Authors: Megan Morgan
“The city will know the truth,” Aaron said. “We’ll make sure of it.”
Eric jerked his head toward Aaron, the wound making a squelching sound. June had to look away, her stomach turning.
“Your father would be ashamed of you,” Eric said. “Making treaties with the Paranormal Alliance, working with Sam Haain. Your father never would have stood for such things. He was a worthy opponent. He understood hate.”
“My father was a close-minded, bitter, twisted man,” Aaron said. “And he was ashamed of me in life, so I have no doubt he carried that sentiment into death.”
“Eric, let him go,” Sam said. “If he’s that precious to you, you won’t kill him.”
“I will kill him.” Eric renewed his grip on Micha. “To keep you from taking him.”
“Please!” June stepped forward, fighting down her nausea. “You have to let him go. He’s an innocent man. There have to be people working with you on this who would gladly take his place. Why can’t you experiment on them?”
Eric gave a slurred laugh. “Little girl, you are so very naïve. You were right to run away like you did. The things we were going to do to you. But you’re so far in over your head now, you don’t even know it.” He nodded at Sam and Aaron. “These two men, they’re monsters, figuratively and literally.
Monsters
. Oh, Aaron is human, but he keeps company with monsters, and that makes him one too. Make no mistake. They are evil and their agendas are evil.”
“If you think we’re monsters,” June said, “why do you want to be like us?”
He laughed again. “So we can destroy you, silly girl. The only way to stop you is to become like you.”
“And you’ll be such fine replacements,” June said. “Micha supported you, and you betrayed him. In the worst ways possible. He wasn’t a monster. He was innocent.”
“There are no innocents, girl. Not you, not me. Not anyone.”
“My brother was innocent,” Sam spoke up. "Did you have a hand in what happened to him? Were you trying to stop our treaty?”
Eric rolled his eyes, though it seemed more a physical symptom of his condition than a gesture of disgust. “Your kind is far better at taking care of things like that than I am. Like I said, monsters.”
“Let me go!” Micha struggled again.
“I’ve heard enough of this,” Aaron said.
“You know how to kill a vampire,” Sam said. “Right?”
“Destroy a vital organ,” Muse replied calmly, behind Sam.
“Idiots,” Eric raged, droplets of blood flying from his mouth and showering Micha’s cheek. “You can’t do anything to me. Go ahead and try.”
“You killed Micha’s wife and everything he believed in,” Sam said. “But you’re not going to kill him.”
Sam lifted his gun and fired, as unceremoniously as before.
June jerked, still not recovered from the first blast. Eric flew backward, the top of his head bursting in a red, chunky shower. Micha spilled onto the floor as Eric’s body slammed against the wall behind him. Eric slid down the white surface, dragging blood and gray-pink goop.
“Oh, fuck!” June shouted. “Fucking fuck, I hate Chicago!” She reeled backward, toward the open elevator. How she didn’t throw up was a small miracle. Maybe her body knew she was about to need every ounce of nourishment she had to convert into energy.
“Why did you wait so long to do that?” Aaron admonished Sam. “The idiot left us a clear shot the entire time.”
“You wanted a hostage!”
Aaron grabbed Micha by the arm and pulled him up. “Get in the elevator.”
June stumbled into the car. “I really, truly hate this place.”
“Wait around.” Sam got in. “You might get to hate it even more.”
Aaron hauled Micha into the elevator. “Let’s get out of here for real this time.” He pushed Micha toward one of the walls and he slumped against it.
Jason stood in the middle of the elevator, still clutching Aaron’s watch, clearly shell-shocked.
“You okay?” June asked, gripping Jason’s arm with a shaking hand.
“No,” he squeaked out.
“Yeah, me neither.”
June tried to block out what she had seen. Nightmares could be dealt with later. Nothing felt real. The haunting silence underlined everything.
Aaron and Sam stared grimly at the strip of numbers above the doors. Micha remained slumped against the wall, breathing heavy. Aaron’s shirt cuff was stained red and Micha’s bare torso had been splattered with blood.
“We can’t just walk out of here,” Muse said, standing next to Sam.
“No,” Sam agreed. “I don’t guess we will. But we just did the world a huge favor.”
