“Are you guys ready?” Richards asked those of us who were left. He gave me in particular a hard look.
They’re watching me.
I nodded like everyone else.
Call it intuition, but I couldn’t shake that awful feeling that tonight would not go as planned.
I appeared in an empty catering van wearing a deep blue dress and silver accessories. I glanced at my bracelet. Embedded into its underside was the timer. As usual, they’d camouflaged it so well that if I hadn’t known what to look for, I never would’ve seen it.
I picked my way past empty catering trays and exited the van. Across from the van was an open door that led into Emilio’s mansion. As I walked towards the doorway, I could hear the clang of pots and pans and multiple voices yelling at each other in Spanish. I was going in through the kitchen.
I tried to be as discreet as I sauntered through the room in a peacock blue evening gown. It wasn’t that discreet. The voices died down as cooks and waiters noticed me. I smiled at them as I passed. A few smiled and nodded back. Sometimes acting normal was all it took … that, or they were about to call security on my ass as soon as I left the kitchen.
My breath caught when I entered the mansion’s living room. Emilio’s estate was perched on a hillside overlooking the Caribbean Sea, and the floor-to-ceiling walls showcased just how magnificent the view was.
Emilio’s guards somewhat ruined the scenery. They stood stationed in this room and outside along the edges of the lawn, holding automatic rifles. They scanned the crowd with their eyes.
I made my way outside, again stunned by the view. I was on the edge of the world. Out of my peripherals I saw Emilio notice me from where he still stood. Rather than approaching him, I sauntered over the edge of his estate, my blue dress suggestively clinging to every movement. I knew he’d follow.
I inhaled deeply and leaned over the railing that encircled the yard; I could smell the ocean even this high above the water.
“Mi pirata,” he leaned on the balcony next to me, “do you know how long it took me to find you?”
I repeated my information over in my head: I was Angela Woods, an independently wealthy associate curator at the Met who specialized in trades and acquisitions of priceless objects.
My appearance at the party where I met Emilio was to solidify a relationship with some private collectors living in Mexico, and now I was supposed to pretend that Angela Woods had finagled a trip to Columbia to look at some pre-Columbian artifacts and attend this party.
The layers of deception here were impressive.
I looked over at Santoro. “I’m glad you did find me.” I kept my voice low and gave him a whisper of a smile. “And I’m more than just a little glad to be here.”
He drank me in, a small smile on his face, and he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “The pleasure is all mine.” His fingers lingered on my skin.
I had to believe that the human mind is capable of great feats of intuition. That, or I was just really good at reading people. Because, despite Emilio’s beautiful features and what had to be a killer body, disgust overpowered me at his touch. All I wanted to do was slap away his hand and wipe that look from his face.
Instead I let him trickle his fingers down my neck. “I would love to get to know you better,” he said, his accent thick. His hand came to rest at the hollow of my throat. I forced myself not to jerk away.
Before I could say or do anything, his phone chirped.
Emilio cursed in Spanish. “Just a moment,” he said to me.
He put a hand in his pocket and silenced the call. “Sorry about that. Would you like a—” His cellphone began ringing again.
He gave me a tight-lipped smile. “I probably need to take this.”
I nodded. “Go ahead.”
He walked a little distance away from me and answered the call. Between the wind that whipped about and the Spanish he spoke, I couldn’t understand most of Emilio’s conversation.
A minute or so later, he closed the phone and came over to me. He watched me for a moment, saying nothing.
“Good call?” I finally asked when he didn’t break the silence.
“You could say that,” Emilio replied.
And then he lunged at my throat.
Chapter 35
His hands wrapped around my neck, squeezing off my air supply, and his fingernails dug into my skin. My hands tried unsuccessfully to pry his off, but his grip was too strong. He pushed my body further over the edge of the railing, my head, neck, and shoulders helplessly hovering over hundreds of feet of air.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you off this cliff right here and now.” He was lethally calm. His eyes held nothing—no twinkle, no happiness, no life.
So this was where he went when he killed.
“Can’t … talk,” I managed to wheeze out.
He cocked his head to the side, studying me. Around us people were staring.
His eyes missed nothing; he noticed the mounting attention. “On second thought, I have other plans for you.”
