Two for tragedy. Volume 2 - стр. 37

– Do you really think so? Well, it's time to show you the second part of my favourite amusement! – he said grimly, and his eyes became so scary that I trembled. – As you asked, I let them go, but now I have every right to kill them! You didn't ask me not to kill them, only to let them go!

– No!" I let out a scream of horror.

– Did you think I was going to let them go alive? – The vampire smiled gloatingly, walked down the stairs and disappeared into the rain.

– No, Brandon! Don't do this! Leave them alone! I'm begging you! – I shouted after him, but he was already out of my sight.

"He'll kill them!" – "He'll kill them!" went through my mind, and I rushed down the stairs and ran after him. I ran through mud and puddles, the rain hitting me in the face, covering my eyes and so soaking my dress that it became a heavy wet sack that stuck to my body and legs and made it hard to run.

– Brandon! Don't you dare! Leave them alone! Let them go! – I screamed exhaustedly, hoping to stop his horrible plans. Soon I was in the woods, my feet drowning in muddy streams and slimy mud. Water streamed down my back, my hair wet and sticky, covering my eyes as if on purpose. I didn't know where to run: the forest seemed huge and unfriendly. The downpour was hitting the green leaves on the trees, and they made a muffled, quiet drumming sound. My right side stabbed, and I stopped involuntarily to give myself a few seconds of rest. I looked around for the girls and the vampire, but they seemed to have disappeared. I had no choice but to keep running, but not as fast as before – my side was aching as I had never run so much and so fast before. I ran into the bowl of the forest and suddenly tripped over something on the ground and fell with my face down into the mud, but I didn't have the luxury of hesitating, and quickly getting to my feet, I ran on, covered from head to toe in mud. But I was suddenly seized with a strange feeling of unbearable anxiety.

What could I have tripped over? The "something" was quite soft, long, and it couldn't have been a fallen branch.

I stopped abruptly and looked back: there was a human body on the ground, half buried in the dirt. I lost my breath. Quickly returning to the body, I hesitantly stopped a few steps away from it.

– No!" I shrieked: there, in the mud, lay Lourdes. – Lourdes! Wake up, Lourdes! – I rushed to her and shook her violently.

But she didn't move. She was dead. There was horror in her beautiful, wide-open eyes, and two large red dots gaping at her neck. The girl's face was almost white: she was completely drained of blood.

Grayson had killed her. He drank her blood.

My eyes filled with tears, and everything around me began to blur. My head was a blur. My body refused to obey me, and I sat on my knees in front of the dead girl, as if hypnotised by her death, crying silently and staring at her pale, dead face. My mind was unwilling to accept this reality. I couldn't believe that Lourdes was dead and would never get up and speak to me again.

Suddenly, some heavy object fell beside me, showering me with a fountain of spray. I glanced sideways and saw Susan. She wasn't moving. She was dead, too. I cried out quietly in horror and looked up to see Grayson standing very close to me, smiling. His lips and teeth were scarlet from the blood he'd drunk, but there wasn't a single speck of it on his soaked suit.