She only stared up at him, her eyes ablaze with hatred and loathing. “I’m going to enjoy watching you burn,” she said matter-of-factly, and looked away.
Layla stared wide-eyed at her best friend, full of fear and confusion. She didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on, and where did her newfound courage and spunk come from?
Christophe tugged at Rayne’s arms and pulled her away from Ed, positioning her against the wall next to the door, where she slid to the floor. He looked down at her, but made no move to replace the tape against her mouth and moved into the kitchen with the others.
Layla stared across the darkened space with wide-eyed fear. Rayne could only shake her head apologetically and check out the room they were held captive in. There had to be something that she could use to her advantage.
Then, a thought hit her:
I still have my cell phone
! They hadn’t checked her pockets. Wiggling as quietly as possible and maneuvering so that she could slide her hand into her back pocket, all traces of hope left her when she realized it wasn’t there.
It must have fallen out when they grabbed us back in the department store.
She sighed and hit her head against the wall behind her in frustration, one, two, three times.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Layla could see the disappointment on her friend’s face, and she slumped down in her chair, defeated.
“I’m sorry, Layla,” she said quietly. “I wish I could have told you. Should have told you, anyway.” She continued staring at the dirt-covered floor.
Her friend’s hopeless eyes glanced up at her.
“They’re vampires,” she whispered, but she knew that it did no good. With their superior hearing, they would be hearing her anyway. She might as well have screamed it. “When I was sick and my grandfather gave me the injection, the same medicine could allow vampires to walk in the sun.” She shrugged. “Long story short, they all think that I know where it is or how to get more.”
Layla’s brows furrowed. Was she really hearing her friend correctly? Was this some kind of sick joke?
Rayne could see the questions etched on her friend’s face. She shook her head. “I know it sounds crazy, but you have to trust me. That’s why I’ve been in Louisiana. Camden is a vampire, too.” She bit her lip in thought. “Layla, they killed my grandfather before I ever got to meet him.”
Her friend could only stare, whether it was because she was feeling sorry for her, or she was debating on whether or not to believe the tale that she was told.
She heard the voices of the beings in the next room and strained her ears to listen.
“Vergall said no one touches her,” she heard Christophe say sternly.
“Yeah, but how are we supposed to get her back to him if we have to wait till dark. Her boy toy will be looking for her. He obviously knows what she holds. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble with his blood lasting.”
Rayne tilted her head to the side.
He knows what I hold?
She pushed herself away from the wall in an attempt to get closer.
“We will do what we have to. No one touches her,” he repeated.
She shook her head.
Who is Vergall?
Camden paced the sidewalk outside of Rayne’s apartment. Where were Connor and Paul? They should have been there by now.
He ran his hands through his short black hair and sighed worriedly.
How did this happen? How was I so stupid and careless? I never should have turned my back for even a second.
He’d been mentally beating himself up for the last three hours and wasn’t satisfied enough to stop now. The setting sun was beginning to make his skin tingle and he knew that he needed to get back inside before his treatment completely wore off, but he wouldn’t do it. He was going out of his mind wondering where Rayne was and if she was ok. There wasn’t enough room in that tiny building for him to get out his nervous energy.
Pulling out his cell phone, he looked at the time. With the private jet, his companions should already be here. He placed the device back into his pocket and looked up just in time to see a black Audi pulling into the parking lot. In less than a second, he was at the door, climbing inside.
“Where to?” Connor asked without so much as even a hello.
Camden shrugged. “Back to the department store. We’ll start there and work our way outwards. That’s the only thing I know to do.”
He shook his head and sighed, thankful that both of his friends knew him well enough to know that he was being harder on himself that anyone else would, and didn’t feel the need to reiterate the fact that he’d screwed up.
“It happened so fast.” He began quietly as Connor maneuvered the car into downtown Seattle. “They were literally a few feet behind me.” He shook his head. “I was in shock from what Dr. Brennan was saying and I let it get the best of me. That’s all it took,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What did he tell you?” Paul asked, leaning forward in the back seat.
He sighed. “He said the sample of blood that Rayne had given him was just as strong as the original treatment she was given twenty years ago.”
Paul shook his head, and Connor glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
He’d forgotten that the two hadn’t heard the whole story about Brennan, and braced himself to start from the beginning.
Rayne shifted uncomfortably in her spot on the floor. She’d been sitting in the same position for what felt like hours, and her backside was tingling in the few places it wasn’t completely numb. The fullness of her bladder made it almost painful to move, and she winced.
She glanced out the window. Her view was mostly obscured by overgrown weeds and plants, but she still could tell that there was some daylight left.
“Excuse me?” she called out, startling her friend, who apparently had dozed off.
“What do you want?” Ed’s gruff voice came from around the corner.
“I need to use the facilities,” she said matter-of-factly.
Rayne heard him grunt, and then the sound of what she imagined was a wooden chair scraping against the dilapidated, dirt-covered floor.
“Why can’t women hold their piss?”
“I got it,” she heard the familiar voice of Christophe pipe up.
His slightly quieter footsteps drew closer, and she almost was relieved to see him round the corner into the room.
Without a word or so much as a second of eye contact, he grabbed her by the arm and lifted her from the filthy floor. “Come on,” he said gruffly, and nearly dragged her from the tattered building.
He led her around the side of the wooden house and into a thicker area of shrubbery. “Make it quick.”
She turned her bright green eyes on him, with anger more than fear flashing in them. “And how do you expect me to accomplish this?” she asked, wiggling her bound hands behind her back. “You’re either going to have to untie me or assist me. Take your pick. I don’t really care either way, I just have to go.”
Christophe rolled his eyes and easily snapped the zip-tie from her wrists.
