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  My heart jumps in my throat so hard that I can barely breathe.

  More gunfire.

  I make it to the safety of my porch, my fingers hovering over the brass handle that will open to the foyer, stairway and reams of industrial carpet.

  Laughter stops me cold. Laughter, high and dripping with mania, masks the scream. I hesitate, my hand shaking above the handle.

  The urge to look, to see what is happening, pulls ruthlessly at my guts.

  Choice 15

  I have to know! Look and see what’s happening

  Nope. Get inside

  Turn and look.

  By some instinct that screams see what the hell is behind you, I turn.

  Two men stand there. Just two unarmed men, but their faces and hands are bloody. Their nails are crusted black with dried blood. It flakes along the creases of their smiles. It sits in the crevices between their teeth.

  If these are the attackers, it looks like they tried to eat her.

  Eat her.

  God, what has that woman been through?

  Forget her! Worry about you! My voice of reason points out. It’s right. Because unlike the paramedics, I don’t have a gun. And I’m much closer to these maniacs than the paramedics are.

  I slip my hand into the pocket of my coat. I want to arm myself with the only weapon I have—the mace. Before my fingers can fully grasp the metal cylinder, a hand wraps around my throat.

  A scream doesn’t even have a chance to form. The air leaves me in a choked gasp.

  “Drop your weapon,” he says.

  I let go of the mace. But he doesn’t let go of me.

  “No,” the paramedic beside me says. Of course he wasn’t talking to me. For a guy who eats people, mace isn’t really a threat, even if he knew I had it.

  The scent of blood is so strong with his hand. I would gag if I could.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” one of the paramedics says. “You’re banned from the city.”

  “Drop the gun or I’ll tear her throat out.”

  I guess the paramedic doesn’t drop the gun because a hot flash of burning pain rips through the side of my neck.

  Now I scream. Full, bubbling screeches vibrating through my cords. But they sound far too wet. Most of the pitch is lost, drowned in the blood bubbling up between my lips. I can taste it. So hot.

  The gun goes off. It sounds so damn loud. I would care if I didn’t have this guy’s mouth wrapped around my throat. His jaw squeezing harder.

  I’m going to suffocate.

  I’m going to drown in my own blood.

  The cold steel in my throat pulls back, and I sag in his arms.

  The man holding me is so strong, impossibly strong.

  I try to twist out of his grip, but he only laughs. “Pull that trigger and you’ll be as dead as your partner.”

  My eyes try to focus on something, anything. There’s a shape in the street about three steps away from me.

  It’s a pile of clothes, I think.

  Then I realize how ridiculous that is.

  I blink, forcing the water collecting in my eyes away, clearing my vision. Only then do I realize I’m looking at a heap of man, the other paramedic, or what’s left of him.

  His throat is a mess of meat, blood and white, chewed-up cartilage, which I’m pretty sure used to be his windpipe.

  Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…

  Who would do that? Who could do that?

  My fear spurns my heart faster. More blood pours from my throat, wetting the front of my clothes. My clothes stick to my skin uncomfortably.

  Monsters. They’re monsters.

  No shit, Sherlock. My mind snaps. Unless you want to die here, do something!

  I remember the mace. I slip my hand into my pocket and find it’s still there.

  Choice 16

  Mace this prick!

  Don’t make him mad. One more bite and I’m a goner

  I have to know! Look and see what’s happening.

  When I reach the steps of my apartment building, I can’t help but turn and look.

  Two men are hissing. Hissing at the paramedics with guns. Despite the low-light, I can clearly make out their snarling faces.

  A gun goes off. It sounds so loud, a cracking whip through my skull.

  One of the snarling attackers jumps forward and seizes the paramedic closest to him. But he doesn’t just seize him with his hands. He clamps his teeth onto the paramedic’s throat.

  His throat. One vicious rip and blood erupts from his neck. The gun in the paramedic’s hand clanks to the pavement.

  Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…

  Who would do that? Who could do that? Drug addicts? Crazy people?

  Monsters. They’re monsters.

  Real life monsters.

  And they are going to kill these paramedics if I don’t do something.

  I wrap my hand around the mace in my pocket and eye the gun on the pavement beside the paramedic’s body.

  I should get in there. I should help. But I can’t see the second guy from here. Where did he go?

  I’m about to rush in and do what I can to save the remaining paramedic, when a cold hand seizes the back of my neck.

  “Don’t interrupt my brother while he’s working,” a cold voice says.

  Pain explodes through the side of my neck. The rock-hard arm around my waist pins me in place.

  Slowly he drains my life from my body, sip by sip. The heat leaves me.

  I’m cold, so cold.

  And I’ll never be warm again.

  The End

  Create a new story

  Nope. Get inside.

  As curious as I may be, I duck into the building without turning back. My feet pound on the stairs as I run up to the second floor, my sweaty palm slick on the railing. My apartment door opens with the slightest push.

  Shit, I didn’t lock it behind me.

  I do so now.

  Sushi leaps from his cat tree and sprints from the room, obviously harassed by the commotion.

