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stench crept up on me. I wasn’t the only one balking.
    “It’s like rotten fish.” Sam’s words were muffled by her sleeve as she used it to cover her mouth and nose.
    “Jesus,” exclaimed Chico, coughing along with the others. “What is that?”
    Evan suddenly held up his arm, gaining everyone’s attention. “ Do you guys hear that?”
    I did. A voice…but it wasn’t speaking . It was…moaning?
    “ Do you think they’re all hurt? It would explain why no one’s come.”
    Evan’s theory was a decent one, made sense…yet, my gut said no. Every instinct I had told me to get out of there and to get out of there now. I could sense that Sam’s anxiety equalled my own. Good, maybe that meant I could talk the crazy bitch out of going any further. Sam never allowed fear to hold her back, she used it as fuel. While that was admirable, it drove me fucking insane because I wanted her safe. Sure she was strong, but she wasn’t invincible.
    I grabbed her arm, bringing us both to a halt. “We need to leave. This is beyond weird now and has entered the realm of too damn dangerous. We’re putting ourselves and everyone here at risk by staying.” I expected a snarl or a snort from her, but she instead nodded.
    “ You’re right. This i s ”
    A long, drawn-out moan pierced the silence. Every single one of us froze in position. A few seconds later, there was another moan; it was filled with pain, hopelessness, and misery. Technically, such a sound should have made me want to run to that person’s rescue.
    It didn’t.
    Instead, it made my blood turn to ice. Then there was another sound: scuffling. Someone was coming, but their footsteps were so sluggish that their feet were dragging against the ground as they moved.
    I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when that person finally rounded the head of the junction, but it wasn’t the sight before me. The shirtless vampire was so gaunt, skeletal, and emaciated that it was revolting. His glowing red eyes looked like they had been sucked inward and much of his hair had fallen out. His ribcage was visible, his shoulder blades were sticking out, and he had a greyish, translucent complexion. Basically, he looked like a skeleton with a layer of skin stretched over it. And there was only one thing that made a vampire look like that.
    This really wasn’t good. “ Evan, don’t go any closer.”
    But either my brother was feeling suicidal or he had no idea just how dangerous a starving vampire could be, because he was actually approaching the Pagori. What I wanted to do was order everyone to hold hands and then teleport us all out of there, but I couldn’t reach Evan to grab him and there was simply no way I was leaving him behind.
    “All of you slowly retreat,” I said without moving my gaze from the starving vampire. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Don’t take your eyes off him. And whatever you do, unless he leaps at you, don’t run.” They each followed my commands instantly, except for Evan. He was instead continuing to move forward. “Evan, what the fuck?”
    “ He’s starving, Jared, he needs blood, get over here.”
    Clearly Evan had never been near a starving vampire before. I had. “ Yes, he’s starving. That makes him dangerous. He’ll attack you.”
    “ Attack me? Look at him, he’s practically falling to pieces – he doesn’t have the strength to take me on.”
    That was where my brother was wrong. “ You’d be surprised just how strong and fast a vampire can be when it’s desperate. Right now, he’s desperate. So move your stubborn ass away from him!” I thought he’d keep ignoring me, but instead Evan sighed and took a step backwards. That was when the vampire lunged at him. He knocked Evan to the ground, his mouth latching onto his throat and gulping down his blood so strongly it was sickeningly audible.
    Before I could react, one of Sam’s powerful energy balls struck the vampire, making him burst into ashes with a scream. Then