Available Darkness Season 2

imagined Abi injured, lying in a gutter as the sun came up. Or …
    Then he realized with a disturbing certainty — perhaps she was chasing death. Maybe she was out there right now waiting for the sun to come and end her misery. Katya had been such a happy part of Abi’s life. It must’ve been an accident, just like the neighbors.
    He remembered when he asked to join Johnny and Tiny on the trip to Cromwell’s. Abi had begged John not to go. Had said she was scared — what if she killed again?
    That’s exactly what happened. She can’t control it.
    Jesus, I’ve got to find her.
    “Larry!” a voice suddenly in his head.
    It was John.
    “Larry, I need your help, now!”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Hope

    There was light and sound and some sort of memory, but all of them mingled together into a muddy, white sludge. The white light turned brighter, until it was almost painful. Then it softened to a kiss.
    Hope saw something impossible — a monster who looked like a tree with way too many eyes — and the tall skinny German, then …
    Nothing.
    Then she saw John. Impossibly standing in front of her. They were on a roof, up high. She called out his name, confused. Then she saw the bald man in black robes, somehow floating behind John.
    She remembered him, too.
    She flashed back. He’d called himself a detective a long time ago, had come to her house, asking questions. He’d wanted to talk to John. And when she told John, he freaked out. That’s when he told her everything — what he was. And what he had to do to protect her.
    She remembered.
    Everything.
    Suddenly, she felt a hot pain in her chest and looked down, and saw a red glowing in her skin.
    What the hell?
    Then unimaginable pain, worse than anything she’d ever felt. Her chest an explosion turning everything to black, until the white light finally came back, bringing with it her true name.
    “Hope … ”
    Again and again it repeated.
    “Hope, Hope, Hope … ”
    Hope opened her eyes to John’s hazy face staring down at her.
    “It’s you,” she whispered, remembering both her past decade as Hannah, and her life before, when she lived in Florida with John.
    She remembered their parting, and what he told her — that he was a vampire, and that she would have to have her memory erased.
    She sat up, her head spinning and in pain. “You? You did this to me?”
    He looked wounded or confused, she wasn’t sure which. Then he spoke, “Oh, God, I’ve missed you so much, Hope.”
    She swallowed, tears welling in her eyes. She missed him, too, even if she hadn’t realized it, or her life before this, until now. She reached out to John, to touch his face, but he pulled back as if horrified.
    “If we touch, you’ll die,” he said.
    “What?”
    John explained that he fed through his touch, without any control. Hope recalled something, vague from before, but the memory made it no easier to believe.
    “What happened here?” she asked, sitting up and looking down at the ashen corpse on the ground.
    “It’ll have to wait,” he said. “Right now, we need to get out of here.”
    “Hannah!”
    Hope turned and saw Greg slowly approaching, his pistol out but not aimed. Beside him was the man who had wanted to cut her open, Mike Mathews. Behind them, three more men, all dressed in black gear with weapons drawn.
    “Get away from her!” Greg screamed at John.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 9 — John

    John stood, placing himself between Greg, Mathews, and Hope.
    “You’re too late,” John shouted over the screaming wind. “Jacob got the crystal and he’s gone back to Otherworld.”
    “Bullshit,” Greg said, firing a shot.
    The shot ripped into John’s chest. Hope screamed, “Stop!” running to put herself in front of John.
    In John’s mind he saw Greg fire his second shot, then watched the bullet sing through the night in slow motion, sailing past its intended target and finding Hope instead. Another wound so soon was a risk he could not allow.
    No fucking way.
    John reached inside himself, gathered every bit of his Darkness, then screamed, unleashed it in a giant blast of energy directed at the small huddle of men, sending them all stumbling like trees ripped from the ground in a hurricane.
    Two of the men in black sailed right over the roof as John raced towards the remaining three men, quickly disarming the final man in black, reaching into his visor and sucking his life in a quick spurt.
    John turned to the last two men alive on the rooftop, Greg,