“If he’s dead,” Aaron said.
“I blew his brains out.”
“If you didn’t blow enough of them out, we may still have a problem.”
June studied the buttons on the control panel. The violence she had witnessed oddly made her think clearer, as if the horror of Eric’s exploding head had cleansed her of all other horrors and sharpened her focus.
“We have to get off at the fourteenth floor.” June reached over and jabbed the button.
“Why?” Aaron asked. “We’re not doing this again.”
“It’s the vampire floor. Not all of us. Just three.”
“Splitting up,” Sam said. “Now there’s a great idea.”
“Can you use your power on more than one person?” June asked him.
“Yes. Anyone I’m touching.”
“So you can get the three of you out. Make it look like you’re carrying a wounded guard. But there’s no way in hell, even if you could figure out a way to touch all five of us, it wouldn’t look weird. We’ll take the elevator down to the underground garage and get out the way I did before.” She gripped Jason's arm. “But this time, you’re coming with me.”
Jason nodded. The hope in his eyes was all the motivation she needed.
“I’m assuming you have a getaway?” June asked Sam.
“Cindy is waiting.”
“Pick us up at the exit ramp.”
“I have a feeling quite a few guards are waiting at the bottom of this elevator shaft,” Aaron said. “We’ll tell them you attacked us and went back up. It’ll buy you some time. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t,” June said.
When the doors opened on the fourteenth floor, June stepped over to Micha. His face was still flushed, his cheek dotted with Eric’s blood. His eyes were wide and clear, the blue irises glimmering in the fluorescent light. June gripped his chin, stretched up on her tiptoes, and gave him a firm kiss. His lips were salty.
“You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered. As she dropped back flat on her feet, she gestured to Sam. “Trust this man. He’s the smartest man in the city. He’ll get you out of here.”
Micha looked up at Sam, and Sam nodded.
June turned toward the doors.
“I don’t get a kiss for luck?” Sam asked.
“You’re lucky I don’t punch you in the nuts.”
June stepped out of the elevator, gun raised. The hallway beyond was empty. Jason, and then Muse, walked out behind her. The doors slid shut.
“Don’t be afraid,” June told the other two. “We’re going to get out of here.”
Unlike the rest of the floors, the windows on the vampire floor were all blacked out or covered. The lighting was dimmer and the temperature cooler, and everything was quiet, unnervingly so. June’s skin crawled with déjà vu as she led them down the corridors, around corners, and finally toward another elevator. They hadn’t emerged from the same elevator as the night they ran into Rose, but things looked familiar. They passed a set of glass doors with the words “Vampire Research and Science” emblazoned across them. As PC as the paranormal community attempted to be, they’d never coined another term for vampire. The classics died hard.
“Hopefully they’re so busy elsewhere they won’t be watching this exit.” June pushed the down button next to the elevator. “But let’s not count on it.”
The doors opened. They got inside. One more elevator ride, to freedom or death.
June punched a button marked P on the control panel. The doors slid shut.
As they descended in silence, June took in the two on either side of her: Jason on her left, fear in his eyes, and Muse on her right, little tremors jerking the corners of her mouth. June spread her arms, placed her hands on their shoulders—her free hand on Muse’s, the gun on Jason’s—and pulled them in for one final, will-strengthening embrace. Jason rested his chin below her ear. Muse dropped her head on June’s shoulder, snaking an arm around June’s waist. They were both trembling.
“Whatever happens when these doors open,” June's voice shook, “we’ll face it together.”
“It can’t be any worse than what we faced before,” Jason said, his voice muffled against her cheek.
June closed her eyes, felt the drop beneath her feet, squeezed the grip on the gun. For one brief moment, chaos held no sway. She opened her eyes
“Do you love Sam?” June asked Muse.
“More than I can speak it.”
“Would you kill for him?”
She nodded, once, silent.
“Then we’ve all got reasons to fight our way out of here,” June said.
“For Mom,” Jason murmured.
“For each other,” June said.
“For giving those bastards a huge slap in the face,” Muse said.
The doors opened.
June steeled her courage. The parking garage gaped vast and dark beyond the doors, a blast of cold air rushing in. She untangled herself from the last comfort she might ever know, raised her gun, and stepped out.
