Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 8

She didn’t taste blood this time, as she groggily awoke to darkness.

Just the fear. 

Cold and metallic it coated her tongue, mingling with the acidic taste of bile dancing at the back of her throat. 

With a groan she peeled open her eyes and blinked away a screen of blurriness.   Her first thought was that she was hallucinating.  Everything seemed darker, sepia-toned, as if seen through a dark screen. 

It was only when the glare of a stoplight flashed overhead that she realized she was seeing everything from the inside of a car.   

A moving car.  With heavily tinted windows that made everything seem like inky twilight when seen through the glass. 

Dazedly, she turned her head only to find a stern-faced driver.  He was tall and lean with a head of blazing red hair. 

Lizzie’s brother, she realized. 

Eliot. 

“Am I…am I dreaming?”

Her voice was lighter than a whisper, but he heard her anyway.  She could tell by the way he stiffened, as if she’d shouted.

Those red eyes cut to her, burning so brightly that she knew she had to be dreaming.

Nobody’s eyes should gleam like that. 

Nobody normal…

“You tell me,” he said coldly, turning his gaze back to the road—but not before she saw something flash in his eyes that could have been relief.  “Try sitting up,” he ordered in a tone of ice. 

Reaching down to steady her hand against the leather seat for balance, Miriam tried to do just that.  Her muscles were stiff and throbbed as she settled into the seat.  In the end, she managed to only scoot up a few inches.

But the motion seemed to satisfy him. 

That icy gaze softened somewhat, but his fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly she half-expected that he could rip it off if he turned it suddenly enough.

“Still think you’re dreaming?”  He asked.  His voice was dryly mocking.

“No.” 

She remembered now.  The flash of blue on her way to school.  The numbing grip of fear before everything faded into black. 

She had another seizure.

But…

“You found me.”  Her voice rose, making the statement into more of a question. 

“Yes,” Eliot said tightly.  Her hands worked to violently turn the wheel into the curve of the road.  “On the sidewalk.”

The curt way he said it made her flinch.  She could only imagine how it must have looked…

“I probably just fainted,” she said quickly.  Her eyes darted nervously around the smooth black interior of the car, catching sight of her muddy backpack perched on the backseat.  “I-I just forgot to eat breakfast and got a little lightheaded.  I guess I passed out…”

The lie slid easily from her tongue, sounding credible even to her own ears.

Eliot didn’t answer. 

His eyes were trained carefully on the road, body held in a ridged line.  He could have been carved from stone, decorated by bits of ruby and ivory.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, recognizing the road they took now.  A rickety wooden sign blurred past, proclaiming the way to Wafter’s Point Memorial.