Darkness by Marcella Smith (chromebook ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Chapter One


Run. That was my only thought. I hear my friends running with me through the dark forest. I hear the dogs barking. Those little blood-sucking dogs. I increase my pace once more even though I know I can probably beat the fastest man alive if we were racing at this moment. I hear growls getting closer. I know if we keep going for another minute or so we’ll make it. I look to left side and see Annette and Robert running. Okay they were still alive. I look to the right side and my brother Douglas was still alive.
I see the lights of a hotel getting closer as we get closer to the beginning of the woods. I push harder and yell at my friends.
“Faster! We’re almost there!”
Five seconds later we are out of the forest but still running. We run toward a crowded bar. I look behind and see the dogs and vampires emerge but slow down trying not to attract attention. We make it to the crowd and I squeeze into the middle. I catch my breath and look for my friends and brother. I see Annette catching her breath. I see Robert and Douglas standing next to each other. Both of them with their arms crossed over their chest. Douglas catches my eye and I nod. We move put of the crowd and run into a parking lot.
“Robert do it now! They’ll notice where we are in a second.”
He runs to the fastest car he sees which happens to be a black Challenger with two yellow stripes going through the center. In a super fast motion he gets the doors unlocked and gets into the driver’s side. We all jump in me in the passenger seat and Annette and Douglas in the back. Robert crouches down and hotwires the car. He backs out of the parking lot and speeds down a main street.
We all stay quiet for a moment.
“What’s next move?” Douglas asks.
“I mean when they had me in the room I grabbed credit cards and their pin numbers which has God knows how much. I mean they are paid!” Robert said.
“Okay we gotta head back to campus even though it’s been a couple months. You know Matthew he has fake ID’s like crazy. I mean we can pay him a good amount. Since we’re rich now. We need passports too.” I said.
“Bahamas!” Annette said.
“Yeah Bahamas!” Robert and Douglas said together.
“First let’s worry about getting back to USC first.”
“I literally don’t know what state we are in.”
“I think we could b in Montana it’s all foresty.” I say.
We drive around and find another large city.
“Annette get out and seduce someone into telling us what state we are in okay? Because right now I feel very remedial.” I say.
“Yeah whatever Lola.” She says.
“Thanks.”
She gets out the car and even though she is in sweats and a too big sweatshirt. She catches some guy eye and she looks back at him and smiles. The guy was super huge with muscles everywhere. It looks unnatural though. She walks over to him and flips her brilliant red hair. She smiles and does something which he smiles at. His mouth opens and he grabs her arm.
“Douglas.”
“On it.”
He gets out of the car and goes behind the guy if things get a little too crazy. I see her try to pull her arm back but she gets yanked up to his chest. Douglas touches pushes the guy roughly on the shoulder and speaks to him. He turns his full attention to Douglas but still keeps his arm tightly around her arm.
“Robert.”
“Yeah. Take the wheel.” He said.
I slide over into the driver’s seat as I watch the scene. Robert gets over there and stands beside Douglas. I roll the window down to catch Annette’s eye. She looks at me I yell at her but the guy doesn’t notice.
“Get his wallet!”
She nods and I close the window back up. I see Douglas and Robert look at each other and then they both punch him in the face at the same time. Blood spurts from his nose as he drops to the floor. I see Annette get his wallet and extra cash. They bolt for the car and I get ready to drive off. As soon as they get in I speed off.
“We’re in Oregon.” She says looking at the wallet.
“Okay now we have to figure out how to get to California.”
We stop again and this time Annette asks a middle aged woman which way California is. She kindly showed us which way and we headed south headed straight.
“You know we can just fly back to LAX someone will notice us and call police. We go home our families will be killed. I can’t live with that.”
“Yeah true.” Robert agrees.
“We drive. We pack. Fake ID’s and passports. Then we move.”
“We are gonna have to move around a lot.” Annette
“They’ll track the credit card and we will have to make another move. So where to next?”
“Athens Greece.” Douglas says.
“Then Italy!” Then Robert says. I look at him curiousness on my face.
“Italian sports car.”
“Oh of course.”
“What about you Lola?” Douglas said.
“New York.”
“What?!” Robert says.
“Have you seen their stores?” I ask.
“Oh wow leave it to a girl to be in the lead.” Robert mutters.
I roll my eyes driving. We stop for gas and snacks and then in about an hour we headed in to California.
