Chapter 5
Call it what you will; guilt? Compassion? Sheer delirium caused by the pain from my broken hand?
Whatever it was, for the rest of the day, I played nice. As hard as it was to believe myself, I was on my best behavior.
Instead of going home to crash into bed like I ached to do, I tromped back down to the basement to help Dave. Then I dawdled around the warehouse, and assisted Misty in organizing her medicine cabinets. I even followed what few orders Dustyn threw my way without question.
All in all, I was the perfect little minion.
Why, Dustyn and I had only gotten into one testy verbal exchange by the time the others showed up—but this time, it wasn’t my fault.
I had finished helping everyone else, and decided to do the one thing that might help myself. I couldn’t fight, not with my broken hand, and Misty was more of a healer than anything.
So if some vampires did happen to come our way, we’d be toast—right?
But, that’s when I got an ingenious idea to help save our asses should any suckers attack. I trusted the others, but I had learned the hard way that it was always better to be safe than sorry.
So, I came up with the perfect backup plan.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dave asked on his way past.
His arms were full of dusty old boxes—scavenged from the basement, I guessed. Inside were probably a bunch of archaic, old weapons that Dustyn intended to use tonight.
I shrugged—which was a feat considering the fact that I was currently standing on the seat of a rickety chair with a chain of knotted onions clutched in my good hand.
“Just an idea I had.”
Vampires in movies always had an aversion to onions. I was fairly confident that stringing up chains of the things around the windows and doors of the hideout would be the perfect defense. Considering the fact that I couldn’t spell for shit and with my injured hand I could barely hold a pencil, let alone a wooden stake.
Vampire repellent was the next best thing.
The idea had seemed like a good one in theory, but I should have already guessed that it probably wasn’t from the look Dave was giving me from above his armful of boxes—disbelief mixed with some pity.
He eyed my smelly handiwork with a sniff and said, “Dustyn isn’t going to like it.”
“Right,” I scoffed, and bent down to fish another onion from the bag of them I’d gotten from a nearby convince store.
The prospect of pissing off his Highness just made the task all the more thrilling. I grinned as I began to knot the end of the rope around the bulb’s slippery surface. “As if everything I do has to be cleared by King Dustyn.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically and made a ‘so what’ motion with my cast hand. My idea was pure genius.
Even Dustyn couldn’t possibly find anything to bitch about.
“Okay…” Dave seemed to want to say more, but he stopped himself.
Then, to my great surprise, he bent to set his stack of boxes aside and reached for a handful of onions.
“Any room up there?” He asked, head tilted with such a goofy grin on his face that I couldn’t help but laugh.
Then, a warm, tingly feeling began to prickle down my spine—like goosebumps…but better.
Oh, much better.
I wiggled to the edge of the chair, allowing him enough space to climb beside me.
Had he been anyone else, the chair would have toppled beneath the awkward weight of his lanky body, but Dave had the poise of a dancer. He made it seem easy as he stood without a wobble and grasped the other end of the onion-rope chain I’d spent half an hour making.
“A protection spell would be quicker, you know,” he said.
I could only watch in awe, as his slim fingers easily looped the rope around the body of an onion. Casually, he bent down for another.
Damn, the boy even made tying knots look as easy as breathing.
“Call me old fashioned,” I said smoothly. “I like working with my hands a lot better than dusty old magic, anyway.”
As if to contradict my words, the fingers of my good hand slipped clumsily with the rope while I tried to hold the onion steady with my cast hand.
After about a half an hour on my part, my pathetic onion chain of vampire protection was only about five onions long—hardly enough to cover the length of one of the warehouses’ windows.
I could blame the injury if I wanted, but sadly I knew I wouldn’t have made much more progress even with two good hands. Hand-eye coordination was something I just did not possess.
Dave sighed, and I glanced up to find him watching me with a twist to his mouth.
“You’re one strange chick, Mary,” he declared, before reaching down to cradle my hands in his own.
His touch was whisper-soft, easing my fingers apart and moving with them to thread the rope through the loops. He was gentle and sure, like an adult helping a child tie their shoe.
