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  Regardless, I wasn't going to let him hurt me.

  I pushed at him, as he kicked open my legs and settled between them. Pressing me tight against the car, he moved one hand down toward my jeans. I pummeled his back with my hands, but it didn't help. He was much bigger than I was. A football player used to being pushed at and beat down.

  I reached up to pull his hair. Burying both hands in his tawny streaked waves, I yanked as hard as I could. I was able to pull his head back, and when I did I could see the wild look in his eyes, as if he had completely abandoned reason. I pulled again and again, filling my hands with chunks of his hair but it didn't stop him from groping me and yanking on my jeans. One hand still wrapped in his hair, I brought my other around to scratch at his face.

  It was then that I noticed my nails.

  I usually had short ragged nails that I chewed on incessantly. Now they were at least two inches long, and sharp and a dark gray color. Lifting both hands to my face, I examined them, frightened by their implications. Was I turning into something else, something more alien?

  I was jostled out of my contemplation when Josh covered my mouth with his, sliding his tongue between my lips. But I sensed something shift in my mind. I was no longer afraid. I ceased to be Salem Vale, and became something entirely different, something more.

  A reserve of power filled me. Annoyance filled me as well as he kept poking and prodding at me. The boy certainly had to learn some manners. I dug my newly acquired talons into his shoulders and bit down on his tongue. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.

  Eyes wide, Josh tried to pull away, but I, this time around, had a firm grip on him. Silly boy. I released his tongue but continued to spike him in place with my nails.

  He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. Crimson streaked saliva coated his skin. "What the fuck?"

  "You've been a bad boy, Josh Kirby. And you must be punished." I smiled, finding a queer humor in the situation. The golden boy of Boise High was no longer in charge. I was.

  "What's wrong with your face?" He struggled against me, his movements forcing some of my talons to pop free and others to dig in deeper. Blood blossomed across his t-shirt.

  Everything had become clearer for me. I could truly see what was in front of my eyes. Josh no longer held his shape; he no longer existed as a person. He became just one big ball of swirling energy. The kaleidoscope of colors whirling and dancing around him made me smile. And there was that red, so deep, so opulent, enticing me. Take a taste, it whispered to me. I wanted to heed its call. I knew if I did I would finally feel whole, complete.

  And not so freaking hungry.

  My stomach cramped at the thought and I almost doubled over in pain. But it proved difficult with my nails stuck into Josh's broad shoulders. Pulling them out with a soft, sucking wet sound, I reached for his face.

  He tried to back away but I was too quick, too strong, now that I'd evolved into my true form. I pulled his face down toward me. Soon, I would feed. Soon, I would feel full, and not so empty. I opened my mouth and positioned it over his, making sure there was a tight seal over his lips. I couldn't have his life-force escape my meal, now could I?

  Within seconds of swathing his mouth, I could feel his energy drawing from him and into me. The taste was like ambrosia on my tongue. He tasted even better than Jamie had. Purer, sweeter, untainted by metal and ink.

  He fought against me, but my powers made me stronger than him. His attempts to push me back were futile at best. I held onto his face, my fingers digging into his scalp and sucked the life out of his body, soul and all. He didn't need it where he was going anyway.

  Greedily, I drank him in, euphoric on his vigor. He fought me hard, whining and babbling incoherently to let him go, but it was pointless. There was no escaping me. I was a being of power now, of sublime infinite supremacy and this mortal was nothing, insignificant. A food source.

  Besides, he'd earned his fate. If he had let Salem go when she'd asked him, we wouldn't be in the situation we were in now. It was the boy's fault. Not mine, not Salem's. I was only doing what nature intended me to do.

  His thrashing ceased, and cradling his head I brought him down to the ground. The gravel in the parking lot bit into my knees but I didn't feel it, not as pain anyway. I felt life, rushing through me. Everything became clearer, richer, deeper. Sounds pulsed in my ears like music. It always came down to that, didn't it? The music. The sounds of life and death. Infinite in their certainty.

