner.

  The man had a handful of white hair around his head and a few wrinkles around his eyes. He was the oldest of the bunch. The girl with the swollen eyes and long, auburn hair had to be Ester. She looked barely twenty. Next to her was a boy with the same colored hair but he looked a bit older.

  And on Layla’s lap was the little boy and a little girl. Two kids. They had two kids with them.

  “Please don’t kill us,” Ester whispered, her voice breaking. She tightened her grip around her knees, and the boy tightened her arms around her.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I said. “Please, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. You saved my life.”

  Layla wouldn’t even blink. She was caught between regret and guilt for doing what she did—I saw it in her eyes. She looked to be tall and skinny, dark hair cut close to her jaw. She looked terrified, and aside from the kids sitting on her lap, hiding their faces under her chin, she held a gun. There were no silver bullets in it, just ordinary ones.

  “We’re going to have to go somewhere else to spend the night, okay? We’re not safe here. Anybody passing by
can hear your heartbeats,” I said. “Can you get up?”

  It was like I’d spoken in Chinese. None of them reacted. I sat down on the ground in front of them.

  “Layla, we’re not safe here. Can we get going now?” I really didn’t want to have to fight any other vampire. I needed to save my strength.

  “You’re a…you’re a vampire,” she said.

  “Um…yeah.” I’d drank her blood. Looked like she was still processing it.

  “We have kids,” the man said. He begged.

  “Look, I’m not going to hurt you, okay? You have to believe me. You need to come with me right away.” I didn’t know how else to put it.

  “It’s a trap,” Ester whispered. She was still crying.

  “It’s not a trap.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s a trap. You’re going to take us to your cave or wherever you live and there’ll be others there and they’ll eat us…and…and…”

  Wow.

  “There’s no cave and there’s no others. What we need to do is get as high as we can above ground. A fifteen-story building isn’t far from here. We’ll be the safest there.”

  “We?” the man said, his white brows arched.

  “Yes, we. If any vampire sees me, they’re going to kill me.” I shouldn’t have said that. They looked completely lost. “Okay, let’s do this. I’ll show you where the building is, and you can go there by yourselves, and I’ll follow. We’ll meet there, okay? If you get suspicious, you can just turn back and leave. Does that sound good?”

  It still sounded Chinese to them, but at least Layla looked more like herself now.

  “We can do this,” she whispered.

  “Oh God, Layla! This is all your fault!” Ester shouted.

  “Can you please keep your voice down?”

  “No, Ester, we can do this. It makes sense to get high. That way, even if vampires walk right next to the building, they won’t hear us. We have to go.” Layla pulled her children to their feet and stood up herself. “Come on. We have to go.”

  “He’s lying!” Ester cried.

  “I’m not lying, I swear to you. Let’s just get there first. Then we can do…” What?