Part 6

(Devin)

I continued to stand there, smirking unpleasantly. I'd spotted the girl - Katalina, I'd learned her name was - coming out of the boarding house around sunset, looking dressed to kill.

And as it turned out, quite literally. Normally that meant only one thing for a vamp - they were hunting. And now the hunter was the hunted.

Catalina just looked at him evenly. She folded her arms. "So stake me then."

I glanced over at the body slumped against the steering wheel. Why was I hesitating? She had *killed* that boy. She deserved to die.

"Why should I take orders from scum?" I said, stepping back slightly.

Catalina's big blue eyes rolled. "Whatever."

I wondered what the hell the matter with me was. I should be killing her, yet I wasn't. I felt like a complete idiot, stood there and not doing anything.

We remained were we where, staring at each other. I knew she wasn't going to try and run, and for some unknown reason something about that disturbed me, which was really irritating.

"Why aren't you staking me?" she asked, her head tilting to one side, golden hair spilling over her shoulder like a waterfall.

I didn't have an answer for her. "I don't know," he admitted. "How come you live at the boarding house?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "Vampire hunters killed my family," she said softly. "It's not like we were *bad* vampires or anything."

I was silent. Vampires had killed my girlfriend, my best friend, my family. I had been forced to watch it all. As far as I was concerned they were heartless monsters.

Maybe not.

This one might be different. She clearly had more feelings than the jerks I'd faced before.

"This is pathetic," Catalina said with a snort. "We can't stand around here all night. I'm a vampire, you're a vampire hunter, do what you have to do." She uncrossed her arms.

She was right. I was feeling incredibly pathetic. Thank God Marcie wasn't with me. She'd kill us *both*. I watched Catalina loosely. Without bothering to think anymore I threw myself at her, stake gripped tightly.







She dodged easily, blocking my move. I cursed myself for allowing to think about her before hand. Feelings were trouble, especially when monsters were involved.

I wasn't fighting *properly*, and if I didn't watch myself, then I was going to wind up joining that dead body.

For someone so small the bitch was surprisingly agile. And she fought *dirty*. She lashed out with long, sharp nails, striking my face and causing me to bleed. I scrambled quickly out her reach, ignoring the blood dripping down my cheek, trying to get out of the way of her heeled boots.

Catalina was faster than I was. She kneed me in the groin, and kicked me in the chest. I howled in rage and pain and toppled over. Before I could do anything about it she was on top of me, her knees digging painfully into my already winded lungs. She smiled, her fangs glittering in the moonlight.

"You're a fool," she sneered. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

I turned my face away, not rising to her antagonisms. I struggled to get my wrists free from where her iron grip held me. With a violent wrench I managed to get one arm free. I tried to take a swing at her.

She grabbed my hand to prevent me from escaping.

In that instant, when her bare skin grabbed mine, my mind exploded from within.

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