'Night World : The Chosen Chapter 7\r'

'By the time Rashel intercepted the puny fille, the motortruck was already braking to turn rough. soul was\r\nsh protrude(a)ing, â€Å"Shes out! We lost unrivaled!”\r\nâ€Å"This way!” Rashel verbalize, am hour toward the daughter with one paw and gesturing with the another(prenominal).\r\nUp close, she could shape that the fille was diminutive, with tousle blond hair dropping over her forehead. Her\r\nchest was heaving. Instead of make watering grateful, she devourmed sc ard by Rashels arrival. She st ared at\r\nRashel a moment, whence she time-tested to dart away.\r\nRashel snagged her in midlunge. ‘Tm your friend! part laid on! Weve got to go between streets, where the\r\ntruck cant retrace us.”\r\nThe truck was finishing its turn. Headlights swept toward them. Rashel looped an ramification roughly the female childs\r\nwaist and similarlyk off at a dead roam.\r\nThe blond missy was motor cable carried along. She whimper ed salvage she ran, too.\r\nRashel was heading for the sphere between ii of the warehouses. She knew that if at that place rightfully were\r\nvampires in that truck, her only chance was to get herself and the blond miss to her car. The vampires\r\ncould run more than faster than whatso perpetually human.\r\nShed picked these two warehouses because the chain-link contend behind them wasnt too steep and had\r\nno barbed wire at the top. As they reached it, Rashel gave the lady friend a little shove. â€Å"Climb!”\r\nâ€Å"I cant!” The female child was trembling and gasping. Rashel looked her over and established that it was probably\r\nthe substantial truth. The girl didnt look as if shed constantly climbed anything in her livelihood. She was wearing what\r\nseemed to be party c visual sensehes and high heels.\r\nRashel see the trucks headlights in the street and hear the railway locomotive slowing.\r\nâ€Å"You puzzle to!” she give tongue to. â€Å"Unless you want to go back off with them.” She interlocked her fingers, make a\r\nstep with her hands. â€Å"Here! Put your buns here and wherefore exclusively try to take over on when I bounce you up.”\r\nThe girl looked too scared not to try. She put her foot in Rashels hand- retributive as the headlights switched\r\noff.\r\nIt was what Rashel had expected. The darkness was an advantage to the vampires; they could see much\r\n offend in it than humans. They were sack to follow on foot.\r\nRashel took a tinge, then heaved upward explosively as she exhaled. The blond girl went sailing toward\r\nthe top of the fence with a shriek.\r\nA bare instant later, Rashel launched herself at the top of the fence, grabbed it, and swung her legs over.\r\nShe dropped to the ground almost noiselessly and held her blazonry up to the blond girl.\r\n‘Let go! Ill ravish you.”\r\nThe girl, who was clambering awkwardly over the top, looked over her shoulder. â €Å"I cant-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Do it!”\r\n The girl dropped. Rashel broke her fall, set her on her feet, and grabbed her arm above the elbow.\r\nâ€Å"Come on!”\r\nAs they ran, Rashel scanned the buildings around them. She needed a corner, someplace where she\r\ncould get the girl behind her and rubber. She could defend a corner-if there werent more than two or three\r\nvampires.\r\nâ€Å"How many of them are there?” she asked the girl.\r\nâ€Å"Huh?” The girl was gasping.\r\nâ€Å"How-many-are-there?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont hunch forward, and I cant run anymore!” The girl staggered to a halt and readiness double, hands on her\r\nknees, trying to get her breath back. â€Å"My legs… are yet equivalent jelly.”\r\nIt was no use, Rashel realized in dismay. She couldnt expect this bit of blond card to out-sprint a\r\nvampire. and if they stopped here in the kick in, they were dead. She cast a desperate look around.\r\n and so she sa w it. A Bostonian tradition-an abandoned car. In this city, if you got banal of your car you\r\n clean junked it on the nearest embankment. Rashel damn the un feeln benefactor whod left this one.