Free Blood Born by Jamie Manning

began imagining what ‘Aldric’s taking care of it’ meant. Was he going to burn them? Bury them? Eat them? Okay, that last one was absurd, but given all that had happened to me lately, the idea wasn’t totally unrealistic. I wanted to ask Chance what Aldric planned on doing with them, but kept quiet instead. Judging by the look on his face, I had aggravated him enough for one day.
    We walked for what felt like hours before finally leaving the woods, coming to yet another clearing. This one, however, wasn’t empty. A large, decrepit house with giant windows and a wrap-around porch sat at the far back of the field, a very tall, very old oak tree plopped down in front. It was a typical horror movie house, complete with gauzy spider webs draping the corners.
    “Where are we?” I asked as Chance walked toward the dilapidated structure.
    “This place has been in my family forever. We’ll be safe here,” he answered, looking back over his shoulder. “I thought we could hang here until school’s out before we go back to get my truck.” I smiled at him, hoping to smooth over whatever relationship was growing between us. I sort of felt bad for being so mean earlier. Plus I was really tired. Even though I was immortal and apparently super strong now, my feet were killing me and I felt like I could sleep for days.
    Once we reached the house, Chance left me standing on the ground just below the porch as he clambered up the steps and fished a key from above the door. He had to lean into the door a bit to get it to open, and when it finally budged, a plume of thick dust billowed across the air. Chance waited for the cloud to settle before stepping inside. I stood patiently until he came back out.
    “Okay,” he said, popping his head out the door. “Come in.” Though I didn’t really want to, the rapidly dropping temperature outside was slowly clawing at my skin. So I nervously climbed the steps and went inside. I think my nervousness was due in part to the immense hunger I was feeling. Yeah, blood hunger. It sucked.
    The outside of the house looked like a palace compared to the inside. Every surface was streaked with black grime and dust. More spider webs littered the corners, some even with spiders still in them. I made sure to keep a watchful eye on them just in case any decided to attack. Even being half vampire, I still hated spiders with a passion. As far as furniture, the place was almost barren. A rotten sofa was pushed against the far back wall of the great room, a very tiny wooden chair was lying on its back on the floor. A small table with a broken leg and some ratty sheers partially hanging around the windows completed the look.
    “Nice,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster given my fatigue. “The Hilton Hotels should take a cue from this place.” I was growing less and less surprised by the ridiculous things I was remembering. I hoped I wasn’t being too offensive, but I was really too tired to care. Of course, I had never seen the inside of a Hilton hotel—or any hotel that I could remember—but I doubted they looked anything like this place.
    “I know it’s bad,” Chance said, sounding defeated. “I’m sorry. I said it’s been in my family forever. I didn’t say we used it. But at least we’ll be safe here.”
    “What do we need protection from?” The thought had just occurred to me that we killed the only vampire in the area; apparently I could smell when one was near. So unless the locals were planning a torch-wielding field trip out this way, I couldn’t imagine what we were being saved from.
    “I don’t know,” Chance replied. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.” He sounded so much older when he said that, like a mother telling her child to buckle up before leaving the house. “I can’t let anything happen to you.” He moved closer to me as he spoke, that weird tingling in my skin coming alive again.
    “Are you cold?” he asked, his hand resting on my