Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (32 page)

The elevator stopped, and the door opened to
their floor. As they stepped out, the woman looked back and smiled at me
directly. “Have a good night,” she said before the doors closed.

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” I said sarcastically,
shifting uncomfortably.

Gavin’s grip on me tightened with my
movement but his arms untangled themselves from me once the doors shut. When we
were back in the apartment, I headed straight for my bedroom.

“If it makes you feel any better, you can
punch me again,” he called after me, but I slammed my door on his response.

There were only a few hours until daytime.
All I had to do was wait it out, or try falling asleep, which was much easier
said than done. After tossing and turning for about four hours, I think I
managed forty minutes of actual sleep. Once the light began to creep across my
floor, I shot out of bed and reached for the first clothes I could find, which
happened to be holey jeans and a long-sleeve thermal shirt. I threw on a coat
and my carpenter boots and snuck out my bedroom making as little sound as
possible, just in case. Gavin was a vampire, but he had an obnoxious tendency
of defying typical vampire dynamics when it came to me, so I wasn’t taking any
chances.

†

The sunshine felt good on my face, even
though the temperature gage on the marquis of the bank I passed read two
degrees. It was like a renewing energy. I tilted my face up toward the sky and
closed my eyes when I reached the next stop at an intersection. The light
seemed to penetrate deep under my skin to fill me with more strength. It didn’t
even bother me that light snowflakes were dissolving on my face.

The sound of traffic began to slow in front
of me, and I brought my head back down just in time to see the “Do Not Walk”
sign flash from orange to white. I crossed the street and picked up my pace to
a jog, then to a sprint, as I stayed on course to my intended destination.

When I drew near, I slowed instantly to a
walk, my boots stomping hard on the pavement. Approaching the large open gates
made me stop completely to take in the grand entrance in the morning light. It
really made you appreciate life more in the way that it made you feel very
small to cross the giant entryway into a place of death.

The rising sun cast an orange red light over
the grass, and the dusting snow gathered on grave markers sparkled in it. I
passed a few others on my way through the winding paths, but my usual spot was
empty. Alone again, at last. Solitude was always the shell of my existence, and
the emptiness it left behind never seemed to bother me until recently. It
always felt normal, a sentence I dutifully and rightfully accepted. But for
some unknown reason, that emptiness felt a little strange and out of place in
my life now.

Too bad I forgot to grab my I-pod in my
hurried escape from Alcatraz. It was always nice to contemplate my life’s
meaning with a little mood music to set the sad dreary tone. Good tunes would
be helpful, especially since I had a lot of time to kill.

My plan was to catch up with Holly after one
of her classes, but that wouldn’t be until after lunchtime. It had felt like
such a long time since I last saw her that I just needed to check in on her. I
was already growing impatient. I sat there another hour knowing I really didn’t
have anywhere to go, but eventually, my stomach growled alerting me it was
breakfast time.

I hopped up out of my spot against the tree
near my weeping angel I felt a kinship with and brushed off the backside of my
jeans. The cold had seeped through them making my butt numb, so I decided to
warm it up with a full run.

There was a cute little café about eight
blocks away that caught my eye with the big neon coffee cup in the window. As I
passed the window I noticed two cops seated at a booth on the side wall. One looked
up and almost caught my eye, but I spun around and bolted down the sidewalk. It
was funny. I had faced countless vampires, even racking up a few near-death
experiences in the process, but here I was, running from humans. I wasn’t used
to running from anything.

Eventually, I found a quaint café on the
south end of town where I settled into a cozy nook in the back where it was
darker and less crowded. Digging through my pockets, I came up with six dollars
and seventy-two cents in crumpled dollar bills and sorted change. It was more
than I expected, but it still only bought me a Danish and cup of coffee. My
miniscule meal made me think of my filling breakfast the night before. Gavin
was an amazing cook for someone who didn’t eat food, and I kind of missed him
right now. I wondered how pissed he was going to be when he woke up.

