The White Blood Trilogy - Complete Box Set Books 1-3 Read online

  “A bottle of aspirin or something would be great,” I said. “And maybe a cola to wash it down?”

  “No problem.” Ben tipped his hat to me and turned to walk towards the door of the gas station store. He whistled as he went, and I had to admire how calm he was in the face of so much danger. Anyone could recognize us here, and the authorities were probably on high alert for anyone matching any of our descriptions.

  “I’ll be happy once we get out to sea,” said Ben, unclipping his seatbelt. “No more hiding all the time, no more chases, just a few days of rest and quiet relaxation on the open ocean.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said. “But first we have to get through this. Your dad will probably be paying any second, so you should get out there.”

  Ben looked around the parking lot to ensure that no one might be watching, and he slipped out of the car. I watched him walk quickly around the back of the vehicle, unscrew the gas cap, and insert the gas pump. The dollars and cents climbed along with the gallons on the pump display in what seemed like slow motion. Every second that Ben was out there was another second that someone might recognize his face and decide to call the tip line that was probably being advertised on every news station in a thousand mile radius.

  I looked into the shop and could just make out the silhouette of George’s hat as he walked back up to the counter to pay for the aspirin and cola I’d asked him to get me. If I were him, I’d have rushed out of there as quickly as I could, but George seemed to be talking to the gas station clerk about something, and didn’t appear to be in any particular rush. I checked the progress on our gas fill up, and saw that we were only at about half a tank.

  That’s when I noticed the police car pulling into the station. It veered into the pumps on the other side of us, and I did my best to stay low and out of sight in the van so they wouldn’t see me through the front window. I was pretty sure the tint on the side windows would hide me well enough, but with George still in the store and Ben so exposed pumping gas, I knew I couldn’t risk them seeing me. The whole county was probably on the lookout for two white males and a black female, and I knew I had to stay hidden.

  Ben’s body stiffened when he realized who had pulled in just ten feet away from him, and I watched him turn his back to the police car, seemingly really interested in something off in the other direction. He’d put his back to them so they couldn’t see his face, but I could see that both of the officers had gotten out of their car and were chatting over the roof while one went about the business of filling their cruiser’s gas tank.

  I wanted to open the window and scream for George to hurry up and for Ben to jump in the car and go when I saw one of the police officers nod towards us. He fingered the radio on his shoulder and waited a second before it looked like he was listening to a response coming through from dispatch. Both officers were staring at our minivan now, and I froze in fear when I saw that the one pumping gas set the pump back in its cradle when he couldn’t have put more than a gallon into the tank.

  I risked a light tap on the window to alert Ben, and I saw his gaze shift down as though he was watching the officers through the window reflection. Both of them had their hands on their gun holsters and had split up to approach from either side. It was clear that they considered Ben a possible suspect, and our chances of getting out of here had suddenly been dramatically reduced.

  “Sir, please step away from your vehicle so we can ask you a few questions,” said one of the officers.

  Ben didn’t move a muscle. He continued standing there with his hand on the gas pump, and I watched the dollars and cents slide by as he finished filling the tank. We wouldn’t want to risk stopping for gas again if we got out of here, but this was ridiculous. Ben needed to get in the car, and we needed to get George out here.

  “Sir,” repeated the officer, this time more forcefully. I saw that he’d released the leather clasp on his gun holster and slid the weapon halfway out. “Step away from the vehicle and remove your hat. We have reason to believe you are a suspect in an ongoing investigation and we’re going to have to check your ID.”

  Turning around slowly, Ben put his hands up in the air and grabbed the cap from his head. He set the hat down on the roof of the van and smiled at the officer who’d done the talking.

  “Sorry there officer,” he said with surprising calmness. “I thought you were talking to someone else. I’d be happy to assist you in your investigation, but I think you’ve got the wrong man.”

  “Where are your accomplices?” asked the police officer.

  “Accomplices? I really think you have me confused with someone else. What is it I’m supposed to have done again?”

  “You know what you’ve done,” said the cop who’d circled around. He turned his head to speak to his partner. They’d both drawn their pistols and had them pointed at Ben. “I recognize him from the bulletins. There’s no doubt about it, that’s number one on the FBI’s most wanted list. The prison escapees.”

  “Where is the girl and your partner, the one that escaped with you?”

  “Jen,” said Ben into the car. “These men would like to have a word with us. Why don’t you save them the need to use any excessive force and just come out and do what they say.”

  “That’s right,” said the first cop. “Listen to your boyfriend here and come on out.”

  I slid open the side door and stepped out of the van with my hands above my head. I tried to glance into the store to see if I could signal George in some way, but there was no sign of him at the counter or anywhere else that I could see.

  “You two, on your knees next to the vehicle,” said the cop. “Where’s your partner?”

  “He took off,” said Ben. “Ditched us when we ran out of gas. Smart move on his part I guess.”

  “And what about the other guy that escaped with you? Dispatch is telling me he hasn’t been seen with you since, but how do we know he’s not hiding in the back of the van or something?”

