Blood Haze (25 page)

With
as much strength as she could muster, she began to yell and beat against the
metal box. Almost immediately, as in her glimpsing, her fists were cut open as
they hit against the protruding screws. She blanked her mind to the pain and
continued hitting against the box and calling out, begging… hoping someone
would hear her.

~X~

“How
long ago did she leave,” Lynx demanded of the very short of patience, Ms.
Caruthers.

She
pursed her lips, and he thought for a moment she wasn’t going to answer him.
“You haven’t missed her by much… only five minutes, or so. In fact, I’m
surprised you didn’t pass them in the elevator.”

One
word caught his attention more than any of the others. “Them?”

Ms.
Caruthers lowered her reading glasses and eyed him steadily. “Yes, them.”

“Who
was she with?” he asked, trying to maintain control, when he felt anything but
control.

She
closed her eyes as she thought. Raising a hand, she tapped a finger against her
bottom lip. “He’s a hospital employee. Umm, what is his name? It’s odd, like
maybe it was short for something else. Something like Cam… I don’t know. I just
can’t remember. Sorry,” she said, with an apologetic smile.

He
scrubbed a frustrated hand through his hair. He turned to run back to the
lobby, angry at himself for not waiting for the damned elevator. He’d probable
just missed her. He had a very bad feeling about all of this. He stopped
suddenly when he got to the office doorway. “Do you know where this person
works in the hospital?”

She
smiled hugely, “Oh yes. He’s a surgical nurse. But I think, right now, he’s
been temporarily reassigned to the ICU.”

When
she’d said ‘surgical nurse’, it’d made him think immediately of Arabella’s
brother, Ian, who’d died in surgery. Which made him think of his poor, little,
lost Arabella going down to the morgue all alone to see her brother, while he’d
sat in a bar, drowning in his sorrows. His blood ran cold. The morgue! The
vision she’d told him about. She’d said she’d been placed in a metal coffin! “Where’s
the morgue located?” he demanded.

She
lifted a hand nervously to her chest at his raging emotions. “It’s… it’s in the
basement.”

Turning
quickly, he ran down the hall, which seemed much longer, until he reached the
elevator. He punched the button and thankfully the doors slid open. He punched
the button for the basement. The elevator seemed to take an interminable amount
of time to reach its destination and the music grated on his nerves. His
muscles hurt from being clenched for such a long period of time.

His
body tensed even further when the door slowly slid open. He took a moment to
take in the area before he stepped off the elevator. The area looked empty. He
stepped toward the electric sliding doors leading into the morgue and watched
as the sensor automatically opened the doors. He stepped into the room lined
with empty stretchers. The room was clean and extremely organized. There were
metal shelves holding trays of assorted items. In one corner was a desk,
complete with computer and printer.

The
instant he walked in, he could smell blood. But not just any blood… her blood.
Rage roared through him. If that little bastard hurt her, he was going to kill
him – not that he wasn’t planning on killing him, already. He stopped and
inhaled deeply, he swallowed hard as saliva filled his mouth when the sweet
aroma of her hit him.

He
glanced around the room and it was then what the metal coffins in her dream
were… the morgue freezer lockers. He moved swiftly to the stainless-steel doors
and began opening them systematically. He reached the fourth one and bent to
open it when a small noise had him turning in time to see a metal pan slamming
down. He moved just in time for it to catch him against his left shoulder, he
spun around and moved forward to tackle the vamp he’d seen at her house at the
first attack.

“I’m
going to kill you this time,” Lynx growled.

“I
told you, she’s mine!” the vamp yelled.

“Like
hell!” Lynx said as he charged the vampire once more. He caught the vamp with
so much force, it propelled them both against the line of metal gurneys. They
fell in a tumbling mess of scattered equipment and overturned gurneys.
 

“What
is she to you anyway?” the vamp growled.

“She
belongs to me,” Lynx roared.