He pulled me back from the ledge forced my arms behind me. Holding my arms at that unusual angle, he dragged me across the courtyard and into his mansion. Some guests gaped at the scene, but an alarming number of them ignored me or pulled their gaping friend’s attention away from the scene.
I breathed in deep gulps of air, my windpipe raw. My muscles throbbed as oxygen returned to them.
What had Emilio heard over the phone? Something damning. I wondered who ratted me out. It could’ve been the facility, but they’d blow their cover in the process.
Focus. I could do this. I just had to stay alive long enough to get back to the facility.
As soon as I recovered most of my breath, I kicked Emilio’s feet out from under him.
Immediately I regretted it. Before, no one had interfered. Now, three angry, armed men closed in on me as Emilio hit the marble floor. I took a knee to the gut and another hit to the solar plexus. The air in my lungs whooshed out, and I fell to the ground, doubled over in agony.
Around me I heard gasps, probably coming from the rich wives of cartel bosses and dirty politicians. I guess they didn’t have much exposure to their husbands’ violence.
Someone grabbed my hair and began dragging me. I lashed out, my heel catching one man in the thigh and my hands gouging the arm of the man dragging me.
One of Emlio’s goons slammed the butt of his gun into my temple. My eyesight dimmed and I willed myself to stay coherent. Water trickled down the side of my face.
Wait, not water. Blood.
The fact that I didn’t immediately know that wasn’t good. Even in my addled state I could recognize that.
I focused my eyes on my surroundings. Between when I’d gotten hit with the butt of a gun and now, bedlam had broken out around me. In the middle of it I saw a form wink into existence.
Caden.
He arrived kneeling, but in an instant he was on his feet, a gun in his hands and more crisscrossed over his chest. Caden was going to get his hands dirty tonight, after all.
Those around him stumbled back, alarmed by his sudden appearance, and he used that time to his advantage. He aimed and fired at the guards in the room, taking them out in quick succession.
Caden had arrived later than he was supposed to, and he was covered with weaponry, which meant that he’d teleported knowing I was in trouble.
Above me Emilio swore in Spanish and shouted orders at the men that clustered around us. One fell back, presumably to shoot Caden, and the other three grabbed ahold of me and began to run.
“Caden!” I yelled, seeing the remaining guard fall to one knee.
Caden turned and we made eye contact for the briefest of moments. Hold on. I could read the command in hi
s gaze. Then his eyes flicked away from me and he shot the crouching guard.
Just beyond him, Desiree stood on the outskirts of the crowd. The cold, calculated look she wore froze the blood in my veins.
Whatever was going on, this had to be the project’s doing. And judging by Desiree’s expression, I think I knew who had set me up.
Emilio threw open a door and I was shoved into a chair. The door slammed shut behind me. It looked like I was in an office, along with Emilio and the Three Stooges. One of them cracked his neck. Another smiled at me like he enjoyed the thought of hurting me.
“So,” Emilio began, “which name do you prefer, Angela . . . or Ember?”
I tried to hide my surprise. He knew my real name? This was very, very bad.
“Well, from you, I prefer ‘mi pirata.’”
He backhanded me. My head whipped to the side and I winced from the pain. My head pounded from where I received my earlier head wound, and I could feel the stream of blood from it snake down my neck.
Never taking his eyes off of me, Emilio reached a hand behind him and pulled out a gun. He made a show of cocking it and pointing it at my chest.
I knew how he wanted this to go. He brought me in here to torture information off of me. It would be calculated and cruel.
If I could get a rise out of him, I might actually get hurt less. People with hot tempers liked the feeling of their fists slamming into skin. And at the moment I was more worried about an open wound than I was about getting beaten to a pulp.
“What do you want?” he asked, the gun trained on my chest.
Outside I heard shots ring out, and fear skittered through me. God, I hoped Caden was the one shooting rather than the one getting shot at.
“Answer me!”
My eyes flicked from the door to Emilio. Time to piss off the drug lord. “I only want the pleasure of your company.” It was an incredibly stupid thing to say, and it had the desired effect.
“Don’t fuck with me!” Emilio roared, his accent thick. He calmed down; the killer was in control again. “Tell me who you work for and why you’re here.”
I gave him a look, putting attitude into it that I certainly didn’t feel. “You mean to tell me you can’t hazard a guess?”
