Rival Read online

  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 determination in their depths. For a moment, I feel it. A connection. We're going to get out of this. Together.

  When I turn back to face the vamp, I'm back-to-back with Brett. And much steadier.

  I sweep out a low kick, knocking the vamp's feet out from beneath him.

  "Don't let them get too close," I warn Brett. I don't want to imagine what their fangs would do to either one of us. Slice right through an artery, probably.

  "Yeah, no kidding." He grunts, maybe getting in a blow of his own.

  But the vamps just keep coming at us, and neither of us has a weapon to dispatch them.

  Until the blond vamp in front of me reaches into an inside pocket on his bulky jacket and comes out with a wicked-looking blade.

  I curse.

  "Emily?" Brett asks over his shoulder.

  Very faintly, I can hear the sound of sirens. Just what we need for our little party, human cops to mess things up.

  "Mine's got a knife," I tell him.

  4 - Brett

  My stomach drops at Emily's words. That punk pulled a knife on her?

  These guys must be on something. It's the only explanation I have, because they've taken hits that would've made a linebacker cry like a baby, but these dudes just keep coming at us.

  Emily moves. She's behind me, so I can't see her as I face off with crew cut in front of me. Almost like she jumped back.

  It revs my anger that someone is trying to gut her.

  Crew cut growls. Literally growls. He swipes at me, and I'm pretty sure his claws glitter in the dim lighting.

  But that's impossible, right? People don’t have claws.

  "Erick?" Emily calls out. She ducks to the side as I throw a punch at my opponent. His cheek crunches in, making him look ghastly. Blood spills from a gash on the side of his face.

  And he's still not stopping.

  Erick grunts. Obviously, he's having a little trouble getting away from the girl attacking him.

  Who are these freaks, and why did they come after us?

  Emily snakes her arm through mine and jerks me to one side, taking me to my knees. The jolt of pain is nothing compared to what the bruises are going to feel like tomorrow.

  I look up to see the blond-haired punk with the knife is standing where I just was.

  She saved me.

  I can't help grinning. She's not immune.

  I push back to my feet. If we weren't fighting for our lives, this might be fun.

  "Wanna try something different?" I ask.

  She nods, eyes on the two guys, now converging and coming at us together.

  I bend over and lace my fingers together, make myself into a human catapult. Her eyes widen for a moment, then glint with a shimmer of a smile. She tucks one foot into my hands, knee bent for her springboard.

  "Don't kick me," I tell her, then launch her airborne.

  Our attackers weren't expecting it, and she flies right over their heads. They watch her, necks bending backwards, mouths agape. Couple of brain surgeons, these two.

  In their distraction, I rush them, aiming for the shoulder of the one holding the knife.

  And, miracle of miracles, it flies out of his hand, clattering on the ground beneath a nearby car.

  Emily wastes no time getting back in the fight. She kicks crew cut in the back of one knee, and he buckles.

  The one I've got ahold of reaches behind and grabs the back of my shirt, going down but taking me with him, slamming my back into the pavement and knocking the air out of me.

  His head is close to mine, and all I can think about are those glinting fangs. They can't be real, right? But they sure didn’t look like those plastic things you find in stores at Halloween.

  "Brett!"

  Emily's voice rings in my head at the same time I hear a fainter, "Emily!" from her cousin.

  I'm flat on my back, and I don't totally get what happens next because it goes so fast, but I'm pretty sure Erick throws her his knife. She grabs a silver blade out of the air and slams it down, right into the blond guy's face.

  His grip on me goes slack.

  She doesn't hesitate as she rips the knife free, spurting blood, and stabs it into crew cut’s heart. His eyes widen, and he collapses in a heap on the concrete floor, face frozen with that shocked expression.

  And then it's just the two of us, staring at each other, breathing hard.

  I’m numb. All I can feel is the heavy weight pressing me down. Did all that really just happen?

  Sirens blare, echoing off the walls, like a police car has turned into the parking garage.

  Are our attackers dead? Are we in trouble? It was self-defe
nse, obviously. But are there security cameras to prove that?

  My mind spins as I shove the guy off and sit up.

  I hear Erick’s footsteps as he runs toward us and remember—he was fighting the girl. Where…? And then I see her body, crumpled in a pool of blood, leaning against the concrete wall.