The
younger vamp leaped to his feet and began to circle Lynx, who stood watching
his movements. With a sneer on his lips, the vamp taunted, “She had a lot of
blood left in her when I took her the last time. I think you’ve gone soft.”

Lynx
waited until the vamp circled to his right, his dominate side, before sliding
his leg and catching him with a roundhouse kick. The vamp moved to jump out of
the way. Lynx’ s kick caught him squarely in the jaw. The kick knocked the vamp
backwards into a stainless-steel cabinet, shattering the glass and sending its
contents scattering. The vamp yelled and struggled to get up. As he did, his
shoes slipped in some anti-bacteria sanitizer which had fallen and spilt out onto
the floor. He teetered back and landed hard, hitting his head on the corner of
the cabinet. The hit seemed to stun him and he lay there for several seconds.

While
he was incapacitated, Lynx grabbed a scalpel from the floor, where it’d been
dropped, sometime in the course of their fight. He grasped the handle and thrust
the blade, burying it deep within the chest of the limp vamp. The vamp
immediately began to wallow and howl as he clutched at his chest, trying, ineffectively,
to pull the scalpel from his chest.

Slowly,
as he writhed on the floor, he began to grey and appeared to shrink before
Lynx’s very eyes. Soon, all that was left was his scrubs and a pile of ashes. A
movement in the adjoining alcove caught Lynx’s attention. He immediately stood
to defend himself. Langston Warrington held his hands up to his fellow vampire.
“What happened here?” he asked.

“This
asshole kidnapped my… my girl,” Lynx said, not sure how to describe the
overwhelming emotion he felt for Arabella.

Langston
eyed the pile of grey rubble. “Who is it?”

“A
nurse from the surgical ward… or ICU."

Langston
looked about the room. “Umm, where is your… girl?”

Lynx
pointed to the metal drawers.

Langston
slowly nodded. “Okay. You get your girl and I’ll ‘clean-up’ this mess.”

Breathing
heavy, Lynx gave a curt smile, turned, and frantically began opening all the doors
to the drawers. He’d gotten near to the end of the row and was nearly frantic,
when finally he opened a door and saw a body wearing tennis shoes and heard
rasping sobs. When he slid the drawer open, she began to scream for help and
hit out with her bloodied hands. Before he could react or get her attention,
she flipped herself off the drawer onto the opposite side of where he stood.
She hit the floor hard and immediately began to try and crawl away, but her
shivering body made it difficult.

“Arabella!”
he tried to say over her screaming cries. He moved to her swiftly and grabbed
her from behind. “Arabella!” he said again. But she appeared to not to have
heard him as she twisted her body and began to kick out at him. He absorbed the
kicks and a slight smile crossed his lips. His girl wouldn’t have gone down
without a fight. He was proud of her. “Arabella!” he said with more sternness.
The command in his voice made her stop instantly. She looked up finally and saw
him. Her lips began to tremble and tears slid in a silent stream down her face.

He
knelt down in front of her and gathered her close to him. He inhaled her scent
and was glad he’d just fed as her blood was almost too intoxicating. He glanced
quickly in Langston’s direction to ensure the other vamp could handle the smell
of the blood on her hands. But he didn’t appear to notice it as he busily
finished sweeping up the ashy remains. He pulled back and cupped her face in
his hands.

“Did
he hurt you?” he asked.

Without
taking her eyes from his, she shook her head. Her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“It w… was Cal, the n… nurse from the I… ICU. He’s tall…” she broke off as a
sob rose up and she buried herself against him once more as she cried. “I was
so s… scared,” she cried. “I… I didn’t think you’d come. I… I hung up on you…
and I didn’t think you’d come. I didn’t think anyone would come,” she sobbed.

“Oh
Arabella, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. Let’s get you cleaned up and go home,
okay?”

“What
about Cal?” she asked in her watery voice.