Upon scrounging through my pockets, I found
an old ratty knitted beanie in my coat pocket that I forgot I had stuffed in
there. It was gray with a small bill on it, and I pulled it over my matted
bedhead hair to disguise myself as much as possible. With my fuzzy picture
plastered all over the news, it was only a matter of time before someone
recognized me, which didn’t bother me so much since I was pretty good with
evasion, but I didn’t want to take any chances with being caught off guard.

I wasn’t very good at killing time, and
after another long hour of sitting around at the café I couldn’t sit any
longer. I strolled around town, lying low and staying out of the crowds before
I finally caved and went to find Holly after her class.

She had most of her classes in the same
building, so I waited there while the first wave of students poured out the
main double doors. Hiding in the shadows between her building and the one next
to it, I scanned the crowds until I finally spotted her shiny black hair under
a bright orange and pink crocheted beanie. She came down the stairs to street
level and turned down the sidewalk away from where I was standing. Struggling
to catch up with her, I had to push through a group of slow moving jocks, and
some girls whining about some big project coming up that they all deemed
“totally unfair.”

She headed toward the corner and turned left
down the next sidewalk. I decided to take the sidewalk between school buildings
that she passed to cut her off the next block down. I raced past a few
stragglers coming out of the side doors of the same building where Holly had
class, and I made it to the end of the next building over just before Holly
approached. I snatched her from her casual pace and pulled her into the shadows
with me.

“What the shit?!” she screamed while
reaching for the mace I knew she kept in her backpack. She whipped out the
glass vial of holy water I had made her keep with her along with the mace and held
it up to me like a spray bottle.

“Chill. It’s just me,” I said. “And it’s
daytime. That one won’t do much good against attackers at this hour.”

“Jesus, Luce, what the hell are you trying
to do, kill me via heart attack? Oh that reminds me, I really shouldn’t be seen
with a homicidal maniac.”

“Not funny, Hol. Look, I just needed to
check in on you. Make sure you’re still good. And, I was kind of hoping for a
favor,” I said, and it was followed by silence.

She arched her brows. “You need a favor from
me?” she asked incredulously after the long pause.

“I was wondering if you could talk to your
dad. He has to know that it wasn’t me. You have to make him understand, or at
least try. Please Hol, I’m begging you. If I can’t be on the streets protecting
people at night because I’m being tracked by the cops, it could get a whole lot
worse out there,” I pleaded with her until she interrupted.

“Relax, Luce, relax. I already told him it
couldn’t have been you,”

“Really?” I asked astonished.

“Yeah. How many times have you saved me? It
was only fair that I returned the favor,” she said.

“Thanks, Hol,” I sighed in relief. “But what
did he say?”

“Well, he didn’t seem particularly mad that
I was associated with a known murderer, which was a good sign, but he never
really said he believed me either. It was kind of weird actually. He nodded his
head a lot as I spoke, but when I told him, he just spaced out a little, like
he was considering it. It was almost like he understood. I don’t know, but,
Luce, I was as convincing as I could be, I swear.”

“I’m sure you were. Thanks again, Hol,” I
said, and I pictured Holly having her dad wrapped around her little finger
giving her anything she asked for. Holly was definitely a daddy’s girl.

“Anytime. Hey, I have to get going. I need
to grab a quick lunch before heading back to classes. I don’t have quite the same
schedule as last semester, so I’m a little pressed for time. Oh, and just to be
safe you should lay low, because my dad did say it was pretty tense at work
since all this happened.”

“I’ll try. It’s not really in my nature to
hide, though,” I admitted.

“I know, but try hard, because you need to
save the world Superwoman, and you can’t do that from a jail cell,” she said
just before bouncing back out into the light of the adjoining sidewalk.

She had that amazing ability to not take
anything too seriously. She didn’t even seem bothered by the fact that I was a
wanted murderer. Oh well. That was Holly, and that was one of the reasons we
got along so well.