Only I doubted that any five-year old kid would feel the way I did now. My skin flamed, and I could only stare with a giddy feeling bubbling in my stomach as his slender fingers intertwined with my own.
“Like that,” he breathed over my shoulder. His was breath was warm and minty, like he’d been chewing gum.
I hadn’t been aware of how close he was standing until now. We were practically inches apart, separated by a hairsbreadth at the waist. One clumsy little shift would be enough to bring our bodies into contact.
Not that I was complaining.
Beneath my skin, there was this fuzzy little feeling dancing through my veins—I felt electric. Like any minute all the emotion might burst from me and I’d explode into a million feelings.
And I liked it.
Call me an idiot with a crush…but this was the best I’d felt all year. It seemed like nothing could bring me down from this hyper cloud nine.
Trust none other than Dustyn Grayson to rise to the occasion.
“What the hell are you doing?”
His voice, angry and tight, was enough to snap me from my happy cloud. I jumped, rocking the tentative balance of the rickety chair.
“What’s your problem?” I managed to gasp. I couldn’t see him from around Dave, but I knew he was there.
I could sense his pissed-off energy like a bat with sonar.
“Are you stupid?” He began in a voice of pure ice. “Or are you just that determined to piss me off?”
For once, in the face of his hostility my mind went blank. I really had no idea what I’d done wrong.
“I’m dialing 411, Dustyn,” I said, exasperated. I wobbled to regain my balance, and glared at his perfect face the moment it became visible. “What did I do, now?”
He was glaring as well—and not our usual love-hate-banter glare either.
His eyes narrowed even more, and I watched as they roved from me to the lumpy onion chain still clenched in my hand. His cheeks flushed an uncharacteristic shade of red.
“Maybe you are stupid,” he snarled at me, voice like a whip. He moved so quickly, I barely saw his hand as it shot out for my wrist, yanking me down to the floor—hard.
Had he pulled that move on any of the other slayers, they would have regained their balance in an instant. Maybe even swung around to punch him in the face for good measure.
I however, was a lot less coordinated. My body made a kind of broken-doll, flopping motion from the chair before my two left feet kicked in to send me stumbling face first to the floor.
“Ow!” I managed to squeak in anticipation, just before my body went crashing into the stack of boxes Dave had set aside. Lucky for me, something hard and solid nestled within the cardboard was there to painfully break my fall.
I winced as my arm punched through a gap in the topmost box, where inside my fingers brushed something cold and long and sharp that burned as it sliced through my palm.
Suffice to say, a broken hand would be the least of my problems today.
Behind me, I could hear a scuffle as Dave leapt from the chair.
“What the hell’s your problem?” A bitter edge laced his tone, which made me do a double take.
It wasn’t like Dave to sound angry. It was even less in his nature to talk back to Dustyn.
I could only scramble amid the pile of boxes to turn and watch as they faced each other off like two sparring bulls.
“My problem?” Dustyn slapped a pale hand dramatically over his chest, gray eyes mockingly wide. “My problem is that while the rest of us are too busy preparing for a fight that could very well be our last, you’re here playing string-up-the-friendship-bracelet with your BFF.”
Ouch. The caustic tone was vicious, even coming from Dustyn.
But it was the truth. Looking around, I could make out the various shadowy shapes of the others—back from wherever they’d been all day. They palmed various weapons, and milled within the corners, but their eyes were all on us.
Slowly, I could see them begin to crowd around, unable to resist the lure of drama.
“Look Dustyn,” Dave began. His tone was tight, as if he were speaking through clenched teeth, but that old reasonable calm was still there. He wasn’t trying to pick a fight. “She’s just trying to help—there’s nothing wrong with that—”
“Really?” Those gray eyes flashed like mercury as Dustyn stooped to rip my onion rope from the floor. He held it away from him, wrinkling his nose as if it was a smelly piece of underwear. “Did you tell her that onions don’t even repel vampires?” His head swerved in my direction.
I sucked in a breath.
“It’s garlic, you idiot.” He allowed my rope-chain to slip from his fingers to land on the floor with a plop. “But even that wouldn’t be enough. You want to know what onions do attract?”
