Page 12 of A Vampire Bewitched
Why did he even care?
Suddenly, he heard her footsteps approaching, instead of receding. Nik’s head snapped up. The sympathetic expression on her face surprised him.
Why was she looking at him like that? Did he look that pathetic? Was thatpityon her face? Wtf? Embarrassed, he scrubbed at his face with his hands.
“So…” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Yeah, we should really get off this road and go talk. What do you say?” Trying to look as harmless as he could, he shoved his hands into his front pockets as he waited for her to decide what she wanted to do.
Conflicting emotions crossed her face while she decided whether or not to trust him. Little did she know she was coming with him tonight, whether she wanted to or not.
Chapter 7
Emma didn’t know what it was that made her stop and turn around, and now she wished she hadn’t. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have seen the pain and sadness diminish his usual cockiness. She wouldn’t have wondered what caused it. And she would never have felt the need to go to him, and offer what comfort she could.
A sound in the brush a few feet away whipped Emma’s head around and made her heart hammer in her chest.
What the hell am I doing?
She was walking home down a little used, back road, in the dark, surrounded by dense forest. There were no streetlights, no light of any kind. The moon wasn’t even out.
She looked left in the direction of her car, then right in the direction of her house. Finally, she looked at Nik. He was the lesser of evils, for now. Her desperate yearning for something,anything, he could tell her about her sister overshadowed her normally cautious nature.
“All right.”
“Okay?” A surprised eyebrow lifted and a genuine smile made his face even more gorgeous. “We’ll go talk?”
At her tentative nod, he glanced around.
“If you give me your keys, I can run up and get your car while you wait here, and come back and pick you up.”
“No!” Emma took a deep breath to calm herself. “I’d just rather stay with you.”
“All right.” He turned around to lead the way.
Emma followed. “I don’t like the dark is all,” she clarified.
She didn’t see the softening of his gaze, or hear his barely whispered, “I know.”
Not for the first time that evening, Emma wondered if she’d completely lost her senses. Was she so desperate, or stupid, to believe some stranger would just show up out of nowhere, after seven years, and know something about her sister neither she nor the police had found?
Yes. Yes, she was. Her sister, Keira, was really gone. Not dead, but taken. Taken by the monsters in her nightmare, for they weren’t just figments of her imagination. They were real. And they’d stolen her sister that night.
The hissing one had hurtled around Emma as she’d screamed. Throwing Keira over its shoulder, its claws had dug into the backs of her legs to hold her still. As her blood ran in rivulets down her thighs, its tongue protruded from the gaping hole of its mouth, greedily lapping up whatever it could reach. Hissing a final time at Emma, it had lurched off into the woods. The last thing she remembered was her sister screeching at her to “Run!” as the remaining monsters closed in on her.
Emma had spent three months in the hospital after her “bear attack”. During that time, she’d buried what had happened to her deep inside, until she could recall nothing of what had occurred after the monsters appeared. But her own injuries weren't important. What was important was finding her sister. With a determination she didn’t know she had, Emma spent the following year single-mindedly searching for her sister.
She’d harassed the police, local officials, anyone she could think of. Completely useless, all of them. Angry tears pricked her eyes just thinking about it. Lifting her hand, she quickly dashed them away, and concentrated on keeping up with Nik. She was so tired of crying, tired of wondering.
After that first year, the authorities had pretty much given up, and her sister’s disappearance was buried in the back of a file room with all of the other unsolved cases. But Emma wouldn’t give up. Keira was all the family she had left, and she was going to find her come hell or high water.
She just didn’t know what else to do.
She’d contacted the city and gotten the name of the company who’d put on the carnival, and the employees who’d been there that night. Hunting them down one by one, she’d spoken to all of them, questioned them repeatedly. Nothing. No one remembered seeing anything or anyone unusual. No one had even noticed them leave the carnival. It’s like Keira had disappeared into thin air.
She’d posted missing person alerts across the country every year. She’d spent hour upon hour online, trying to find evidence these creatures existed. Again, nothing. She’d exhausted all of her resources.
She didn’t know why those things had taken Keira, and she didn’t know where they’d taken her, but she believed her sister was still alive. She had to believe it. Or what else would she have left?
In spite of their two-year age difference, the sisters rarely fought. In fact, they’d always been the best of friends.
