The Vampire Diaries: A Cage of Burning Light (Kindle Worlds Novella) (10 page)

It was
too much, too much by far.

Elena was
still hanging onto the back of the truck, the crazy woman refusing to abandon
him, and that bastard was taking shots at her. He wouldn’t be able to kill her,
but to Damon that didn’t matter worth a spitball in the ocean.

He still
couldn’t break the chains around him, but the rage and, he’d admit it, the
terror he felt for Elena had burned all of the vervain out of his system, and
Damon was blood hungry and at full strength.

He
couldn’t break the chains, but he could squirm, and while the slack was
insufficient for him to use enough force to snap the chains, the abrasion made
him bleed and the blood made his skin slick. It also nearly drove him mad with
hunger, but Damon focused that madness, using it to ignore the pain while he
squirmed and struggled, not caring what joints he tore or bones he dislocated
as he fought to free himself from the chains. He was going to slither out of
these chains if it took every last drop of blood in his body because he’d see
himself damned before he let any more harm come to Elena.

Elena
didn’t know if she could hang on for much longer. She kept trying to get her
feet under her, but the ground was moving too fast and she was swinging so much
she faced backwards, unable to get a hold anywhere with her other hand. If
she’d still been able to sweat, she would have lost her grip a long time ago.

A bullet
whizzed by her head, and she couldn’t stop herself from letting out another
scream. Being swung around like a streamer on a ceiling fan wasn’t perhaps the
worst thing that could be happening to her right at this moment, but it was
still pretty high up there as far as she was concerned.

“Stop
it!” she shouted. “Please!” The man hanging over the top of the truck just
smirked at her, and that only made her angrier, but she still couldn’t get her
feet under her and even as a vampire, this
hurt
.

A car
passed them going in the other direction, the people in it staring at the
action happening on the truck in stunned surprise. Elena really hoped they
called the police and that the Sheriff showed up fast.

Sternes
took another shot, this one grazing her free shoulder with a fresh flash of
pain. She couldn’t stay like this. She had to either let go or stop hanging
half off the truck and kicking at the road.

She
couldn’t let go. Elena took a deep breath and stopped fighting the drag of the
street. Instead, she pulled her legs up to her chest and let all the strain go
onto her arm. She swung back against the side of the truck, the motion almost
gentle now, but she was so close to the rear tire that she could feel it
stirring the hair on her arm. If she touched that, she’d be ripped right off
the truck.

For a
terrified moment, as she hung there banging against the side of the truck like
a dangling sack of potatoes, she truly thought that was going to happen and
that she’d lose her chance to rescue Damon. The strain was immense, but when
the wheel didn’t catch her, she was finally able to bend enough to use her
other arm to grab the side bar.

Holding
on with both hands, she had the leverage to pull herself up and get her feet
back on the step at the back of the truck. She did and looked up in relief,
right into the barrel of a gun.

His
shoulder was dislocated, his skin ripped to raw hamburger by the chains, and
still Damon struggled. The fresh blood made his bindings slick and he squirmed
his way out, forcing himself out of their grip until he had an arm free. He
could barely move it thanks to the dislocation, but it was enough to get his
fingers into the canvas over him and tear it open. He wriggled out through the
gap, the slack in the chains enough with his arm free that they weren’t able to
hold him anymore. He flopped onto the floor of the truck like a newborn and
pushed himself to his feet, much as he would have preferred to rest at least a
few moments. Elena didn’t have time for him to waste being weak.

One thing
he did give a few seconds’ attention to was his dislocated shoulder, given he
couldn’t use it effectively while it was out of the socket, and some types of
injuries needed help before the healing could kick in. He turned to the wall of
the truck and slammed into it hard enough to dent the metal as he felt the bone
pop back into place. The pain was intense, but all it really did was feed the
urge for vengeance already boiling in his blood.

Damon’s
nostrils flared, and as he turned his face up toward where he knew the man
threatening his Elena was, his eyes were blood red and his face creased with
blackened lines.