  Erick’s words are distant, even though he’s right in front of me. "We've got to get out of here," he pants. He's roughed up, bloody and bruised on one side of his face, and his shirt is torn.

  "There's no time." Emily rises from her crouch, glancing around like she's looking for a place to hide.

  I push to my feet. "Shouldn't we talk to the cops—?"

  "No!" they both cry, silencing my question before I can finish.

  Three people are dead. I think so, anyway. We can’t just walk away from this.

  But Emily and Erick only seem to want to escape. The sirens are getting even louder, making my already-aching head throb even worse.

  “Where’s your car?” Erick demands.

  I point to my ride. "This is me."

  My cycle is tucked between two cars, and I wheel it out quickly. With the time and parts I've put into the engine, I know I can outrun the cops if I need to. But I’m still not sure this is the right thing to do.

  Emily's eyes go wide. "You have a bike?"

  I can't tell if it's admiration or fear in her voice. I straddle the cycle, still unsure about just leaving a crime scene. Those guys attacked us, not the other way around.

  Erick trots off toward his big silver truck and the four-wheeler in back. There's no way he's getting that thing out of here unnoticed.

  Emily stands closer to me, poised on the balls of her feet like she’s ready to run. The whole time she was fighting off our attackers, she was fierce. But now, her eyes are big and luminous. She’s afraid.

  Seeing her like that makes my insides clench.

  Erick tosses something at her, and she catches it by reflex as it slams into her gut. A mud-splattered helmet that matches her jeans.

  “Get her out of here,” Erick orders me.

  “Why don’t we just tell the truth about what happened?”

  "We can't…" Emily’s indecision and fear is obvious in her hesitant words. She holds the helmet in one hand. “Please, can you take me home?”

  I care about her. It’s the overriding factor that makes me jam my helmet down onto my head.

  The sirens are so loud now that I can't hear anything, especially with the helmet on. Lights start flashing on the walls. I kick the bike on.

  Erick says something to her, but he’s in profile to me and I can’t make out his words. Something passes between them. A family thing?

  Then she pulls on her helmet and throws her leg over the bike behind me.

  "Hold on!" I shout.

  I jam it into gear and blast up the row of the parking garage. I go up, because I know the cops will be looking for someone going down, past them. Fortunately, this is one of those one-way garages.

  On the next level, we buzz through the rows of cars, then descend through the empty exit ramp. The cops haven’t blockaded it yet.

  I speed through the mall traffic and onto city streets and suddenly we're clear.

  Emily clings to me the whole time. Even with everything else going on, the three dead people back in the garage, the police chasing me, I am still so intensely aware of her.

  There's going to be hell to pay later tonight. Coming off an adrenaline rush like this will throw my joints out of whack. I may not be able to walk tomorrow.

  She’s got a lot of explaining to do. Who were those guys, and why did we run?

  But at this moment, with her arms around my waist...

  All of this might be worth it.

  5 - Brett

  Halfway to Emily's ritzy neighborhood, and I'm still waiting for the police helicopter to shine a light down on us, or a group of squad cars to appear, blocking our way.

  But nothing happens.

  I'm trying to reconcile everything in my mind. We were leaving the mall, minding our own business, when some guy attacks Emily, and his friends come after Erick and me. Knives are drawn. I saw Erick with one, but was it his? Or did he get it from his opponent? And somehow, our three attackers ended up dead.

  Oh, and they seemed to be... superhuman. With fangs.

  But shouldn't we have stayed and talked to the cops? Told our side of the story? How come Erick stayed to take the blame? Why did Emily let him?

  All of it whirls through my brain, rushing like the wind against me on the bike. I can’t make sense of any of it

  And still, no cops. Nothing happens at all.

  Nothing except Emily clings to me, leaning into every turn like she was born to be on the back of a bike. With me.

  This afternoon was supposed to be a last hurrah. Get her out of my system.

  And she did insult me, ignore me, and basically make it known that she's not interested.

  Except.

  Except there was that moment in the dressing room, and another when we fought together.

  Can I take hope from two measly seconds in an afternoon of her obvious dislike?

  I don't know.

  I've spent too much time mooning over Emily. Either she's interested or she isn't. I'm ready to move forward—or move on.

  She's a hard nut to crack. She keeps everything so close. We were friends when her dad died and I don't remember her crying. Not once.

