Chapter 55 CHAPTER 55
The ringing in my head started when Kael and I exited the portal.
I realised my skin looked different, darker. As though I'd gone to a different world and came back with proof.
He drove, turned on the radio to a classic music radio station and left me to go over the file again as though I'd not memorised every ink drop on it.
But all of that was done with different mindsets, none of which mattered now.
Now I was supposed to go and make this man stop existing.
He drove past our house and it felt like a year ago when Aunt Kelly drove in here with me and my bag of everything from my hidden life.
Who knew I'd be headed out to become a killer?
When I'm not rereading Ethan Reeve's file, I'm going through the training simulations in my head, planning again and again, how to get the job done.
Because that's what it is now.
In this cruel world I was thrown into, an eighteen-year-old needs to become a killer to earn her place in the world.
Wild, huh?
My fingers shook when Kael stopped the engine and got out of the car.
I looked up and we were behind a building, plain, ordinary.
Empty.
I got down as well and went to the back of the car but he already got my bag out for me and he handed it over.
"Be quick and decisive," he said to me in a low tone, he's not Pack so he can't speak to my mind.
My wolf hovered as I grabbed the bag from him and began walking into the building.
I already knew what to watch out for, cobwebs without spiders, eerie silence and sometimes a grumble of a hungry throat.
The first sign I got was the cobwebs.
This was an apartment building and it looked to have been emptied out for a while now, the walls used to be yellow but now, soot, dust and mold reigned free so webs are expected.
But even with my wolf hearing, I don't hear the usual crawling of insects.
So I know it's time to make myself invisible.
I slipped into one of the rooms, it was dark and hospital beds were scattered on the ground with bones on the floor.
Immediately, I take the calab leaf and chew it.
It's to make my scent disappear but the effects only last for five minutes and I won't be able to chew another until tomorrow.
It's poisonous.
I felt my scent fade and I let my ears roam over the whole place, searching for the location.
"Gotcha," Sabrina muttered, too excited for my liking.
But she's right, the vampire was in the fifth room to my right and I need to lure it out.
I dropped a stake at the door and moved all the way into the darkness and hid behind a door, watching.
Slowly, the scent coverage on it faded away and I heard the vampire move.
In seconds, he was here and I nearly gasped out loud.
He was exactly like his picture, full of life, normal.
If you ignore his heightened speed and the way he was looking at the stake like a maniac, you'd mistake him for a human.
"Now Sera, this is our chance!" Sabrina urged me as he bent down to smell the weapon.
I didn't move, tears prickling my eyes.
"Sera! The scent cover will wear off soon!"
"But he's... He's not trying to kill us."
"This isn't the time to whine about mortality, give me the reins if you can't do it!"
I sniffled, and wiped my eyes, two seconds that marked my doom.
Because that's how long it took me to realise I'd made a sound.
Before I could breathe again, claws dug into my hand and pulled me out.
"Fresh, delicious," he sneered as my body was thrown to the ground.
"Sera snap out of it right now or I'll fucking shift and never let you take control again!"
Sabrina's screams finally reached inside of me right as the vampire bent down to my face.
He smelled me.
And then made a look of disgust.
"You're not human and not even a wolf. Your blood will be bitter but I haven't had anything to drink in a while and I'm starving."
Finally, my brain realised fear wasn't going to get us out of this and dying wasn't on my to-do list today.
I kicked him in the nether region, hard.
He let me go instantly and I ran outside, pulling out my actual stake, polished and ready.
His eyes morphed to red and his fangs hissed at me.
He rushed to me, closing the distance in one deathly second
I stabbed aimlessly, fear still clinging to me tight.
He groaned as the stake caught his ribcage.
"Hmm halfling, you missed."
And then he grabbed my entire form and threw me down the stairs.
I felt my bones breaking upon impact.
"Ignore it, we'll heal soon!" Sabrina tried to cheer me up but the vampire had already closed the distance again.
"You know, I like playing with my food, but something about you rubs me the wrong way. I'll even drink your blood when you're dead."
Shit, this is what everyone meant by my life or his.
I pulled out another stake and rushed at him, intentionally embedding it in his lap.
He grabbed the hand I used and broke it.
I screamed.
"I love it when they scream," he chuckled.
But I was moving, faster than should be possible with my bones jutting out of my flesh.
Pushing my body on him, I staked his heart from the back with the other hand he didn't see.
His gasp of shock was satisfactory
I fell to the ground as he disintegrated underneath me, my body crashing on top of his ashes.
"I thought I'd miscalculated and sent you in prematurely," I heard Kael's voice at the foot of the stairs.
"My hand," I groaned, white-hot pain replacing that ringing in my head.
"You'll be fine," he said, pulling me up and carrying me out, "you're now a part of us and you'll heal faster."
But that's not what I was worried about.
Something tells me someone else is here and they saw me kill somebody probably dear to them