“Tyana,” he whispers. “Not another word.”
Okay, so asking a question is not on the table. Something in his voice makes me realize that this is more than just a command. It’s both a warning and a threat, and I would do well to take what he’s saying seriously.
Okay, no problem.
I can do that.
I can do this.
I can listen to this guy, this man who is probably going to save my ass from whatever it is that’s coming, and I can do as he says. I don’t know if the vampires are going to kill the humans who live in Eagleton. Maybe it’s because I’m such a social outcast, but I feel a sort of strange disconnect as I see the humans being tied up and left in different places around the city.
I see people I know, but nobody seems to notice me as I let the monster lead me to the edge of the town. I wonder what happened to Joe. Did he escape before they came? Will he die with everyone else? What about Edna’s children? We weren’t really friends, but we knew each other. It’s strange to think that someone you know might be dying or dead in a matter of minutes. I’ve known plenty of people who have died, but it was never like this. It was never in a war-like situation filled with screaming.
There are several vampires standing by the front gate when Big Bad and I approach. One of them is the blonde-haired guy from yesterday: the one who looks like an elf from a fairy tale. He’s damn pretty to look like. I want to reach out and start playing with his hair, but I have a feeling he’d absolutely despise that.
“You found her,” he says coolly.
He seems neither pleased nor interested in the fact that yes, the other dude found me. Perfect. So now, I’m not only not wanted in Eagleton, but I’m also not wanted among the vampires. Am I ever going to be able to find a place where I belong?
Will there ever be a spot for me?
It kind of feels like there will not be.
“Not the time, Benjamin.”
“Then would be a good time, Eli?”
The man who is holding my hand, Eli, sighs audibly.
“Just take her,” he says, and he pushes me unceremoniously toward Benjamin before he turns and walks away. Where is he going? Where does he need to be? And why, oh why, is he leaving me with this stranger?
The elf-man catches me, but not in a romantic, kind, or gentle way. He’s rather rough with me, and I don’t know why, but somehow, it makes me feel this wild sense of being unwanted, which is horrible because it’s just a stronger version of the emotion I’ve been dealing with my entire life.
Unwanted.
After my parents died, Edna took me in, but nobody else wanted her to. My parents had lived off in the forest in another town, but it was destroyed. Edna found me wandering around in the woods after the town was slaughtered. She brought me in and swore to raise me as her own. The problem was that Edna already had two daughters, and neither one of them liked me. Nobody wanted their mom to bring in a stray, so I was always the outcast. Besides, Eagleton was phasing out children. Once we grew up, nobody else was allowed to have kids. If you get pregnant, you have choices, but if you want to stay in the community, having your baby isn’t one of them.
Edna took care of me well enough. She looked out for me as well as she could. Then she died, and I got to be the outcast a little bit more.
I’m silent as Benjamin spins me around and places his hands tightly on my shoulders. My back is now to his front, and I’m forced to watch the scene unfold in front of me. He doesn’t hide it from me. He doesn’t offer any sort of calm reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
“What are you going to do with them?” I ask, quietly whispering, but he doesn’t answer, and I don’t really expect him to.
Chapter 3
BENJAMIN HO
LDS ME STILL until Eli returns. I don’t know what he was doing, and I honestly don’t want to know. There are other vampires here: more than just the three I saw yesterday. I see them hauling and pulling the townspeople away from everything and everyone. People are screaming and crying and yelling. They’re looking around wildly, trying to find a way to escape, but the vampires methodically. They don’t seem to be killing anyone, and I don’t know if that’s bad or good. Instead, they’re tying people up and hauling them off somewhere: someplace I can’t see.
Maybe they have some sort of transportation. They must, right? They must have a way for taking the humans wherever it is that they’re going. I just don’t know, though. I can’t tell, and as hard as I’m trying to look, I still can’t see very much of what’s happening.
Eli comes back and looks from me to Benjamin and back again. Finally, he speaks, but he ignores me entirely.
“How was she?”
How was I?
Are they seriously going to talk about me like I’m not even here?