  I wanted to inhale everything around me, to glory in its magnificence. But I was going to have to wait for that because I didn't see him coming.

  He pulled me off the mortal, his strength equal to mine, or greater. He was the same as I was. I knew him except he didn't look too happy to see me.

  Trevor glared down at me, his eyes as black as mine. "I warned you, Salem."

  Holding me by my hair to keep me still, he lifted his hand. And that's when I saw the hypodermic needle. A clear liquid dripping from its pointy tip. I threw up my hands in defense, but it was pointless, the needle slid in anyway.

  Chapter 13

  I screamed as the liquid shot into my neck. A searing, so excruciating I could hardly stay conscious, rushed down my neck, through my body, boiling my blood.

  "Hold still," Trevor hissed, as I thrashed about. "You'll break the needle off."

  I didn't care. The pain was immeasurable. Why was he doing this to me? Why was he torturing me?

  Finally, he slid the needle out and let go of my hair. I fell in a heap on the ground and curled into a ball trying to soothe myself from the agony ripping my body apart. Rocking, I squeezed my eyes shut from the gush of tears.

  I didn't understand how I could still be awake and aware as this awful, dark pain tore at every fiber of my body. It slashed and ripped and shredded, as if destroying me only to invent me all over again.

  I thought endorphins were supposed to kick in and lull me into unconsciousness. I didn't think a person could withstand such torture without going completely mad.

  Maybe that was just it. Maybe I'd already gone stark raving mad.

  I rocked and rocked, mumbling incoherently, eyes shut, fingernails digging into my legs, until finally, blissfully the pain subsided and I could reason. Well, as much as I could before.

  I blinked open my eyes and stared up at Trevor. He was standing over me, frowning, that damnable needle still between his fingers, dripping menacingly.

  "What did you do to me?" I mumbled, my throat raw from screaming.

  "I saved you from yourself."

  I licked my parched lips, and tried to move, but my bones and muscles screamed at me indignantly. Why was my mouth so damn dry? "What did you inject me with?"

  "Salt water."

  I gaped at him, sure I heard him all wrong. "Salt water? You stuck me with salt water?"

  "Yes, the salt counteracts the changes you were going through. It stops them, keeps them at bay. Something about demons and hell and the purity of the mineral. I don't know the reasoning behind it. I just know it works."

  "Why in hell would you go and do that for? Are you trying to kill me?"

  He smirked. "Are you dead?"

  "No."

  "Then I wasn't trying to kill you." He put a cap on the needle and slid it into his back jeans pocket. "I was trying to stop you from killing him." He motioned to the right with his head.

  Sitting up, groaning as I went, I glanced over at where Trevor indicated. Josh was on his back, his eyes closed, and his chest barely moving.

  I scrambled on my knees to his side, placing my fingers on his neck to check his pulse. It was there, but it was weak. Sitting back on my haunches, I looked him over, shocked at his appearance. His face was pale and gaunt, his cheeks sucked in. He looked like a ninety-year old version of his former self. Like someone (well, me) had sucked the life out of him. I'd done that to him. I couldn't believe I'd almost killed him.

  "Oh, my, God." I pressed my lips together to fight back tears or a
scream; I couldn't tell which I wanted to do more. "I did this. I'm a monster." I looked up at Trevor, beseeching him to soothe me, to take this away. But the menacing look in his eyes told me he wasn't going to do either. "Is he going to die?"

  Bending down to examine Josh, he shook his head. "I got to you in time. But he's unconscious, and I'm not sure how long that will last. It could be days, or weeks, or...,"

  I grabbed his arm. "Forever? Could he be like this forever?"

  Trevor shrugged. "I don't know. My first just came out of her coma. I sucked on her about two years ago."

  "Was she, you know," I touched my head, "okay?"

  "I don't know. I never stuck around to find out." Standing, he hooked his hands under Josh's arms and started to drag him across the ground toward the passenger door on Josh's car.

  I jumped to my feet. "What are you doing?"

  "Cleaning up."

  "Cleaning up?" I tagged along behind him, unsure of what to do. Did I help, or stop him from doing what he was doing?