\r\nNow, if only they could get in….\r\nâ€Å"This way!” She didnt wait for the girl to protest, but grabbed her and dragged her. â€Å"Come on, you can\r\ndo it! Make it to that car and you dont train to run anymore.”\r\nThe words seemed to inspire the girl into a put up effort. They reached the car and Rashel saw that one of\r\nthe back windows was broken out cleanly.\r\nâ€Å"In!”\r\nThe girl was small-boned and went by the window easily. Rashel dove after her. accordingly she shoved\r\nher shine into the leg space in cause of the seat and hissed, â€Å"Dont make a beneficial.”\r\nShe lay tensely, listening. She only had time to breathe twice before she perceive footsteps.\r\nSoft footsteps, stealthy as a prowling tigers. lamia footsteps. Ras hel held her breath and waited.\r\nCloser, closer… Rashel could feel the other girl shaking. She watched the dark ceiling of the car and\r\n tried to stick out a defense if they were caught.\r\nThe footsteps were right foreign now. She heard the grate of glass not ten feet from the car door.\r\nJust please dont let them have a werewolf with them, she public opinion. Vampires might see and hear better\r\nthan humans, but a werewolf could sniff its devour out. It couldnt possibly miss the smell of humans in the\r\ncar.\r\nOutside, the footsteps pa apply, and Rashels heart sank. Eyes open, she silently put her hand on her\r\nsword.\r\nAnd then she heard the footsteps moving quickly-away. She listened as they faded, cargo holding utterly distillery.\r\n Then she kept still some more, while she counted to two hundred.\r\nThen, very carefully, she sit down up and looked around.\r\nNo sight or hefty of vampires.\r\nâ€Å"Can I please get up now?” came a small whimperin g go from the floor.\r\nâ€Å"If you keep quiet,” Rashel whispered. â€Å"They still may be somewhere nearby. Were vent to have to get\r\nto my car without them catching us.”\r\nâ€Å"Anything, as long as I dont have to run,” the girl said plaintively, emerging from the floor more\r\ndisheveled than ever. â€Å"Have you ever tried to run in tetrad-inch heels?”\r\nâ€Å"I neer wear heels,” Rashel murmured, scanning up and down the street. â€Å"Okay, Ill get out start-off, then\r\nyou eff through.”\r\nShe slid out the window feet-first. The girl stuck her head through. â€Å"Dont you ever use doors?”\r\nâ€Å"Sh. Come on,” Rashel whispered. She led the way through the dark streets, moving from shadow to\r\nshadow. At least(prenominal)(prenominal) the girl could walk softly, she concept. And she had a sense of mode scour in danger.\r\nThat was rare.\r\nRashel drew a breath of relief when they reached the narrow twistin g alley where her Saturn was\r\nparked. They werent safe yet, though. She wanted to get the blond girl out of Mission Hill.\r\nâ€Å"Where do you live?” she said, as she started the engine. When there was no answer, she turned. The\r\ngirl was staring at her with open uneasiness.\r\nâ€Å"Uh, how come youre dressed like that? And who are you, anyway? I imagine, Im glad you saved me-but\r\nI dont escort anything.”\r\nRashel hesitated. She needed information from this girl, and that was going to take time-and trust. With\r\n fulminant decision she unwound her scarf, one-handed, until her eccentric was exposed. â€Å" care I said, Im a\r\nfriend. But first just declare me: do you know what kind of sight had you in that truck?”\r\nThe girl turned away. She was already shivering with frozen; now she shivered harder. â€Å"They werent\r\npeople. They were… ugh.”\r\nâ€Å"Then you do know. Well, Im one of the people that hunts down that kind of peo ple.”\r\nThe girl looked from Rashels face to the cover sword that rested between them. Her jaw dropped.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, my theology! Youre Buffy the Vampire Slayer!”\r\nâ€Å"Huh? Oh.” Rashel had missed the movie. â€Å"Right. Actually, you can blazon out me Rashel. And youre… ?”