The Chase

The Chase Ch. 7

Thad's P.O.V

“It seems you love interrupting me. Can’t you see I’m busy?” I growled at Donovan. I could feel Ginger’s blood racing through the veins in her wrist and it was driving me crazy. Without even saying a word, he fired two rounds into my back. The pain seared through my body. A low hiss escaped my throat. If he wanted to play this game then we would.

“What? A couple bullets are going to stop big bad Thad from getting his meal?” He sneered. A deep growl rumbled in my chest. I twisted the arm that he held the gun in behind his back before he even had time to think. In response he hooked me hard in the nose. I held my grip on is hand hard and bent down to his other arm. I twisted my head and brought it down so that my fangs opened a long, deep gash on his arm.

He roared in pain, kicking his legs wildly around. He tried to fire his gun and get loose from my grasp at the same time, but he just sent shots in random directions, kicking black smoke into the air. I let him go and backed away.

“If you keep that up, you’ll shoot Ginger and maybe even yourself, dumbass,” I bellowed at him.

“You both need to come with me,” A stern voice echoed from behind Donovan, “And bring the other humans too.”

I felt Enoch roughly grasp a hold of my shoulder and pull me with him. Another Elder did the same to Donovan. Surprisingly, he didn’t struggle too much. I saw the curious glowing gazes of other vampires peeking around the corners, probably more attracted by the smell of blood instead of the actual ruckus. He brought us down into the basement, the place where only the elders and other actually respectable vampires are allowed to go. I was surprised he was taking me of all vampires down here. The humans were also a shock too, since I got the feeling he wasn’t going to feed on them.

Down below, a large, circular bookcase enclosed the room, its shelves leading all the way up to the ceiling. The carpet was actually clean too, and there weren’t any bloodstains like in the main room. Several Elders were resting in their beds; something I still didn’t know how to do. Without having one of those needles shoved in my heart, that is. I didn’t think it was the same though.

“Ester, help the human boy with the wound, he’s losing a lot of blood,” he said to an older woman while pointing at Donovan who was gritting his teeth and clutching the gash that tore down his arm. Ester nodded and went to fetch some medical supplies.

I saw Luke and Ginger make their way down the stairs, escorted by a third Elder. I sat down on the carpet and, to my surprise, Ginger and Luke sat beside me. They did look really upset, however.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” My head snapped over to Donovan. He was jerking away from ester who was trying to lick his wound.

“Stop moving around. If I lick it, it’ll heal a little faster,” she calmly explained. He cautiously handed his arm back over and winced at the touch of her tongue.

“I might need you and another to hold him down for this next part,” Ester warned and then turned to Donovan, “This will hurt quite a bit.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Ginger asked sounding worried.

“He’ll be fine,” Enoch waved her off, “I’ve dealt with far more serious injuries before.” He walked over to Donovan and held down his injured arm while another held down his lower body. Ester pulled out a needle and some thread and poked it through the skin at the bottom of the wound. He started thrashing a little bit, but couldn’t move much.

The two humans beside me looked horrified as Ester carefully worker her way up his arm. I knew that had to hurt without any anesthetic and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. I had to take into account he almost let me burn to death earlier, and then suggested that I should be left to die.

When she was done, she continued licking the wound to heal it and clean it up a bit. Enoch walked over to me and handed me a large cloth.

“Clean yourself up some, boy,” he commanded. I nodded and peeled off my shirt. What was left of it, anyway. It was nearly just rags by now. I pressed it to the two holes where the bullets exited on my chest and watched it turn red.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Donovan said hoarsely across from me, acting like he almost wanted it to hurt. I shrugged.

“After you’re nearly burned to death, it kind of puts things into perspective.” I retorted.

“Enough bickering.” Enoch said setting in front of us, “I came here to talk to all of you, not monitor useless bickering.”

“Enoch, I’m really sorry. I’ll just leave again; I know there’s no hope for me. You should have given up on me long ago.” I sighed, staring at the ground. I didn’t want to see how the others were looking at me.

“You’re not hopeless,” He sighed, grabbing a book off the shelf, “You’re just young. Young and stupid. You need to control you’re urges, and you need to listen to what I say to you. You lack self-control, but I still think you have potential.”

I heard Donovan scoff, but I didn’t even bother looking at him. Enoch ignored him and continued talking.

“Anyway, I’m sure you all have realized the crumbling state the world is in. Vampires are growing in number every day, while humans are declining just as fast. They’re powerful and reckless and it has to stop. If humans are wiped out, it’ll clearly be bad for them, but it’ll also lead to us to killing ourselves in the end. We’ll all slowly starve to death in the end.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Ginger asked beside me, “What can we do?”

“Obviously, there are a lot of vampires who are beyond saving. They are killing machines and they honestly need to be irradiated. We need to restore the balance of more humans than vampires. You just need to do whatever helps. I’m already trying to show the vampires who stay here how to feed without killing, how conserve what we have.”

“Am I turning into one?” Ginger blurted, her blue eyes widening.

“Ah, I can fix that, come with me,” he said leading her to the back. I wished I could follow so that I could show him I was ready to grow up and learn. I wanted to beat the urge to kill nagging in my head, but at the same time I wanted to give in and feel the rush of drinking blood as often as possible. I wanted it right now, so badly.

Maybe I would one day, but that day wasn’t today. So I closed my eyes, and tried to drift away until sunset.