Mr. Ransom wandered in between the two of us, as if he’d just forgotten we were there. “Leave,” he told me. “Hurry.”
I quickly tossed my whip through the window, grabbed the frame with my free hand, and swung out into the cool night air. Michael grabbed me by the waist and set me down, light as a feather, safe in the circle of his arms. I squeaked and made sure to keep the silver stake far away from him. It had hurt Pennywell, and it’d hurt Michael a whole lot worse.
“I’ll take it,” Shane said. He shoved the spike back under the driver’s seat. “Well? Are you two just going to make out or what?”
Not that we weren’t tempted, but Michael hustled me into the car, slammed the door, and Shane hit the gas. We fishtailed in the grass for a few seconds, spinning tires, and then he got traction and the big car zoomed forward in a long arc around the field house, heading back toward the parking lot. Oncoming jocks dodged out of the way.
Pennywell showed up in our headlights about five seconds later, and he didn’t move.
“Don’t stop!” Michael said, and Shane threw him a harassed look in the rearview.
“Yeah, not my first night in Morganville,” he said. “No shit.” He pressed the accelerator instead. Pennywell dodged aside at the last minute, a matador with a bull, and when I looked back, he was standing in the parking lot, watching us leave. I didn’t blink, and I watched until he turned his back on us and went after someone else.
I didn’t want to watch after that.
We’d gone only about halfway home when Michael said, raggedly, “Stop the car.”
“Not happening,” Shane said. We were still in a not-great part of town, all too frequently used by unsavory characters, including vamps.
Michael just opened the door and threatened to bail. That made Shane hit the brakes, and the car shuddered and skidded to a stop under a streetlight. Michael stumbled away and put his hands flat on the brick of a boarded-up building. I could see him shuddering.
“Michael, get in the car!” I called. “Come on, it’s not far! You can make it!”
“Can’t.” He stepped back, and I realized his eyes were that same scary hell-red as Pennywell’s. “Too hungry. I’m running out of time.” And so were we, because Pennywell could easily catch up to us, if he knew we’d stopped.
“We really don’t have time for this,” Shane said. “Michael, I’ll drop you at the blood bank. Get in.”
He shook his head. “I’ll walk.”
Oh, the hell he would. Not like this.
I got out of the car and stepped up to him. “Can you stop?” I asked him. He blinked. “If I tell you to stop, will you stop?”
“Eve—”
“Don’t even start with all the angst. You need it—I have it. I just need to know you can stop.”
His fangs came out, flipping down like a snake’s, and for a second, I was sure this was a really, really bad idea. Then he said, “Yes. I can stop.”
“You’d better.”
“I . . .” He didn’t seem to know what to say. I was afraid he’d think of something, something good, and I’d chicken right out.
“Just do it,” I whispered. “Before I change my mind, okay?”
Shane was saying something, and it sounded like he wasn’t a fan of my solution, but we were all out of time, and anyway it was too late. Michael took my wrist and, with one slice of his fangs, opened the vein. It didn’t hurt—well, not much—but it felt very weird at first. Then his lips closed softly over my skin, and I got the shivers all over, and it didn’t feel weird at all. Not even the buzzing in my ears, or the waves of dizziness.
“Stop,” I said, after I’d counted to twenty. And he did. Instantly. Without any question.
Michael covered the wound with his thumb and pressed. His eyes faded back to blue, normal and real and human. He licked his lips, making sure every spot of blood was gone, and then said, “It’ll stop bleeding in about a minute.” Then, in a totally different tone, “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Why?” I felt a little weak at the knees, and I wasn’t at all sure it was due to a sudden drop in blood pressure. “Why wouldn’t I? With you?”
He put his arms around me and kissed me. That was a whole different kind of hunger, one I understood way better. Michael backed me up against the car and kissed me like it was the last night on earth, like the sun and stars would burn down before he’d let me go.
The only thing that slowed us down was Shane saying, very clearly, “I am driving off and leaving you here, I swear to God. You’re embarrassing me.”
Michael pulled back just enough that our lips were touching, but not pressed together, and sighed. There was so much in that sound, all his longing and his fear and his need and his frustration. “Sorry,” he said.
I smiled. “For what?”
He was still holding his thumb over the wound on my wrist. “This,” he said, and pressed just a little harder before letting go. It didn’t bleed.