After my inexplicit warning from Holly, I
spent the rest of the day wandering the streets trying not to be noticed, but
that was hard to do, especially when people needed saving, even if it wasn’t
from vampires. I happened to walk by a convenience store the exact moment it
was being robbed. I couldn’t help what I did next.

The guy was frantic and nervous and he had a
gun. He seemed on edge about something when he waved it in front of the
cashier. There were others inside who kept low in the aisles, but when I came
in, the guy with the gun turned on me.

When he looked at me, I saw his bloodshot
eyes dart all over the place and his skin looked worn beyond his years. The
amount of drugs he must have had in his system probably wasn’t helping his
temperament. He looked like a junkie desperate for his next hit. Just before he
pointed the gun in my direction, I made a v-line toward him snaking back to
grab the hand that held the gun.

The gun went off moments before I could free
it from his hand, but after it did, his grip on it loosened, and I squeezed his
wrist to the breaking point. When the gun clattered to the ground, I released
his wrist just before the bones snapped. His weak attempt at retaliation led to
my fist in his face, and eventually to him being passed out on the ground. The
ringing in my ears from the gun shot subsided, and the noise that followed was
all but pleasant. There was shrieking and shouting, but then I noticed the
hushed tones and all the pointing fingers. Most of them pointed in my
direction, and I could only guess what all the buzz was about. In the distance,
I caught the sound of sirens.

I backed out of the store slowly, eyeing the
scene I had just created.
Great
. I try to do one good deed for the day
and it blows up in my face. Before I could turn, the sirens snuck up right
behind me from around the corner, and I didn’t waste any more time assessing
the situation, because the situation was that I was fucked if I didn’t run.
Fast.

I bolted down the sidewalk as the yelling
behind me increased. “Stop! Don’t move any further!” they shouted.

I rounded the corner down a wide alley but
still couldn’t risk running full speed with so many potential witnesses in the
area. I sped up to a pace that put just enough space between me and my
followers to break away. The footfall behind me grew fainter, but the sirens
were still all around.

I rounded another corner to put myself out
of sight and shooting range from the cops behind me, but that just put me out
on the street again where the sirens blared louder and louder. One squad car
was barreling toward me, and I immediately turned in the opposite direction.

I needed to get out of sight. When the car
came to a screeching halt on the sidewalk in front of me, I shot out into
traffic, nearly getting run over, but escaping them when I reached the other
side. Zigzagging through blocks and blocks of alleyways, I finally felt like I
had lost them long enough to use my hyper speed. Once I put miles of distance
between me and the sirens, I took to higher ground to escape by hopping up a
fire escape.

Once there, away from all the noise, I
settled into the calm by huddling into a corner on the rooftop. It wouldn’t be
long before I had the cover of a dark night. The sun was already starting to
set, so I decided it would be best to just wait it out this time.

For a brief moment, I felt a strange wave of
anger that seemed foreign to me and slight vertigo. I didn’t know where it had
come from. I wasn’t mad that the cops were doing their jobs. It wasn’t like it
was their faults I was set up for murder by a crazy manipulative bloodsucking
horror movie monster.

†

The moment night fell, a buzzing in my coat
made me jump up from my spot on the rooftop. I felt around in my pockets but
realized the vibration was coming from my inside pockets. With cold, numb fingers,
I fumbled through my inner pocket until I finally retrieved my phone. Weird. I
didn’t even remember putting it in there. When I saw the number, I didn’t
recognize it. For a moment, I thought about letting it go to voicemail since I
had everyone’s number that I knew. But I answered it anyway.

“Where the hell are you?” the voice on the
other end thundered.

Of course it would be him. He must have gotten
my number out of my phone when he put it in my coat, or possibly, long before
then. “I’m in Hawaii. You should come. It’s gorgeous.”

“Must have been a pretty quick flight if you
went from robbing a convenience store in downtown St. Louis to Hawaii in an
hour,” he said sardonically.

Shit. They must have gotten me on camera.
“It was. Very Quick. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to drinking
fruity drinks on the beach under a palm tree.”