Wayward ➳ Edward Cullen

21. Flames

I wasn't sure what confused Dad more. That I was standing in front of him, or that he wasn't dead. Breaking eye contact, he lifted his hand—turning it over and staring at it. His eyes widened. Horror shone from their red depths. His hand drifted to his neck.

"How's the throat, John?" James asked pleasantly, as if inquiring after a friend's health.

Dad's hand clenched over his neck before his lips pulled back in a grimace that revealed perfect white, glistening teeth. Hunching forward, he breathed hard and fast.

"The thirst is like a fire," James said softly in my ear. "To a newborn, it's all but unquenchable."

Dad squinted up at James as his entire body tensed. Slowly, he began to rise.

James had a smile in his voice as he added, "At the slightest hint of human blood," his nose burrowed deeper into my hair, "they can't control themselves."

My heart raced so fast I was a little lightheaded. Swallowing, I watched Dad take several careful steps closer. "Dad."

Through a locked jaw and clenched teeth, he said, "I told you to stay away."

I thought of his screams. "I had to come."

Doubling over, Dad held his throat and growled. Wide, wild red eyes stared past me to James. "Let her go," he snarled.

I could hear the answering smirk. "Where would be the fun in that?"

The low rumble coming out of Dad raised the hair on the back of my neck. He was still bent forward but eyeing us with an increasingly feral gleam.

He shot forward in a blink. There wasn't time to gasp before he was in front of me, teeth bared in a fearsome snarl and eyes wide with pinpoint pupils. Rigid as my heart drummed frantically inside my ribcage, I could only stare, horrified. I winced as Dad's hand shot out at me—only to blink as nothing happened.

To me.

James' grip on my neck began to tremble as Dad pried at the cold, unyielding fingers pressing into my flesh. And he was overpowering James. As soon as the grip relaxed enough, I slipped out of James' hold, hurrying off to the side.

The instant I was clear, Dad struck with a cross punch that knocked James' head clean through the wall. James pushed himself out of the hole and let out his own growl—promptly silenced by a jab straight into his mouth that struck like a thunderclap.

Dad didn't relent. Each strike of his fist was quick, efficient, and brutal. It was the most vicious beating I'd ever witnessed. James tried defending himself, but Dad either knocked his flimsy attempts at shielding his head aside or pummeled his ribs and gut. James dropped to the ground at a kick to his knee that sounded like a statue breaking in half. James shouted, but the sound cut off with a crack as Dad kneed him under the chin.

James was curled into a fetal position on the floor, dark cracks splitting his skin nearly everywhere I looked. Turned out Dad was not above kicking a monster when he was down. After a few sharp kicks to the kidneys, his last one was so powerful James went flying across the room. He slammed into the doorway before dropping to the ground.

Dad advanced, murder in his eyes. James shifted, grabbing my handgun off the floor. Dad paused. But sneering up at my Dad, James didn't aim the gun at him.

My shoulder jerked back at the pop. Heat exploded around my clavicle, like a flame had been lit right inside the tissues. Metal scraped against my scapula with the slightest movement, while meat and tendons slid instead of stretched.

Stunned, my hand wavered above my shoulder, uncertain what to do. Shock kept me from feeling the worst of the pain except when I moved. Then the bullet and bits of bone scrape against each other, the torn ends of tendons and muscles slipped roughshod against my ragged nerves.