Dark Secrets (98 page)

Before I could even
find the source of the sudden pain I felt, blood gushed out over my
fingertip.

“
Ooh.” Jason stood
over me, wincing. “That looks nasty.”

“
Ah!” I pinched the
edge of the partially detached nail, my hand shaking like glass in
an earthquake.

“
You’ll need to fold
that back, or it’ll come right off,” Jason said.

“
I know,” I yelled at
him, trying to use my thumb to roll the nail back in place, but
every time I touched it, it shifted and the pain intensified,
closing in around me as if I were in a red box.

“
Settle down.” Jason
took my hand, straightened my arm out to the side—away from my line
of sight—and…

“
Ah!” I screamed, but
it reduced to a tiny whimper as the agony receded. When Jason
released me, I doubled over, weeping breathlessly into my skirt. I
just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to die like this. Not like
this.

“
Ara, look at
me.”

I struggled to push
myself up to my knees, falling on my elbows each time.

The killer just
watched. I couldn’t even look at his face to see if he was enjoying
it. I felt pathetic and helpless, humiliated at my own whimpering.
But I couldn’t stop it. It just kept coming out.

“
Why are you crying
like that?” He grabbed my arm to help me to my knees.

I tried to speak, but
the words had no shape—just distraught sobs, like a hysterical
child. All anger had trickled away with realisation; he wasn’t
playing games. He really was going to kill me. This was real. This
was no book or movie where the girl gets rescued. I was going to
die here. Tonight. Even the distant sound of voices, having grown
in number, coming toward us, couldn’t be sounds of salvation for
me—merely a cruel, cold reminder that there was life beyond this.
And I would never know freedom again. “Please just let me go,
Jason.”

“
I can’t.”

I wiped the tears and
dribble from my chin. “Please. I had nothing to do with her death.
I—”

“
But your lover
did.”

“
No.” I covered my ears, shaking my head. “David’s not to
blame, either. It’s
you
. You loved her—you brought her into your world—you didn't
protect her!”

“
You know nothing!” I
felt only a sharp jolt, nerves stinging in the base of my skull as
he grasped a handful of my hair, pulling my face closer, his shaky
breath coming through his teeth in three short words. “You. Know.
Nothing.”

“
I know what you
are,” I said, arching my neck to stop my hair from coming out. “I
know the things you’re capable of.”

“
Then you can imagine
what I’m about to do to you.”

I tried to shake my
head. “I’m not afraid of you. You won’t hurt me. Emily told me that
you’re swee—”

“
You shut your mouth,
you horrible little human.” His fingers knotted tightly in my hair,
moving the flesh over my scalp, making my forehead
higher.

“
Jason, please.” My
fingertips slowly reached for his arm. “Please, look at me. I’m not
the enemy. I’m not the—”

“
One does not have to deserve the misfortune they suffer.” His
anger landed in my face in dots of saliva. “You were to die by
torture for his crimes, but now you will endure it more slowly for
your own mouthy impudence, you stupid,
stupid
girl.”

“
Ara-Rose!” Voices
echoed off the shallow valley. Jason’s grip on my hair eased until
he untangled his fingers gently from the loose remains and removed
his hand.

I looked up at him, my
scalp burning like the rage rising within me. “Go ahead. Do what
you want. It will never change the fact that Rochelle’s dead—and
all it will achieve is your own pain when David takes revenge on
you.”

Jason just sat beside
me on the ground. “Actually, my dear, the laws of our kind prevent
he should seek retribution for the death of a human.” He grinned,
seemingly pleased with himself. “The unlawful changing of one to a
vampire, yes—but not death.”

“
What?”

“
I have the right to
mutilate my kill in any way I see fit—as long as I eat you. The law
will not side with David this time. There is nothing he can do, and
he will have an eternity to reflect on the horrific way in which I
hurt you. Oh, Ara—” He rolled his head back. “It will kill him
inside; the images I will savour for him shall be etched into the
iris of his minds-eye for all time.”

“
No—that isn’t
fair.”

“
Life is not fair.
But you refuse to believe that, don’t you?”

I shook my head, the
anger becoming a physical form of hatred inside me. “I won’t let
you destroy my faith in—”

“
I
don’t need to destroy it,” he yelled. “I will destroy
you
instead, then
David’s hope, his faith in life, in
love
, will be lost
forever.”

“
No. You
will
let me go. I will not be the victim in your family feuds,” I
said with an unsteady cry, trying to sound
strong.

“
You know—” he
stopped and listened as the hunters came closer, “—you only make
this more of a game for me—to see how long I have to hurt you until
your faith breaks.”

“
And all that will do is prolong my life, because I
will
never
lose
faith. Love will prevail. David will come for me, and I will go
home and live my life, and you—” I spat the words out, “—will
suffer for eternity without Rochelle.”

He reached sideways
and knocked his forearm across my chest; I yelped out an odd
sounding whimper as I fell to the ground with my hands across my
ribs, unable to find my breath for a second. “Keep up this haughty
attitude, and I will see to it that death is not the worst you
suffer.”

I snickered miserably
to myself, pressing my hands to the ground, stretching my arms to
lift myself up. “What could be worse than death?”

“
Many things,” he scoffed. “How ‘bout if I ensure your
replacement lover finds his precious
baby
girl
in such disgrace that he will suffer
the nightmares of your naked, mutilated body, for the next fifty
years?”

“
Please! No!” I
jumped to my knees and grabbed his sleeve. “Kill me, do what you
want, but don’t let Mike see—I’m begging you.”