The garage was shadowy and echoing, full of dark spaces, and she couldn’t tell if anyone else was around. Row upon row of cars stretched away from them; plenty of hiding places, for them, but unfortunately for the enemy as well. June turned in a swift circle with the gun held out in front of her, clutched in both hands; like she’d seen in cop shows on TV.
Silence. Nothing moved.
“That way.” Muse pointed.
The exit was on the other side of the garage, at least a hundred yards away. The sodium lights above the ramp shone like beacons of hope. They moved quickly, their footsteps loud in the quiet. Jason lagged behind, and June slowed down.
“Don’t worry,” June said. “You’re not getting left behind this time.”
They passed one row of cars, another, and another. Moving as swiftly as they could with Jason, they made it to the second row from the ramp. Escape opened up promising and glorious ahead of them. June’s hopes were starting to lift when a voice rang out.
“Hey! You there!”
“Shit!” June yelped.
They scrambled in front of a red car at the end of the second row. A blast rang out. Car alarms shrieked.
“They’re shooting at us,” Jason gasped. “Just like before.”
“Dammit.” June flattened herself on the cold pavement, trying to see under the car.
Footsteps, voices. Coming toward them, from the direction of the ramp.
“They’re over there!” a voice called.
June scrambled up. “Go,” she ordered, pushing at Muse.
Crouching low, they moved between the cars in the row they were in and the adjacent ones in the facing row. June feared Jason wouldn’t be able to keep up, but he managed to stay behind them, probably functioning purely on fear. They froze at the front of a white car when footsteps sounded close by. Peeking around, June saw several security guards dart past the back of the car.
“They had to have come down this way,” a man said.
June slunk around the passenger side of the car. The ramp was farther away now, and they still had to cross over to the last row of cars before they could get to it. Doing so would leave them in the open for a moment. She crept to the back of the car and peeked around. The guards were at the other end of the row, next to a wall. They seemed to be discussing something. June counted five of them.
“What are they doing?” Jason whispered.
June watched as two guards broke away and headed toward the ramp. One of them pulled out a radio. The other two started back up the row.
“They’re coming this way,” June whispered. She stole back to the front of the car where the other two were crouched. “Soon as they pass, start going down the row, toward the wall.”
The guards advanced only a short distance in their direction, before walking between cars, looking around and underneath them. This meant an abrupt change of plans. June had to lead everyone back the way they’d come. When they reached the top of the row again, they’d be faced with the dilemma of where to go next. They were running out of options.
They went a few cars back up the row and crouched behind a big black truck. June inched to the rear of the truck and peeked out again, toward the exit ramp. Her heart dropped when she saw the two guards who had broken away were standing at the bottom.
“Goddamn it.” She drew back and sat down hard, her back against the tire of the truck. “They’re guarding the exit ramp.”
Muse knelt next to her, Jason crouched and shivering on the other side of Muse.
“We’re trapped?” Jason asked hoarsely. He sounded on the verge of hysteria.
“Just stay calm.” June closed her eyes, trying to think.
Unfortunately, the wretched, bleak truth presented itself all too obviously: they had only one hope for escape. June opened her eyes.
“The only way to get out of here is if one of us distracts them,” June said. She peeked around the back of the truck again, to see where the searching guards were.
“I’ll do it,” Muse said.
“No, you won’t.”
Muse’s eyes glistened in the dim light, the corner of one fluttering. “I said I’d kill for Sam. I’d die for him, too.” Her voice was strained. “I’ve always wanted to be the icon he needed.”
“You’ll be a martyr. There’s a difference.”
“There really isn’t. I’m not afraid.” Her tone didn’t match her words though, not even close.
“I’m not letting you die for Sam,” June said. “Not yet. Not here.”
“You have to,” Muse whispered. “June, that’s the only way for you two to get out of here. I’ll distract them. They’ll kill me. But you and Jason will escape. I’m dying anyway.”
“You’re not dead yet.”
“What’s the alternative? Then we all die. Make the choice. Me, or all of us.”
“That’s not a choice I’m comfortable with.”
Muse gripped her shoulder. “We don’t have much time. They’re coming this way. They’re going to take any choice away from us.”