Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel Read Online Free Page A

there with you. Your buddy drove me home, and you got my name and address from my ID. You stole my keys and now you’re here for what — thanks? What do you want?”
    He was clearly nuts. I shuffled my feet, wedging my fingers into the small crack and gripping the edge of the metal window frame.
    “He didn’t drug you.” He sighed, looking at me like someone who just wasn’t getting it. Julian didn’t strike me as the patient type, or the sort of person I wanted to piss off. He took a step closer and paused beside my dresser to look me up and down. “You seem like a tough girl, Alex, so I’m just going to tell you the truth: you’re boyfriend is a— what you would call a vampire. He bit you. You died. And now you’re becoming one too.”
    Yep, definitely nuts. With a side of Fruit Loops. Alarm bells sounded in my head. I whipped around, throwing the window open so fast, it slammed against the frame and flew off the track. I took a deep breath to scream my lungs out, but a large hand clamped over my mouth and nose. Julian wrapped his other arm around my waist and lifted me away from the window with graceful ease. I writhed and twisted as he held me with my feet off the ground, my back pressed to his chest. He didn’t budge.
    “I understand this is hard to believe.” He spoke in low tones, right next to my ear. “But I’m telling you the truth. I’m not going to hurt you. You have my word.”
    And suffocating me was what, foreplay? I whimpered and tried kicking him with my heel, but just grazed his shins. He held on tight, unfazed by my attempts to bruise and scratch his legs and arms.
    “Just relax,” he said, “you’ll see in a few minutes. What’s the longest you’ve ever been able to hold your breath?” He shifted me so I had even less movement. His hand stayed suctioned over my face in an airtight seal.
    My eyes watered over with the realization I was going to die. Murdered by a guy who I — of course — had the hots for.
    The most mundane thoughts started to swirl in my mind, like how I wouldn’t have to do my Micro paper after all. I should have told my mom I loved her more often. Should have listened to her, and this never would have happened. And now I would never get the chance to see Europe, or to find my biological father, or to take belly-dancing lessons. Tears streamed from my eyes.
    But as I thought those things, minutes ticked by. I went on not breathing. A new and shocking reality seeped into my cluttered thoughts and flipped my world on its axis. Nothing hurt. I felt no pressure in my lungs, no pain, no blackout no…heartbeat. I stopped straining to get away and hung there in silence, searching for it. I couldn’t feel or hear anything.
    How could I be alive without oxygen? Six and a half minutes, if the heart kept beating, and then you were out. How could I not have a heartbeat and still be awake? Was I still stuck in a nightmare?

    “I’m going to let you go now. Okay?” Julian whispered in my ear.
    I’d almost forgotten about him. I stared around the room, wishing for everything to melt away into the world it was before. It didn’t. I nodded.
    “Then we’re going to talk about this calmly, no screaming, all right?” His voice had taken on a dulcet tone. Whether I liked it or not, it put me momentarily at ease. I nodded again, and he gradually loosened his hold.
    I slid to the floor in a puddle of shattered sensibilities, sucking in breath after breath of air I apparently didn’t need. And I cried. I brought my hand up and pressed two fingers to my carotid artery as Julian hovered over me like the Grim Reaper. Nothing. I tried my wrist, pressed my hand to my chest: stillness.
    “That’s not possible!” I sobbed, pounding on my breastplate . This can’t be real. I can’t be…dead . I wrapped my arms around my knees, hiding my face.
    Wake up, Alex. Wake up .
    A hand on my shoulder jerked me out of my internal chanting. Julian knelt beside me, his look intent, lips