  "We can't leave his body here. Someone will find him. Or someone won't and he might die of hyperthermia over night." Setting Josh down, he dug into Josh's pants pocket and pulled out his car keys. He proceeded to press the keyless remote. The car beeped once and the door unlocked.

  "I can't believe this is happening."

  Trevor pinned me with his dark and intense gaze. "Well, it is, Salem. Deal with it. You can't close your eyes anymore and think this is all a bad dream." He opened the car door. "Help me get him into the car. We'll drive him to the hospital, leave him in his car in the parking lot and make an anonymous call to 911." I picked up Josh's feet as Trevor set him as gently as he could onto the passenger seat. "That'll give you time to get home, get some stuff and disappear."

  I dropped Josh's feet, causing him to roll down the seat onto his back, messing up all the work Trevor had just done to get him in properly. "Screw you! I'm not going anywhere."

  Like a wild man, Trevor came out of the car, grabbed me by the arms and slammed me up against the side of the car. I was getting sick of everyone man-handling me. "You are, Salem. You know why? Because once Josh's body is found, the police will be called, there will be an investigation, and the trail will lead back to you. You were the last person to see Josh alive and well. What do you think is going to happen after that?"

  I stared into his deep dark eyes and realized he was right. I couldn't go back to my regular life. I was different, changed, and what I'd done crossed lines both legally and morally. I'd go to jail for what I'd done.

  The life I'd known as Salem Vale, daughter of Lynn and Charlie Vale, sister of Kyle, best friend to Chloe and Jamie, social outcast, and general nuisance, was gone. Sure it had been ripped from my hands without my consent, but it was dead nonetheless.

  My bottom lip started to tremble and I could feel the tears gathering, ready to fall at any minute. "Where will I go? I only have about three hundred dollars in my bank account. That's not going to take me far."

  Releasing me, Trevor finished stuffing Josh in the car. He slammed the door shut and palmed the keys. "You'll come with me." I followed him around the car to the driver's side. He opened the door and motioned for me to get in the back seat.

  Before I got in though, I looked at him, and asked, "Then what?"

  "Then we'll catch up with Malice on the road and you can help me kill them."

  Chapter 14

  After Trevor dropped that bomb, he shoved me in the back seat. He got in the car, slammed the door, and peeled out of the parking lot, gravel shooting up from behind the wheels.

  I stared at the back of his head, not sure if I heard him right. He didn't really mean what I thought he meant, did he? "You're joking, right?"

  He met my gaze in the rearview mirror. "No. I'm not."

  "We can't just go around killing people, you know." My gaze flitting to Josh's unconscious form and I swallowed. I guess I should've heeded that before now.

  "They aren't people. They're demons and they deserve to die."

  I wanted to ask then, what that made us. Were we still people? I still felt like a person. But I didn't ask him. By the stony look on his face, I assumed we were done talking about that particular gem of information. I'd save my questions until after we'd gotten Josh to the hospital. Maybe then, I could coherently put my thoughts together. Because right now, my mind was a mess.

  All the way to the hospital, I was on the verge of tears. I couldn't wrap my mind around the events that had just happened. In a matter of minutes, my life had been obliterated. I had almost killed a boy I liked and I was now being forced to leave my home, my family, and go on the run with a different boy, who from just a few encounters, I knew I didn't like at all.

  Trevor couldn't have been much older than I was. Maybe nineteen. But everything about him, the look in his eye, the way he spoke, told me he'd seen more than any person his age should ever see. He'd become hardened because of it, I was sure.

  I wondered if I was going to become like that. I really didn't want to. I couldn't imagine going through the rest of my life with that stoic coldness possessing me, making me as rigid as an iceberg.

  Trevor pulled into St. Luke's parking lot. He drove around looking for a spot that was furthest from the doors and shrouded in shadows. After two circles, he found one and parked. Thankfully, the lot was not full and we were fairly obscured from view.

  "Are you wearing socks?" he asked.

  I frowned. "Excuse me?"

