Page 33 of Killer of the Bells
Behind him was a second, less manic-looking Baz, and I blinked furiously as the first Baz continued to congratulate me for being alive.
“Oh, this is Vix. We’re a matched set, but Paris refuses to fuck both of us, which is dumb as shit in my opinion.” Baz stopped shaking my hand and shoved it into Vix’s hand, who began to shake it with the same amount of vigor as Baz had.
“It’s okay, Gareth! There’s no body for you to carry.” Vix said, still shaking my hand. “You can carry yourself on your own, right, Echo?”
“I don’t know about that, Vix.” Baz eyeballed me and my rapidly escaping blanket skeptically. “Look at the bruises on this guy. Are you sure you’re still alive, Echo? We can come back in a few minutes if you were in the process of croaking. Don’t let us rush you.”
I rescued my hand from Vix in time to keep my blanket from slipping away entirely, but everyone was able to get an eyeful of the bruises littering my body.
“Thatisa lot of blood, Echo,” Vix said.
“And cum,” Baz added.
“And bruises,” Vix finished. “I’d say we’ll get you medical assistance for you if you want, but Vale is our medical assistance, so if he’s planning to finish you off, there’s not a lot we can do.”
“Unless he’s planning to fuck you to death, in which case, I volunteer to help out in any way you’d like,” Baz offered right before he was yanked out of the doorway by Gareth.
I looked at the floor immediately so I wouldn’t pass out from the combination of blood loss and fear.
“Vale, get out of bed and either patch this guy up or kill him. You’ve had twelve hours with him, and we’ve got a job to do,” Gareth called into the gloom of Vale’s… bedroom? Lab? It had a bed, a ton of instruments, crazy evil doctor-style gadgets, and no windows.
Lair. I was going to go with lair.
Was Vale a villain? Were his friends villains? I was starting to think they were.
After the events of the night before last, what with the cultist discussion, Haruka’s mercenaries, and all the blood-sucking, I felt confident in thinking that Vale wasn’t one of those animalmunching, all human life is sacred, can’t we all just get along kind of vampires.
Especially since his friends were not only surprised to see me alive but seemed to be fine with the outcome either way.
I was pretty sure Vale was a bad guy.
So, why the fucking, flipping, farking hell was I still alive??
I stormed back to the bed, dragging the blanket behind me, snatched Vale’s pillow out from under his head, and began to beat him with it.
“You… Are… Such… A… Crappy… Vampire!” I shouted as I whacked him over and over again.
Vale stirred after the first two hits but didn’t get his shit together enough to stop me until I finished my sentence.
“I’m not a vampire, Echo! Stop hitting me,” Vale hissed, trapping my hands in one of his and tossing the pillow off the bed.
“Then what are you? If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck…”
“Yes, Vale, what are you?” Vix shouted from the doorway.
“Enquiring minds want to know!” Baz added.
I was beginning to think Baz wasn’t kidding about him and Vix being a matched set. Their voices sounded so similar that I wouldn’t have known a different person was speaking if I hadn’t been watching them talk.
“None of your fucking business,” Vale said, but he was looking at the door when he said it, not me.
Vale pulled the blanket over my shoulders, and I realized it had slipped off during our struggle.
“Close the door, Love,” Vale called out.
Was he talking to me? Were we on a pet name basis?
I got a tummy flutter that made me want to be, but then it sank when I realized that for Vale, I didn’t want it.
