Through The Fire

Chapter Two - part 1

I wake up slowly. It feels like my eyes have been glued together. When I manage to open them, the first thing I see is the worn fabric of a car seat. I'm lying in the back of a car that smells like cedar.

As I try to sit up, an excruciating pain in my abdomen immediately sets in. I check how serious the wound and notice it had been covered with white bandages, and my t-shirt has been changed, replaced by a clean, washed out blue one.

The guy who saved me is sitting in the driver's seat. His elbow is resting on the door next to the window, and his head is supported by his hand resting under his chin. His eyes are closed, but he is handsome. The short blond hair brings out his strong features, like his high, well-defined cheekbones. Full lips give a delicate expression on his sleepy face.

Almost as if he felt my gaze on him, the boy straightens up in his seat and slowly opens his eyes framed with long lashes. I let out a scream and sling myself out of the car, running towards the grove in front of me despite the protests of the sore wound. What stretches out before me looks more like an abandoned, uncultivated park.

The same phrases and questions begin to buzz in my head.

The boy who saved me is one of them. A red-eyed Zombie saved me from his own kind, for what reason? So he could kill me with his own hands?

It looks like he didn't follow me, I can't hear any sound coming from behind.

The pain in my side becomes more unbearable with every step I take. My face gets hot and red with anger and shame, at the idea that he was the one who changed my shirt, washed, and bandaged my wound. Who can assure me that he didn't feed on me first while I was unconscious?

Why did he do that? Maybe he wants to keep me as food source for when he gets hungry, these days it's hard to find a human around town, I must have given the impression of an easy prey. Maybe he just did it because I wouldn't be any good to him if I bled, or maybe there are more of his friends around, maybe that's why he's not even following me, he knows I wouldn't get far anyway.

I put my hand on my hip and feel one of the stitches rip under my fingers. Unable to continue any further, I stop and lean my shoulder against the trunk of a tree, sliding down against it, sitting on the ground exhausted, in pain and with a racing mind.

"You tore your stitches out," says a deep voice, hoarse from sleep, behind me. I stand up and groan in pain, causing more stitches to break. Blood begins to pour out of the wound again, staining this shirt as well.

"Stay away from me," I scream, stretching my arm between me and him, as if to separate us, as if that would do any good. He doesn't move an inch though, giving me the space I need.

"I saved your life. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already," he tells me, holding his position a few steps away.

"Why? Maybe you're just saving me for a snack."

"Because, I'm not like the others, I don't kill people." He ventures a step toward me, but I back off two, using the tree as a divider between me and him, still gesturing that he shouldn't move. It's daylight yes, but if I take a false step he might kill me anyway.

"I am Acer Rowan III," he tells me calmly. "But everyone calls me Ace." That name brings my mind back to a book my parents used to read to me when I was little, the only one she had time to read to me. I always wanted to meet someone with that unusual name, even though I knew it was an impossible dream. Until today.

I hold tighter to the improvised suture that probably Ace was responsible for, blood spurts out and my hand can't hold back even a small amount of it.

"I'm Charlotte." He laughs. "What are you laughing at?" I ask angrily. In a situation like this how dare he laugh at my name.