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CHAPTER 28 FAILURE

Feeling the pain course down his neck and through his entire body, Matt closed his eyes, sinking, sinking under the weight of Jessica’s fangs.

I’m dying now, he thought helplessly.

You win, Jessica. As you knew you would.

Then, to his surprise, the pain lifted.

He cried out, startled, opening his eyes, trying to focus through the blur of motion in front of him.

Jessica was no longer gripping his head in her frozen hands; her fangs were no longer in his throat.

A struggle across the room. Groans and cries. Shifting, wrestling, grappling bodies.

Finally it all came into focus.

“April!” he cried, falling back against the wall, trying to stand up, to regain his balance.

April had revived and pulled Jessica from him.

Now the two of them were wrestling by the window, scratching at each other, pulling hair, grabbing and hitting, crying out their desperation.

Feeling a little steadier, Matt took a step away from the wall. He stumbled back, the room tilting. The crackling flutter of bats grew louder, louder, until the sound seemed to be coming from his own head.

“No!” he cried, holding his hands over his ears.

The fluttering faded.

He couldn’t just stand there defeated. He had to help April.

Jessica was overpowering her frail foe, shoving April hard against the frame of the open window, pushing her chin with one hand, holding her head down with the other. Jessica opened her mouth in a victorious grin, her slender, pointed fangs sliding down her chin.

April cried out as Jessica lowered her head to bite.

What can I do? Matt wondered, his eyes darting frantically around the dark room.

What can I do?

I have to act—now!

Spotting the oar, still resting on top of Gabri’s wrinkled heap of clothes, he grabbed it up, turned the handle toward Jessica—and charged.

She ducked under it easily, reaching a hand up and pulling the oar out of Matt’s grasp with inhuman strength.

Startled, Matt fell back as Jessica heaved the oar out the open window. Then she turned back to April, pressing her back against the window frame, her fangs lowering to April’s pale throat.

Gasping for air, Matt stared in horror. His mind whirred faster than the room.

He had to save April. But how?

Fire, he thought.

Fire kills vampires.

And with that thought, he remembered the plastic butane lighter in his pocket. Todd’s lighter.

Thank you, Todd, Matt thought. Thank you. Thank you.

His hand trembling, he jammed it into his jeans pocket and pulled out the lighter.

Thank you, Todd.

Thank you for rescuing us.

“Jessica!” Matt shouted. “Jessica!”

Inches from April’s throat, Jessica turned her eyes to Matt.

His chest heaving, his hand trembling, Matt lurched forward and thrust the lighter in Jessica’s startled face.

She cried out in horror as he nicked the lighter.

“Oh!”

No flame.

Matt flicked it again.

No flame.

The lighter didn’t work.

 

 



Date: 2015-04-20; view: 582


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