"Benny, it's me!"
Chamey burst into the room. He shut the door behind him and grabbed hold of her, crushing her in a smothering bear hug.
"You're okay," he panted into her hair as though he'd just sprinted across town.
He was sweaty and gross. And why was he holding onto her like that?
"Ew!" She pushed him away.
He sniffed the air. "Whew, you really went to town with the No Vamp, didn't you?" He smiled. "That's good, though."
"Chamey, you idiot... you scared the hell outta me! I thought you were Jack!"
His head drooped. "Oh man. I'm sorry."
She took a deep breath and placed a hand over her racing heart, willing it to calm down. She'd been so certain it was Jack's hand in the door. It could have been. Then what?
She couldn't dwell on it at the moment because Chamey wouldn't shut up.
"Sorry, so sorry, Benny." He kept giving her those sad puppy-dog eyes. "I swear I thought I'd get back before dark. Ran all the way as fast as I could."
"Yeah? Good for you."
"Benny --"
"I'm in one piece, okay? Just shut up for a minute."
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, made a zipping motion across his smiling mouth, and gave her a thumbs-up.
She rolled her eyes and turned away from him. Clearly he was an idiot. But he'd come back to her, so that counted for something.
She took a deep breath and released it as she glanced at him. He was still trying to catch his breath on the bed. A part of her couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. He definitely wasn't her type, but she couldn't dislike him either.
This damn heat's frying my brain, she thought, pulling a strand of damp hair from her neck. She was used to Texas heat, but this little motel room was a hot box of death.
She stomped over to the beige cinder-block wall near the dresser, turned, and leaned her back against it. She looked from Chamey's face to the ugly grey door. Staring at it, she felt helplessness closing in even more.
Really, what makes me any safer now? Chamey is as useless as I am, and Jack doesn't need anyone to open this locked door for him. If he comes back, he'll rip it off its hinges. He can smash through the window. God, he could just plow through the wall.
She placed a hand to her chest and focused on her breathing for a moment. Surely Chamey was as scared as she was. If he wasn't scared, then he was even more stupid than she thought.
Sure enough, he didn't look particularly worried. And yet, seeing him look so calm made her feel a little better. At least she wasn't alone anymore. Her racing heart began to slow a bit.
Chamey picked up a large shopping bag from the floor. In her earlier panic, she hadn't even noticed him carry it in.
"What's that?"
Chamey sat back on the bed and hugged the bag to his chest with a smile. "My minute's up already?"
"Damn you, what's in the freakin' bag?"
He recoiled from the look she shot him and quickly pulled a large box from the bag. He tore it open. Eyes shining, he held up his prize -a black, arrow-like contraption. "Super cool, huh?" He fell back on the bed and ran his hands all over it.
She wrinkled her brow. "What is that, a crossbow? Um, isn't that kinda small?"
He shrugged. "Doesn't need to be big. All it needs to do is shoot a bolt into Jack."
She gasped. "You're going to shoot Jack with that?"
He stopped caressing the crossbow and sat up. "What'd you think I was gonna do with it?"
"But he... You're just gonna stake him?"
Try to stake him, is the operative word here. In every scenario running through her head, she'd have to vote Jack as the most likely to survive. By a long-shot.
"Nah. That would be a last resort. Only if I have to, to protect you and Kim. My plan is, when Kim gets back with the antidote, I'll dip the end of the bolts into it. When we find him, I'll shoot the antidote into him from a safe distance. No problem."
"No problem," she said, mocking. She had to admit though, it sounded like a good plan, better than anything she'd come up with, which was nothing. Only thing was, in her experience good plans always seemed to go wrong.
"But what if you miss?"
Chamey squinted at her out of one eye. "Oh ye of little faith. I practiced all the time back home. I'm an expert marksman."
"Yeah, I'm sure. Anyway, we gotta find Jack first. And we can't even do that 'til Kim gets back. Have you heard from her?
Chamey's look bothered her. He set the crossbow down on the bed. "No, I was hoping you had."
"Shit." She rubbed a hand down her hot cheek. She wished she could get more air, but she didn't dare open the door again.
Chamey went back to messing with his new toy. He began to hum -- an annoying sound. Really, how could he seem so calm when she felt ready to faint into the disgusting carpet? Silently, because she had nothing better to do, she watched him set up for some practice shots.
