Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (183 page)

"That's enough." Serus turned to the
walls. "Everyone look for a way out."

Tessa had already turned away from
the others, her vision shifting easily into half-and-half mode.
There had to be another door. She walked from side to side,
searching for the energy wisps. Nothing.

"Look, she has no idea what the hell
she's doing." Jacob's sarcastic voice sliced through the
air.

Tessa couldn't stop her shoulders
from cringing against the same kind of criticism she'd endured for
years. Jacob was just being his usual asshole self.

This wasn't all her fault. She
crouched down and touched the sand under her feet. It was
damp.

She sniffed the air. Musty. "Dad.
Where's the closest water to here?"

"There's a small river close by." He
knelt and touched the sand. "For all I know, with the heavy
snowfall the whole area flooded."

Going on blind instinct, Tessa placed
one hand against the cold rock and walked along several feet. She
didn't know what she was looking for, but water had to have come in
from somewhere. And recently.

Her fingers snagged on a crevice,
dragging her to a stop. She followed the edge of it up as high as
it could go. Then she traced the crack down to the floor. It
appeared to completely separate the walls. "There's something
here."

She went over it again, looking for
some kind of lever or opening mechanism. "Spread out and look for a
second split in the wall." Everyone spread out and searched against
the stones.

"It's here."

Tessa ran over to her father's side.
"Is there a way to open it?" She bent down to the bottom. Her
fingers caught on something odd. Wiggling them in deeper, she tried
to find something to grab onto. As she shifted, her knee smacked
against a stone higher up.

Heavy grinding and groaning filled
the air as the wall moved upwards.

"Good girl."

The words were barely out of her
father's mouth when water rushed in.

***

Cody circled the huge
living room in the mausoleum. He been looking for a way out since
the front door had sealed, locking them in. The room opened to
other parts of the house, but the windows and doors were all
locked. Motioning Jewel to follow, Cody led the way through the den
and dining room to the kitchen. There was even less indication
there that anyone lived here.

"Dad?" Cody called out. "Are you
here?"

Jewel gasped, her eyes wide. "What
are you doing?" she whispered. "We don't know who's
here."

"Dad's here. Remember? And Ian. Let's
keep looking. We need to find them."

"I'd rather go outside and wait for
them to come to us." Jewel tried the door leading to the backyard,
then the windows one after the other. She turned around to face
Cody, the reality of their situation settling onto her features.
"There's no way out."

"Not that we've seen –
yet."

Panic glistened in her eyes. "What do
we do?"

"We stay calm." Cody walked to the
one door off to the side. "We haven't checked the basement. There
could be an exit down there."

"I don't want to go."

Cody knew exactly how she felt. He
reached for her hand. "Let's go together."

Jewel gulped and grasped his hand
tightly.

"Together."

CHAPTER TEN

Tessa tried to close the wall and
stop the water from flowing in, but the mechanism didn’t seem to
work in reverse. "I can’t close it," she cried out in panic. Even
as she spoke the onrush dissipated to a gentle wave as the water
flow leveled out and started to soak into the sand.

"This is stupid." Jacob waded away
from them through the water. "I’m going back to the stairs to look
for another way out."

Tessa shrugged, just glad to see the
back of him. She crouched down to look under the stone wall that
had stopped about three feet up from the ground. Light shone down,
twinkling on the water at her feet. She bent and slipped out into
the early morning air. Freedom. She closed her eyes and with
relief, opened her arms to the sky, gulping in deep breaths of
air.

She’d been right all along. She
couldn’t begin to understand how she’d known what to do, but her
instincts had led her in the right direction. She took several
steps in the soft muddy ground.

"Tessa?" Her father's anxious voice
carried outside.

"It's beautiful out here." She bent
down and ducked her head under the wall so she could see her
father. "Do you want to try to come out?"

"No." Serus gnashed his teeth. "Damn
it. It's too bright out there already."

Tessa
stopped and looked around at the bright morning sun. "I’ll go look
around and come back." She tossed a confident smile back at
him.
"No worries."

Leaving him spluttering, Tessa
circled the outside of the house, searching for a place for the
others to hide out. A safe, dark place. They could stay where they
were, but it was hardly ideal. What if the owners
returned?

She
leaned against the wall. She'd been through so much already. She
was so tired.
Think, damn it,
think
. There had to be an answer. What
about gloves and helmets? That might do it. Where could she find
such things? There had to be another option. Steal the vehicle? She
headed back to the others to discuss their
options.

The wall was closed.

"Crap." With one hand on the wall,
she walked the full length, looking for the same crack in the wall.
Surely having a mechanism to operate the door from the outside was
just a normal safeguard? Her stomach wanted to heave. Tremors
wracked her legs. Why hadn't she stayed in there with the
others?

The early morning light showed her
footprints sunk into the wet ground. She stepped to where she'd
stepped out from under the wall. That should be about right.
Turning around to face the stone, she ran her hands back and forth
looking for the edge – and couldn't find it.

She considered her options. She could
go back inside and down to the basement where the others were or
she could look around and see if she could find a place for
everyone to hide. Wanting to make the most of the time she had, she
decided to search the outbuildings.

Twenty minutes later, frustration
mirrored her fatigue. She'd found nothing. She circled the last
outbuilding, some kind of garage or shed. Windowless. The doorknob
turned easily under her hand. This building, like everything else
she'd seen so far, was empty. She walked through the interior
carefully, searching for some sign. Any sign.