He glared back at Dave as if this was somehow all his fault.
“Goblins.” Once again, he whirled on me, mouth set in a scowl. “Thanks to you, we’ll be fighting an infestation for weeks. Congratulations.”
With that, he stalked off, leaking rage into the air like perfume.
I heard Dave sigh as he turned to me, and reached for my good hand once I managed to fish it from one of the boxes.
“Are you okay?” Real concern glinted in those dark eyes.
“Fine.” I nodded, but was already shrugging him off to take a step forward on clumsy feet.
“Hey!” I shouted after Dustyn.
Testy verbal exchanges I could handle, but physical harm was crossing the line. When, he didn’t stop, I opened my mouth again, prepared to yell some nasty insult, but a quiet word from Dave made me go silent.
“It’s alright,” he said, hauling me back by the shoulder. “I was expecting this, eventually.”
“What?” I cocked an eyebrow, glancing up to find him staring after Dustyn with a frown.
“He’s held it together so far,” he added. “At least now his head will be clear for tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I pouted—I hate being in the dark.
Almost as much as I hated letting someone pick on me without putting up a fight. Every lesson that I’d learned as a kid on the playground told me to chase after Dustyn and rub sand in his mouth until he apologized.
But once again, I had that sinking feeling that I was missing something.
Dave filled me in, voice soft and careful. “Today’s the anniversary of when…it happened.” There was a raw sadness hidden at the depths of his gaze that I’d missed before. I didn’t know why, until he added softly, “when Maloney…”
“Oh.” He didn’t have to finish.
I bit my lip, suddenly glad that I hadn’t gone after Dustyn, and made whatever he was feeling worse by opening my big mouth.
He was grieving. I could respect that—if anyone could, it was me.
But that didn’t give him an excuse to go yanking people from chairs and slamming them into piles of pointy boxes. Absently, I rubbed at my shoulder only to have Dave grab for my wrist. His fingers were warm over my skin as he stretched my hand out in front of me.
“You’re bleeding,” he said by way of explanation.
Sure enough, a crimson stain was stretching across the length of my palm and dripping down in scarlet blobs to dot the floor.
“Shit.” I clutched the hand to my chest, only to smear a streak of red across the front of my jersey.
“Let me.” Dave reached for my fingers and spread them out flat to reveal the width of my palm.
The cut wasn’t deep, but the amount of blood was beginning to make my head spin. Sluggishly, I could feel the pain already churning up my arm.
Great. Another trip to Misty and that hated infirmary.
Could this day get any worse?
“Here,” a different voice chimed in. I looked up into a pair of impassive blue eyes, while a pale hand waved a wad of tissues under my nose.
“Thanks, Anna,” Dave grumbled, pressing the wad against my palm.
I watched the other girl carefully. Even in all the commotion, I hadn’t sense her approach—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d snuck up behind me on purpose.
“No prob.” Anna stood back, shaking her head so that her mane of perfect blond hair slid behind her shoulders. I didn’t miss the way her nose wrinkled as she glanced me over head to toe.
Anna was one of those people who were hard to read. Where I was an open book, she was sealed shut with chains and steel locks.
Out of the entire gang, she was definitely the frostiest member I’d come across, and I still didn’t know whether or not she liked me.
But, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and flashed a grateful smile.
“Thanks.”
She didn’t grin in return.
“No prob,” she repeated, her blue eyes trailing past me as if I wasn’t there. “Melissa and I just mopped…so….”
Apparently, making sure I didn’t bleed all over her clean floor was about as far as her condolences extended.
“Right.”
Gingerly I pulled my hand from Dave, crushing the tissues in a fist to capture the worst of the bleeding. Then, I turned shakily in the opposite direction, intending to head straight to Misty to make sure this thing didn’t get infected.
A broken hand. A laceration. Getting thrown from a chair by a grieving, psycho idiot in sexy black jeans.
This day just couldn’t get any better.
“Hold on.”
I slowed as Dave’s hand fell on my shoulder. Manually, he steered me back to his side. “You don’t want to miss this,” was all he said in explanation.
