“Zeke!”
Flinging myself down beside him, I ripped the cord from his wrists and rolled him onto his side. His skin was pale, blood trickling from his nose and mouth, and his eyes were closed. I shook him, feeling sick as his head flopped limply, then I forced myself to be still and listen. For a heartbeat, a pulse, anything. Relief coursed through me. It was there, loud and frantic. He was alive.
“Zeke.” I touched his face, and this time he stirred, opening his eyes with a gasp. Pain-filled blue eyes flicked up to mine.
“You!” he gasped through clenched teeth and jerked away from me. “What are you doing here? How—” He gasped again, curling into himself, his expression tight with agony.
“Lie still,” I told him. “You’ve been shot. We have to get you out of here.”
“No,” Zeke rasped, trying to get up. “The others. Get away from me! I have to help them.” His leg buckled, and he crumpled to the pavement again.
“Lie still, idiot, or you’re going to bleed to death, and then you won’t be able to help anyone!” I glared fiercely, and he finally relented. “Where are you hit?”
He winced. “My leg,” he panted, gritting his teeth.
There was a nasty chunk taken out of Zeke’s calf, which was bleeding all over the place, but thankfully, the bone seemed intact. Still, the amount of blood oozing from the gash both tempted and worried me. I bandaged him up as best I could, using strips from my coat to make a tourniquet, trying to ignore the smell and feel of the blood on my hands, on his skin.
Zeke set his jaw and didn’t make a sound through the first part of the process, but a few minutes in, he reached out and stopped my hand.
“I can do the rest,” he panted. “Go help the others.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “Please.”
I met his gaze. Desperation and worry shone from his eyes, overshadowing the pain I knew he was in. “I’ll be all right,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “The others, though. They’re after them. You have to stop them.”
I nodded and stood, gazing into the shadows, listening for sounds of pursuit. “Where?”
He pointed down the street. “Last I saw, Jeb was leading part of the group in that direction. We split up when we heard them coming, to throw them off.” His face darkened. “They already have Ruth and Jake—you have to stop them from getting anyone else.”
I grabbed him under the arms and, ignoring his protests and gasps of pain, dragged him off the road. “Stay here,” I said, setting him down behind a clump of weeds, higher than our heads. “I don’t want you getting caught again while I’m searching for the others. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t move.”
He nodded wearily. I retrieved my sword from where it lay on the sidewalk and sprinted down the road, looking for the people who had cast me out.
It didn’t take long. I could hear the roar of bike engines, and the pop of distant gunfire over the tops of the buildings. The boom of Jeb’s shotgun echoed off the roofs, and I began to run. But the buildings masked the direction of the shots, and the streets wound confusingly through the small town, dead-ending or going nowhere.
I leaped over a moss-eaten wall just as two vans, armored and spiked like the previous one, roared past me, trailing plumes of smoke. Sprinting into the road, I watched them tear away, the hoots and laughter of the raiders echoing behind.
A face appeared in the back window, frightened and pale, pressed against the glass. Ruth’s eyes met mine, terrified, before she was yanked back into the darkness, and the van screeched around a corner out of sight.
In the split second that I thought about pursuing them, headlights pierced the road at my back, and the roar of engines echoed down the street. I turned to see the rest of the gang, at least thirty or forty armed bikers, turn a corner and come swooping at me.
I dived behind a car as the gang passed, laughing and howling, some firing their weapons into the air. I gripped my sword, torn between attack and self-preservation. I could’ve leaped out and sliced down two or three raiders before the rest even knew what was happening. But then I’d be facing the rest of the gang, who would probably turn and spray me with bullets. And even though I was a vampire, I would not survive that, not from so many. My body was tough but not invincible.
So I waited and listened until the sounds of their voices disappeared, until the roar of engines and the pop of gunfire faded into the darkness, and silence settled over the town once more.