He had
her this time. All the flailing back and forth while she was hanging down past
the edge of the truck made her a hard target, but she had a good grip now that
kept her nice and still.

Sternes
didn’t give her any sort of warning that he was going to shoot. It would have
been nice and dramatic, but also stupid as hell. He preferred to play his
chances when the odds were in his favor, such as considering bribes from a
vampire that was chained down, not one that was free and only ten feet away.

He
steadied his breathing, his finger beginning to squeeze on the trigger, not
pulling. He had one shot now, or else she’d be up on the roof with him and if
he were lucky, all he’d be doing was kissing asphalt at 60 miles an hour. He’d
take a dive if he had to, but he’d rather just nail her now.

She
looked up, her soft eyes startled and frightened, as if she couldn’t quite
believe any of this was actually happening, and he had a perfect opportunity to
put a bullet right between them.

A hand
punched up through the metal roof of the van, fingers crooked like claws as
they slammed down and into Sternes’ side.

He
screamed in pain and involuntarily dropped his gun. It fell down off the truck
past the girl as Sternes tried to pull away from the hand holding him and draw
another gun from a shoulder holster under his jacket at the same time. The vamp
they’d captured shouldn’t have been able to do this. The vervain was supposed
to keep him kitten weak and helpless.

The
vampire tightened his grip and pulled again. Sternes couldn’t stop his scream.
There was a massive hole torn in his side and his blood poured down into the
truck to feed the vampire inside, only making the monster stronger. Sternes
heard a low, pleased chuckle and a second hand reached through the hole to dig
into his side next to the other one, fingers tangling through his intestines.

Sternes
was getting weak, dizzy, and in shock. He still tried to reach his gun, but his
hands weren’t obeying him and now the vamp was pulling him down into the truck.
The hole wasn’t very big, not more than a foot across, but that wasn’t a problem
when he didn’t care how many bones broke in the body he yanked through.

Soon
enough, it wasn’t anything Sternes was concerned about either, nor was he
concerned about anything else ever again.

Elena
crouched on the step at the back of the truck with her hair blowing in her face
and stared at the rust around the bolts that held the license plate while she
listened to the screaming. It didn’t last long, and when it was done she could
hear drinking sounds.

She could
smell the blood as well, and it was better than anything else she’d ever
smelled in her life. Still, she didn’t move.

“Remember
who you are,” she whispered to herself. “Remember who you are. Don’t give into
the bloodlust, you can’t. You can’t.” He’d been an evil man, but to feed off
his death, oh she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

“Elena,”
she heard through the door. “Hold on. I’m opening the door.”

How, she
wondered, given it was locked from the outside, right before Damon kicked the
door on the other side of the truck out and held a hand out to her despite how
the late sunlight made the skin on the back of it start to smoke and char. His
sleeve and shirt were soaked in blood, and there was blood on his lips and
chin, but he was grinning at her as if he’d never been in any danger at all.

Elena took
his hand and let him pull her to him, holding her safely inside the truck.
Elena hugged him tightly and pressed her cheek against his chest, trying to
ignore the smell of the blood and keeping her eyes shut so she didn’t have to
see the source.

“You’re all
right,” she sobbed. “I was so worried. I tried so hard to get to you, I did.”

He
chuckled and stroked her hair. “I know. If you hadn’t been giving me so much
encouragement, I wouldn’t have been able to get myself free, so thank you for
that.”

Elena looked
up at him, and he was smiling down at her, his eyes filled with that caring
glow she’d fallen in love with. “Oh, Damon, I’m so sorry you went through
that.”

He kissed
her forehead with sticky lips. “Hey, blame the bad guys. Speaking of which….”

He took
her hand in both of his and kissed it below the metal of the shackle she still
wore before slipping her ring off her finger and putting it on his own, barely
getting it past the second knuckle of his pinky. Once it was on, Damon let go
of her and went back to the open door of the truck. She could see a bridge
falling back behind them and signs for the airport. She could also hear distant
sirens, heading toward them.