  I mumble something that could be mistaken for an apology.

  All I can do is lean against the door, panting.

  That was close. Really close. I just wish I knew what I’d been running from.

  The balcony.

  I cross the living room and pull open the balcony door. I step out and lean over the railing to get a good view of the street below.

  The ambulance is still there. The lights bouncing off the brownstones. But the street is empty. I stand there, looking, waiting but nothing happens. I see no one. Not even the paramedics.

  Less than ten minutes pass before two cop cars pull up behind the ambulance. They exit the vehicle and stare at the back of the ambulance. A mechanical voice echoes from the walkie-talkie thing strapped to his chest.

  He lifts it to his mouth and speaks. I’m too far to hear what they’re saying, but another five minutes pass, and a second ambulance arrives. As well as a Red Tesla Roadster.

  They push the woman out of the alley on a stretcher. Her body is hidden beneath the sheet, limp and lifeless. But blood is soaking through.

  Ethan Benedict, looking just like his photo, steps out of the Roadster. He sees the stretcher and stops the paramedics with a wave of his hand.

  When he lifts the sheet his face contorts in visible anguish, scrunching up, jaw working. He says something to the paramedics that I can’t hear but I recognize the tone. It sounds like an order.

  Then he’s marching back to the Roadster and climbing inside. It reverses roughly, the engine revving and tires squealing on the pavement. Then he’s speeding northeast out of Old Town, back toward the city center.

  Once the first ambulance is driven away, I see the two bodies in the street. It must’ve been blocking the carnage.

  So not just the woman—but the paramedics too. Three dead, right here on my block.

  I can’t get the image of Ethan’s face out of my mind as he looked down at the woman under the sheet. Did I make the
right choice? Or should I have done more?

  I keep asking myself this long after the street is emptied and my balcony is locked up tight.

  If these questions didn’t plague me enough, the idea that a crazy murderer is on the loose and killing people in my own neighborhood would do it. I’m certain I’ll never sleep again.

  But I do. And I wake to a soft paw batting my nose.

  “Meow.”

  A tinge of claws.

  “Meow.”

  I pry my eyes open against the sunlight streaming in. This is all the encouragement that the cat needs. He climbs onto my chest and proceeds to rub his head and ears against my face until I’m gasping. I swat him away.

  I sit up and check the time. Almost 10:30. I’m surprised he let me sleep this long.

  “Okay, okay,” I say and throw back the covers. And pause.

  Beside the clock icon on my phone I see the voicemail flag. A red alert that will drive me nuts until I check it.

  I play the message while dragging myself into the kitchen to feed the cat.

  Of course, only a small circle of the bowl is exposed but I give him his morning scoop anyway.

  I know the voice on the voicemail. It’s Katie, hushed and frightened. I have to restart the message twice to make sure I understand what she’s saying. On the third play-through I’m absolutely certain.

  “Baltimore. Oh shit, Baltimore. Help me. I shouldn’t have left Alpha’s with them, but how the hell was I supposed to know they were vampires?! Honest-to-god freaking monsters. I don’t know where they’re taking me. They’ve got me in a trunk and—”

  “What the fuck,” a man cuts in. “I thought you took her phone.”

  A scream cuts off the message. Katie’s scream.

  The hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up. I listen to it two more times, feeling sick over my pounding heart.

  I exit the voicemail and call Katie. Fingers crossed she was drunk, in a bad situation, but is home safe now with a hellacious hangover.

  But the call goes straight to her voicemail. Damn. I leave a message anyway, completely aware that I sound like a hand-wringing mother. I could drive to Alpha’s and see if they saw her. Or I can go by her place and knock on the door.

  Choice 17

  Go by Katie’s apartment

  Go by Alpha’s

  Mace this prick!

  If I don’t do something, I’m going to die here in this standoff. I’m going to bleed out, or I’m going to get shot, which will really escalate things, won’t it?

  I can already feel the warm blood pouring down the side of my throat and soaking the top of my shirt. It’s amazing how fast the blood cools outside the body. And I marvel at the way it thickens and grows sticky almost instantly on my skin.

  Don’t get distracted. That’s the blood loss talking. That fog in your head is you dying. Pull yourself together. It’s now or never.

  I work my fingers around the mace container and manage to get it out of my jacket pocket. I pinch my own eyes closed. I hold my breath—all of this in case I miss and spray myself.

  I depress the red trigger with my thumb. The attacker falls back hissing, and when he does, two shots are fired instantly by the paramedic.

  Pop. Pop.

  And both of the attackers are down.

  The world tilts. The large moon and stars above melt into a kaleidoscope of light, and the next thing I know, I’m looking up from the street.

  My head presses into the cold cobblestone, dazed and confused.

  Someone is shouting.

  Then my head is lifted, and a rough hand is pressed into the side of my throat. It burns against my open wound, which feels ragged and raw in the cold air.

  Stop. I try to beg. Please, stop touching it.

  But the only thing that comes out of my mouth is blood.