The gun went off, and I screamed as the most agonizing pain tore my chest open.
So much for my calculated plan.
I was gasping—he must have hit a lung. Fire spread through me, and movement—even my ragged breathing—was agonizing.
“Listen little girl,” Emilio leaned in close, “I kill people on a regular basis. I know more ways to torture a person than you can imagine. So tell me again, what—”
A series of shots rang out on the other side of the door, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood. The door handle twisted and crumpled under the spray of bullets.
Emilio cursed in Spanish and swiveled to face the door, getting down on one knee and aiming.
“Four men—Emilio’s down on one knee,” I yelled to Caden, forcing the words out even though it felt like I was getting shot all over again, “and he has a gun trained on the—”
My voice cut off as one of the guards slammed his fist into the side of my head. My vision went fuzzy as my head rocked to the side, and I coughed up blood.
Caden kicked the door open, and Emilio and his guards fired. For one awful second my world shattered at the sight of Caden riddled with bullets. And then I realized the man in the doorway wasn’t Caden, but instead a guard Caden had used as a human shield.
Caden didn’t hesitate; he shot Emilio in the head, followed by the guards. I’d never seen Caden—or anyone for that matter—move so quickly, not even when we’d trained together. Only one managed to get a shot off, and the bullet hit Caden’s human shield. It was over in a matter of seconds.
Caden shoved the dead man in his arms up against the door to block off others from coming in. Only once he’d done so did he look at me, slumped over on the chair.
“Ember!” He ran to me, sinking to his knees in front of me. “Oh God,” he moaned when he saw the wound. We both knew what an injury this extensive meant. Splicing. Death.
I should’ve been worried about myself, but the only thing I could think about was that Caden’s deepest fear had come true. I’d abandon him, just as his family had.
He cupped my face. “You can’t die Ember,” he said, his eyes red. “Goddammit, I love you—you can’t.”
Tears trickled out of my eyes. “I … love … y—”
My watch beeped once.
Caden’s eyes widened and his hands tightened on my skin, as though his sheer force of will would keep me here. “N—”
My watch beeped again, and I was gone.
I woke up to shouting, and for one horrifying moment I believed I was still at Emilio’s estate. A split second later the pain resurfaced.
I tried to scream, but my air passageway was blocked. Someone was already manually pumping oxygen into my lungs. My entire chest was consumed by flames, so much so that my vision blurred with it. I could barely think over the pain.
My eyes wouldn’t focus, but I could tell from the movement that I was on a gurney. A group of doctors wheeled me down a hall. Color seeped away, and with it, the pain.
I’m dying.
There was a blast of cold air, and then I lost consciousness.
Epilogue
The lead surgeon made the call. “She’s going to need to be placed in a barb coma.” The doctors that had watched the procedure up until now gave him questioning looks.
Of course they would. Induced comas were only authorized for patients at high risk for brain injury. The delicate girl on their operating table had extensive injuries—she’d resembled ground beef when she’d arrived—but her head wounds were not severe enough to warrant the coma.
The nurses—the ones he handpicked—didn’t bat an eyelash. They’d seen such wounds several times before, and they’d implemented the same procedure to save these individuals.
Only Dr. Kyle Evanson knew the true reason why these patients needed to be placed in such a coma. The government had paid him a nice bonus to make sure he knew how to handle such cases with discretion.
Around him the nurses cleaned and put away the surgical utensils. The coma was only the first step of several. Eventually his patient would end up in a hydroponic chamber like the others, and there she’d stay for the duration of her recovery.
Two months. That’s how long—at minimum—it would take to heal these wounds.
It was a miracle she’d survived splicing and the surgery to piece her back together. The odds had been drastically against her. And she wasn’t out of the woods yet. The possibility of an infection still lowered her chances of survival quite a bit.
However, the coma would suppress her ability to teleport, which was the biggest risk of all.
He gazed at the staples freshly inserted down and across the girl’s chest. She wouldn’t be the same, even once she woke up.
They never were.
Keep a lookout for the sequel to The Vanishing Girl:
The Decaying Empire
Coming Fall 2014!
Be sure to check out Laura Thalassa’s YA paranormal series
The Unearthly
Out now!
Click here to buy it on Amazon
For free books and the latest news on upcoming novels, make sure to join Laura Thalassa’s mailing list!
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