Читать книгу Dark Kiss - Michelle Rowen - Страница 11

A scream tore from my throat. “No! What are you doing?”

Bishop sent a fierce glare over his shoulder at me. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

I ran toward the boy and grabbed hold of his arm as he staggered backward. A flash of lightning forked across the sky followed by a crack of thunder, and the rain came down even harder.

“You … You’re a—” The boy clutched at me, his eyes widening with pain and shock. I looked with horror at the blood soaking through his dirty white shirt as the boy’s grip on me grew painfully tight. “A gray.”

“What?”

But then he slipped out of my grasp, dropped to his knees and, with a last hiss of breath, fell face forward onto the pavement.

“Oh, my God! You killed him!” I could barely breathe. My entire body began to tremble. I’d never seen anyone murdered before. Not in real life.

Bishop grabbed me and slammed me up against the brick wall. I shrieked as he pressed the sharp golden knife against my throat.

“A gray,” he growled, and there was nothing remotely confused in his fierce expression anymore. He looked like he wanted to slit my throat right here and now. “I wasn’t sure before … but you are one of them.”

“Let go of me!” I wanted to struggle, but I couldn’t move much for fear that the knife would cut me. His body pressed against mine, effortlessly pinning me. His short hair was now slicked to his forehead from the rain and his eyes glowed—literally glowed—with blue light. Before, I’d found his eyes beautiful, but now they were absolutely terrifying.

And suddenly, I remembered seeing those eyes before—in my dream, the one I’d had when I passed out at Crave. The dream where he’d let me fall into the horrible darkness.

Something slid behind his gaze, past the fierceness. It looked like bitter disappointment. “How many souls have you devoured since you were turned?”

Tears burned my eyes and I tried to press back against the wall so I wouldn’t have to be so close to him. The knife at my neck made it difficult to speak or breathe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You’ve been kissed. Your soul is lost. You’re one of them now.”

Kissed.

The bitter taste of bile rose in my throat as I remembered the cold sensation when Stephen had kissed me. At the time it had felt like riding a roller coaster in the winter. Exhilarating and thrilling. It hadn’t been a normal kiss. I’d known it then, but I’d tried to pretend it never happened at all. Even though it had.

I should warn you, it’s a very dangerous kiss, Stephen had told me. It will change your life forever.

Bishop looked pained and the knife eased off a fraction. “I don’t understand why you helped me—why you could help me. They told me grays would be completely controlled by their insatiable hunger. But when you touched me—”

Oh, I’d touch him, all right.

I drove my knee up between his legs as hard as I could. He gasped and let go of me. I didn’t think twice before running away. I ran as far and as fast as I could through the maze of alleys and backstreets we’d taken to get there, before looking over my shoulder. My vision was blurred by tears and rain, but I could see that he wasn’t chasing me.

Bishop was insane. A killer. And I’d led him directly to his victim.

I stopped the first police cruiser I saw and ran to the driver’s side. “There’s been a murder!”

I quickly took the cop back to the alley, but by the time we got there it was empty. Completely empty. The cop looked at me skeptically as I craned my neck, looking for any sign of what had happened here. I knew it was the right alley. The half-eaten hamburger was still lying on the ground in a puddle.

“It happened only a few minutes ago. Please, you have to believe me!”

My insistence seemed to get through to him and he started to take me seriously. He asked me questions about what I’d seen and where I’d been tonight. He told me that there had been a few missing persons cases recently and that I should be careful.

I didn’t read the papers or watch the news, so I’d had no idea. If I had, I never would have walked home alone with my head in the clouds, stopping to help out a good-looking kid on the street. Bishop could be the reason behind these disappearances.

“I’ll come back tomorrow morning to check the alley again,” the cop told me. “Even with the rain, a murder like you’re describing would leave blood evidence behind, but I don’t see any here.” He paused. “Is there any chance this was your imagination? You said you’d gone to see a horror movie earlier, right?”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but then closed it. He was right. If I said that I’d witnessed a murder, but there was no body, no blood, only minutes after the crime had taken place, then what was he supposed to think?

What was I supposed to think?

He drove me home in his cruiser and told me again not to worry about anything, that the police were on top of it. He assured me that the city was safe and that he was quite sure I’d just been imagining things. I nodded, my brain spinning as I felt sick to my core. He walked me to my front door and waited till I unlocked it and went inside before he went back to his cruiser and drove away. I was soaked to the skin from the rain and shaking from cold and fear.

My mother had a business dinner with her real-estate associates that she’d said would keep her out until at least midnight. I didn’t often want to spend a lot of time with her—we were so different that we had practically nothing in common anymore—but I desperately wished she was home right now.

