Stephenie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I turned my back and held my breath, trying my hardest to hold on to the ability to think.

I couldn’t watch Kevin feed. I was too thirsty for that, and I really didn’t want to pick a fight with him. I so did not need to be on Raoul’s hit list.

The blond kid didn’t have the same issues. He pushed off from the bricks overhead and landed lightly behind me. I heard him and Kevin snarling at each other, and then a wet tearing sound as the woman’s screams cut off. Probably them ripping her in half.

I tried not to think about it. But I could feel the heat and hear the dripping behind me, and it made my throat burn so bad even though I wasn’t breathing.

“I’m outta here,” I heard Diego mutter.

He ducked into a crevice between the dark buildings, and I followed right on his heels. If I didn’t get away from here fast, I’d be squabbling with Raoul’s goons over a body that couldn’t have had much blood left in it by now anyway. And then maybe I’d be the one who didn’t come home.

Ugh, but my throat burned ! I clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming in pain.

Diego darted through a trash-filled side alley, and then—when he hit the dead end—up the wall. I dug my fingers into the crevices between the bricks and hauled myself up after him.

On the rooftop, Diego took off, leaping lightly across the other roofs toward the lights shimmering off the sound. I stayed close. I was younger than he was, and therefore stronger—it was a good thing we younger ones were strongest, or we wouldn’t have lived through our first week in Riley’s house. I could have passed him easy, but I wanted to see where he was going, and I didn’t want to have him behind me.

Diego didn’t stop for miles; we were almost to the industrial docks. I could hear him muttering under his breath.

“Idiots! Like Riley wouldn’t give us instructions for a good reason. Self-preservation, for example. Is an ounce of common sense so much to ask for?”

“Hey,” I called. “Are we going to hunt anytime soon? My throat’s on fire here.”

Diego landed on the edge of a wide factory roof and spun around. I jumped back a few yards, on my guard, but he didn’t make an aggressive move toward me.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just wanted some distance between me and the lunatics.”

He smiled, all friendly, and I stared at him.

This Diego guy wasn’t like the others. He was kind of… calm, I guess was the word. Normal. Not normal now, but normal before. His eyes were a darker red than mine. He must have been around for a while, like I’d heard.

From the street below came the sounds of nighttime in a slummier part of Seattle. A few cars, music with heavy bass, a couple of people walking with nervous, fast steps, some drunk bum singing off-key in the distance.

“You’re Bree, right?” Diego asked. “One of the newbies.”

I didn’t like that. Newbie . Whatever. “Yeah, I’m Bree. But I didn’t come in with the last group. I’m almost three months old.”

“Pretty slick for a three-monther,” he said. “Not many would have been able to leave the scene of the accident like that.” He said it like a compliment, like he was really impressed.

“Didn’t want to mix it up with Raoul’s freaks.”

He nodded. “Amen, sister. Their kind ain’t nothing but bad news.”

Weird. Diego was weird. How he sounded like a person having a regular old conversation. No hostility, no suspicion. Like he wasn’t thinking about how easy or hard it might be to kill me right now . He was just talking to me.

“How long have you been with Riley?” I asked curiously.

“Going on eleven months now.”

“Wow! That’s older than Raoul.”

Diego rolled his eyes and spit venom over the edge of the building. “Yeah, I remember when Riley brought that trash in. Things just kept getting worse after that.”

I was quiet for a moment, wondering if he thought everyone younger than himself was trash. Not that I cared. I didn’t care what anybody thought anymore. Didn’t have to. Like Riley said, I was a god now. Stronger, faster, better . Nobody else counted.

Then Diego whistled low under his breath.

“There we go. Just takes a little brains and patience.” He pointed down and across the street.

Half-hidden around the edge of a purple-black alley, a man was cussing at a woman and slapping her while another woman watched silently. From their clothes, I guessed that it was a pimp and two of his employees.

This was what Riley had told us to do. Hunt the dregs. Take the humans that no one was going to miss, the ones who weren’t headed home to a waiting family, the ones who wouldn’t be reported missing.

It was the same way he chose us. Meals and gods, both coming from the dregs.

Unlike some of the others, I still did what Riley told me to do. Not because I liked him. That feeling was long gone. It was because what he told us sounded right. How did it make sense to call attention to the fact that a bunch of new vampires were claiming Seattle as their hunting ground? How was that going to help us?

I didn’t even believe in vampires before I was one. So if the rest of the world didn’t believe in vampires, then the rest of the vampires must be hunting smart, the way Riley said to do it. They probably had a good reason.

And like Diego’d said, hunting smart just took a little brains and patience.

Of course, we all slipped up a lot, and Riley would read the papers and groan and yell at us and break stuff—like Raoul’s favorite video-game system. Then Raoul would get mad and take somebody else apart and burn him up. Then Riley would be pissed off and he’d do another search to confiscate all the lighters and matches. A few rounds of this, and then Riley would bring home another handful of vampirized dregs kids to replace the ones he’d lost. It was an endless cycle.

Diego inhaled through his nose—a big, long pull—and I watched his body change. He crouched on the roof, one hand gripping the edge. All that strange friendliness disappeared, and he was a hunter.

That was something I recognized, something I was comfortable with because I understood it.

I turned off my brain. It was time to hunt. I took a deep breath, drawing in the scent of the blood inside the humans below. They weren’t the only humans around, but they were the closest. Who you were going to hunt was the kind of decision you had to make before you scented your prey. It was too late now to choose anything.

Diego dropped from the roof edge, out of sight. The sound of his landing was too low to catch the attention of the crying prostitute, the zoned-out prostitute, or the angry pimp.

A low growl ripped from between my teeth. Mine. The blood was mine . The fire in my throat flared and I couldn’t think of anything else.

I flipped myself off the roof, spinning across the street so that I landed right next to the crying blonde. I could feel Diego close behind me, so I growled a warning at him while I caught the surprised girl by the hair. I yanked her to the alley wall, putting my back against it. Defensive, just in case.

Then I forgot all about Diego, because I could feel the heat under her skin, hear the sound of her pulse thudding close to the surface.

She opened her mouth to scream, but my teeth crushed her windpipe before a sound could come out. There was just the gurgle of air and blood in her lungs, and the low moans I could not control.

The blood was warm and sweet. It quenched the fire in my throat, calmed the nagging, itching emptiness in my stomach. I sucked and gulped, only vaguely aware of anything else.

I heard the same noise from Diego—he had the man. The other woman was unconscious on the ground. Neither had made any noise. Diego was good.