Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

 

 The vampires that usually crossed this far into dads’ territory were, most often, idiots. Neophytes didn’t usually carry guns, and less likely knew how to actually shoot one. Like Solara, I had been taught how, though I did not like it at all. The gun, even in my hands, was an anchor. The metal burned my fingers with its chill. The mechanisms inside scared me with their industrial proficiency.

And the sound.

I hated the sound more than anything. I hated waiting for it. I hated the anticipation of the controlled explosion and the way it hammered my eardrums.

Solara leveled the gun on me. My body turned so cold that I was certain I’d exhale condensation. I could almost feel it, the pressure of the nozzle against the back of my head from earlier today. But I had known then that Yuuhi wouldn’t shoot me.

I didn’t have such a reassurance now.

I held more still than the trees around us. Another car passed by, blinding me in with a blast of headlights, swiping up her hair in a vortex of wind, and then moving on.

Seconds dragged by when it finally dawned on me. I should have been dead already.

We’d all been taught to act without hesitation. When it came to rebuffing creatures like vampires, or worse, a moment’s hesitation meant death.

A shiver passed through my body. A thought spilled hot water into my veins, and for a moment, I thought maybe she couldn’t kill me in the end, that something held her back.

Instead, she rolled her eyes to the silver pepper of stars above and called out, “Yuuhi, you little shit.”

Movement from the corner of my eye.

I found the will to animate the gears in my neck just enough to see Yuuhi step out of the shadow of a nearby tree, his own gun raised in both hands—at Solara. Despite the tension in his posture, however, his face passed for the usual ease of which he had when sauntering around school. “Ooo, bitterness. Do I really deserve that?”

“Every drop of it.” Her aim on me never shifted. “And this is very touching, but you’re wasting your time. This is going to happen anyway.”

“Not like this, it’s not.” Warning snuck across his tongue. Jason’s hand lifted slowly to wrap his cold fingers around my rigid arm as Yuuhi ticked his head at her. “Put the gun down.”

“Fuck you. You put your gun down. You’ve no idea who I’m dealing with now, but the last thing you want to do is shoot me.”

That caught Yuuhi by surprise. He stared at her, lips parted, eyes focused, trying to see through her. Maybe he could. She might have been older than Toivo as a demon, but she was still a young vampire. He could easily force his way into her brain.

So why didn’t he?

Jason yanked on my arm. I acted automatically, allowing him to wrench me away from the scene. We dodged between the trees, fireflies and moths and other airborne bugs in our faces, his fingers digging into my flesh.

He wasn’t the most graceful, tripping on every twig and root and beetle in his path, finding every mammoth spider web to plow into, and he certainly wasn’t very fast, but his brain functioned better than mine did at the moment. I couldn’t deduce where he was taking us, couldn’t put the pieces together, couldn’t get my mind to see anything beyond Solara’s gun, until we crossed into the clearing of his backyard. A simple grass-scape surrounded an empty concrete patio. When we reached the sliding glass door, he whipped it open and shoved me inside first, then shut and locked it behind him.