Page 4 of First Blood
The moment of hesitation before I shoved the key under the door was something I was going to try very hard to forget about.
Along with the rest of the night. I’d had what I wanted, a taste. It was convenient. Nothing else. And I was never going to see him again.
Chapter 2
Hooked
Laurie stood under the same streetlight, in a black mesh t-shirt under a thin black jacket this time, but with the same painted-on jeans.
I shouldn’t have known his name. I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t stood here, leaning against the wall of the alley and scowling in his direction, for three nights running. It was also the third night period since I’d put him to bed in his shitty studio and vowed to forget all about him — so obviously the forgetting him thing had gone fucking super.
On the first night I’d stalked him, one of his colleagues had sashayed by on his way to his own spot half a block down and greeted Laurie by name. Knowing his name had made it twice as hard to watch as he got into three different cars over the course of a couple of hours, coming back a little less bright every time.
Laurie shifted, obviously trying to stay warm. The tip of his nose shone pink from the cold, the jacket a barely-helpful concession to the flakes of snow swirling down around him and highlighting the tips of his curly hair.
He smelled like heaven, his scent wafting to me like a sweet ribbon winding through the icy bite of the air.
A car pulled up, the first of the night to stop for him, and my whole body went tense, my fingers curling into claws. Something had my hackles up — something more than the irritation I’d felt every time a car pulled up on the other nights. I wasn’t sure what it was. Did I recognize the car? It was a Lexus, nicer than what you’d usually see in this part of town, or in Lancaster period, but not one of the high-end models. Not unlikely that someone with money would want to come to this side of town to pick up a prostitute.
But something about it pinged my radar all the same.
Laurie bent down, his round little ass sticking out like the world’s most perfectly calculated tease, and talked to the driver through the passenger-side window. I held my breath.
And then let it out in a whoosh as he stepped back enough to open the door and get in, tugging the door shut behind him.
The Lexus pulled away down the block, making a left turn and disappearing from view.
Fuck.I’d walked away after watching him for a while the past two nights. On the first, I’d convinced myself I was only there to make sure he was all right, since I was responsible for how out of it he’d been the night before. Last night, I’d watched a little longer. But I knew down deep that I couldn’t resist him tonight. Fucking double fuck. Why hadn’t I gone and talked to him before a customer showed up? When he came back, he’d smell like someone else, overlayed on top of his own delicious aroma.
If he came back.
The thought hit me like all the snow in the alley had been scooped up and dumped down the back of my coat. He did this every night, as far as I knew. He’d survived this long.
But I still couldn’t get it out of my head that I’d seen the car before. Or maybe, with my supernatural vision, I’d caught a glimpse of the driver that I wasn’t processing consciously, and I knew him from somewhere. Somewhere that wasn’t good — not that I usually met anyone in good circumstances. Fenwick had both a lot of enemies and a lot of legitimate business contacts. His less intimidating and friendlier lieutenants dealt with the business contacts, so no guesses needed to know who I interacted with.
And luck ran out eventually, for everyone. A lot faster for defenseless underage-looking hookers with no one to give a shit about whether they lived or died.
Without thinking about it, I stomped out of the alley and started off in the direction the car had gone, crossing against the light and ignoring the traffic screeching to a halt a few feet from me. They didn’t matter.
I followed Laurie’s trail. The faintest whiff of him lingered in the air, filtered through car exhaust and garbage and all the foulness of humanity. Even though he’d gone in a vehicle and not on foot, I could still catch just enough of it to lead me along.
The scent dissipated three blocks down. I stopped, turning my head slowly, my eyes closed to let my other senses take point.There. To the left. I was on the hunt, now, my instincts in charge and my fangs dropping. Fresh snowfall muffled my footsteps, but not enough; they echoed off of crumbling brick and stained concrete, and the scurrying denizens of this shitty neighborhood got the fuck out of my way, scattering like rats.
I found the Lexus pulled into another alley, right up against a dumpster. The engine was off, and the car rocked slightly from side to side.
And then it jolted, like someone’s weight had shifted suddenly. Or like someone had been thrown, or hit.
I had the passenger door open two seconds later.
Well, actually, I had the passenger door ripped off the side of the car and flung ten feet down the alley, but details. It was open.
The john was on top of him, his hands around his neck, and Laurie was struggling, his face turning purple and his hands scrabbling uselessly at his attacker’s wrists. His sweet, tangy scent was tinged sour with fear and horror.
The asshole choking him looked up at me, and his face went from a snarl of rage and lust to something just as primal: abject terror. That was mildly satisfying, but not enough. Not nearly enough. I lunged into the car, one hand wrapped in Laurie’s jacket collar and the other around the asshole’s throat, and yanked them both out through the hole in the side of the car. They both cried out, though Laurie’s voice was hoarse from the damage done to his neck…and that was where I lost the plot a little.
I came back to myself a few minutes later. It couldn’t have been that long, because the motherfucker writhing at my feet moaning in pain in a muck of gray snow and used condoms was still alive, and it didn’t take me long to kill someone. I panted, my chest heaving. Fresh blood dripped off my hands, droplets splashing to the ground out of sync with the snowfall.
From the quantity of blood, the fucker wasn’t going to survive, not unless he got to a hospital a lot quicker than emergency services usually responded to a back alley on the east side.