I wanted to call Carly and tell her everything. I even went so far as to get my phone out of my bag, but the screen flickered and went out as I scrolled through the numbers. Dead battery. I swore under my breath. Before I went for the landline, I had second thoughts. I had no proof that what I’d seen was even real. I didn’t think Bishop had had enough time to pick up the body and carry it away with no trace.

But I’d seen it. I had. I wasn’t going crazy.

I glanced out the narrow window at the side of the front door, past the blind, to make sure I hadn’t been followed.

Grays are controlled by their insatiable hunger.

A sob caught in my chest. I didn’t even know what a gray was, other than a drab color. All I knew was that I was hungry all the time. And I knew, down deep, that it wasn’t just for food.

The blond kid’s face haunted me. He’d looked so alone and confused. I’d seen the hope in his eyes when he thought Bishop was going to help him. Instead, Bishop had stabbed him in the heart.

And then they’d both disappeared.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t stop shaking, I managed to eat three slices of cold pizza before I went to bed. My stomach didn’t seem to care as much as my brain did that I’d been a witness to murder.

I couldn’t get to sleep, staring up at my stucco ceiling and finding scary images of monsters hidden there. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out my thoughts, but what I’d seen in the alley filled my head like a nonstop horror movie marathon. I normally loved horror movies; they were my escape. But they weren’t nearly as much fun when you experienced them in real life.

When I finally fell asleep, I had another dream about Bishop. This time I could see him clearly as he approached me on the street, his hand held out toward me as if he wanted to touch me.

I cringed away from him. “Leave me alone!”

His face was strained and haunted. “You know I can’t do that. Not anymore.”

I realized I had a knife—Bishop’s knife—clutched in my hand. “Stay away from me or I’ll do it! I’ll kill you!”

Despite my warning, he still drew closer as if he couldn’t help himself.

I didn’t remember stabbing him, but I must have, because the very next moment, he fell to his knees and touched the hilt of the knife sticking out of his chest with shaking hands.

His intense blue eyes locked with mine. “They can’t have you—promise me, Samantha. You won’t let them have you.”

When he fell heavily to his side, the light from his eyes extinguished, and he didn’t move again. A cry rose in my throat. Suddenly I wanted to touch him, to heal him. I wanted to make it all better again, make everything go away, but it was too late.

Shadows began to creep toward me from every direction. As they moved over Bishop’s body, he disappeared as if he’d never been there in the first place.

“You must come with us now, Samantha,” the voices said as the shadows drew closer and closer.

Icy hands gripped me, stripping away any warmth left inside me and leaving only fear behind.

“You’re one of us now. You’ll always be one of us.”

“No!” When I tried to fight them, they began to rip me apart. But instead of blood, darkness spilled from inside me.

I forced myself awake with a blood-curdling scream.

My mother thundered down the hallway and yanked open my bedroom door.

“What’s wrong?” Her face was pale, her normally perfect blond hair a mess. She pulled her bathrobe tighter around her. Dark circles cut under her pale blue eyes. She suffered from insomnia and usually got only a few hours of sleep a night. A screaming daughter didn’t exactly help matters.

I looked at her from my tangle of light pink bedsheets. “Bad dream. Really bad dream.”

“A bad dream? That’s all it was? I thought you were being murdered in here.”

I flinched at her choice of words, wanting to tell her everything but knowing she wouldn’t believe a word I said. Why would she? I barely believed it myself. “Sorry I woke you.”

She leaned her forehead against the edge of the door. “Better now?”

“I’ll survive.”

“Warm milk helps me sometimes. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks.” Just the thought of it turned my stomach. My new hunger didn’t seem to extend toward heated dairy products.

Whenever I’d had a nightmare as a kid, she’d come into my room and read me a story until I got sleepy again. I remembered one in particular about a bunny who got lost in the forest and had to rely on the kindness of strangers—even those who might normally eat him for dinner—to help lead him home. Luckily it had a happy ending. Not all wolves had an appetite for cute bunnies.

For a moment, I had the urge to ask her to read me that story, but I held my tongue. I wasn’t a little kid anymore.

“You scared me,” she said groggily, rubbing her eyes. “But I’m glad nothing’s wrong. Try to get some sleep. Brand-new week starting. Hopefully it’ll be a good one.”

As she left, she kept my door open a crack. It wasn’t as big of a comforting gesture as reading me a bedtime story about rabbits and wolves becoming friends with each other, but it was better than nothing.