“Great now about six more hours.” Annette says sarcastically.
We drive the rest of the way with one more stop of gas and went on our way. We got to USC and hid our faces as we go to the dorm to pack our things. Luckily we had no other roommates besides ourselves. We packed everything we could possibly hold except electronic devices.
We snuck back to the car without being seen and then we went to Matthew’s dorm room. I knock on the door and he answers. Without saying anything. I took off my hood and I saw his eyes widened.
“Where the hell have you been?!”
“I don’t have time right now okay? We need five fake ID’s and passports for each I don’t know where you get these things from but I know you have it.”
He thinks for a second and then smiles.
“Its gonna be pretty pricey.” He says.
I nod at Robert who throws the cash we took from some of the credit cards. Ha I feel like a gangster.
“What now?” I demand.
After counting the money noticing the whole grip of extra money he nods.
“Pictures. I need pictures of you guys. Okay let’s take the picture I want ten pics. You need to look different in each sloppy ones and pretty ones just to make you look different. Guys go first. Girls there is make up and clothes for you to change in. Curling irons and other stuff.”
“Wow. You have everything.” I said inspecting the stuff.
“Yeah. I mean why not do a good job it’s how I get paid.”
Annette and I get ready putting on makeup. We put on new clothes on and she takes three nice pictures and two sloppy ones and I take three sloppy pictures and two nice ones.
“Whoa Lola. You know you really are hot.” Matthew says.
“Hey! Say that when the brother is not in the room.”
“Sorry bro.”
We get done and he makes the things we need. He picks our names and fabricates everything. I give him an extra thousand and say you never say us. We change back into our clothes and head out. We separate and meet each other at the car. We get off campus and I look at my dream school one last time.
We head to LAX. We look for Bahamas flight and we are in super luck because one leaves in two hours and ten seats were available. Our IDs were checked and so were the passports and we surprisingly got through. We had our baggage and stuff put down and our carry on were our purses. We head to an airport café and drink coffee talking about our next escape. My senses were up. I smelled them here. On of Portia’s minions followed us. I look around and then look back at my friends.
“You smell it too?”
“Yeah it smells good but too good.” Annette sneers.
“It’s a girl. I’m gonna go find her.”
“Do you have a stake?”
“No shoot.”
“I’m gonna go too we need to take care of this right now.”

We walk into the bathroom knowing they already know where we were. We each silently get in a stall quickly jumping on the toilet seats and wait silently for them to come in. The door opens and I knew it was them because of the smell. I listen to their footsteps get closer and I hear Annette bust out of her stall. I immediately do the same and make some vampire stumble. She was the same height as me 5’10’’ or 5’11”. We circle each other punching and blocking blows. She finally put on a full attack but I blocked in time and she stumbled into the stall. I punch her in the back of the neck and see with as much force as I could possibly put behind it. She slumps down and I kick her in the spine. In the background I hear Annette dealing with her vampire. She tried to get up but I twist her neck. I put it in between the toilet and toilet seat and jump onto the toilet seat as hard as I can crushing her brain. I do it about five more times. When I knew she couldn’t recover fast enough for her to fight back, I hop down and take her lift up her body from the toilet. Her face was not pretty sight.
I grab her neck and twist it and she immediately turns to dust. When I finish I run over to help Annette with her kill but she was wiping dust off her clothes.
“That was too easy. The ones she made us test against at the horrid place were much harder than that.” Annette says.
“I know. It was so easy she didn’t get one hit on me. Weird. You would think she would send over someone who had a chance of catching us.” I say as I wipe the dust off of my clothes
We return to the café to see Douglas and Robert gasping for dear life.
“What happened to you guys?” Annette asks in a worried voice.
“We decided to use the restroom before we got on the plane and four of them were in the bathroom waiting for us.” Douglas says trying to compose his breathing.
“Did they all disintegrate?” I ask.
“Yes ma’am.” Robert says with his head on the table and eyes closed.
“Hey sleep on the plane they’re boarding right now.” Annette says.
“Let’s go.” I say
We board onto the plane. We all got seats in the first class area, Robert and I sitting together and Douglas and Annette sitting together. I fell asleep trying to get as much sleep as possible before landing. I was dreaming about a beach and some very good looking guy giving me a massage while I was eating strawberries when a smell overcomes me. It was sweet and smelt