“What are you talking about?” Milo tensed up, and I could see his muscles flexing under his shirt.
Someday, he’d probably even be more powerful than Jack, especially since he had so much control.
“I don’t know! And I don’t have time to explain! If you want to come with, we have to go now!” I looked insistently at him, and I knew my invitation surprised Jack. He’d expected to me demand Milo stay here and try to protect him, and maybe I should’ve. But we were three vampires, and Jane might die. I didn’t think I had much of a choice.
“I’m in,” Milo nodded once. “Let’s go.”
We’d barely made it out the bedroom door when we ran into another snag. Bobby was in the process of pulling a sweater on over his head when he came of his room. He saw us in a hurry, so he caught up with us.
“What’s going on?” Bobby asked nervously.
“Nothing. Go back to your room.” Milo tried to make it down the steps, but Bobby wouldn’t stop following him. Jack and I paused at the bottom of the steps, but I wouldn’t be able to wait for long for either of them. The clock was ticking.
“Where are you going on? Why do you all look so freaked?” Bobby’s hair had been mussed when he pulled on the sweater, and he tried to smooth it out while keeping his eyes fixed on Milo.
“What happened?”
“Look, just go back upstairs!” Milo said sternly. “You can’t come with!”
“Why?” Bobby was only getting more and more freaked out. “What you are doing?”
“It’s too dangerous for a human. Just go!” Milo pointed up to the top of the stairs like Bobby was a disobedient dog.
“Dangerous?” Bobby blanched. “No! If you can get hurt, I’m going with you!”
“We don’t have time for this! We’re going now!” I waved my hands of it and walked to the garage.
Jack was a step of ahead of me, but Milo trailed behind me with Bobby at his heels.
“Bobby!” Milo snapped at him when we reached the garage. “You can’t come with!”
“No!” Bobby grabbed into Milo’s arm and looked as if he might cry. I wondered if this is what I had looked like when I was mortal. “I’m not gonna stay here why you go off to …”
“Get in the car,” Jack said, looking over the Lexus at Bobby.
“What? No!” Milo protested, and I gave him a questioning look. Jack refused to meet my gaze, and I knew he was thinking something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
“Just do it,” Jack commanded and hopped in the driver’s seat.
Milo and Bobby did as they were told, although that didn’t stop Milo from arguing about how idiotic it was for Bobby to be coming along. I agreed with him, but I kept my mouth shut. Jack started the car, and we sped out of the garage, on the way to the park. It wasn’t until I was trapped in the enclosed space of the car with Bobby that I realized how hungry I was. He was afraid, so his heart was beating even faster, and my mouth started to water. I had to grip onto the door handle to keep my hand from shaking.
Jack noticed, and he frowned at me and rolled down the window. The cold night air helped some, but there was nothing more that either of us could do.
Thanks to the ridiculous weather, the roads were slick, and Jack wasn’t keen on slowing down. When we came to a stop in front of the park, the car skidded sideways, and Jack jerked the wheel.
The Lexus lurched over the curb, and slid across the slush covered grass before finally coming to a stop like two inches away from hitting a tree.
“Is everyone okay?” Jack asked, looking around to make sure no one was injured or killed.
Bobby had hit his head on the back of my seat, but otherwise everyone was okay.
“You’re a really terrible driver,” I muttered, but I didn’t really have time to complain. I opened the door and stepped out of the car, instantly slipping in the grass. I grabbed onto the door just before I fell to the ground, but I wasn’t boding well for how I would do in battle.
“Careful,” Bobby said and started getting out of the car.
“No!” Jack shouted. He’d already gotten out and he pointed at Bobby. “You. Get back in the car.”
“What? No!” Bobby whined.
“No, if you come with, you’ll only hinder us,” Jack said. “Stay here so you don’t get us killed.” Bobby wanted to argue, but he had to realize that Jack had a valid point. Humans always slowed down vampires. It was just a fact.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Milo promised. Grudgingly, Bobby climbed back in the car, and Milo leaned in to give him a quick kiss.
“I love you!” Bobby said, but Milo was already hurrying after Jack and me. We had started down a winding pathway through the center of the park. It had been salted and sanded so it was much less treacherous than walking on the grass.
“Where is she?” Milo asked when he had jogged up to us.
“We don’t know,” Jack glanced over at me, hoping I’d have more information.
Milo was about to ask something logical, like how did we plan on finding her, but I shushed him. I was trying to get a read on her, but it was hard. Even late at night in bad weather, downtown Minneapolis still had tons of activity. It was hard to separate sounds. On top of that, there were so many people, and I was getting really hungry. I kept getting focused in on the wrong smells and sounds because they were far more appetizing than what I was looking for.
“Ugh.” I wrinkled my nose, catching onto something. It smelled dirty and not quite right.
“What?” Jack froze in his tracks and looked at me.
“I don’t know. I just smell something.” A cold wind came up, blowing it away, and I shook my head.
“It was probably the dog park. But it definitely wasn’t Jane.”
We walked a little further down the trail, but then I started noticing the smell again. It wasn’t even really a dirty smell so much as it smelled like dirt, like the ground and trees. A hint of pine, and something else, something familiar. It reminded me of when the fair came to town, and I always spent too much time feeding the goats in the petting zoo. It was almost how they smelled but different. I kept walking, and I had started following the scent, but nobody questioned me about it. Even when we started veering off the trail. If Jack and Milo noticed, they didn’t say anything to me.
Finally, too late, I placed it. I stopped dead in my tracks and my heart stopped in my chest.
“What?” Jack asked in a nervous whisper.
“Reindeer.” I could barely even say it aloud.
“What?” Milo asked incredulously, and even Jack gave me a confused look.
Neither of them understood what that meant, but I was scanning the trees frantically. I knew how fast they could move. They were probably here. We might even being surrounded already. I turned in a circle, slipping in the slush, and Jack caught me before I fell to the ground. The wind picked again, taking the scent away from me, and that was the only hint I had to where they might be. Thirst mixed with my panic, and the edge of my vision blurred red. My hands trembled, but I couldn’t say for sure if that was from hunger or fear.
“What’s going on?” Milo asked. He was looking around, trying to figure out what exactly had me so freaked. Jack still had his hand on my arm, steadying me, and the scent became stronger behind me, so I turned around.
On a bench only thirty yards from us, a vampire stood on a bench. I had just been looking at a few seconds ago, and nobody had been around, but here he was. His dark blue work jacket hung open, revealing his bare chest covered in dark hair. His jeans were filthy and ragged, and hadn’t been washed in months.
Despite the cold slush on the ground, he was barefoot. The wind blew his black hair across his face, but I could still see his black eyes staring right at me, giving me the same chill they had when I first saw him in Finland. It was Stellan, the lycan that wouldn’t speak English, and he’d already spotted us.