Free Wombstone (The Vampireland Series) by Jessica Roscoe

completely immobilizing me.“I don't want your help!”“You'll die.”I took one more breath and began to weep. “Please don't do it,” I begged him. “Please just let me die.”I began to writhe and gasp as vampire blood trickled into my veins. It made my fall feel like a scraped knee. It was intense and unrelenting. I choked on a wail as I felt darkness and pain invade every cell in my being.“Make it stop!” I begged deliriously.After that, I couldn't speak. I was too busy screaming as vampire blood overwhelmed my nervous system. I screamed and screamed, but there was no end. After what seemed like hours screaming into the waning sunlight of the afternoon, I blacked out.

THIRTEEN

    Wake up.
    Those were the first words I ever heard.
    I opened my eyes. Naked save for a bloodied white sheet, my tender skin covered in sticky red blood. My broken body somehow – impossibly – repairing itself.
    I tried to turn my head to the side, to see where I was, and groaned in pain. Staying still felt better. I was sticky and bruised. My body was fighting hard to mend all the deep gashes and crushed bones. I lifted an arm and gently felt my eye where I had taken the impact of the unforgiving ground. It was excruciatingly painful to the touch – but it wasn't shattered anymore. It was in one unbroken piece, as if my fall had been a terrible dream. The oddly comforting metallic taste in my mouth told me otherwise, though.I reached out with my hands, touching stiff sheets. I was hot, but I was shivering, goosebumps lining my arms.It was so hard to keep my eyes open, but I fought to stay awake. I wasn't dead. I still had something left inside of me. I couldn't give up yet.A face appeared above me. Something warm and coppery touched my lips.“Drink.”I did.Time passed – how much, I have no idea – and I stayed in the same spot, and I slept off death. 
    ***
    Later, I heard the words again. Wake up. Nighttime. It could have been days, weeks, months – or just a single hour since I'd last been awake. I had no idea. I felt a little clearer, and I found I could move my head without wanting to scream.“Get up and take a shower.”I did.Standing under the hot water (how long had it been since I'd had a long, hot, uninterrupted shower?) was bliss. Bliss that soon ended up with a pile of questions. I started to hyperventilate at the sheer impossibility of what was happening. I was trying not to think about it – but who was I kidding? I knew why I was ‘magically’ all better. And I knew it wasn't Starbucks Gingerbread Lattes that I'd been drinking every time I was woken up by soft words and warm, soothing liquid that slid down my throat like – well, like Gingerbread Lattes at Christmas time. It had been blood. Vampire blood.As I watched the dried blood start to flake off and dissolve into the steamy water, a wave of dizziness hit me. I sank down to a sitting position on the side of the narrow tub, the flimsy shower curtain resting against the film of water on my back.How could this be possible?How could I be alive?I tentatively massaged shampoo into my long, dark brown hair, picking out little pieces of glass and clumps of dried blood and thick knots. One of the pieces of glass gouged the tip of my finger and I flinched. A drop of blood appeared, then another, and I rinsed it underneath the water.I looked at it again. The cut had completely disappeared.I held my hand to my mouth to stop myself from crying out. This could not be happening.And I could not believe how, from a snow–filled parking lot five minutes from home, it had ended up like this .A knock at the door made me jump.“You okay in there?”“Yes.” My wavering voice sounded like a stranger's. How long had it been since I'd spoken?I shut the water off, swallowing a painful lump in my throat. I may have been ‘rescued’, but I still felt like I was a prisoner – I'd just switched one cage for another. And now I was alone with him .Thunder rolled overhead, and I