I had an old teddy bear named Fritz that had been relegated to the rocking chair in the corner of my room next to my packed bookcase. He was missing an eye, and his left arm was partially detached. I grabbed him and pulled him into bed with me, clutching him to my chest. But whatever comfort he’d given me when I was younger, he failed to deliver tonight.

An hour later, I gave up on sleep. I grabbed my laptop from the floor next to my bed and went to the website for the Trinity Chronicle, searching for the latest news to see if anyone had reported any stabbings or murders. There was nothing. Between this and the dismissive “it was just your imagination” reaction I’d gotten from the cop, it was like it never happened.

But it had.

I read up on recent disappearances, but none seemed related to what had happened tonight. Trinity was a big city with a million residents. Bad things happened year-round to people young and old, male and female, beautiful and ugly. It didn’t seem to matter who or when or why.

I propped my pillows behind me and gathered my thick duvet closer so I wouldn’t feel so cold. Then I did a Google search for gray, but that didn’t give me anything useful. I mean, it was just a color, that was all. But that was what the blond kid had called me. That was what had made Bishop freak out and look at me like I was a monster, when really it was the other way around. He was the monster.

For a moment, I’d thought he was so much more.

I closed the computer, swearing to put him and everything I’d seen and experienced completely out of my mind.

Yeah, right. Like that was even possible.

Monday morning loomed painfully bright and early. I wanted to stay home and hide, but I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I forced myself to get up and get ready for school. My mother had already left for work by the time I came downstairs. I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast—and more toast—none of which made a single dent in my hunger.

When I went to the bathroom to get ready, the full-length mirror on the back of the door showed that I looked exactly the same as I ever had—short, skinny, with long, wild dark hair that I pulled back into a ponytail to keep off my face. A smear of peach-colored lip gloss and a swipe of black mascara was the sum total of my beauty regimen for a regular school day. Same as always.

But something had changed. People at McCarthy High were looking at me differently.

I tried to ignore the curious looks and outright stares I got as I made my way into the school. Maybe they were staring at me because I looked like someone who’d hung out with a gorgeous but crazy blue-eyed murderer last night. A murderer who’d disappeared into thin air along with his victim, making me question my sanity and my own damn eyes.

Or, more likely, the news of what happened with Stephen and me at Crave on Friday night had gone viral. Likely Jordan was spreading the rumor that I was a slut, blowing everything out of proportion to make my life even more difficult than it already was.

“Excuse me, Ms. Day,” Mr. Saunders, my English teacher, said near the end of first period. His thick glasses made him look like a disapproving owl peering down at me from a tree branch. “Are you paying attention to me this morning?”

I straightened in my seat, flattening my palms against the cool surface of my desk, and tried to pull myself out of my thoughts. “Of course I am.”

“Then what did I just say?”

I felt everyone watching me, waiting to see if I’d make a fool out of myself.

“You said—” I gulped and scanned the blackboard for a clue “—something about Macbeth?”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“A statement. Definitely a statement.”

“Since that’s the play we’re discussing this week, I think it’s a given that I’m talking about it. But what precisely did I just say?”

The walls felt as if they were closing in on me and I suddenly had trouble breathing. I had a very strong urge to get out of there and I didn’t have time to explain why. I’d face the consequences later.

I grabbed my leather bag and books before getting up from my seat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Saunders. I—I’m not feeling so good.”

“Ms. Day?” He watched with surprise as I left my desk and escaped from the room without another word.

The harder I tried to think about something else, the more the memories of last night clutched me like a giant, monstrous hand. I needed some fresh air. First, I hurried to my locker to drop off my books.

“Hey, what happened in there?” Colin had followed me from class. He held his dog-eared copy of Macbeth and his binder casually at his side. “You okay?”

I shoved my books into my locker and closed it, twirling the dial on the lock. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I crossed my arms to try to warm up. Colin wore short sleeves, which made me think that I was the only one with a temperature problem today. “You left class just to check on me?”

“Well, yeah. Of course I did. I told Saunders I wanted to make sure you’re okay. He seemed concerned, so he didn’t have a problem with it. You’re lucky he likes you.”

No one else had come after me. I didn’t have too many other friends in that class. I didn’t have too many other friends period. “You’re so sweet.”

I could have sworn his cheeks flushed a little. But it was true. He was sweet. Except for his inability to deal with parties without drinking and then making ridiculously bad choices involving stupid, vain cheerleaders, he was basically the perfect guy.

“Listen, Samantha—” He raised his gaze from the scuffed floor to look at me. “I know Carly and I didn’t end on good terms. Seeing her trying to avoid me last night wasn’t fun.”