He took the phone book out of the nightstand, scratched a circle into the cover with his knife, and set it up against both pillows and his backpack. Then he stood by the motel door and shot across the room. He hit his mark.
It impressed her, though she wasn't about to let on. But still, shooting an inanimate object was easy. Shooting vampires -not so much.
"Just be careful with that thing. My luck you'll shoot one of us instead of Jack."
He began practicing a quick-draw. "Nah, I'm all about safety." After a while, he turned to her and cleared his throat. "You, um, want me to reinforce your No Vamp?"
"What?"
"I can re-apply it for you, in case you missed a spot."
She shot him her most scorching look. "You know what? No, I don't need you to do that." He shrank back, his shoulders drooped. She gave a sigh. "Actually, I used it all."
"I see." He pursed his thin lips and rubbed his chin. "Unfortunately, I lost what was left of my can too. It fell out of my pocket when I was running, somewhere between here and the sporting goods store."
"Whatever. NoVamp's useless anyway. I barely even smell it anymore."
She watched him sniff the air for a moment before she moved closer to him and held out her hand. "I need a weapon too. Give me the stake."
"The stake? You mean the one Jack made?" He pulled it out of his pocket and examined the tip. "It could be sharper." He grabbed his knife from the nightstand.
"Let me do it." She took the knife and the stake, then sat down on the bed next to him.
It took a moment but she felt his stare on her. That's when she realized what she'd done. She jumped up from the bed and scurried over to the dresser. She took a seat there.
He stared at her, his brown eyes shining as he patted the bed. "You can sit by me if you want. Unlike Jack, I don't bite."
Was that supposed to be a joke? Sorry if I don't feel like laughing. She looked down and began to drag the knife blade across the tip of the wooden stake. She'd never done that before. Her hand shook at first, then she got the hang of it. "No thanks, I'm good here."
"Just don't cut yourself."
"Oh, I'm all about safety," she said, mocking him again.
She didn't believe for one second the stake would do her any good in an encounter with Jack. Somehow, it still gave her a small sense of security. She worked on the task, grateful to have something to do. Chamey was even quiet for a while, and she found herself looking up to see what he was doing.
He practiced passing the crossbow from one hand to the other, and when he stretched out his arm, her eyes fell onto the red, angry-looking puncture wounds on his wrist.
How had she missed that before?
Chamey had told them on the phone what happened, but she didn't look him over too closely when they got to the motel. For one thing, she wasn't ready to see how far gone Jack was.
Something softened in her heart. She threw the knife in one of her bags, put the stake down on the dresser, and stood up. "So, does that hurt?"
"What?" He followed her gaze down to his wrist. "Oh, this? Nah, not really."
Trying to sound tough. He had to be. The wound looked awful. "You should let me take care of that," she heard herself say. "I can clean it for you."
There was a long enough silence and staring from him that she began to regret the offer.
"You'd do that for me?"
She shrugged. "The stake's as sharp as it's gonna get, and this would give me something else to do. Besides, you don't want that to get infected, do you? Then your hand would fall off. Yuck."
"Well..."
What was that look she saw in his eyes? Uh-oh.
She'd seen guys get that look with her before. Like they were reading more into things than she meant. God, you'd think I'd offered to blow him. As if I would.
"I'm just going to clean it and bandage it for you... not kiss it."
"Of course." He jumped up from the bed. "Anything you wanna do to it is fine by me."
She grabbed her other bag from the dresser. She hadn't had a lot of time to pack, so she'd just thrown in a little of everything, including some first-aid supplies.
Chamey was still on the bed. She marched over, grabbed his hand, and pulled him into the small bathroom. She pushed him down onto the yellow toilet seat lid and set his hand on the edge of the sink to take a better look at his wrist. She thought he'd talk non-stop, but he stayed quiet as she gently cleaned and bandaged it.
Jack did this... my brother did this, kept going through her head. She took a deep breath and puffed it out.
"Great job," Chamey said when she finished. "You're amazing, Benny."
"It's nothing." She found herself staring down at Chamey's pale hands. They were nice hands.
She felt him looking at her face, and she could hear him breathing. So annoying.
"I think you need stitches," she said. "Or else that's gonna leave a nasty scar."
"Really? Cool. My first vampire bite scar. I have other scars. You wanna see 'em?"
She shook her head and started throwing things back into her bag, but stopped when she saw his goofy smile out of the corner of her eye. She started smiling too, and it turned to giggles. Crazy giggles.