“I’ve
taken care of Cal. You don’t have to worry about him. He won’t be bothering you
again. I promise.”

She
drew back and looked up into his face, searching for truth. “How?”

He
traced the line of her jaw with his finger. Raising his eyes back to hers, he
stared intently. “It doesn’t matter. Okay?”

She
blinked several times before nodding her head. “Okay,” she finally answered
once the gazing had overtaken her.

Slowly,
he helped her rise up on shaky legs that kept threatening to buckle beneath
her. Finally, he picked her up and carried her to the same metal chair she’d
sat on the day Ian had died. He turned to find Langston standing off to the
side with some wet gauze in his hands. “For her hands,” he said.

“Thanks,”
Lynx murmured as he took it from him. Looking around the room, he said, “Sorry
about the mess. I’ll pay for the damage.”

Langston
simply shrugged his shoulders. “Never had this much excitement before in the
morgue. Don’t worry about it.” With a nod of his head in Arabella’s direction,
he asked, “She gonna be okay?”

“Yes.
I think so.”

Langston
nodded his head. “Good. She seems like a real nice lady. Was real tore up over
her brother.”

“Thanks,”
Lynx said, indicating the gauze in his hands. He turned to find Arabella
watching him closely as if she was afraid he’d leave her. He smiled at her
reassuringly and squatted down in front of her. Gently, he took each hand and
cleaned the blood from them. She flinched at each swipe, but didn’t make a
sound. “Arabella, my Arabella,” he murmured to her. “You are so cold. I say we
go home and have a nice hot soak in the tub. What do you think?” he asked with
a smile. She swallowed but didn’t answer as she watched him clean the gashes on
her hands. “Just look what you’ve done to yourself,” he tssked. “What am I
going to do with you? Huh?”

Her
body began to tremble. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

He
tangled one hand in her hair and pressed his lips against her forehead. He
swallowed past the lump in his throat as he thought of how this might have
turned out if he’d not found her. Shaking it off, he whispered against her
ear,” Wrong answer. You’re supposed to say:
whatever
I want
.”

After
a hesitation she whispered back, “Whatever you want.”

Pressing
his lips against her head, he murmured, “That’s my girl.”

Chapter 11

Lynx
hated leaving his motorcycle in the hospital parking lot, but he didn’t think
she’d be able to hold on in her current shaky state. So, he’d snatched her keys
from her purse and driven them to Night Shade in her car. He groaned when he
pulled up in the circle drive. The drive was filled with cars. The others had
finally returned. He’d hoped they’d have stayed away for at least another week.
Arabella looked at him expectantly.

“The
rest of my family has returned from Cape Horn,” he told her.

She
lifted hesitant eyes to his. He pressed a kiss into the palm of her bandaged
hand, before saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you situated in my suite. You can
meet everyone when you’re feeling up to it. Okay?”

She
gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.

He
nodded and turned to slide out of the car. When he came around and opened her
door, she sat with her head bowed as she plucked at the bandage on her hand
nervously. He held out a hand to her and waited patiently for her to place hers
in it.

She
eyed his hand for a moment before lifting her gaze to his. “Maybe it’d be
better if I just went home. You need to be with your family and since you don’t
have to babysit me anymore…” she trailed off.

“No!”
he said emphatically. “You’ll stay with me for the next couple days. On Sunday,
if you feel up to it, you can go home. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.
You need a chance to deal with it. And I want to be with you while you do so.”

Slowly
she nodded her head and placed her hand trustingly in his.

They
made it to his suite without running into the others. They both heaved a sigh
of relief… just for different reasons.

“Why
don’t I run you a bath, then I’ll need to go and greet my siblings. Will you be
okay here for a little while?”

“Of
course”

He
went into the bathroom while she sat wearily on the bed. While the water ran,
he returned to find her head once again bowed. He stood in the doorway and just
stared at her. If anything would have happened to her, he didn’t know what he’d
have done. That, in itself, scared him.