  “Hold on,” someone says. I think it’s the second paramedic this time, or something is wrong with my ears because I don’t recognize this voice. “Hold on, help is coming.”

  Wasn’t I just saying the very same thing to someone else?

  “Hold on,” they say.

  I listen to those steady, reassuring voices as the stars blink out, one by one—leaving me with a black, empty sky.

  I wake up in a hospital.

  But not a grave, I think. One point for me.

  My eyes, which feel a little hard to hold open, take in the IV drip and my bandaged hand. My lips are impossibly dry, and when I rub my tongue over them, it only catches. It’s like I don’t have a single drop of moisture in my mouth.

  So gross.

  A woman appears in the doorway, knocking to let me know that she’s arrived. A second later, a male nurse joins her. They enter the room together and come to stand on either side of the bed.

  “How do you feel?” the woman asks. Her red hair is pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head. Her dark eyes drill into me.

  I take inventory of my body. The coldness in my limbs. The incredible dryness in my mouth and the unmistakable sensation that they must’ve used some serious drugs to save my life because I’m itchy all over. “Alive.”

  The man forces a smile. “Mind if I take a look?”

  At first I’m not sure what he means, but then he is leaning over and peeling back the gauze on my throat before I can actually consent.

  “Perfectly healed,” he says. He looks at the other nurse whose face remains unreadable.

  “We need to call the doctor in to look at you. Can I get you anything else?”

  “Water,” I beg. “Anything to drink. My mouth is so dry.”

  The female nurse stares at me. She looks like she is on the verge of speech, when a knock at the door interrupts her.

  A woman with shoulder length hair, brunette and full of soft waves, steps into the room. Her hair is parted down the middle and cut to frame her face. Her bright blue eyes are some of the most brilliant I’ve ever seen.

  “Dr. Grange,” the man says by way of greeting.

  “I’ll take it from here,” she says with a warm smile. “I’ll push the call button after I’ve completed my assessment.”

  They both excuse themselves.

  Dr. Grange says my first name softly. “Do you mind if I call you that?”

  “No,” I say.

  “I’m Dr. Grange.” We briefly shake hands. Hers feels warm compared to mine. “I’m here to explain what’s happened to you, to give you any answers that I can and discuss what will happen next.”

  The seriousness makes my heart speed up.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” she says, sitting down in the chair beside the bed.

  “Is it written all over my face?” I ask with a nervous smile.

  “I can hear your heart hammering in your chest,” she says calmly.

  “You can—?”

  “Because I’m a vampire.”

  She says it so plainly that I feel like it’s a joke. I laugh.

  “You don’t believe in vampires.”

  Another non-question.

  I laugh harder. “No.”

  “That’s fine. We will begin here.”

  I don’t like how she says it.

  “I want to show you something.”

  I like this declaration even less. I shrink back, leaning away from her, certain something is about to happen. She leans forward and opens her mouth slowly, showing me two rows of pearly white teeth.

  “See my teeth?” she asks.

  “They look normal.”

  “Keep watching,” she says.

  At first nothing happens. Then, slowly, something begins protruding from her upper gums, stretching down toward her lower lip.

  I scream and jump back from her. I hit my elbow hard on the bulky plastic arm rest flanking my bed.

  She lets me get a good, hard look. Then she lifts her wrist and tears into it.

  Blood bubbles up, spilling out over her wrist. She licks it twice and the blood is gone. Those holes close in on themselves. A third lick a
nd she shows me her bare, unblemished wrist.

  “Fuck.” I don’t know what else to say.

  “I’m not trying to scare you. And I certainly won’t hurt you. But we need to get past your disbelief because I need to tell you the important part.”

  Her fangs catch the hospital light overhead. Why are they so shiny?

  I’m shaking. “The important part?”

  “We believe you’re infected. There is a chance you aren’t, but that chance is much smaller than the possibility that you are. Do you understand?”

  My head spins. Or maybe it’s this whole world moving on a tilt. I clutch a pillow to my chest as a makeshift barrier.

  “If you are infected we can do a transfusion. This early in the process sometimes it is enough to clean the blood. It’s also possible that you only healed because of cross contamination. We found a great deal of Josephine Hamble’s blood on you as well. Her blood could be the reason you healed.”

  A vampire, a vampire, a vampire…

  “Who?” The way she says the woman’s name catches my attention. I dare to meet her gaze.

  “The woman you found. The one you tried to help.”

  I recall vividly how torn up her body was. The blood all over her clothes, the ripped collar and unfocused eyes. “Did she make it?”

  “No,” she says, and her voice thins and cracks at the end. “She didn’t make it.”

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

  Dr. Grange interrupts. “You reported the attack. You went out of your own warm, safe home in the dead of night to check on her. You stayed with her. You refused to leave her alone. Am I right?”

  “Yes but—”

  “You did all you could for her, for this perfect stranger, and I’m very grateful for that.” She gives me a sad smile. “And now I want to do all I can for you. Will you let me help you?”

  A vampire. God, could I really be a vampire?

  She searches my face, waiting for an answer.