Heartless

Heartless - Chapter Twelve

We walked after them as quickly as we dared, both frantically scanning the crowd for Zane. I caught a glimpse of him a few metres away, yanking Hunter forwards as I headed towards him. I had a tight grip on his arm, making sure I wouldn’t lose him in the crowd.

I kept my eyes fixed on the back of Zane’s head, trailing after him intently and pulling Hunter along with me. We weaved amongst the crowd, keeping the same discrete distance as we had before, down the street, until he turned down a side street, heading away from the crowded area.

As soon as we turned the corner we realised that it was going to be a lot harder than we’d thought to stay unnoticed. Instead of the crowds that we’d become accustomed to hiding in, only a few people walked down the street, nowhere near enough to provide us with cover.

Before Zane could turn around and see us, we ducked into the cover of a doorframe. The shop it belonged to was closed for Christmas day, so there was no one there to notice us crouched in front of it.

“So how are we going to do this?” I hissed to Hunter, leaning into the street to see Zane walking further and further away from us. We were going to lose sight of him if we didn’t do something soon.

He shrugged wordlessly. He was equally as stumped – the street was too empty to be able to follow the vampire properly, but too full for us to corner him and pin him down.

I peered around the doorframe again. “He’s about to turn down another street,” I said. “We’ll follow after him then.”

“We’re going to lose his trail sooner or later,” Hunter muttered. “We need to strike soon.”

“Okay then we will. We’ll just wait a bit longer.”

As soon as Zane rounded the corner, we were up on our feet again. As a vampire, Zane would be able to hear us approaching if our footsteps were too loud or if we ran, so we were forced to keep a normal pace, treading lightly. It made for slow progress, which wasn’t exactly ideal.

We reached the end of the street just in time to see him disappear into a narrow alleyway, barely visible between two tall buildings.

“It’s now or never,” Hunter said grimly.

Without pausing for discussion we both broke out into a sprint, running across the road towards the alleyway. Though there was no real point in it anymore, as the vampire would surely hear our increased pace and know something was up, we still tried to keep our footsteps light.

Instead of going straight after the vampire we both veered to the side, towards one of the buildings that formed the alleyway and the fire escape attached onto its side. We both knew that it was our best bet.

I started to scramble up, painfully aware of each loud creak the structure made under my weight, until I had reached the ledge a few metres up that ran all the way round the building. I hoisted myself up onto it, reaching for the wall to stop myself from sliding down the slightly angled surface. A thin layer of snow had settled on it, making it even more dangerous than it already would’ve been. I was just relieved that the snow had stopped falling for now. Slowly, I began to inch around the building until I had a clear view of the alleyway.

Zane Richards was walking slowly, as if he was in no rush, though he surely couldn’t be enjoying the putrid smells of rubbish and smoke or his grim, dark surroundings. Vampires loved the luxurious, not, as most stories seemed to hint, the dark and the cold.

The ledge shuddered underneath me as Hunter clambered onto it. He straightened up, nodding at me slightly. I began to inch around, him following right behind me.

Despite the vampire’s slow pace we were still a good distance away from him, and I tried to navigate the ledge as quickly as I could without making too much noise or falling off. I was crouched close to the ground, trying to keep my balance while simultaneously attempting a sort of awkward run. I could feel Hunter behind me keeping pace and I was determined not to look bad in front of him. After our time ice-skating I’d had enough of him laughing at me to last a lifetime.