She rubbed the raw spots on her skin and quickly disappeared into the bushes. The thought to make a run for it had crossed her mind, but she knew that it would be of no use. They were so much faster and stronger than her, and with darkness falling, there would be nothing stopping them from coming after her.
“Hurry up!” the young vampire called over his shoulder.
He heard the brush rustling, and turned to see Rayne standing there expectantly. It wasn’t as if he really wanted to tie her up again, he just didn’t have a choice. He was in this now, and he had to continue or it would be the end for him. The permanent end.
Rayne brought her wrists around in front of her and held them out.
He looked down at them before glancing back up at her with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s painful the other way,” she said quietly.
Christophe stared, fighting an internal battle with himself before deciding that she really wasn’t a risk. Neither girl was a match for any of them.
Reluctantly, he nodded and wrapped another zip-tie around her small wrists.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly, looking at the ground, rather than him. “What are you getting out of this?”
He said nothing, only pulled her back toward the house by the arm.
“You don’t have to do this,” she continued almost pleadingly.
The vampire turned his bright blue eyes on her and gave a stare that seemed to burn straight through her soul. “I do what I have to do,” he growled, and resumed their course.
Rayne jerked and pulled her arm free from his grasp, standing her ground as he spun to glare. “Why? What are you getting out of it?” she asked, the desperation evident on her face.
His eyes flared with anger. “What choice do I have?” he whispered angrily. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m in it, and there is nothing that anyone can do.”
He paced a step or two. This very predicament had plagued him for weeks now. He knew it wasn’t right, and the little conscience he had left constantly nagged him about it.
“We can,” she whispered, green eyes trained on the ground.
Christophe barked out a laugh. “And what can you do?”
“If you help me out of this, and you help us figure this mess out, you can come with us.” She glanced up at him. “We will defeat this. We have to. If we don’t, then what is left?” she asked. She looked around, searching, racking her brain for any way that she could get through to him. “If you had the choice,” she paused. “If you could go back to before you were…” she gestured to his being, “before you were this.” Her green eyes softened and she stared. “Would you choose to become what you are now?”
The blonde-haired vampire didn’t hesitate. He shook his head forcefully. “No.”
Rayne shrugged. “Then why are you trying to force the rest of the world to be? If you continue, then that is exactly what will happen. Everyone will be forced to become one of you, or be food.”
He stared, unblinking. There was no denying that she was right. He knew that was exactly the fate he was playing with.
“If we can’t stop this, then the world as we know it will end.” She shook her head and stepped forward, allowing him to resume leading her. “And I don’t know about you,” she began quietly, “but I do know that I wouldn’t want the future of mankind to rest on my shoulders that way.”
She pushed past him and began making her way toward the wooden house without him.
The young vampire stood still, staring at the spot where she’d just been standing. As if his own conscience wasn’t bad enough, now he had her words ringing in his ears to add to the jumbled mess.
But what can I do? If I continue on, then the world is doomed. If I help them, then I am.
Both situations were unappealing, but he knew he had to make a decision, one way or the other. Christophe took a deep breath and followed after the human girl.
This is not going to be easy.
Camden, Connor, and Paul climbed out of the black car and separated to begin searching the area.
Camden’s mind was so busy elsewhere that he wasn’t actually paying attention to what was in front of him. Every scenario possible was swirling in his brain and coalescing in the pit of worry that was his stomach.
“There’s nothing here,” Paul said, joining up with his companions at the back of the department store where Rayne and Layla had been carried through the back door.
“Have you tried tracking her cell phone? I mean, if it’s not here, that must mean that she still has it with her, right?”
Camden shook his head. “I doubt that they would be stupid enough to let her keep it.”
Connor shook his head. “It’s worth a shot. What do we have to lose?”
Camden nodded in agreement and pulled out his phone. He pulled up an app, and his eyes widened when it actually showed a signal about thirty miles away.
Without a word, the three were back in the vehicle and headed in the direction it was leading.
“I should have done this sooner,” Camden muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Connor said. “We don’t know that they didn’t just throw it out the window when they found it.”
“I just hope we find her in time. If they find out that she
is
the formula…Then they’ll drain her just to get a taste of her blood.”
The three sat in silence for the rest of the ride, all fervently hoping that they weren’t too late.
Rayne was back in her place on the dusty floor, staring at her exhausted friend across the room. The pudgy, black-haired girl slumped sideways in her chair in the most uncomfortable-looking position with her eyes closed, and she only could guess that she was asleep.
She couldn’t imagine what she was feeling at that moment. It had been a shock to Rayne when she had found out about it, and that certainly wasn’t under the dire circumstances of their current situation.
She could hear the low mumbles of voices in the next room, but she was only able to make out every other word. Every so often, she would see Christophe’s blonde head peer around the corner to stare at her almost skeptically, as if he were judging her or weighing something. She couldn’t be sure why.
After the sun finally had disappeared, the two unfamiliar vampires emerged from the kitchen area and smirked down at them as they passed and exited through the front door.
Rayne watched them curiously, and an excitement grew in the pit of her stomach.
If they are leaving, this could be our chance to get out of here. We can’t elude all three of them, but we may be able to slip past just one.
Layla stirred from her position in the chair. How’d she managed to stay in it for that long, who knew. She blinked her dark brown eyes repeatedly, trying to clear the fog that had settled over them. They darted from Rayne to the front door and back again, widening as she began to realize the same scenario that Rayne just had discovered.
Within a few seconds, Christophe briskly came around the corner and knelt beside her on the floor. “You don’t have long. When you get out of here, run as fast as you can in whatever direction you can. They’ve gone out to hunt, and they’ll be back quickly.” His tone was quiet and hushed, maybe even a little shaky as he began to remove the ties at her wrists.