  We hit a residential area that's a notorious speed trap, and I shift the bike to a lower gear. After all the effort to avoid the cops, it would suck to get pulled over for speeding now.

  The road winds a little, then we hit a straightaway that dips through some woods. It's twilight and beautiful. Fireflies blink in a slow, dazy dance.

  We're only doing thirty, and at the slow speed, Emily removes one of her arms from my waist.

  What's she doing?

  It's clear ahead of me, so I turn my head and see her reaching out, waving her fingers in the wind like a little kid.

  Like she's having fun.

  It's only a few seconds before we hit the end of the woodsy area, but I can't help myself.

  I slow down and pull a u-turn right in the street. This time, when we drive back through the fireflies, I drive as slowly as I can without spilling the bike onto the asphalt.

  The fireflies thicken around us.

  I look back again.

  She's leaning out to the side a little, and I'm at the perfect angle to see her eyes through the visors in both our helmets.

  Her gaze is unfocused, far-off. Maybe she’s lost in a memory or something.

  This is why I'm still in love with her, even after all the cold shoulders.

  Emily is magic.

  I hit the end of the street and turn down a side street, putting us back on track to reach her house after the little detour.

  And my gut is tight as a rock.

  I know. I’m going to find out what she’s hiding. Why we left Erick to take the fall for those three dead guys.

  I'm not walking away from Emily.

  Not without a fight.

  6 - Emily

  Brett pulls his bike through the massive front gate of my mom's sprawling two-story mansion and kills the engine behind her Jaguar sedan in the curving drive.

  I step off the bike and avoid his gaze as I take off the helmet and shake out my hair. Between the morning riding dirt bikes, afternoon fighting for our lives, and the evening ride back home, my braid has fallen apart.

  I don't know what has me more shaken. My first two kills or sharing a moment with Brett on the back of his motorcycle.

  “Thanks for the ride," I mutter, swinging my helmet next to my thigh.

  "Really?" His voice is muffled by his helmet until he yanks it off. "That's all you've got?"

  His annoyance startles me into looking up at him. The first good look I've gotten since the fight. He leans casually against the bike, long legs extended in front of him. One kne
e on his jeans is ripped, and I don't think it's a fashion statement. He's got rust-colored blood staining the shoulder and halfway down his shirt. One side of his jaw is scraped, like it met the pavement when the vamp took him down.

  I don't even want to think about the moment of terror I felt when the vamp had his teeth this close to slitting Brett's throat.

  "You hurt?" I ask, motioning to the scrape.

  "About as much as you," he returns, pointing.

  I look down, following his extended finger, and there's a bloody scrape across the back of my knuckles. I don't know how it happened, maybe rolling on the ground. I don't remember hitting it.

  He touches the back of my hand with the tip of his index finger. Just a brush, really, but I feel it all the way to my toes.

  It unnerves me.

  "Emily?"

  I'm half-relieved to hear my mom's voice. A glance over my shoulder shows the massive front door opening.

  When I turn back to Brett, I realize exactly what she's going to see when she opens that door—the two of us, bloodied from a fight.

  And she has expressly forbidden me to Chase, so I can just imagine the punishment. Grounded from the upcoming tournament. I’ve got to fight. I’d like to think tonight will be enough to show Uncle Felix that I belong in the family business—except for the mess I left Erick to clean up. Allowing human involvement, like the police, is a big mistake.

  I need the tournament to prove I should be fighting. Plus, I’ve been training for over a year for it. I can’t miss it. So I can’t let her see the blood—that’s what propels me forward. Into his arms.

  His eyes widen, but he catches me anyway, hands resting loosely on my waist.

  "What are you—"

  He’s significantly taller than I am without heels on. I stand on my tiptoes, wrap my arms around his neck, and pull his head down toward mine. I cover his lips with mine.

  I meant it to be a quick brush of lips, a distraction for my mom.

  But I’m the one who’s instantly caught up in the heat of his mouth against mine. He takes advantage, angling his head and using one thumb to guide my chin down just so—and the sensation intensifies.

  "Emily!"

  My mom's shocked exclamation shakes me out of the kiss, but he doesn't let me go immediately. His arm around my lower back—how did that happen?—holds me close as he stares down at me with intense blue eyes.