Angel at Dawn (46 page)

Read Angel at Dawn Online

Authors: Emma Holly

Tags: #Ghost stories, #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Motion picture producers and directors, #Occult fiction, #Ghosts, #Occult & Supernatural, #Love stories

Finally, the doors slid open to reveal a man who wore a white lab coat and a security badge that bore his name: Carl Anderson. His eyes were shifty and there was a noticeable sheen of sweat on his brow. My gaze dropped to his right hand in which he tightly held a syringe—the sharp needle uncapped.
That was definitely a safety hazard I wasn’t getting anywhere close to. What the hell was he thinking, carrying something like that around?
Glaring at him, I waited for him to get out of the elevator so I could get on, but he didn’t budge an inch.
Behind thick glasses, his eyes were steadily widening with what looked like fear—and totally focused on something behind me. Curious about what would earn this dramatic reaction, I turned to see another man swiftly entering the lobby. He was tall, had a black patch over his left eye, and wasn’t smiling. Aside from that, I noticed the gun he held. The big gun. The one he had trained on the man in the elevator.
“Leaving so soon, Anderson? Why am I not surprised?” the man with the gun growled. “No more of your fucking games. Give it to me right now.”
I gasped as Carl Anderson suddenly clamped his arm around my neck. The tray of coffees went flying as I clawed at him, but my struggling did nothing. I couldn’t even scream; he held me so tightly that it cut off my breath.
“Why are you here?” Anderson demanded. “
I
was supposed to be the one to make contact.”
The gunman’s icy gaze never wavered. “Let go of the woman.”
My eyes watered. I couldn’t breathe. My larynx was being crushed.
“But she’s the only thing standing between me and your direct orders right now, isn’t she?”
“And why would you think I care if you grab some random hostage?” the gunman growled.
Random hostage?
Panic swelled further inside of me. I scanned the lobby to see that this altercation hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several people with shocked looks on their faces had cell phones pressed to their ears. Were they calling 911? Where was security? No guards approached with guns drawn.
Fear coursed through me, closing my throat. My hands, which gripped Anderson’s arm, were shaking.
“We can talk about this,” Anderson said.
“It’s too late for negotiations. There’s more at risk than the life of one civilian.”
“I know. Too bad, really. Thought we were supposed to be working together.”
“Sure. Until you decided to sell elsewhere. Hand over the formula.”
“I destroyed the rest.” Anderson’s voice trembled. “One prototype is all that’s left.”
“That was a mistake.” The gunman’s tone was flat, but still deadly.
“It was a mistake creating it in the first place. It’s dangerous.”
“Isn’t that the whole point?”
“You’d defend something that would just as easily kill
you
, Declan? Even though you can walk in the sunlight, you’re not much better than the other bloodsuckers.” The man who held me prone sounded disgusted. And scared shitless—almost as scared as I felt.
Bloodsuckers?
What the hell was he talking about? How did I get in the middle of this? I’d only gone out for coffee—coffee that was now splattered all over the clean lobby floor. It was just a normal workday—a normal Tuesday.
More people had gathered around us, moving backward toward the walls and door, away from this unexpected standoff, hands held to their mouths in shock at what they were witnessing. Suddenly I saw someone to my left from the office—it was Stacy with an armful of file folders, her eyes wide as saucers as she looked at me. She took a step closer, mouthing my name.
I tried to shake my head.
No, please don’t come any closer
, I thought frantically.
Don’t get hurt
.
Where the hell was security?
A shriek escaped my lips when I felt a painful jab at my throat.
“Don’t do that,” the man with the gun, Declan, snapped.
“You know what will happen if I inject her with this, don’t you?” Anderson’s voice held an edge of something—panic, fear, desperation. I didn’t have to be the helpless hostage in this situation to realize that was a really bad mix.
He had the syringe up against my throat, the sharp tip of the needle stabbing deep into my flesh. I stopped struggling and tried not to move, tried not to breathe. My vision was blurred with tears as I waited for the man with the gun to do something to save me. He was my only hope.
“I don’t give a shit about her,” my only hope said evenly. “All I care about is that formula. Now hand it over and maybe you get to live.”
The gunman’s face was oddly emotionless considering this situation. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, which bared thick, sinewy biceps. His face didn’t have an ounce of humanity to it. Around the black eye patch, scar tissue branched out like a spider web up over his forehead and down his left cheek, all the way to his neck. He was as scary-looking as he was ugly.
“I knew they’d send you to retrieve this, Declan.” Anderson’s mouth was so close to my ear that I could feel his hot breath. His voice, while shaky, held a mocking edge. “Who better for this job?”
“I’ll give you five seconds to release the woman and hand over that syringe with its contents intact,” Declan said. “Or I’ll kill both of you where you stand. Five . . . four . . . ”
“Think about this, will you?” Anderson dug the needle further into my flesh, prompting another wheeze of a shriek from me. “You need to open your fucking eyes and see the truth before it’s too late. I’m trying to stop this the only way I can. It’s wrong. All of it’s wrong. You’re just as brainwashed as the rest of them, aren’t you?”
With his chest pressed against my back, I could feel his erratic heartbeat. He was afraid for his life. A mental flash of memories of my family, my friends, sped past my eyes. I didn’t want to die—not like this.
“Three . . . two . . . ” Declan continued, undeterred. The laser sighter from his gun shone a bright, unwavering red dot onto the center of my blue shirt.
Several onlookers ran for the glass doors, and screams sounded out.
“You want the abomination I created that goddamned much?” Anderson yelled. “Here! You can have it!”
