Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Kyle turns on Drake. “What? No.”
“Hey, it’s his only condition to keep the peace. Small price in my opinion. We ought to count ourselves lucky. I thought he was gonna show up and raze the town in retaliation. He literally just wants his pet back. Easy, right? And to be fair,” Drake adds with a gesture back at the church, “Mikey didn’t belong to us.”
“Mikey doesn’t belong to them!” cries Kyle.
He lifts his hands. “I’m just trying to keep everyone happy. Well, except Mikey, but maybe I can talk with my brother, sort things out better, see if Uncle Sal can agree to treat Mikey with more dignity from now on, maybe an upgrade from the cage …”
“What’s all this ‘uncle’ crap? You weren’t like this before.”
“I was.” Drake frowns, bites his lip. “I just held back a little. I quickly got the sense that you … don’t really like my family all that much. Not that I blame you. They’re problematic. In many ways. But what family isn’t?”
Kyle tosses the note aside, lets the wind take it away. “And what’re you gonna do if I don’t let you hand Mikey back?”
Drake winces. “Well … it’s less what I’m gonna do …”
Through the thin, wispy trees of the park, a shadow moves, catching Kyle’s eye. It’s Lazarus, wearing a long, skinny pair of pants that don’t quite reach his ankles, and no shirt, long black hair swaying behind him like a cape as he slowly approaches.
Elias stands in front of Kyle brandishing a thick metal club, which Kyle hadn’t noticed until now. Drake glances forward, watching his brother approach with an eerie stillness.
Lazarus stops some distance away. “Are you done playing?”
Drake pulls back his hood, takes off his shades, tugs down the fabric covering his mouth. “Not quite.”
“You’ve had a couple of days,” says Lazarus, as if reminding him. “Plenty of time to play as you please. Have you had fun?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” confesses Drake with a tilt of his head. “Can you give me another day or two? Or maybe a week? Actually, a month might be more what I need …”
“You think this is a game?”
“Isn’t everything?”
“Come home, Drake. End this childish rebellion. Bring the pet with you. Everyone’s happy.”
“Everyone? You sure about that?” Drake laughs, nudges a rather stiff Kyle who doesn’t join in the laughter. “Uncle Salazo will be happy, he’s easy to occupy, like a cat given a ball to paw around or a box to squeeze into. But what about everyone else? You believe the rest of our family will be so willing to leave this place alone now that they all know where it is? I wouldn’t give them a night.”
Lazarus’s face hardens, shows little emotion, eyes blank and stony as he stares his brother down from across the park.
Kyle’s heart races, terrified of the vampire.
And Drake continues to act unsettlingly flippant. “Do you guys know why Laz is so edgy?” he asks, turning to Kyle and to Elias, smirking. “Unlike me and Kyle, my brother needs blood. When you drink enough, your body changes, and soon, human food doesn’t sustain you. Only the blood. I suggested once that we rob a bank,” he carries on, now turning his eyes toward his less-than-amused brother. “Not a regular one. A blood bank. At a hospital. To feed my family. But you know … it’s too boring, too safe … and Uncle Salazo prefers when his meal squirms.”
There’s a blast of air, grass spreading, dust taking flight, and the next instant, Lazarus is in front of his brother, gripping his throat with frightening power, silencing him.
And Drake keeps talking. “I’m just a bottleneck to your full potential, bro,” he chokes out through his squeezed throat. “Go back to Cali, do it the old way, boys and girls on the beach, the tourists, the stoned surfers … I wouldn’t be in your way.”
“Go into that church and bring me the pet.”
“You could even live in a condo. We’ve still got a hookup. I can visit you from time to time. Why do our lives have to be so hard? Why do we settle for smelly caves full of junk? We could all have what we want. Bro, you could live in an honest house, a real, honest house on the beach …”
“Get the pet and come home, now.”
“That’s not our—” His brother squeezes tighter. “—home.”
Kyle steps forward, despite Elias putting his arm out, trying to shield him. “Let go. That’s your brother you’re strangling.”
“You’ve made your point,” says Lazarus to Drake, ignoring Kyle outright, like he’s not there. “We’ll make adjustments for your needs. We’ll even allow your new friends to come and go as they please, unharmed. The only price, brother, the one and only price, is that fucking pet you’re housing in that church.”