Pitch

expecting to see it ravaged beyond repair, but the only visible damage were two small pinpricks of blood where her fangs had entered the skin. Yet it burned. Oh, God, my entire arm was burning and I was screaming and the girl was laughing.

She sprang to her feet, nimble as a cat, and sauntered over to where I was rolling in the dirt, frantically trying to put out the invisible fire that was consuming my body inch by inch.

“Peek a boo, I got you,” she giggled before her lips curled into a deadly snarl and she crouched over me, a predator covering it’s prey. I stared into her eyes, glittering with malice. I looked at her face, a face that had healed itself in a matter of seconds.

And I knew I was going to die.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Pet That Ran Away

You know how they say right before you die your life flashes in front of your eyes? Yeah. That didn’t happen for me.

I held perfectly still as the girl traced a single fingernail down across my cheek and hooked it under my jaw, poking until I felt a drop of blood slide down my neck, warm and sticky. She poked again, harder this time, puncturing another hole in my skin as if I was some sort of human pinata and my blood was the candy.

“Aren’t you going to scream?” Her lips pushed out in a childish pout. “The other one screamed. You’re no fun. I want a new toy.”

That did it. The pain in my arm had dulled, replaced with anger that burned at a fever pitch. I slapped her hand away from my face and scrambled to my feet. She let me get up, renewed interest glimmering in her icy blue eyes.

“I am not some toy,” I told her fiercely. “I’m a human being! And you can’t go around killing people. The cops are going to be here soon and -”

“Oh, cops shmops.” She waved her hand dismissively. “We took care of them ages ago.”

I remembered the laughter I heard on the other end of the 9-1-1 call and shuddered. “Who are you? What do you want? Why are you doing this?”

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you doing this?” she repeated in a high pitched parody of my own voice. “Always the same, inane questions. Stupid humans,” she said as she began to circle around me. “So content in your little bubbles. Well I am sorry to say that your bubble has just been,” she snapped her fingers, “popped.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“My name?” she said, looking surprised by the question. “Angelique. What’s yours?”

“Lola.”

Her head tipped to the side as she mused it over. “Lola… I like that. It suits you, I think. You’re feisty. So different from all the others. All they do is beg and cry and beg and cry.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you can imagine it gets pretty annoying after a while. But you… you, my darling Lola, haven’t begged once. Do you want to be my pet?” Her face lit up. “Oh, please say yes! Please. We’ll have so much fun together! I haven’t had my own pet for years and years.”

What I wanted was for this crazy nightmare to end. I wanted to wake up safe in a hospital bed, the victim of an electric shock from being stupid enough to try to hot wire a car. I wanted Travis and my father to be there. I wanted to never know what it felt like to bludgeon someone over the head with a horse shoe. I wanted to forget Angelique had ever existed. “Sure,” I said, feigning a bright smile. “I’ll be your pet. What do I have to do?”

Angelique clapped her hands together, giddy as a child with a new toy. “This is going to be so much fun. And Mona is going to so jealous. Just wait until she sees you! Of course we’ll have to get you out of those clothes and do something with your hair. Dye it blonde, maybe. Is the color natural?”

I lifted a strand of my waist length black hair and nodded.

Her fangs flashed as she grinned. “Excellent. Now I just have to -”

“ANGELIQUE!” A man’s roar ripped through the night and Angelique’s entire body went rigid.

“Oh drats,” she breathed. “He found me and I’m not even in the right sector. He is going to be so angry with me.”

“Who is going to be angry with you?” And how many of you are there?

Her lips pursed. “My maker, duh. Promise you won’t go anywhere? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“I – uh – no. No I won’t go anywhere. I’ll stay right here next to the dead woman.”

“Is she dead?” Angelique’s gaze cut across to the body that was still crumpled beside the pool. “That’s too bad. She didn’t last very long, did she? Not that any of that matters now that I’ve got my own pet.”

“That’s me,” I said, somehow managing a weak smile.

Angelique leaned in close and very carefully, very gently, kissed my cheek. “Now don’t you go anywhere because then I’d have to find you and torture you and that wouldn’t be any fun at all. For you, at least.” She winked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I lied.

Faster than my eyes could follow she disappeared into the house. I stood frozen for half a second, a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, before my brain kicked into high gear and I fled, leaping over the wooden fence that separated this backyard from the next like some sort of world class hurdler.

I wasn’t that far from my apartment. A couple of blocks, four at the most. It was difficult to gauge distance when everything was so dark. I reached for my cell phone without breaking stride and looked at the time. 9:32PM. Had it really only been an hour since Travis and I had met beside the dumpster?

Travis. What had happened to him? Was he still in Mr. Livingston’s house? Where was Mr. Livingston? Because that man who opened the door sure as hell wasn’t him.

I ran behind house after house. A dull ache was growing in my left side, reminding me I hadn’t done this much physical activity in ages. I tried not to think about what it would mean if I got home and my dad wasn’t there. What it would mean if no one was there.

My foot hooked on something. A hose, left out to water the lawn. I went flying through the air, arms outstretched, hair lifted away from my face, completely weightless… and then the ground was rushing up too fast and I landed hard on my right side, hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. Like a little boiled shrimp I curled into the fetal position and whimpered into the grass, using it to muffle my sob of pain.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. The panic threatened to overwhelm me and I battled it back, knowing if I let it consume me now I would turn into one of those crying, mindless idiots Angelique had talked about. I tried to concentrate on taking one deep breath. Just one, good, full breath to fill up my body and extinguish the awful feeling of drowning out of water.

When air finally filled my lungs it hurt, more than I had anticipated. I clenched my teeth against the pain and staggered to my feet. I had to keep going. I had to run. The thought of what would happen if Angelique caught me was the jump start I needed. I didn’t want to end up like the woman drenched in her