Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

104 - Tara

I smelt Rebecca's blood flowing through her body before it came out of her nose. She was frozen, her knuckles white as she held onto her phone. Her eyes were silver around the pupil, disrupting the smooth transition to brown. But I didn't know what was happening to her, just that everyone was looking at the deep red blood coming down through one nostril.

The second it touched her lip, I jumped out of my skin. Her phone hit her chest and she screamed, grabbing her ears like someone was yelling down them and falling instantly from the chair. She was clutching her head still, her screams coming out periodically. She had her eyes squeezed shut, but she seemed so out of it.

Even when I zipped to her side calling her name, she didn't so much as flinch away or call me a bitch. She screamed again and I tried shaking her but it didn't work. "Rebecca! What's wrong!" I demanded, forcing her to look at me. She managed to escape my hold and turn away from me. Her heart stuttered in her chest, her nails scraping on the floor.

I thought she might be dying in front of me. The blood coming out of her nose definitely made me think so. Was her brain frying? Her insides frying? What was that horrific smell?

Next thing I knew, she wasn't screaming but coughing. The smell got worse as she coughed harder and harder. I watched in disbelief as something black sputtered from her mouth all over the floor. It looked a bit like tar.

And then a tiny vine came out with it; a purple tint to the little bud on the end.

"Vervaine?" I whispered, confused. Rebecca covered her mouth as she gasped and tried to breathe again. Her heart was pounding in her chest, bringing my attention back to her. Blood was still under her nose but the stream had stopped.

"She's his One." I heard Sam whisper behind me as I dragged her over my lap. She let me, resting her head on my collar bone. She was struggling to breathe. I didn't look at Sam as he continued. "She's his One," he repeated, "he's been poisoned with vervaine."

Rebecca was so out of it that she didn't hear, which I was grateful for. I wrapped my arms around her shoulder and turned to Sam, terrified. "Is he... do you think he's dead?" I asked too quiet for her to hear.

He shook his head. "Vervaine can't kill Colby. But look how much is on the floor, he's been heavily poisoned. He might be knocked out."

"We have to help him," Corey announced as he jumped to his feet. I felt dread rising inside me. Colby was an asshole and I hated him for the most part, but he was changing very subtly, and seeing him and Rebecca together was right; meant to be. If he died now, Rebecca would be heartbroken and I doubted she'd really be able to function, what with the stupid One curse that would never leave her.

Sam looked grave, just as scared as me; as everyone. "We don't know where he is." He reminded us.

I jumped out of my skin for the second time when Rebecca lifted her head, barely able to move otherwise. She was just as weak as he was right now, and that scared me. But the strength of her voice matched the strength of every fast-paced beat of her heart in her chest. She looked right at Sam fearlessly. "I do," she said, "g-give me some paper."

Nobody moved. I turned to Elton and snarled, breaking him out of his stunned gaze. He zipped out of the room and came back with a pen and paper, handing them to me. I held them out to Rebecca; she managed to pull away from me and sketched something—a building I hardly recognised. But then she drew a logo so clear it was hard to deny where it was.

"The Crow Clan's place? Really?" Sam's head snapped up at the name, staring at the paper in Rebecca's hands. She didn't say anything and I saw the sliver appear around her pupils again. She flinched and whimpered, touching her finger to her temple.

"Fucking find him," she whispered desperately. "Ow, they're hurting him." Her voice became dire, her fingers curling around the arm of Colby's chair. Her knuckles were already white. I looked at Sam and we silently communicated a plan on the spot.

"All of you, come with me. Katrina, stay with Tara and Rebecca."

SAM

I zipped out of the house with the others in tow. Despite the absolute confirmation that Rebecca was Colby's One, none of us were happy. We had one thing in mind and one thing only: kill the Crow Clan. They'd been a problem in the past, but they'd never actually caused damage to any of our members, certainly not Colby.

Avoiding getting involved with the Crow Clan had been so important up until now, but knowing my best friend was being held back by them and tortured, most likely, was a step too far for me. Everything Colby'd told me about the clan fled my head about as fast as I ran through LA on a mission to find him and save him. I couldn't imagine, as I moved, how investigating Julian could have led him to the Crows, though we'd thought he was having help the whole time we were making his life harder.

To know now that the crows might have been the ones to help, I felt angrier.

The memory of the vervaine Rebecca coughed up in the red room made me shiver. That was how much they had poisoned Colby; how much they had tortured him. I couldn't bear the thought of Colby suffering like that. He may have thrown me into a couple of walls and floors, bossed me around and swore at me a few times, but he was still my best friend. He didn't deserve to be attacked like this; not after he'd found Rebecca. He'd done good by her so far, even after their short breakup. I couldn't let his chance at happiness fall short.

So I moved faster. The Crows had a very distinct house with a logo for their 'company' on the front door. That was the logo Rebecca had perfectly sketched. Anybody who walked in there never walked out—if they were humans. They were either changed or eaten depending on how the clan felt, and most of the time they were tortured and terrorised first. This was the only place where it happened, where the oldest and meanest of the vampires in the clan lived.

Now thinking about Colby being tortured had me moving even faster than before, and the others just followed suit. I couldn't let this happen to my best friend, no matter what he'd done previously. I had to get to him before he was hurt anymore.

Kevin put a blanket of fighting influence over all of us, just in case we weren't ready to fight for our leader. I was sure that we were, because we all agreed that Colby was the best leader we could ask for—and a good friend, when he wanted to be.

We weren't ready to lose that friend.