In the far corners, she found several
empty water bottles. Signs of humans. Vampires rarely drank water.
Generally, if it didn't have blood or caffeine in it, they wouldn't
touch it. She crouched down beside the bottles. No sign of
blood.

Good. Maybe she was getting
somewhere.

The plank floor had been well
scuffed. The walls had been scraped up, but she couldn't tell if
the marks were old or new. The ring pounded into the wall was
definitely new.

Humans had been here. They were gone
now.

To where?

And how?

There were two vehicles outside now.
But the driveway could hold dozens. The place was so remote no one
would know if human trafficking were going on here.

She
wrinkled her nose. Could be two or ten or a hundred vampires
involved. She walked back out into the morning sun and leaned
against the open door. A sound came from the front door.
Dad?
She raced back
toward them. Just as she started around the large SUV the heights
of the people standing in the shadows of the front entrance stalled
her forward rush.

That wasn't Dad.

But it was Jacob standing inside the
dark shadows of the porch.

And someone else. No. Two someone
elses.

Tessa dropped down behind the
vehicle. What was going on? Another male, much bigger and decked
out in the full motorcycle suit, stood on guard off to one side.
From where she stood, Tessa couldn't identify the others. Jacob
appeared to know them well though.

He had to be in on this. Maybe he'd
been responsible for the floor and the wall closing, locking them
in?

Just
then the bigger man motioned around the yard while the others
immediately spun around to look.
Crap.
Her stomach knotted. They were
looking for her.

Where were her dad and
Wendy?

She reared back, finally cluing in.
Jacob carried gloves and a motorcycle helmet. So this was
preplanned? How? How could anyone have known about their group
coming here? Unless Jacob had told them. He could have texted or
called anytime. Her group hadn't been secretly tracking each
other's movements.

She crouched lower to the ground,
wondering where she could hide.

Jacob and the smaller man split up to
search the outside grounds. The bigger man loped toward her. Tessa
slid under the front bumper, scraping along the ground. She closed
her eyes and held her breath.

Black boots thudded past, heading
toward the shed she'd just vacated.

She breathed gently and rolled
carefully out from under the vehicle, on the house side. She
sprinted the short distance to the front door and slid inside. She
needed to find her father and Wendy. She could only hope Jacob had
just locked them in the basement. She raced down but also checked
behind to make sure she wasn't being followed.

The floor was closed. Placing her
sweaty palms on the wall in the right spot, she waited nervously as
the floor fell away. She cringed at the noise this time, glancing
behind her several times to make sure she hadn't attracted any
unwanted attention.

She was still alone. She raced down
to her father. "Dad?" She picked up the pace and half ran, half
jumped down the long passage. "Are you here?"

"Tessa?"

"Yeah." Tessa ran toward his voice.
She found them halfway down the passage, sitting in a heap on the
dirt floor. She fell to the floor beside him. "Are you okay?" She
ran her hands over his face, then his shoulders. "Are you
hurt?"

"I'm fine. Wendy's tired, but she'll
do." Serus stood up. "Did you see Jacob? We haven't seen him since
he headed back to the stairs around the same time you snuck
out."

Tessa sneered. "Yes, he's out front
with two other men looking for me."

"What?" Her father stilled. Then he
reached out and grabbed her by her shoulders. "But that's good. Why
are you acting like this?"

"Not good guys. And he's in cahoots
with them. He could have gotten you out anytime."

Serus and Wendy stared at
each other. "Surely not." Serus frowned.

"Tell me how he left." Tessa stepped
past Wendy. "Come on. Let's get you two out of here while we
talk."

"Why this way?" Wendy followed along
obediently.

"Because I don’t trust them," Tessa
said flatly.

No one questioned her again. At the
door, she switched on the mechanism. When the wall had risen
enough, she sneaked under, the others right behind her.

Into the sunlight.

Damn it.

Tessa ripped off her black jacket and
threw it over Wendy's head. Her dad had already done the same thing
with his coat, leaving his arms still in the sleeves. They hobbled
toward the tree line as fast as they could. Once in the bushes,
Tessa found a large fir and motioned the other two deep under the
boughs. "Dad, will this work? There are a lot of empty
outbuildings, but we could be seen."

"If we can get deep enough, we'll be
fine for a while."

Tessa worked to lift the lower boughs
so they could create a hollow underneath. "After a rest, could you
drive out? Wendy, do you drive?"

Wendy, her voice muffled from the
coat and branches, said, "I drive but can only tolerate mild
sunlight so the windshield would need to be heavily
tinted."

Serus coughed slightly, clearing his
throat. "I think Jacob could, but he’s not a candidate. I recall
he's good in partial light, like through a tinted windshield too.
I've never tried it."

"Figures. So how do you feel about
trying it today?" Tessa grinned at the disgruntled look on his
face.

"I’d rather you had your learner's
license." He rolled deeper under the boughs.

Tessa snorted. "Yeah, right about
now, so do I." She crouched down, looking for a corner in their
hidey-hole for herself. "We need to call Mom or David. They could
come pick us up."

Serus grimaced. "She'd love
that."

"That's hardly the issue right now."
And it wasn't. Not today, not when they needed help.

"Damn it." Her dad went to reach
inside his pocket then stopped. "Except if Jacob is involved then
she’d be driving into a trap." He put the phone away. "We got into
this mess, we’ll have to get ourselves out of it."