Available Darkness Season 2

God;oh, God!
    The van made it through, miraculously without leaving the road, and he hit the brake pedal the moment he had decelerated enough. His eyes looked to the rearview to see if he’d drawn the agents’ attention. He had. Headlights from the vans on the right and left turned onto the cross street, one going east and the other west, while the third continued straight behind him.
    Shit, which one is he in?
    “Where you at, Johnny?” he asked to no response.
    Larry watched as the van’s headlights approached in his rearview, following for sure. Larry smiled as the van drew closer.
    “Come on, bitches, just a little, ah, there we go!”
    Larry slammed on his brakes, causing the van to crash into his rear. Larry grabbed his gun, hopped out of the van, raced up to the black van behind him, saw the driver, and whoever was sitting in the front passenger seat, both struggling with their crash bags which were taking their sweet time to deflate.
    Larry raised his pistol, fired three shots through the glass, and hit both men in the head. He raced around to the back of the van, hoping like hell it wasn’t loaded with more gunmen.
    He pulled on the door handle and pulled it open to an empty cargo hold.
    “Fuck!” Larry yelled. John was in one of the other two vans.
    He raced back to the front seat, reached over the dead agent, grabbed his radio, and took it back to his van so he could listen in the off chance they’d surrender John’s location.
    The rain began to fall harder.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Abigail

    Abigail stared at Katya, about to tell her everything when another voice bled again into her brain — the girl vampire, Talani, who she hadn’t heard from since the fire.
    “Don’t tell her,” the girl said. “You can’t tell her.”
    Stay out of my head. Stop spying on me.
    “She won’t understand you, Abi. Humans never understand us.”
    Stop it — she’s not like the others.
    “Are you all right?” Katya had been looking at her strangely, now she was looking at Abigail with growing discomfort.
    Abigail shook her head, trying to push Talani away. Talani had just appeared in Abigail’s head, as if she’d been there all along, watching and listening. Waiting. It unnerved her. Abigail didn’t want people eavesdropping on her thoughts, or her life.
    Get out!
    “Are you okay?” Katya repeated.
    “I need to tell you something,” Abigail said.
    Talani’s voice spoke again, demanding, “Don’t do it.”
    Abigail ignored the warning. “It’s bad.”
    “What is it?” Katya said, stepping closer, eyes almost haunted by concern.
    “I’m a monster.”
    “What?” Katya said, laughing like Abigail just delivered the punch line to a corny kid’s joke.
    “I’m a vampire, to be precise, but not the kind from books and movies.” Abigail pushed through the words despite Talani shouting protests in her head.
    Katya stared at her. The smile on her face was a stretched out shirt, awkwardly draped from its hanger. “Ha-ha, Abigail. Seriously, what do you want to tell me?”
    “That’s it,” Abigail said. “I’m a vampire. And I kill through touch. Which is why I wear gloves and cover myself when I’m around people who might accidentally touch me. That spark between us, that was it. There’s a parasite inside me. It feeds off of other people.”
    Katya stepped forward, still smiling, “Don’t be silly, Abigail. You’re not a — ” she reached out to touch Abigail’s hand as if to prove her point.
    No!!
    Abigail suddenly did something she’d never done — something she’d seen John do to Larry, but had never tried herself. Without meaning to, only from thinking it, like instinct, she shoved Katya back with a blast of energy, across the kitchen, so fast and hard that Katya’s head slammed into one of the cabinet doors with a sickening crack.
    Katya cried out as Abigail fell to the kitchen floor, weak and wobbly, waiting to regain her strength.
    Katya sat across the kitchen from Abigail, burnt hand on her head, looking like she’d been roughed up. Their eyes met, in that meeting, Katya realized Abigail was not joking.
    “You were telling the truth?” Katya said, holding her spot on the floor.
    “Yes,” Abigail said softly, ashamed.
    “How? How is it even possible?”
    “It’s a long story,” Abigail said. “And if you didn’t believe the ending, you certainly won’t believe the beginning.”
    “Try me,” Katya said.
    Abigail let it all out — the everything she’d