A second later, I felt a burning pain, hot as fire, as he injected me with the syringe’s contents. It was a worse pain than the stabbing itself. Then he raggedly ripped the needle out and pushed me away hard enough that I went sprawling to the floor. I clamped my hand against the side of my neck and started to scream my head off.
The sound of a gunshot, even louder than my screams, pierced my eardrums. I turned to look at the man who’d injected me. He now lay sprawled out on the marble floor, his eyes open and glassy. There was a large hole in Anderson’s forehead, red and wet and sickening. He had a gun in his left hand, which he must have pulled from his lab coat when he let go of me. The empty syringe lay next to him.
Declan went directly to him, gun still trained on the dead man for another moment before he tucked it away, squatted, and then silently and methodically began going through the pockets of the white coat.
My entire body shook, but otherwise I was frozen in place. There were more screams now, from the others who’d witnessed the shooting as they ran in all directions.
After a moment, Declan swore under his breath and then turned to look directly at me for the very first time. The iris of his right eye was pale gray and soulless, and the look he gave me froze my insides.
My throat felt like it had been slit wide open, but I was still breathing. Still thinking. A quick, erratic scan of the lobby showed where I’d dropped my purse and the coffees and pastries six feet to my right. Most of the people in the lobby were now running for the doors to escape to the street outside. A security alarm finally began to wail, adding to the surrounding chaos.
“You—” Declan rose fluidly to his feet. He was easily a full foot taller than my five-four. “—come here.”
Like hell I would.
A moment later, the elevator to the left of me opened and a man pushing an empty mail cart got off. The murderer’s attention went to it briefly. I took it as the only chance I might ever get. I scrambled to my feet and ran.
“Jill!” I heard Stacy yell, but it didn’t slow me down. I had to get away, far away from the office. My mind had switched into survival mode. Stacy couldn’t get close to me right now; it would only put her in danger, too.
I left my purse behind—the contents of my life scattered on the smooth, cold floor next to the spilled coffee and spreading pool of blood. I pushed through the front doors, fully expecting Declan to shoot me in my back. But he didn’t.
Yanking my hand from my wounded neck, I saw that it was covered in blood. My stomach lurched and I almost vomited. What was in that syringe? It continued to burn like lava sliding through my veins.
I was badly hurt. Jesus, I’d been stabbed in the throat with a needle by a stranger. If I wasn’t in such pain, I’d think I was having a nightmare.
This
was
a nightmare—a waking one.
A look behind me confirmed that Declan, whoever the hell he was, had exited the office building. He looked along one side of the street before honing in on me.
I clutched at a few people’s arms as I stumbled past them. They recoiled from my touch, faceless strangers who weren’t willing to help a strange woman with a bleeding neck wound.
My heart slammed against my rib cage as I tried to run. I found I couldn’t manage more than a stagger. I wanted to pass out. The world was blurry and shifting around me.
The burning pain slowly began to spread from my neck down to my chest and along my arms and legs. I could feel it like a living thing, burrowing deeper and deeper inside me.
It didn’t take long before I felt Declan’s hand clamp around my upper arm. He nearly pulled me off my feet as he dragged me around the corner and into an alley.
“Let go of me,” I snarled, attempting to hit him. He effortlessly grabbed my other arm. I blinked against my tears.
“Stay still.”
“Go to hell.” The next moment, the pain inside me cut off any further words as I convulsed. Only his unrelenting grip kept me from crumpling to the ground. He pushed me up against the wall and held my head firmly in place as he looked into my eyes. His scars were even uglier up close. A shudder of revulsion rippled through me.
Then he wrenched my head to the left and roughly pulled my long blond hair aside to inspect the neck would. His expression never wavered. There was no pity or anger or disdain in his gaze—nothing but emptiness in his single gray eye as he looked me over.
Holding me with one hand tightly around my throat so I could barely breathe, he held a cell phone to his ear.
“It’s me,” he said after a moment. “There’s been a complication.”
A pause.
“Anderson administered the prototype to a civilian before attempting to shoot me and escape. I killed him.” Another pause. “It’s a woman. Should I kill her, too?”
I gasped. He sounded so blasé about it, so emotionless, as if he was discussing bringing home a pizza after work rather than seeking permission for my murder.
His one-eyed gaze narrowed. While talking on the phone he hadn’t looked anywhere but my face. “I know, I was followed here. I don’t have long.” Then finally, “Understood.”
He ended the call.
“What are you going to do to me?” I demanded through my fear.
“That’s not up to me.” Declan loosened his hold on my neck so he could tuck the phone back into the pocket of his black jeans. It was enough to let me sink my teeth into his arm. He pushed me back so hard I whacked my head against the wall and fell to the ground. I’d managed to draw blood on his forearm, which was already riddled with other scars. It was oddly satisfying.
I scrambled up to my feet, adrenaline coursing through my body. I was ready to do whatever I had to in order to fight for my life, but another curtain of agony descended over me.
“What’s happening to me?” I managed to say through clenched teeth. “What the hell was in that syringe?”
Declan grabbed me by the front of my shirt and brought me very close to his scarred face. “Poison.”
My eyes widened. “Oh my God. What kind of poison?”
“The kind that will kill you,” he said simply. “Which is why you have to come with me.”
I shook my head erratically. “I have to get to a hospital.”
“No.” He grabbed me tighter. “Death now or death later. That’s your only choice.”
It was a choice I didn’t want to make. It was one I wouldn’t have to make. More pain erupted inside of me and the world went totally and completely black.

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