  "Socks. Are you wearing them? We need to wipe our fingerprints from the car. A sock will work as good as anything." He took off his beat-up runner and slid his sock off his foot. Then he started to wipe the steering wheel clean.

  Panicked, I unlaced my boot, slid off my black sock and proceeded to wipe it across the back of the driver's seat, mimicking Trevor's movements. I didn't think I touched it but I wanted to make sure.

  "Are you sure this will work?"

  Trevor opened the car door, let me out, and then wiped down the interior of the door, the door handle, and all the buttons. "It'll smudge our prints at least."

  I watched him work as I stood on one foot, still holding my sock in my hand. "What about skin cells? They'd be in our socks wouldn't they?" I'd watched a lot of CSI with my mom. It was one of her favorite shows.

  He glanced at me, his eyebrow arched curiously. "I don't think we have to worry about that." Using his sock over his hand, he rubbed down the car keys, tossed them into Josh's lap, and then shut the car door.

  I sat down on the ground and put my sock back on, then my boot. I watched as Trevor did the same. "Why don't we have to worry?"

  "Because even if they did manage to get some DNA, they won't have a clue what they're looking at. You're not exactly fully human anymore, Salem."

  "You mean my DNA's all screwed up?"

  "Yup." He stood, then putting out a hand toward me, he pulled me to my feet.

  "This just gets better and better," I mumbled.

  "Come on, we need to get out of here."

  I followed Trevor as he headed for the far corner of the parking lot and away from the main street. "How are we going to get to my place? A bus?"

  "No, I got a better way to travel." He moved quickly away from the light of the lampposts and into the thick dark shadows along the outer edge of the parking lot. Once we were in the darkness cast by shadows, he turned to me and grabbed my hand.

  I was startled by his actions and flinched backwards. "What are you doing?"

  "Take a deep breath, think about your house, and step into that black shadow beside your feet."

  "Dude, I think you're off your meds."

  He glared at me. "You want to know how I've been able to show up where you are, and then disappear just as quick?" He motioned toward the black shape on the ground. "That's how. Through the shadows. That's how incubi travel. How they can show up in your room at night and suck out your soul."

  My breath caught in my throat as I thought about that night I
evidently sleepwalked across town. The old bum had said I'd come out of the shadows. Maybe I had, really, truly done that, without even realizing I could.

  "Does it hurt?" I really was through with feeling a lot of pain. I wasn't a wimp, but how much could an average person really take before their brain exploded into a thousand mushy pieces?

  Trevor must've sensed the unease in my voice, because he squeezed my hand, not a tight I'm going to break if off squeeze, but a comforting I understand type of press. Maybe he wasn't as hard-assed as I original pegged him to be. "There's no real pain. It just feels like you're being sucked down a tube, really fast."

  "Great, sounds like fun."

  His lips twitched a little, but he shook it away and looked sober again. "Take a deep breath, picture your house in your mind and step into the shadows."

  I nodded and then taking a deep breath, I stepped into the black spot of shadow, squeezing Trevor's hand so hard my fingers hurt.

  At first nothing happened, and I opened my mouth to call him a big fat liar. But then I sensed it, pulling at me, tugging at my insides. And it didn't feel very good at all.

  It was like I was being sucked through a thin plastic bendy straw one molecule at a time. First my feet, then my ankles. I looked down to make sure I was still whole, but that was a big mistake. I couldn't see anything below my knees. It was as if I didn't exist past them. Just thick black space, like a black hole, occupied the area where my flesh should've been.

  I glanced up at Trevor and was about to call him a nasty name, when he disappeared. Well, not so much as disappear as disintegrate into an inky jelly-like mass that quivered on the ground. But before I could scream, I too melted into nothingness.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was in my bedroom near the window. Trevor sat on my bed, staring at me. "Not so bad, right?"

  I crossed the room intent on strangling him, when the toe of my boot connected with the game guitar lying on the floor. It went sailing across the carpet and into the open closet door. It shouldn't have been much of a sound, but it seemed deafening in the dark of my room at midnight.