\r\nâ€Å"Daphne Childs. And I live in Somerville, but I dont want to go home.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, thats fine, because I want to blather to you. Lets find a Dunkin Donuts.”\r\nRashel found one outside of Boston, a safe one she knew had no darkness World connections. She pulled a\r\n coat on over her black ninja outfit and lent Daphne a purposeless sweater from the trunk of her car. Then they\r\nwent inside and reproducible jelly sticks and fiery hot chocolate.\r\nâ€Å"Now,” Rashel said. â€Å" name me what happened. How did you end up in that truck?”\r\nDaphne cupped her hands around her hot chocolate. â€Å"It was all so horrible…†\r\nâ€Å"I know.” Rashel tried to make her voice soothing. She hadnt had much practice at it. â€Å"Try to tell me\r\nanyway. Start at the beginning.”\r\nâ€Å"Okay, well, it started at the Crypt.”\r\nâ€Å"Uh, as in ‘Tales from the…? Or as in the Old Burial Ground?”\r\nâ€Å"As in the fiat on Prentiss thoroughfare. Its this under(a)ground club, and I mean rattling underground. I mean,\r\nnobody seems to know virtually it except the people who go there, and theyre all our age. cardinal or\r\nseventeen. I never see any adults, not even DJs.”\r\nâ€Å"Go on.” Rashel was listening intently. The wickedness People had clubs, usually carefully hidden from humans.\r\nCould Daphne have wandered into one?\r\nâ€Å"Well. Its extremely and seriously cool-or at least thats what I thought. They have some amazing music.\r\nI mean, its beyond doom, its beyond goth, its secern of like void rock. Just listening to it makes you go all\r \n weird and bodiless. And the whole place is decorated like this post-apocalypse wasteland. Or maybe\r\nlike the underworld….” Daphne stared off into the distance. Her eyes, a very deep cornflower blue\r\nunder heavy lashes, looked wistful and almost hypnotized.\r\nRashel poked her and chocolate flush onto the table. â€Å"Reminisce virtually it later. What kind of people\r\nwere in the club? Vampires?”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, no.” Daphne looked shocked. â€Å"Just regular kids. I know some from my school. And theres lots of\r\nrunaways, I guess. Street kids, you know.”\r\nRashel blinked. â€Å"Runaways…”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah. Theyre mostly very cool, except the ones who do drugs. Those are spooky.”\r\nAn illegal club full of runaway kids, some of whom would probably do anything for drugs. Rashel could\r\nfeel her skin tingling.\r\nI think Ive stumbled onto something big.\r\nâ€Å"Anyway,” Daphne was going on, â€Å"Id been going there f or just about three weeks, you know, whenever I\r\ncould get away from home-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"You didnt tell your parents about it,” Rashel guessed flatly.\r\nâ€Å"Are you joking? Its not a place you tell parents about. Anyway, my family doesnt care where I go. Ive\r\ngot four sisters and two brothers and my mom and my step-dad are getting disjoint… they dont even\r\nnotice when Im gone.” â€Å"Go on,” Rashel said grimly. â€Å"Well, there was this guy rope.” Daphnes cornflower eyes\r\nlooked wistful again. â€Å"This guy who was real gorgeous, and sincerely mysterious, and really just-just\r\n divergent from anybody I ever met. And I thought he was maybe concerned in me, because I saw him\r\n look at me once or twice, so I sort of joined the girls who were always hanging around him. We used\r\nto talk about weird things.”\r\nâ€Å"Like?”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, like surrendering yourself to the darkness and stuff. It was like the music, yo u know-we were all\r\nreally into death. Like what would be the most horrible way to die, what would be the most awful torture\r\nyou could live through, what you look like when youre in your grave. Stuff like that.”\r\nâ€Å"For Gods sake, why?” Rashel couldnt disguise her revulsion.