American Vampire by Jennifer Armintrout Page A

he’d threatened to kill her, again. Now, he really had to get out of there.
    “Getting dark,” she called from the kitchen, where she cleaned the dishes. “You can go at any time.”
    He pushed aside the curtain over the front window and leaned back cautiously. His burns might have healed, but he got a new respect for the light every time he disrespected it. “You’re not going to miss me?”
    She turned and tossed her dishrag into the sink. “No. Because I assume you’ll be coming back.”
    “What, you don’t think I can make it?” He made a face at her and peered out the window again. Thesun just had to sink behind the tree line, and he would make a run for the car.
    “You didn’t make it before. On some miracle chance that you do get out, you’ll come back to help us all get out. And bring supplies.” Her hands were on her hips. She was dead serious.
    Graf forced down a laugh. “Yeah, that’s going to happen.”
    “I’m not joking.” She stalked into the living room, her jaw clenched. She hissed through her teeth, “If you do get out, you will help us.”
    “I’m going to do exactly shit for you. I’m going to get in that car, put my foot to the floor, and roll into D.C. before sunup. Then, I’m going to party like the world is ending tomorrow and forget all about this hellhole.” Maybe it was the fact that he kept taunting Jessa with his surety that he would be leaving, but he was actually starting to believe it himself.
    “No, you won’t.” She shook her head. “No one could be that heartless.”
    “I could. I’m a vampire.” He flicked the curtain aside. “What do you know? Time for my exit.”
    She followed him onto the porch and stopped at the top step as he opened the trunk. He pulled a bag of blood from the cooler there—not cold, but pleasantly warm now—and bit off the corner with his back teeth. “I guess I should say it’s been a pleasure, but, you know. It hasn’t.”
    “I hope you die in a car wreck,” she spat.
    Graf chuckled to himself as he slipped behind the wheel and started the engine, gulping down the blood like it was the last he would ever taste. He was never so happy to see something in his rearview mirror as Jessa and her stupid house.
    He remembered the turns he’d taken to get there like something out of a nightmare, and soon he was on the same damned highway that had trapped him, passing the same damned gas station. This time, he kept his eye on the odometer, and punched the accelerator. If a DeLorean could travel through time going eighty-eight miles an hour, a Pantera could break out of this prison town at one-twenty. He shot past a figure on the side of the road and pumped his fist. He was actually going to make it! Ten miles, fifteen.
    A deer—the same goddamned deer!—lunged from the cornfield, and he hit his breaks, swerving to avoid it. The car fishtailed, then did a one-eighty in the center of the road. And there, in the edge of the glow of his headlights where it shouldn’t be, was the ruined shape of the busted-down gas station.
    Graf launched himself from the car and took off after the deer, whose hind end bobbed merrily over the stalks of corn as it ran. Deer were fast, but vampires were faster, and he was on the creature in five seconds. He pinned it by the neck and tore its throat with his teeth, spilling the animal’s blood all over the broken stalks around them. When it stoppedstruggling, its eyes frozen open in death, he let it go and punched it in the head.
    “Fuck you, deer.” He nudged the body aside with his toe and pushed his hair back with both his hands. Then, he stood, straightened his clothes, and came up with a new list.
    Still trapped.
    Still need blood.
    Homeless.
    There was no way Jessa would let him back into her house. He hadn’t just burned that bridge. He’d gone full River Kwai on it. And he wasn’t going to feed off the deer he’d just killed. He spat to clear his mouth of the taste. It would be like drinking