  “Probably because he’s dead,” I said.

  “How do you know that if he wasn’t traveling with you?” asked the second officer.

  “Because I’m the one that killed him,” I replied.

  “Shit,” said the cop. “You think you are one tough bitch, don’t you? Kevin, did you radio for backup yet?”

  “Yeah, closest unit is still fifteen away, but dispatch has alerted the FBI and they’re sending a team as well.”

  “Wonder if that’s enough time for a bit of… interrogation,” said the first cop, grabbing his crotch and staring me down while his partner laughed in the background. “I know a few special techniques that I’m sure this cunt won’t be able to resist.”

  My skin crawled under his salacious glare, and I was just about to spit a nasty response at them when the clatter of a gun sounded beside us. We all turned in unison to see the second cop lying on the ground with a trail of blood dripping from a gash at his neck. His service weapon lay on the ground several feet away from where the body had fallen.

  I looked back at the other officer just in time to see George appear over his shoulder, his fangs shining menacingly in the harsh glare of the gas station lights. A second later he’d bitten down hard on the cop’s neck, and the man gargled a choked off cry as George wrestled him to the ground and sucked the lifeblood from his veins.

  “Did you turn them?” I asked, still a little stunned at how quickly George had subdued both men.

  “No,” replied George. He pulled two sheets of paper towel out of the dispenser by the windshield cleaning supplies and used them to wipe the blood from his face. “I thought about keeping them alive and just taking enough to incapacitate them, but after what they said they wanted to do to you, I sort of lost it.”

  I felt conflicted about what had just happened, but as Ben helped me to my feet, I didn’t feel too bad about watching these men die before my eyes. There was something about the way they’d looked at me, like they were stripping me naked with their eyes, that made me beli
eve the officer who’d threatened me would have raped me while his buddy looked on and hoped for a turn. After what I saw back in the facility nothing would surprise me. Now they’d never be able to touch anyone again.

  “We better get out of here,” said Ben. He pulled the gas pump from the van and screwed the gas cap on tight. “We’re starting to draw attention.”

  Sure enough, the gas station clerk was staring at us through the window with a phone in his hands, most likely in the process of calling 911. I grabbed the handle on the edge of the van’s side door and stepped up, preparing to haul myself inside.

  A loud bang pierced the otherwise silent night air, and I felt something slam into my body, sending me headlong into the back seat of the van. At first I thought I’d been hit by a car, but there was surprisingly little feeling of any kind, and I didn’t understand how that could have possibly happened. As I rolled onto the floor and slid onto my back, I saw one of the police officers lying on the ground, his arm outstretched and waving his gun as though he was trying to find another target.

  There was a blur of motion, and Ben was upon him. His head slammed downwards, and there was a meaty thunk as he sank is fangs into the man’s carotid artery. It seemed George hadn’t fully killed him in his haste to take out both cops as quickly as possible, but Ben was doing an excellent job of finishing him off.

  “Easy there,” said George, his face hovering into view. “Are you hit? Can you talk?”

  “I think…” I felt dazed and confused, like the gunshot had happened to someone else and I was just a doctor in the ER assessing a patient. “I’ve sustained a gunshot to the lower abdomen. Rear entry, clean exit.”

  I flexed my fingers and opened and closed my eyes a few times. I tried to move and my vision flashed white, nearly sending me into unconsciousness. George slipped an arm around me and helped me up into the back seat, moving me gently so as not to agitate the wound. I looked at my surroundings and down that the small red hole in the front of my shirt.

  “I don’t think there’s any internal bleeding,” said George, “but then again, I’m not the doctor here.”

  Ben appeared beside him and began tearing the plastic off a first aid kit that he must have run into the store to get. I watched in numb silence as he unwound several lengths of gauze and pressed the bundle to my back. He used the remainder of the gauze to block off the exit wound, and then yelled at his dad to shut the door and get us the hell out of there.

  Chapter4

  There was a pins and needles sensation that took over the skin all over my torso, and this soon gave way to a burning pain that had me gasping with every bump the car went over as George drove us out of there. Ben was doing his best to keep me from bleeding out all over the backseat of the minivan, but the pressure he was putting on my wounds turned into lightning bolts of pain at the slightest movement. Bouncing around in the back of a moving vehicle wasn’t the best place for me to be right then, but with local police and the FBI heading to the gas station, it would only be a matter of time before they learned that we’d escaped.

  “Hold on Jen,” said Ben.

  I could see that he was gritting his teeth and staring at me with something that looked a lot like lust. My own world was dull confusion and I was struggling to keep from passing out with each jarring lance of pain that shuddered through my body, but I that wasn’t enough to keep me from noticing that Ben’s fangs were out and that he was looking at the blood that had soaked through the gauze and was all over me and the car upholstery. It was then that I realized he was looking at me with hunger in his eyes. After attacking and feeding on that cop, I figured the blood I was rapidly losing was fueling his desire to feed on me too.

  “How are you two doing back there?” asked George from the driver’s seat.

