Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

103 - Rebecca

Katrina ran through the front door holding my hand. I didn't know when she'd grabbed it, but she forced me to follow her at record speed into the red room. She burst through the door, only letting go of me when she saw Sam sitting in their normal spot. He knew what she was going to do so he got up and met her halfway. She threw herself around him in a hug and squeezed, by the look of it, as hard as she could.

I couldn't focus on them, glancing at Colby's chair. He wasn't there. I didn't think he had been since last night when he went out on that job with Sam. That made my stomach twist a little bit, my lip automatically drawing between my teeth.

Sam looked at me over Katrina's shoulder and smiled softly. "He had to sort something out, he'll be here soon," he told me. I pretended not to be relieved by the information as I dropped my backpack by his chair and laid across it like he did. It was comfortable so I saw why. With one hand behind my head, I pulled out my phone, 'uninterested' in anything they were saying.

Really, I was listening to Sam tell Katrina about what happened. He and Colby had gone out for a job alone because he didn't want my boyfriend to lock himself in his room—he'd forced him out. They were just doing a simple, ten minute job at first but it unraveled to be a lot more. Colby had ran across someone called Julian, who Sam said they'd fought in the past. Julian caused problems and since Colby was riled up, they spent hours chasing him around LA and attacking him. He was fighting back, of course. They managed to corner him and considered bringing the group for some 'fun'—Sam wouldn't say what—but he managed to escape. Sam was baffled that he was able to get the slip on them so many times—he suspected someone else was helping him somehow, though they'd never seen anyone else.

"Who could have been helping him? I thought Julian didn't have any friends in LA." Katrina questioned, frowning.

"He doesn't," Sam agreed, "which is why we were so confused. Colby's investigating it; said he has a hunch. He wouldn't tell me what it was, though."

"Why?"

Sam shrugged. "He likes working alone. And I think he just wanted to stay out of the house for a while. He'd kill me right now if he knew Rebecca was here with us and without him."

I glanced at Sam, catching Elton's gaze along the way. He'd heard what Sam said and was smirking at me, his head tilted to the side. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my phone: I didn't feel like being under his gaze.

Unfortunately, there was little that was interesting on my phone and I found myself listening to other conversations instead. Like Kevin as he discussed some girl he'd bitten recently. "I'm thinking, right, that crazy girls have some sort of strange brain chemistry and that translates into their blood. They smell and taste so much better."

Mike nodded his agreement. "There was this girl I ran across the other day. Total nutter, raving on about some creature with fangs—she obviously ran into a vampire and hadn't handled it well. But she smelt great and tasted ten times better. I didn't stop."

Cassie frowned a little. "You didn't?"

He scoffed. "No, why would I?" I felt a shiver down my spine and I couldn't help but glance at him. He didn't notice me looking, but Reggie did, and he quickly turned to Mike with a frown matching Cassie's.

"Because we don't kill people if we don't have to, Mike." He was saying this for my benefit, so I wouldn't freak out. I wasn't going to anyway but Reggie didn't know that.

I kept my eyes on my phone as Mike replied. "Whatever. Does it really matter? Add another line to the tally. She was nuts, anyway."

Elton shook his head in disappointment. "You should have brought her back here, let us share." Another shiver down my spine.

Mike snorted. "Nah, bro. I couldn't share someone who tasted like her. I mean, I could have kept her alive and gone back for more, I guess. But I was so hungry. I couldn't help myself."

"You really should have kept her around if you liked her taste that much." Griffin pointed out as he lifted his head from Xepher's shoulder for a moment to join the conversation. I noticed him look at me out of the corner of my eye before he hid away again.

"Do you ever consider one of these girls might be your One?" Cassie asked stiffly. Now I was listening.

"No way. I would know. Everyone else did." I fought the frown trying to come over my face.

Sam turned away from Katrina to also join in. "Not everyone." He pointed out, and I could have sworn he nodded his head to me. I tried to ignore it; to push it away. One. I couldn't get that word out of my head. What did it mean? Everyone else had a One; their One. Or at least most of them did, if Mike didn't. I wished I could have turned around and asked them what they meant but I decided I'd leave it for Colby. He'd yet to explain a damn thing after all.

As I was about to do something else, my whole body felt like it flushed with heat. I felt my heart get faster and my nerves stop working. I felt frozen, lying across Colby's chair. My breathing became difficult for half a second, like something was squeezing at my lungs. Flashes flicked through my head of a room, chains, dirt, blood—very, very dark blood.

The flashes got clearer and clearer and I saw Colby—just a glimpse of him. Lots of blood. A dark room. Chained to the wall. Painful grunts. Sharp wood.

It was all so much but I couldn't move or tell anybody what was happening.

My hand jerked.

My eyes stung.

My chest heaved.

And then I screamed.