“So, basically immortal children are . . . what?” she asked. “They keep you only among other immortal children?”
Dante shook his head. “Usually immortal children lead very solitary lives. At least, in regard to other children. They have their families of course, but in the past, immortals were very spread out and they rarely had friends their own age. Unless they were lucky and had a twin like I did,” he added quietly.
“Like you do,” Mary said firmly, afraid he was giving up on his brother. To get his mind off Tomasso, she asked, “Why were immortals spread out?”
“Having too many hunters in the same area was risky.”
“How?” she asked at once.
Dante hesitated, and then said, “Life for us was different before blood banks were started. We had to hunt.”
“Humans you mean,” Mary tried not to sound too angry as she said it, but knew some of her disgust at the thought of her fellow humans being hunted like animals showed in her voice.
“We need blood to survive,” he reminded her gently. “But we did not hunt willy-nilly. It was not necessary to take so much blood we killed the human, and immortals have been careful from the beginning not to do so.”
“Don’t kill the cow that supplies the milk?” she suggested dryly.
“Just so,” Dante agreed calmly. “However, just taking blood from too many people in the same area can cause problems. It raises the possibility of discovery of our kind. We lived very carefully throughout history, everything we did meant to keep knowledge of our kind hidden.”
“So you basically wanted a big herd to feed from, like a whole city to one family?” Mary said, and then sighed to herself as she realized how bitchy that had come out when she hadn’t really meant it to. She did understand their need to feed, and knew it wasn’t even their fault that they had to. It was a matter of survival. Still, that didn’t make it any easier to accept that she and every other human on the planet were basically cattle to them.
Dante didn’t react to her attitude. He merely said, “We did what we could to minimize our need for blood. In an effort to reduce the amount of blood we needed, immortals took to keeping mostly night hours and sleeping during the day to avoid sunlight and the extra damage. Most were careful about their diets and eschewed drinking as well. And despite the fact that we could easily win any battle, engaging in one was always a last resort, to avoid injuries that would need extra blood for repair.”
“So your people were a bunch of vegetarian pacifist night owls?” Mary asked dubiously.
“Not exactly,” Dante said on a laugh. “I said they were careful with their diets, not that they gave up every pleasure. And war was a last resort, not forsworn entirely.”
“Hmm,” Mary murmured, frowning as she glanced to the side mirror and noted that the van that had been keeping back a bit was now moving up closer behind them. She glanced at the road around them, noting with some concern that other than a dark SUV almost on their front bumper, the traffic appeared to have cleared out almost entirely. It was a lonely stretch of highway with little in the way of witnesses.
“Of course, war should always be a last resort,” Dante added, regaining her attention. “But it was more so for our people.”
“Dante,” Mary began worriedly as the van moved to the left, out of sight of her side mirror.
“I know,” he said quietly. “They are about to pass us. No doubt they plan to get in front of us and force us to stop or—” He broke off abruptly and cursed as something, no doubt the van, rammed into the left back end of the RV.
Mary instinctively braced herself, pressing her right hand against the window next to her and grabbing at her armrest with her left as the RV jolted and swerved. Her gaze slid to the window. Spying the embankment along the side of the road, she knew without a doubt that they would be in serious trouble if Dante couldn’t regain control of the RV, and nearly released a relieved sob when he did. However, he’d barely straightened them out when they were hit again. Harder.
As the back end of the RV began to swing toward the side of the road, she glanced down to Bailey who was trying to straighten under the dashboard. Mary instinctively lifted her legs, blocking the dog in and then closed her eyes as the RV’s back tires slid off the road and over the embankment. She felt them tipping, and then everything seemed to explode around her as the vehicle rolled. Mary thought she heard Dante shout her name, but never got the chance to respond before something slammed into her head and the lights suddenly went out.
What sounded like a gunshot made Dante open his eyes and while he heard the squeal of tires and the scream of one engine, and then another, his attention was taken up with trying to make sense of the confused world around him. Everything was such a jumble that for one moment, he couldn’t place where he was, and then his gaze landed on Mary, below, rather than beside him.
He was hanging from his seatbelt in the driver’s seat of the RV, he realized and recalled what had happened. The back tires had gone off the road and over the embankment, dragging the front end along for the ride before it had toppled. The vehicle had done at least one complete roll, before coming to a stop on its side, the passenger’s side.
Mary’s side, Dante thought as he peered at her. She lay crumpled on her side with the lower half of her body still strapped into the passenger’s seat, but her upper body having slid off to rest against the wall of the RV, which for all intents and purposes was now the floor of the RV if he stood up.
Mary looked like a broken doll amid the debris surrounding her. She was pale and still, covered in blood, and Bailey lay in front of her, her back legs still tucked between the dash and the floorboard, but her upper body out. She was whimpering and licking her mistress’s face, trying to wake her.
The scent of gas reached Dante’s nose then. It was followed by a waft of smoke and he glanced toward the back of the RV. It had pretty much crumbled under the impact of the roll, the walls collapsing. Dante couldn’t see much of anything but a jumble of household items mixed in with the crumbled walls. He didn’t see fire, but he could smell the smoke it was producing somewhere in that mess.
Cursing, Dante started feeling for the buckle of his seat belt. He nearly undid it the moment he found it, but then realized that would let him drop on top of Mary and Bailey. Pausing, he glanced around, then braced his feet on the motor cover between the two seats, and tangled his arm in the upper strap of the seatbelt before releasing it. Much to his relief, while he dropped a bit and swung, Dante was able to keep himself from simply dropping onto the pair on the floor. Grabbing the belt with his free hand now, he quickly untangled his arm, and then carefully let one foot drop to the floor, positioning it behind the passenger seat at Mary’s back. Then he lowered the other as well before releasing the belt to stand behind her.
“It’s okay, girl,” Dante murmured to Bailey, as he bent to examine Mary. The amount of blood covering the pair of them was terrifying, but he could hear Mary’s heartbeat, and while it was slow and weak, it was there. Spotting the nearby empty cooler that had held the blood; he glanced around and noted that the empty bags were all around them. It gave him hope that they were the source of most, if not all, of the blood he was seeing.
Bailey whimpered again, this time licking his hand, and Dante turned back and gave the dog a quick, reassuring pet, then undid Mary’s seat belt.
“It’s all right Bailey,” he said as he scooped Mary into his arm. “Come on, let’s get her out of here.”
Dante straightened slowly with Mary in his arms, and then paused. The RV was lying on the side where the only door was situated. The only way out was through one of the windows. The front windshield was the obvious choice. It was huge. He’d guess about eight feet wide and five feet high. At least it was when the RV was upright. Right now, with the vehicle on its side, the opening was eight feet high and five wide. But there were shards of glass still in the frame, most of them small pieces, but a couple of larger ones that he had to be careful of.
“Come on, Bailey,” Dante murmured and carefully maneuvered his way through the opening, moving slowly to ensure he didn’t scrape Mary up against any of the glass shards. Once outside, he paused to glance back, frowning with concern when he saw that while Bailey was following, she was moving very slowly, and limping and whimpering in pain as she did. She’d obviously not escaped unscathed, but she was still mobile, so he left her to follow at her own speed and carried Mary several feet away from the vehicle to lay her in the grass.