Rival Read Free

care as I clatter down the
stairs to the level where Erick parked his truck. It's daylight
outside, at least for a little longer, but in this enclosed space,
it's dank and shadowed.
    It puts me on edge a little, which I
why I notice the movement at the far end of the garage. Could be
someone going to their car, but after a moment I still don't see
any taillights flash or hear an engine crank.
    "Erick?" I call out over my
shoulder.
    There is more muted conversation
between the boys, and they edge marginally closer, but I'm still
ahead.
    A faint shuffling sound turns my head
the other direction. What was that movement a couple of rows
over?
    Again I strain my ears, listening for
the sound of a car door closing. Silence.
    I'm on the tips of my toes, spine
tingling. A warning sign my dad always told me not to
ignore.
    I wish I had a weapon on me. But since
I'm not an official Chaser yet—thanks to my mom's stubborn
insistence that I stay out of the family business—I've got
nothing.
    But Erick probably does.
Maybe not a gun, but a knife or something .
    I whistle a heads-up back to my cousin.
At the same moment, a tall, thickly-built guy with unwashed,
scraggly blond hair stalks out between two cars, only a few yards
ahead. Coming right at me.
    The sharp planes of his face tell what
he is even before I register the pitch-black eyes and bared
fangs.
    Vampire.
    Before he died, my dad trained me in
all kinds of defensive and combat fighting. But that's all it was.
Training. I've never gone against a vamp in real life.
    Until now.
    There's no hesitating as he lunges at
me. I duck to one side and hear the hiss of air as his strike
misses very close to my head and shoulder.
    "Emily!" Erick shouts behind
me.
    Footsteps pound on the pavement, but I
only get a glimpse of the boys approaching. I've got to keep my
focus on the monster coming at me again.
    I glimpse two more vamps, a girl and a
guy with a crew cut, come out from among the multitude of cars,
rushing the boys. I don’t have time to see what happens to them,
because the vamp that attacked me tries a grab this time. I slide
past his reaching claws and use a nearby car's bumper to climb and
vault into a backflip, arcing over the vamp and landing behind him.
I shove between his shoulder blades, and he tumbles between the two
cars.
    I can’t let down my guard. I know he’s
getting right up.
    Vamps heal quickly, so they're hard to
kill. With a weapon, you can inflict a death-wound by targeting the
heart or head.
    Without a weapon...? I'm on defense,
and I don't like it.
    Heart pounding, half-panicking, I jog
backward, scanning the ground for anything I might be able to use.
Piece of broken glass from a previous fender bender? Gun someone
left behind?
    Didn’t think so.
    Yards away, Erick grapples with the
female vamp, silver glinting in the low light. He must have a
knife. Closer, Brett kicks the last of the three, the crew cut
male, and the move sends it to its hands and knees. But it gets
right up.
    "You know these guys?" he asks over his
shoulder, out of breath.
    Probably asking because they attacked
me first.
    "No!"
    With three of them coming
after us, they must’ve targeted Erick or me as Chasers. Probably a
case of wrong place at the wrong
time .
    Brett turns a nice roundhouse and
clocks the vamp in the head with the heel of his cowboy
boot.
    Watching him street fight in his cowboy
garb is a little unsettling.
    A normal human would've blacked out
from the hits Brett is getting in. But the vamp just shakes it off
and keeps coming, this time baring his fangs at Brett.
    "What the—"
    I've lost focus, and the blond vamp
comes at me from the side. I see him before he gets his hands on
me, but can't get completely out of his way. He tackles me, sending
me forward.
    I cry out and stumble right into Brett,
almost taking us both down, but he steadies me with a hand at my
waist.
    For a moment, everything
seems to stop around us. His blue eyes lock on mine, and I see a
steady