I tensed at the mention of their breakup. “That’s an understatement.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead and looked down at his feet again. “And I know you’re her friend—”

“Best friend.”

“Right. Best friend. But you’re still talking to me. You haven’t given me the cold shoulder like her other friends have.”

Good point. I hadn’t. I couldn’t help it, I liked Colin. Him coming after me just now to make sure I wasn’t going to spontaneously combust proved that feeling was mutual.

“I know Carly doesn’t approve,” I said with a shrug, “but I make my own decisions when it comes to people I choose to talk to.”

“Good. So, yeah, I’m not sure if this might cause some friction between you two, but I just have to ask …”

“What?”

He raised his gaze to mine. “Do you want to go out some time?”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Go out?”

“You and me, maybe the movies on the weekend. Or we could go to Crave.”

Oh, boy.

I suddenly had the very clear image of me telling Carly about this and her not speaking to me for a few decades, even though it totally wasn’t my fault. Or maybe it was. I was still talking to Colin after everyone else associated with Carly had collectively decided to give him the death glare whenever he was nearby.

He’d drawn closer to me until there was barely a foot separating us. Too close. Anyone who saw us might get the wrong idea.

I twisted a piece of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail tightly around my index finger and inhaled deeply. “Oh, Colin. I, uh, really like you. Seriously, but—”

I stopped talking.

His scent—I didn’t believe it was just soap, like he’d said last night at the movie theater. He smelled … edible. He was too close to me right now. I could barely think straight.

“But what?”

I shivered, now focused entirely on his mouth. “Oh, my God. I’m so hungry right now.”

He grinned. “How is it possible that you can make that sentence sound so sexy?”

“Sexy?”

“Yeah.” He leaned closer to me.

No, he wasn’t leaning closer. I was pulling him closer, sliding my hands over his shoulders and around his nape to tangle into his hair.

Just as his lips were an inch from mine, I came to my senses. I braced my hands against his chest and pushed him away from me.

He looked at me with confusion. “Uh, what was that?”

“I don’t know. Sorry … I need to go.” I swallowed hard and walked away from him. Quickly. I didn’t stop until I passed through the doors of the school and felt the cool morning air on my face. I gulped it in and tried to push against the hunger that had almost made me kiss Colin. The need was nearly impossible to resist.

But I’d resisted.

Something caught my eye. A blond guy stood at the bottom of the stairs by the path that led to the parking lot. He was watching me.

I gasped. It was the kid from the alley last night.

The one Bishop had killed.

He casually turned and started to walk away. Without thinking twice, I ran after him.

“Wait!” I tripped over my own ankle and almost fell before staggering to a stop on the narrow path that wound through school grounds. The blond guy had sat down on a bench and was watching my approach. His dirty and bloody clothes from last night were gone, replaced by clean blue jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt.

“Hi there,” he greeted me casually. “Samantha, right?”

“You—” It was difficult to form coherent words. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Depends who you mean by you.”

“You’re alive.”

“Am I?” He looked down at himself, holding his arms out in front of him for inspection, then his gaze swept the length of me. “Hey, so are you. What a coincidence.”

A cloud of confusion swirled around me, making me dizzy. “But I—I saw you get stabbed in the chest last night.”

He got to his feet and closed the distance between us in only a couple of steps. I staggered back from him and looked around, realizing that we were all alone.

He cocked his head. “Did you really see me get stabbed?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Are you completely sure about that?”

I glared at him. He was mocking me and I had no idea why. “Completely.”

He rubbed his chest. “Funny, because I feel just fine.”

“I’m not crazy.”

He walked a slow circle around me and it felt like he was studying every inch of me. Like, every inch.

“Name’s Kraven.” His lips curled into a smile that didn’t look friendly. “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but that would be a lie. I mean, things like you are the reason for this little mess, aren’t they?”

My stomach churned and I wrapped my arms around myself, trying not to shiver. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I continued to deny it, even to myself. There wasn’t anything else I could do. The moment I accepted that something was seriously wrong here—and with me in particular—was the moment I believed this insanity was real. And I wasn’t quite ready for the asylum.

“Sure you don’t. You’re just a normal girl, right? And that relentless hunger you’ve suddenly developed—what do you think that is? Just a regular case of the munchies?”

I shook my head, trying to block out how much he seemed to know about me. “Bishop stabbed you. I saw it with my own eyes. So why aren’t you dead?”

Kraven’s mischievous grin widened and his amber-colored eyes began to glow bright red. “Because it takes more than that to kill a demon.”