Curious, I glanced around, surprised to find the others gathered as well. Even Misty, was peeking out from the doorway of the infirmary, her blond head turned front and center.
There were eight of us total in this ragtag group.
Aside from Anna, Dave, Dustyn and Misty, there was Carlos, who winked at me when he caught me staring—but his usually cheerful brown eyes were grim. And Melissa, a feisty red-head with an uncanny obsession for guns, who stood close by along the wall.
There was also Sasha, a tough brunet who’d survived a werewolf attack in another state a few years ago. From what I’d heard, she had hitch-hiked all the way to the city just to join up with the Slayers after hearing rumors about a rag-tag band of teens hunting monsters.
We were a mixed-match cast of teens, who I doubted would have ever crossed paths outside of this warehouse. It was funny how something as grim as monster-murder had been enough to bring us all together…and kind of sad.
At the middle of our ensemble stood none other than Dustyn, himself. His face was still tight and angry, I could tell. But when he spoke, his voice held all the authority of a leader—which he was.
“Tonight…is not just any old mission,” he began. His voice was steady and quiet, but somehow it still managed to fill the entire spacious room.
Everyone went silent—even I felt my mouth seal shut.
“Today, isn’t just any day, either,” he added with a solemn bow of his head. All around, I saw the others copy him; heads downcast in reverence. “It’s a day to remember one of our own…cut down.”
I heard some sad murmurs of “Mel,” before Dustyn raised his head and the voices fell silent. He shrugged his shoulders, as if shaking the grief away.
“This isn’t just for her,” he added, voice hoarse. “It’s for all of us.”
He allowed his gaze to roam slowly over all of us. From Carlos leaning in the far corner, to Misty peeking from the infirmary, down to Anna standing tall by the window. I felt his eyes even brush over me, before he spoke again.
“No one else should have to life in fear of the creatures that go bump in the night.” He raised his fist, eyes blazing. “Let’s take out city back. Are you with me?”
Roaring shouts burst from all around—mine included.
Damn. The boy was good.
Even I couldn’t deny that he had skills, as the others raised their fists and cheered in camaraderie.
On the personal level, the guy may have had the social grace of a wasp—but he certainly knew how to move a crowd. Despite myself, I could feel a low burning hum in my chest. Energy charged through me like electricity, making me want to curl a fist and smash it into something.
I didn’t know Maloney, but Dustyn’s words made me want nothing more than to pick up a stake and help avenge her.
Until I remembered that I was bleeding. At a stab of pain, I looked down to find my own blood running in a river down my wrist; drip, drip, drip it went to splash upon the concrete.
So much for Anna’s clean floor.
Dave noticed with a grimace, and he reached for my shoulder again.
“Let’s get you to Misty.”
I nodded, secretly loving the warmth of his hand as it leeched through my sweatshirt. I allowed him to steer me forward—but we’d only taken a step before a voice called out from behind.
“I’ll take her.”
I didn’t have to turn around to recognize the voice. Shivers of annoyance ran down my spine.
“I’ve got it,” Dave said quickly, sensing my hostility. He tried to pull me after him, but a new hand took residence over my other arm—and I could sense that this new grip wasn’t letting go.
“It’s fine,” Dustyn insisted. His fingers tightened over my forearm—as if he owned me or something.
Excuse me for being a dim-witted female too feeble to make my own decisions.
God, where were we? The sixteenth century?
“I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind.” I wrenched away from both of them to prove my point. Annoyed, I took a step in the infirmary’s direction.
And promptly tripped over the shoelaces of my boot.
Only Dustyn was quick enough to save me from a nasty fall. His arm snaked around my waist, and with a firm tug he pulled me upright. It wasn’t the first time he’d kept my bones in tact today—a fact he didn’t let me escape.
“You must have a death wish,” he muttered. When I looked up he even had the nerve to roll his eyes.
As if I tripped all the time or something…
“I’ve got her, Dave,” he said, a little more forcefully, and Dave—the loveable idiot that he was—didn’t fight him on it.
God. At least now I knew who I didn’t want to have on my side fighting a duel to the death over my honor.
“Come on.” Dustyn yanked me forward, giving me no time to adjust my balance.