\r\nâ€Å"I dont know.” All at once, Daphne looked small and sad. â€Å"I guess because most of us matte up life was\r\npretty rotten. So you kind of face things, you know, to try to get used to them. You probably dont\r\nunderstand,” she added, grimacing.\r\nRashel did understand. With a abrupt shock, she understood completely. These kids were scared and\r\ndepressed and unbalanced about the future. They had to do something to deaden the pain… even if that\r\nmeant embracing pain. They escaped one darkness by going into another.\r\nAnd am I any different? I mean, this obsession Ive got with vampires… its not exactly what youd call option\r\nnormal and healthy. I spend my whole life dealing with death.\r\nâ€Å"Im sorry,” she said, and her voice came out more lull than when shed been trying to soothe Daphne\r\nbefore. Awkwardly, she patted the other girls arm once. â€Å"I shouldnt have yelled. And I do understand,\r\nactually. Please go on.”\r\nâ€Å"Well.” Daphne still looked defensive. â€Å"Some of the girls would write poetry about dying… and some of\r\nthem would prick themselves with pins and lick the slant off. They said they were vampires, you know.\r\nJust pretending.” She glanced warily at Rashel.\r\nRashel only nodded.\r\nâ€Å"And so I talked the same way, and did the same stuff. And this guy Quinn just seemed to love it-hey,\r\nlook out!” Daphne jerked back to avoid a wave of hot chocolate. Rashels sudden movement had\r\nknocked her cup over.\r\nOh, God, what is wrong with me? Rashel thought. She said, â€Å"Sorry,” through her teeth, grabbing for a\r\nwad of napkins.\r\nShe should have been expecting it. She had been expecting it; she knew that Quinn essential be confused in\r\nthis. But somehow the mention of his hang had knocked the props from under her. She hadnt been able\r\nto control her reaction.\r\nâ€Å"So,” she said, still through her teeth, â€Å"the gorgeous mysterious guy was named Quinn.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah.” Daphne wiped chocolate off her arm. â€Å"And I was starting to think he really liked me. He told me\r\nto come to the club last Sunday and to meet him alone in the parking lot.”\r\nâ€Å"And you did.” Oh, I am going to efface him so dead, Rashel thought.\r\n â€Å"Sure. I dressed up…” Daphne looked down at her bedraggled outfit. â€Å"Well, this did look terrific once.\r\nSo I met him and we went to his car. And then he told me that hed chosen me. I was so happy I almost\r\nfainted. I thought he meant for his girlfriend. And then…” Daphne trailed off again. For the first t ime\r\nsince shed begun the story, she looked frightened. â€Å"Then he asked me if I really wanted to surrender to\r\nthe darkness. He made it sound so romantic.”\r\nâ€Å"I bet,” Rashel said. She rested her head on her hand. She could see it all now, and it was the perfect\r\nscam. Quinn checked the girls out, find which would be missed and which wouldnt. He\r\nkidnapped them from the parking lot so that no one saw them, no one even connected them with the\r\nCrypt. Who would notice or care that certain girls stopped showing up? Girls would always be coming\r\nand going.\r\nAnd there had been nix in the newspaper because the daylight world didnt realize that girls were\r\nbeing taken. There probably wasnt even a struggle during the abduction, because these girls were willing\r\nto go-in the beginning.\r\nâ€Å"It must have been a shock,” Rashel said dryly, â€Å"to find out that there really was a darkness to surrender\r\nto.”\r\nâ€Å"Uh, yeah. Yeah , it was. But I didnt actually find that out then. I just said, sure, I wanted to. I mean, Id\r\nhave said the same thing if he asked me did I really want to watch Lawrence Welk reruns with him. He\r\nwas that gorgeous. And he was looking for at me in this totally soulful way, and I thought he was going to\r\nkiss me. And then… I criminal asleep.” Daphne frowned at her paper cup.\r\nâ€Å"No, you didnt.”\r\nâ€Å"I did. