Free Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles by Jennifer Malone Wright

who
didn’t look much older than I am carefully making her way along the
sidewalk. She wore jeans and a heavy jacket with a backpack
strapped over the top. Her curly blonde hair shone in the lamplight
underneath her winter stocking cap. After focusing for a moment, I
realized she also wore ear buds. Wonderful, she wouldn’t be able to
hear anything coming at her.
    Our stranger didn’t get out of his truck,
and we didn’t move either. She was just crossing in front of the
library when the vampire tingle happened. For me, it was always a
shock to feel it, but the others, aside from Oscar and Alice, were
so used to it they didn’t appear to feel it at all. I looked to
Drew, but he was desperately searching for the vampire we knew was
around somewhere.
    “Is he just going to wait for her to be
attacked?” I whispered. I extracted my gun and popped the
slide.
    Christina already held her gun in her hand.
“That’s what it looks like.”
    “He doesn’t have the warning signal we do,”
Drew said in defense of the strange.
    “I don’t care.” I whispered loudly. The girl
had stopped and was looking at her music player, probably changing
songs. “He shouldn’t wait.”
    Then it happened: A male with blond hair and
a black jacket appeared, just casually strolling down the street as
if he weren’t a vampire about to rip that woman’s throat out.
    “Shhh.” I felt Drew gently place his hand on
my leg, indicating I should be quiet and hold still.
    “But…”
    “Shhh.”
    Dang it. We needed to move. The
vampire approached the young lady. Seeming to sense him coming, she
lifted her eyes away from her music player. As soon as she spotted
him, she immediately took a couple of steps backward and then
looked around, probably searching to see if there were someone to
witness if she were mugged or raped.
    “I’m going,” Christina declared. With that,
she was off and running, knowing we would follow.
    “Damn it!” Drew slammed his fist into the
snow and took off after her. Oscar, Alice and I were right behind
them with our weapons drawn. Christina, had a gun in each hand,
both pointed at the vampire. The woman on the sidewalk caught sight
of Christina and screamed.
    The vampire also caught sight of her and,
within a second, had the woman in his arms, neck tilted to the side
so far it seemed dangerously close to snapping. Then he bit
her.
    Christina fired her weapon two times, once
in the back and once in the head. He spun around to face her, and
she nailed him in the chest. The vampire grasped his heart, blood
oozing between his fingers as he crumpled to the icy pavement with
rays of UV filtering through his disintegrating body.
    Still running, Christina holstered her gun
and the woman turned to run, slipping on the icy sidewalk in her
haste. Drew was the first to reach her.
    “Stop! It’s all right.” He reached out and
took hold of her jacket.
    “No!” She screamed at him, eyes wide with
fear.
    “We aren’t going to hurt you.”
    “Leave me alone.” She whimpered. “Let me
go.”
    Drew encircled his arms around her from
behind, pinning her arms to her sides to prevent her from attacking
him. “Let me go.” Her last words were a whisper and her body fell
limp in Drew’s arms.
    Blood spilled from the wound on her neck,
drenching her jacket as well as Drew’s.
    “Let me talk to her,” Oscar offered. “She
will listen to me.”
    He had taken off his button-up shirt and
held it to the woman’s neck while Drew handed her over.
    “I’ve got this guy.” Christina, pulled one
of her knives from her boot. Before she could drive it through what
remained of the body of the dead vampire, through his heart, a loud
roar echoed through the air as the stranger’s truck roared to life.
We had completely forgotten about him in the rush to save the
vampire’s victim.
    “Shit!” Drew began to run after him, and I
followed. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be the only one
who would be able to catch him as he