  I moved my mouth to answer him but no words came out. I was essentially useless now, and it was all I could do to not slip into unconsciousness that could very well prove fatal.

  “Not good, dad.” Ben spoke through a clenched jaw and I saw sweat beading on his forehead. “There’s a lot of blood.”

  “Just stay calm, son,” said George. “I know you’re probably fired up after what happened back there, and no one can blame you for the bloodlust that’s probably taking over right now, but we need to keep that girl alive, and that means you have to control your urges.”

  “I’m trying, but it’s so hard,” he practically growled. “The blood smells so strong and so nice.”

  “Stay strong, Ben. Stay strong for Jen. I’m going to pull over as soon as I find a place to hide the van, and then we’ll see about getting her patched up.”

  We drove on for what felt like hours before the van slowed to a stop. Everything had gone dark after George shut the engine off, and I heard the sound of his door opening and closing, then footsteps, then the sliding thunk of the side door being opened. My eyelids had become so heavy and impossible to control, and I felt myself being picked up and carried before being laid down on a cold hard surface.

  There was a sound of ripping fabric, and I felt a cool chill on the skin of my upper body. I felt myself being rolled onto my side, and there was an explosion of white hot pain that made my eyes shoot wide open. Frantically sucking in air, I looked down to see George there with a bottle of antiseptic wash, and I realized that he’d just poured a healthy dose of it over my wounds.

  Tears streamed down my face and I tried not to move too much as George did what he could to patch me up. I flitted in and out of consciousness, and tried to explain how best to pack gauze around the wound before taping it over to keep it in place. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but it would last for a while.

  “That’s the best I can do with what we have,” said George, tossing the near empty roll of medical tape onto the concrete ledge where they’d laid me out to work on me. “It was smart thinking of you to run back inside to grab this first aid kit.”

  “I was running on sheer instinct after you took out the two cops,” said Ben. “I don’t even remember doing it.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of taking out that first cop. He should never have been able to get to his gun. That was just stupid of me.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I said. My throat was hoarse and dry, and speaking took a lot of effort. “You saved us from who knows what kind of awful treatment.”

  “We still need to get you fixed up,” said George. “Those bandages will keep you from dying in the immediate future, but I’m worried about infection and further bleeding if we don’t get those bullet holes stitched up.”

  “We could take you to a hospital,” said Ben, “but there’s no way you’d get out of there again without the FBI tracking you down. We left an eye witness behind us at the gas station, and they’ll ID you immediately if you show up in the ER with a gunshot wound.”

  “No hospital,” I grunted. “Maybe I can stitch myself.”

  “That means surgical tools we don’t have,” said George. He turned to his son. “They might be able to do something for her if we can get her to .”

  “Maybe,” replied Ben. “Right now, it seems like the only option we have.”

  “Who’s they?” I asked.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” said George. “We’ll make sure you get through this okay. The bullet looks to have gone clean through and not hit any major organs or anything, so you’ve got some time before it becomes a real problem. We’ll get you help just as soon as we can, okay? You’re priority one right now.”

  “We should get moving,” said Ben.

  I looked around and realized we were in a large covered loading bay in the back of an industrial building. It was late enough at night that the place must have been closed, but Ben was right to say that we shouldn’t waste any more time hanging around. If there were any external security cameras or alarms, then we’d have the police landing right on top of our heads.

  “Can you stand up?” asked Ben, guiding me into a sitting position.


  “I can try.”

  The two men each took a side and supported me as I shifted my weight off the loading dock ledge and onto my feet. I would have collapsed to the ground and not got up again had they not been there, but somehow I was able to shuffle along with them to the van. The iron tang of blood hit my nostrils as they maneuvered me into the back seat. I looked down and saw that one leg of my pants was saturated with blood, and that half my white bra was stained red that was drying into a blackish brown color. I was happy to be alive, there was no doubt about that, but shirtless and surrounded by blood, I wanted to be anywhere else but in that van.

  “Here,” said Ben. He stripped his shirt off and held it out to me. “Let me wrap this around you until we can get you some clean clothes. It’s a little bloody, but not nearly as bad as the one we had to cut off you.”

  “The first aid supplies,” I said. “Did you gather everything up and bring it?”

  “I’ve got it right here,” said George. “Just in case they track us here, there’s no reason to leave them any extra clues as to our situation.”

  “Alright, we’re strapped in dad, let’s get out of here.”

  George put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the road.

  “Now we really need to change vehicles,” he said once they were moving again. “That gas station clerk got a good long look at the van, so now that we know Jen isn’t going to bleed out on us, I say we hit a parking lot and snatch a new ride.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Ben.

  He’s strapped me into the seatbelt lying down and my head rested in his lap so he could keep me from rolling around too much. He stroked my hair gently and looked down into my eyes, and I could see how much he cared for me. With these two men to look out for me, I was pretty sure I was going to survive this chase, but for what? I still didn’t know what Sanctuary would hold for me, and I wasn’t equipped to run on my own.

  I closed my eyes and rested while I had the chance. Soon we’d be changing cars, and who knew what would happen next.