“
Begging?” he asked,
cold amusement oozing through his voice. “I gave you the chance to
beg, but you were too proud. Now I will give you no such fortune.
Curious though—” He rubbed his chin. “You care not for what I show
your true love, but for Mike—you wish him to be free of this
detest. Why?”

“
He’s good, Jason.”
Hysteria turned my words to hiccups. “He doesn’t deserve this. It
has nothing to do with him. Please just don’t hurt him like
this.”

“
Shh, hush now, sweet little girl. It will all be okay—for
you. You will be dead in a few hours, and all of this—the cold, the
dark, the fear of what his last vision of you will be—will all be
over.” Jason softened then and stroked my face, so gently. “How’s
this sound? Now that I know how much Mike means to you, perhaps I
will make sure that he finds you
revoltingly
displayed.”

As his laughter filled
the silence, images flashed in my mind of so many horrible
possibilities. I shook my head, trying to find words in the back of
my closing throat. I didn’t want Mike to see. I didn’t want his
last memory of me to be something horrible.

“
Let me paint the
picture for you.” He knelt beside me, tracing his finger slowly
from my chin to my collarbones as he spoke. “I could tear a line
down the centre of your body and peel you apart, leave your legs
spread, intact, so that when he finds your adulterated corpse, his
heart will give out, and he will fall to the ground beside you—and
die.”

I crossed my hands
over my chest and focused on the brown and green stains
discolouring my ball gown, blocking out the roar of his hilarity.
Mike would break. He
would
die if Jason did that to me. Already, my mere
death would destroy him more than anything in this world ever
could.

I had to escape—I
couldn’t let him do this to Mike.

“
Now, who says I'm merciless?” He continued to laugh,
relishing in self-amusement, while I gauged the distance between
his hands, sitting loosely over his parted knees, leaving open the
one place
no
man
was immune to pain. Then, with every ounce of force I could muster
from my weakened body, I lifted my foot and slammed it down into
Jason’s groin.

A balk of anguish rang
out into the night. The vampire folded in, clutching his weak spot,
and as I spun onto my hands and knees and jumped to my feet, his
fingers wrapped my ankle. I screamed, kicking them off, but jerked
away too fast, losing the grip on gravity. A wicked jolt sent me
down to kiss the grass a few feet away from him, and as the blow
wore off, I pushed up on my hands, spitting lawn clippings from my
mouth.

“
Get. Back. Here,”
Jason grumbled, so strained with agony I knew there was still
time.

I got back up,
stumbling onto my fingertips for a second before finding my
feet—and ran. Just ran, ignoring the sear of pain in my nail as I
hoisted my skirt above my knees, fighting for each step I took. I
wanted to look back. Wanted to see if he got up—see if he was
behind me. But I’d watched enough movies to know that would be my
final mistake. So I ran—my legs hot, shaky with adrenaline, making
them move faster than I knew possible but not fast enough; I
pictured the face of anger on the vampire behind me, feeling the
crawl of my skin as I imagined him rising to his knees, watching me
run—giving me a moment to believe I’d escaped.

Hope filled my chest
as I reached the border of the trees, my feet slipping for a second
on the skinny dregs of pine needles, and searched the darkness for
a shadow—a figure, a person that might have wandered away from the
hunting party. And the beat of my heart thumped so ferociously I
could hardly breathe, but I took a gulp of the icy night air,
shaping it to scream, “Hel—”

“
Nice
try.”

My body shot backward,
like a lasso had snagged my neck. The iron grip of the vampire cut
any hope of rescue, muffling my scream; only a whimper escaped,
lost to the empty silence of the dark night. No one would hear it.
I was too late.

I dropped to my knees,
trying to loosen his hold around my throat.

“
You cannot outrun a
vampire. It is pointless to even try.”

A series of consonants
rolled from the back of my tongue, trapped by his stranglehold, my
nose and cheeks pulsating with blood—like they were about to pop
open.

“
I want to kill you,
right here, right now,” he said through his teeth, his voice
quivering. “But I will not show you such mercy.”

Nearby, the hunters
finally came so close that I could hear their private chatters and
the instructions being called out to each one from the voice of my
fiancé. If they’d only been there two seconds ago they might have
heard me.

Jason squeezed my
throat tighter as I wormed my fingers under his.

Please, Jason,
I thought,
You’re
hurting me
.

“
Do you think I care?
If I had any compassion for your adversity before, you just
destroyed it,” he said, his grip easing. “Your blood will no longer
be enough to satiate my thirst for revenge.”

He moved quickly,
folding my chest across his arm while the other hand tore the back
of my dress open, leaving my skin bare to the prickly grass beneath
it as he threw me down onto my back.

“
No!” I coughed the
air from my lungs, nudging my elbows into his chest, but he
separated my hands in his tenuous grip and forced them onto either
side of my head.

“
I wasn't going to do
this to you, Ara, but I need him to see you suffer, and this is the
only way.”

“
Please—please
don’t!”

“
Keep begging,
human—” He slipped my dress quickly down my waist, jolting my hips
upward as he tore it past my legs and tossed it away. “It turns me
on.”

I wedged my knees
tightly together. “This is rape, Jason. This is worse than
murder.”

“
I thought you said
death was the worst one could suffer,” he said cynically, winning
the battle to compress me into stillness.

I shook my head,
panting heavily beneath his weight, my teeth so tightly knitted I
felt a chip come loose and fall under my tongue. I never even
contemplated this. I never even imagined he would be
capable.

I searched the grounds
for a distraction, digging deep for the training Mike gave me—for
the times he laid on me just like this and wouldn’t back down until
I broke free. But it was gone—all of it. I couldn’t sidestep the
paralysis of fear enough to think straight.