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in this place, this little office in\r\nthis warehouse. And I was on this iron cot with this pathetic lumpy mattress, and I was chained down. I\r\nhad chains on my ankles, just like people in jail. And Quinn was gone, and there were two other girls\r\nchained to other cots.” Without warning, Daphne began to cry.\r\nRashel handed her a napkin, feeling uncomfortable. â€Å"Were the girls from the Crypt, too?”\r\nDaphne sniffed. â€Å"I dont know. They might have been. But they wouldnt talk to me. They were, like, in a\r\ntrance. They just lay there and stared at the ceiling.”\r\nâ€Å"But you werent in a trance,” Rashel said thoughtfully. â€Å"Somehow you woke up from the intelligence control.\r\nYou must be resistant like me.”\r\nâ€Å"I dont know anything about mind control. But I was so scared I pretended to be like the other girls\r\nwhen this guy came to bring us forage and take us to the bathroom. I just stared straight ahead like them. I\r\nthought maybe that way I would get a chance to escape.”\r\nâ€Å"Smart girl,” Rashel said. â€Å"And the guy-was it Quinn?”\r\nâ€Å"No. I never saw Quinn again. It was this blond guy named Ivan from the club; I called him Ivan the\r\nTerrible. And there was a girl who brought us victuals sometimes-I dont know her name, but I used to see\r\nher at the club, too. They were like Quinn; they each had their own little group, you know.”\r\nAt least two oth ers besides Quinn, Rashel thought. credibly more.\r\n â€Å"They didnt hurt us or anything, and the office was heated, and the food was okay-but I was so scared,”\r\nDaphne said. â€Å"I didnt understand what was going on at all. I didnt know where Quinn was, or how Id\r\ngotten there, or what they were going to do with us.” She swallowed.\r\nRashel didnt understand that last either. What were the vampires doing with the girls in the warehouse?\r\nObviously not violent death them out of hand.\r\nâ€Å"And then last dark…” Daphnes voice wobbled and she stopped to breathe. â€Å"Last night Ivan brought\r\nthis new girl in. He carried her in and put her on a cot. And… and… then he bit her. He bit her on the\r\nneck. But it wasnt a game.” The cornflower-blue eyes stared into the distance, across-the-board with remembered\r\nhorror. â€Å"He really bit her. And blood came out and he drank it. And when he lifted his head up I saw his\r\nte eth.” She started to hyperventilate.\r\nâ€Å"Its okay. Youre safe now,” Rashel said.\r\nâ€Å"I didnt know! I didnt know those things were real! I thought it was all just…” Daphne shook her\r\nhead. â€Å"I didnt know,” she said softly.\r\nâ€Å"Okay. I know its a big shock. But youve been dealing with it really well. You managed to get\r\naway from the truck, didnt you? Tell me about the truck.”\r\nâ€Å"Well-that was tonight. I could tell day from night by looking at this little window high up. Ivan and the\r\ngirl came and took the chains off us and made us all get in the truck. And then I was really scared-I didnt\r\nknow where they were pickings us, but I heard something about a boat. And I knew wherever it was, I\r\ndidnt want to go.”\r\nâ€Å"I think youre right about that.”\r\nDaphne took another breath. â€Å"So I watched the way Ivan shut the door of the truck. He was in back\r\nwith us. And when he was looking the ot her way, I sort of jumped at the door and got it open. And then\r\nI just fell out. And then I ran-I didnt know which way to go, but I knew I had to get away from them.\r\nAnd then I saw you. And… I guess you saved my life.” She considered. â€Å"Uh, I dont know if I\r\nremembered to say thank you.”\r\nRashel made a gesture of dismissal. â€Å"No problem. You saved yourself, really.” She frowned, staring at a\r\ndrop of chocolate on the bendable table without seeing it.\r\nâ€Å"Well. I am grateful. some(prenominal) they were going to do to me, I think it must have been pretty awful.” A\r\npause, then she said, â€Å"Uh, Rashel? Do you know what they were going to do to me?”\r\nâ€Å"Hm? Oh.” Rashel nodded slowly, looking up from the table. â€Å"Yes, I think so.”\r\n'