Pitch

“How are you still walking?”

I straightened my knee and bent towards it, studying the bloody scrape and the bits of grass and dirt that clung to the open wound. It was pretty nasty looking. I glanced at the boy. Under his tan he suddenly looked pale and sweat gleamed high on his forehead. “You’re not going to faint or anything are you?” I asked. “Does blood gross you out? It grosses my friend Travis out. He can’t stand it.”

He shot me a look. “Blood does not gross me out.”

“Okay,” I said skeptically. “Then why do you look so -”

“Did one of them bite you?”

“What – I don’t – that is I – what are you talking about?” How did he know that? How did he know Angelique had sunk her fangs into my hand like some kind of vam-no. My mind shied away from the word. I wasn’t ready to use it to explain what was happening. Not yet.

The boy pulled me to my feet and ordered me to turn around.

I stared at him like he had two heads. “You can’t talk to me like that. Who do you think you are?”

His reply was to simply grab my waist and spin me until I was facing the desk. Caught off balance, I braced both hands against the top of it. A startled shriek pushed past my lips when he began to pat me down, cop style.

“What are you – how dare – I’m going to -”

“Shut up.” His fingers swept down my right arm and pressed over the top of my hand, right where I had been bitten. He froze for half a second, then grabbed the flashlight he had set on the edge of the desk and shined it directly over the bite marks. I looked as well, something I had managed to avoid until now.

I half expected to see my hand oozing puss and blood. I mean, human’s mouths hold some of the dirtiest bacteria on the planet. If I hadn’t been running for my life I would have headed for the nearest doctor’s office ASAP.

My hand didn’t hurt anymore; had not hurt for quite a while. Still, I was not prepared for what I saw. Instead of gooey grossness my hand looked perfectly normal. The only thing different about it was the two white scars evenly spaced between my pointer finger and my thumb. Two white scars shaped like half moons exactly where Angelique had chewed on me like I was some kind of bone.

“You were bitten,” the boy accused. He dropped my hand and backed away as if he had just discovered I had some kind of deadly contagious disease. A feeling of unease turned my stomach.

“Yeah? So? What does it mean?” I said, cradling my arm defensively against my chest. I hadn’t exactly asked to be bitten, yet the boy was acting as if it were my fault.

“What does it mean?” His laughter echoed through the room, flat and humorless. “It means you’re screwed.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Maximus

Well that didn’t sound very promising.

I stared at my hand. Poked at the scars. Wiggled my fingers. Everything felt fine. Everything felt normal. Wasn’t that a good thing? I braced my arms behind me and looked across the room to where the boy was standing, his eyes pinned on my hand.

“What do you mean I’m screwed? And who are you, anyways?” I asked suspiciously. Belatedly I realized I didn’t know anything about him. Who he was. Where he had come from. What his name was. All questions I probably should have gotten answered before I allowed myself to be locked in some forgotten storage unit with him. I seriously needed to work on my self preservation skills.

“Let me see the bite mark again,” he said, holding out his arm.

I snorted. “No way, pal. Not until you start talking. Do you know what’s going on? Do you know what those things are out there?”

“What do you think they are?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

He shrugged.

“You’re kind of really annoying, you know that right?”

He smiled thinly.

“Okay… Umm… Some kind of cult on a rampage?”

“No.”

“An inbred family of axe murderers?”

His lips twitched. “No.”

“Oh, I’ve got it. They’re a group of murderous vampires bent on destroying the human race.”

“And we have a winner,” he said softly.

“We have a – wait, no. I wasn’t being serious.” I rolled my eyes. “I mean, you know what sarcasm is, don’t you?”

He leveled those deep blue, unreadable eyes at me and said, “Do you?”

“I invented sarcasm,” I retorted.

“Then you must know I am not being sarcastic, not even a little bit, when I say your third guess was pretty spot on.”

I actually believed him. For all of two seconds. Then the absurdity of what he was saying sank in and I began to snicker. I mean, vampires? A cult, that was easy to believe. Even axe murderers or Satan worshippers or some military experiment gone wrong. But vampires? As in burn in the sun, sleep in coffins, drink your blood vampires? Did he think I was an idiot?

“Is this some sort of… reality show or something?” I gasped out between giggles. “V-v-vampires. You have got to be kidding me!” The laughter roared out of me until I was doubled over with my legs crossed in an effort not to embarrass myself beyond redemption. I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who peed her pants on TV.

“I am glad you find all of this so amusing,” the boy said stiffly.

“Oh come on,” I scoffed. “You don’t really expect me to believe you, do you? I’m not that gullible. You should have done this whole bit on Travis. Is he in on this? That brat, I bet he is!” Grinning, I scanned each corner of the storage unit, looking for any tell tale red lights that would reveal hidden cameras. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean anything. They were probably in the walls themselves, or in the miscellaneous office furniture that was scattered about. Spying a chair that looked suspiciously out of place I grabbed the back of it and rolled it into the light. Crouching down, I began to run my fingers under the seat, feeling for wires.

“Would you like some assistance?” The boy inquired politely. I ignored him.

There had to be a something somewhere. A wire. A light. A microphone. Something.

Determined to find it, determined to prove everything I had just endured was one big giant hoax, I flipped the chair on its side and got down on my hands and knees. “What’s your name, anyway?” I grunted out as I pressed the side of my face to the floor and tried to see under the legs of the chair.

“My name?”

“Yeah, your name. You do have a name, don’t you?” A swing of dark hair slipped in front of my eyes and I tucked it impatiently behind my ear, wishing I had remembered to leave the house with an elastic band around my wrist. I had been meaning to chop my hair off for months but had just never gotten around