Running in the Dark by Regan Summers

terrified. My steps faltered, the sounds of traffic in the distance and my heavy breathing fading as he yelled at her. He jerked, one of those fake-out threats to hit, and she flinched, her arms covering her face. He laughed.
    I turned on my heel, but didn’t complete my first step before Soraya landed on me. She was just there, left arm wrapped snug around my throat, right hand catching my wrist as I tried to swing at her.
    “Uncle,” I croaked. It took all the control I’d cultivated to suppress my primal need to get loose. Fight or flight, it’s all about being free, and the vampire would let me go when she decided to let me go.
    She spun me to face her and I almost slumped in relief. Across the street, the predawn bully was shaking his lady by the shoulders.
    “Your initial route was good. Trying to lose your scent in those chemicals, among other breathing humans. But you need to get to where others can protect you. A crowd. Officials of some sort. Or lock yourself away.”
    I rolled my eyes. “That’s where I was going, but—”
    “No but . When you train, you must move as if this is real. You must know what you are capable of so that you can do what you must to survive.” She pulled both my fists up, pressed the bases of my palms until they opened. “You did not even pick up a weapon.”
    “I have a knife,” I said. “Now if you will excuse me.” I peered around her just as the man hauled off and hit the woman. Soraya’s head snapped around as the woman slid to the ground, curling up behind her knees. I stepped forward but the vampiress shoved me back with a hard hand to the center of my chest. Her eyes flashed with red-tinged orange light. It dimmed when she closed her eyes to mere slits.
    She marched across the street, silent but with predatory focus. The bully must have sensed something because he turned. Soraya didn’t register as a problem, probably because she was a woman and he couldn’t see past that to the muscle and the ferocity and the fangs. He smiled, the dumb bastard. And she calmly reached out, grabbed his arm and broke it over her knee.
    I jumped.
    He staggered back, howling. The woman scrambled up and away, making a high-pitched keening sound as she ran. Soraya looked both ways and crossed the street again.
    “Holy shit,” I whispered.
    “That is why you stopped?” She pointed at the man, now slumped where the woman had been. “You thought you would take on that bigger man?”
    “Not so big where it counts, if I had to guess.” I shrugged, trying to shake off my unease. “I couldn’t walk off and let him treat her like that, you know?” Men like him were typically cowards, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have knocked me out cold if I’d tried to intervene. Someday I really needed to work on my impulse control. That, or always hang out with Soraya.
    “I see.” Her tone did not convey understanding.
    The sky was starting to lighten, moving from gray toward pale yellow, as we started back toward the warehouse. The only sound was my footsteps and the rattling of dog chains every now and again.
    “Malcolm told you to be careful,” she said in a way that sounded like a command rather than a question. I nodded. “Even with vampires you think you know, you must be on guard.”
    “Yeah, I get it. Because of the one that lost control.”
    “More than one,” she said. If they could have, my ears would have pricked up. “They’ve turned on feeders, hivemates in a couple of cases.”
    My head snapped toward her and her mouth twitched downward. I’d bet she hadn’t meant to spill that. “I don’t remember seeing this on the news.”
    “It is one of the concerns he will discuss with your human government. It’s not always our kind that chooses to conceal.” She raised her hand as if she was going to voice a strong opinion, then closed it into a loose fist. “In any case, the change is not immediate. The substance they are using corrupts the body before the mind.