“Ow!” I whined—making the sound a little louder than necessary. He was pulling on my broken hand, but the pain wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t deal.
I did however fiendishly enjoy the guilt that crossed his face, as he loosened his grip with a sigh.
“Sorry—”
“You should be,” I said nastily. Head held high, I pushed my way past him, leading the way stomping toward the infirmary.
Misty saw me coming. She started to smile, but then her eyes widened when she noticed Dustyn in my shadow.
I thought I saw her mouth, ‘oh no,’ but it could have been a trick of the light.
“Mary—” Dustyn’s fingers brushed the skin of my arm, making me shiver.
“What?” I demanded. Crossing my arms, I whirled to face him with a scowl.
Only belatedly did I realize how stupid it was to look at him head on and still try to maintain any anger.
The boy was an angel without wings. Up this close to his perfection my mind went inexplicably blank.
I could only stare as those gray eyes took me in. They grazed over the planes of my face carefully, as if searching for secrets hidden along my skin.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a little softer this time. “I didn’t mean to…it’s just that, with tonight—”
“It’s alright,” I said on a sigh, holding up my bleeding palm to stop him.
He raised an eyebrow, not that I could blame him.
It wasn’t every day that I would stop him from groveling apologetically at my feet. I could hardly believe it myself.
But the memory of the dead Maloney was like an icy finger at the nape of my neck. There were bigger things at stake tonight than my reveling in Dustyn eating his pride.
That could most surely happen another day.
“Here.” I spoke without thinking, as I dug into the pocket of the sweatpants. I couldn’t hide a shudder as my finger brushed that cryptic note, but I pushed it aside until my fingers clasped something else, instead.
Dustyn stared suspiciously as I plopped a curled gray schrunchie onto his palm.
“Is it cursed or something?” His tone was wary.
Ha. As if I even had the skill to curse a person, let alone an object.
“It’s a lucky charm,” I snapped, letting it go only to realize that I’d covered the thing unintentionally in my own blood.
Whatever. It was the thought that counted, right?
“You’re worried about tonight,” I began in a serious tone. “You shouldn’t be. You and Dave and the others are the best—but if you need some reassurance…then I’ll let you borrow my lucky schrunchie.”
Lucky my ass. It was more like the fortunate schrunchie that had somehow managed to survive the wash. Besides, I wasn’t superstitious.
But Dustyn didn’t need to know that. He was worried; I could read it in his face. Stupid gestures like ‘lucky charms’ used to help me when my dad did them—slipping a so called ‘lucky’ penny into my hand when I was worried about a test for school.
I figured that even despite his ‘I’m such a badass’ ego, it might help him too.
I could be nice when I wanted.
“Lucky?” He eyed the hair tie as if it might bite him.
I didn’t know what I expected; for him to take the stupid thing to be tested for poisons? Instead, he surprised me by closing those smooth fingers over it and tucking it into his pocket.
“Get checked out,” he told me, nodding to the infirmary. “We’re getting ready to head out…”
His gaze narrowed and I was reminded of a teacher about to scold a problem student. “Remember. Stay here.”
“You got it,” I sighed, waving his worry away with my bloody hand. I had enough problems.
Despite my outer calm, inside I was freaking. In a few minutes…Dave was going to face a hoard of bloodthirsty vampires…
Hell, Dustyn, as much as he made my skin crawl, was up against something that I was pretty sure was even out of his league. Vampires weren’t like ghouls, who would fall to pieces with one well-placed slice of a knife. Or even werewolves, who could be dealt with from a safe distance as long as you had plenty of guns and silver ammunition.
I would have had to be made of stone not to be afraid.
But I was good at hiding it. I didn’t even let Dustyn see my frown as I turned away.
Misty eyed me quietly from the doorway to the infirmary. She’d been watching us this entire time, with an unreadable expression coloring those blue eyes. When she saw me, her eyes darted instantly to my bloody palm.
She bit her lip studiously and her fingers began to twitch on her lap—like a soccer mom getting ready to pull out the band aids.
“Let’s see it,” she said.
For the second time in only a day, I sighed and held out my injured hand for inspection.