Page 6 of To Crave Darkly
“Because you’re important.”
“Why, Jasper? Why am I important? Why was I attacked?”
“Look. I don’t have all the answers to your questions, but I am taking you to someone who does.”
“Does it have to be in fucking handcuffs?”
He exhaled deeply and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t trust you to stay put.”
Sensible man. I still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t just kidnapping me. If I got the chance I was going to make a run for it. “Fine. But don’t expect me to make it easy for you.”
He growled at me in response.
A few minutes ticked by and I had no idea where we were. Nothing outside the car looked familiar and I could tell he was keeping off the main roads. I didn’t want to think about everything. Not yet. I turned to the vampire on my right. Ha,vampire.He was ridiculously good looking, and it pained me to think such attractiveness was wasted on so much crazy.
“So, Jasper, since it looks like we’re going to be stuck together for a while, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
He took a side glance at me, anger twisting his features. I figured that look was meant to intimidate me, but I had seen worse in my days atPoison. I had come across my fair share of obnoxious guys who thought they could get what they want merely by snapping their fingers. But I knew how to deal with people like that, I’m sure Jasper would be no different. I smiled to myself. I was going to have some fun with this one.
“I guess that’s a no then?”
“I swear to God, if you keep talking, I will pull this car over and gag you,” he snapped whilst jamming his finger in front of my face. I leant away from him. A normal person would cower, a normal person would shut up and sit quietly but not me. Nope. I was going to find his breaking point.
I smirked at him and he looked back at the road. I relaxed back in the chair as much as I could and put my feet on the dashboard. I looked back at Jasper and saw his cheek twitch with annoyance. I started to hum a tune and I could see Jasper get more and more wound up as I continued. This was too much fun. I started to wonder how long it would take before he finally snapped? I stopped humming and started whistling. His knuckles whitened on the wheel. I was definitely starting to get to him, but he still didn’t say anything. A wicked idea jumped to the forefront of my mind. I started belting out a song. It was loud, brash and completely out of tune.
He made it about ten seconds before he cracked.
“Alright, alright! Enough with the singing,” he cried out, his exclamation followed by something muttered under his breath. Words that sounded a lot like expletives if you asked me. I chuckled at him; he was such a stick in the mud.
“Finally. I was having a hard time deciding what to do next.”
Jasper rolled his eyes at me and groaned. “What do you want to know?”
Best to start with something simple. “Is your favourite colour black?”
Jasper briefly turned to look at me and, judging by the way his brow arched, he was curious but also relieved. What did he think I was going to ask? Do you enjoy killing people?
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, your clothes are black, your car is black, your watch is black, and I bet if I looked in the boot your bag would be black too.”
“Black makes my life easier. It’s inconspicuous and hides stains really well,” he replied bluntly.
Ookay. My eyebrows made an acquaintance with my hairline. That was a whole lot of information I did not need to know.
“But it is not my favourite colour.”
Well that got my attention. “So, you do have a favourite colour. Interesting. At least you’ve narrowed it down for me,” I said sarcastically. The faint hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, but it lasted all of a second. I was curious as to what it was, but I didn’t want to push him. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy I really wanted to piss off. And at the end of the day, did I really want to get to know the guy? He had kidnapped me and cuffed me to a car. I could hand-on-heart say this man terrified me. He just oozed menace. His movements were methodical and precise. Even something as simple as changing gear was done with predatory grace.
The silence in the car was deafening. It left my mind open to start trailing back over the events of the last few hours. I was attacked, kidnapped and stuffed into a car going who knows where with a vampire.
Fuck. Vampires were real. And I was sat next to one.
What else was real? Angels? Demons? Witches?
If witches were real, it would certainly explain old Mrs Crankshaw from next door. I always thought she was an old crone. Always muttering to herself and telling me I was what was wrong with the world of today. I wondered if she’d notice I was missing, or perhaps she just wouldn’t care.
It was too much to even comprehend. I needed a distraction because I wasn’t ready to face any of this crazy just yet.
