Alexandra Ivy: Predatory

“Tell me where you are.”

“I’m here,” she said, “By the stairs. I—I don’t think I can move.”

I crept along the stairwell and banister. The blood scent grew stronger each step the light grew darker. I was swallowing furiously, trying not to think about how delicate the scent was, how delicious. The way it felt when fangs punctured flesh—warm, soft—like berries popping, flooding your mouth with delicious, rich juice.

My heart thudded and my stomach lurched, growled. I was ready to flee, to run back upstairs and lock myself in my apartment but then—

“Nina?”

Nicolette lay in a heap on the floor, her body impossibly bent, her face fragile and pale. Her thick, cracked lips trembled and moisture surrounded her milky eyes. “Please help me.”

I swallowed and bent down to her, bending my head from the heady smell of fresh blood. I watched my own hand reach out, shakily touch Nicolette on the shoulder, my fingers barely grazing the girl’s torn flesh.

“What happened?” It was my voice, but I wasn’t sure that I had spoken.

“Someone attacked me,” Nicolette said, her voice a low whisper. “Is he gone?”

I looked over my shoulder and rose to my full height. “I’ll make sure.”

I knew that her attacker wasn’t there. I could smell every scent in the vestibule—layers upon layers of Clorox and urine, the cloying, salty smell of humanity coming through day after day and hour after hour—and the sinful, beckoning scent of Nicolette’s fresh blood.

I pushed open the double doors and bent my head out, sucking in lungfuls of night air. Soon I was coughing—and crying. I wanted to help her. I wanted to taste her.

“Is he gone?”

I could hear Nicolette shifting on the floor and I sprang toward her, my arms reaching out, doing my best to gingerly touch her clothes, the banister, anything that wasn’t soaked in her blood.

“Are you okay?”

Nicolette stood now and shakily came out of the darkness. I sucked in a breath.

Her long blond hair was matted, knotted with blood that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. One eye was already blooming with purple bruises and angry red scratches, her lashes disappearing in the swell. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her flesh showed underneath—a pink and delicate contrast to the smudged dirt and dried blood everywhere else.

“Who did this to you?”

Nicolette lurched toward me and crumpled in my arms. I stiffened, feeling the sticky warmth of her blood on my skin and when she started to cry—great, hiccupping sobs—I was able to hold her against me and hold my breath. When it got to be too much I chanced a tiny breath, my nose a quarter-inch above a gash that crossed the side of Nicolette’s head. I recoiled just slightly, an antiseptic stench coming from her unbroken skin.

“I’m going to call nine-one-one.”

I went to reach for my phone but Nicolette’s arm shot out, her hand grabbing my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “No, please don’t, Nina. I’m scared.”

I patted Nicolette’s shoulder awkwardly. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Everything will be okay.” I had no idea whether or not it would be—and betted toward the latter when I realized I had left my phone in the apartment. “I’m just going to use the emergency line down here, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” I gingerly began to extricate myself from Nicolette. She whimpered lightly but shifted her weight away from me and I scurried across the tile. My hand was wrapped around the telephone receiver when I heard Nicolette’s bones cracking as she stood. At the same second I turned, something heavy smashed across the side of my head. I felt my skin pucker and gash, felt the crush of my browbone and nose. The sheer force knocked me backward and I heard the clatter of the telephone receiver as it fell to the ground; I felt the cool glass of the door as I slumped against it. A horrid clanging sound reverberated through my skull. There was screaming and—squawking?

I wasn’t sure which one—if either—that I was doing so I worked to pull my eyes open. I needed to protect Nicolette—frail, battered Nicolette.

Nicolette, who was vaulting directly toward me, absolute hate in her eyes, knuckles burning white as she gripped a length of metal pipe.

“Nicolette?”

She bared her teeth and let out the most heinous banshee-like scream I’d ever heard. My hands went up instinctively and I grabbed the pipe as it sliced through the air toward me. She was basically growling now, teeth clenched, chin shiny with saliva. I held the pipe but Nicolette was surprisingly strong. She lurched and caught me square in the gut with the sole of her foot; I crashed through the glass door, shards catching the moonlight and dancing like little stars. My shoulder blades slapped against the concrete and Nicolette wasted no time, dropping the pipe and clawing at my neck.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me!” she spat. “Why won’t you fucking die? You were on fire—and frozen—and now—die!”

Her hands went to me again and I squirmed. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked until I heard strands breaking. She pulled her arm back to show me my own hair, no longer attached to my scalp. Her grin was wide and terrifyingly maniacal.

“You bitch!”

Wallop me with a metal pipe, sure. Try and choke me? Whatever. Mess with my hair? I will seriously end you.

I felt my sharpening fangs and unholy rage roar through me. I was about to lunge—and finish—Nicolette when a shriek cut through the night and my winged nemesis dive-bombed. I was sure he was some sort of beaked bastion of hell answering Nicolette’s beckon until he skidded over her forehead, talons extending, cutting wide gashes across her cheeks and nose.

She recoiled and swatted at the thing but it was gone instantly. I used the distraction to buck Nicolette off of me, and suddenly Pike was there and he was gripping her, dragging her away from me.

“She’s crazy!” I screamed.

“You’re crazy!” Nicolette’s eyes were on fire.

“What happened?” Pike yelled, still holding Nicolette back.

“She attacked me!” We were both pointing fingers, but I was gaping.

I paused and stared at Pike. “Wait, where the hell did you come from?”

“Kill her!” Nicolette screamed. “She’s a thief just like my damn sister!”

“You—”

“I’m the designer,” she spat. “Not you, not Emerson, or Fairfield. Me!”

“Because you got the Barbie Design Studio,” Pike said.

“And Emerson stole it!”

“So you killed her?” I asked.

Rage roiled through Nicolette’s body. “She stole everything!”

Nicolette’s screams were drowned out by the wailing of sirens and before she could finish her psychotic reasoning, police officers and paramedics were flooding out of their cars and rushing toward us.

Moyer was one of them. He jutted his chin toward Pike. “You sure about her?”

“She admitted it.”

Hopkins raced in with a pair of cuffs and Nicolette was subdued and led away, though she was still squirming and screaming, doing her best to kick and bite poor Hopkins.

“Hey, you okay?” Pike touched my arm gently.

“How did you—oh, God, the drain cleaner. I smelled it all over her but I didn’t put two and two together.”

A sad smile played at the edges of his lips. “Why would you?”

“Well, you obviously put something together or did you just happen to—” I happened to glance down at Pike’s hand, still soft on my arm. His fingernails were tinged with the slightest bit of deep red. I narrowed my eyes, unease flooding my body. “You know what I am because of what you are, huh?”