W\\CKED

Are You F**ing Kidding Me???

[Sanny]

I didn't have time to dwell on the mind-bending revelation that my best friend was being stalked by a vampire. What this meant, what it changed, how much it mattered had to be left for some time when I could ponder uninterrupted the profundity of undead immortality.

Right now, my focus was on getting Jul out of there with all her veins in tact. That was the only goal pounding in my brain as I rolled on the floor with a drummer much stronger than his slender arms suggested. I managed to get on top and pin him down, laying in a punch that radiated pain right up to my elbow, but left a beautiful, satisfying red mark on his eye.

I watched in dismay as the mark faded away. He could heal in seconds. Did that mean he was a vampire? But he didn't have fangs—

Hands dragged me off my fleshy punching bag as the other band members joined the fist party. Being outnumbered didn't bother me. I was expelled from two middle schools for getting into fights. In one case, I beat up a sadist twice as big as me during a brutal game of dodge ball.

In the other, I showed two wanna-be gangsters why it wasn't safe to assume you could win a fight just because you had a switchblade. Instead of punishing me, my dad went around bragging that he taught me all my moves.

So I wasn't exactly prepared to lose, and didn't realize I had lost until Nalu and Zack pinned me to the floor. Gun grabbed the hair on the back of my head with one hand and my chin with the other. I hoped getting my neck snapped wouldn't be painful.

An explosion threw Gun off his feet. The other two guys let go of me as they protected themselves from an onslaught of sharp-edged fragments that used to be the hall door. I reflexively curled up in a ball, pieces of broken wood falling on the carpet around me.

After a few seconds, I peeked between my fingers, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

Where the door used to be, a hooded figure now stood. His jacket, slick and red, was sewn up along one sleeve, the eye of fire still woven into it near the shoulder.