As I abandoned my self-control, my heart began beating madly. I needed to catch my breath before I fainted, and when I inhaled, I caught a whiff of Phoenix’s scent and closed my eyes. That heady perfume transported me again to the comfort of oblivion.
“You are something special. I saw it right away when we met in that alley, without knowing what it was. Yesterday, your eyes confirmed it . . . Tell me your secret.”
Pssssshht. My balloon of well-being deflated in a single second. I opened my eyes.
“That’s what you wanted to talk about? My sudden fit of erotic sleepwalking? You don’t think that I’ve been humiliated enough? You have to add another layer to it?” I hissed scathingly. “That’s all? Because if that’s it, I don’t see why we have to play this game. This discussion could have been over in three seconds. I am perfectly ordinary, I have no secrets, and your mark is seriously starting to get on my nerves. Incidentally, would you kindly disengage . . . I’m hungry, and I’m tired of talking to you.”
Bewildered by what I was saying, Phoenix complied slowly. I was completely beside myself with annoyance, and it would be better to put some distance between us. I sat up again, put my undone hair back in a ponytail without giving him a second glance, and then I got out of bed and left the room like a tornado.
In the kitchen, I picked out several boxes of cookies and grabbed a bottle of water. As I headed out to the garden, I saw François parking the car in the lane. I didn’t even look at him.
I settled at the end of the garden, near a shrub of pink flowers, whose name I didn’t know but which smelled really good, and began aggressively devouring the cookies. I only got a single minute of tranquility before François joined me, to my great despair.
“You two fought again,” he noted.
Despite my irritation, I needed to get some things off my chest.
“I don’t understand him. He says he wants to get better at relationships and try to be my friend, but at the first sign of conflict, he acts like a damn angel on a mission with me.”
“He questioned you about yesterday.”
“He’s not interested in how I’m doing. All he wants to know is if what I did last night can be useful to him,” I said bitterly.
“Do not be so harsh with him. He was truly worried about you.”
“I know. But not enough, apparently.”
François looked hard at me, as though weighing the pros and cons of what he wanted to tell me.
“This is the first time since I have known him that he has worried so much about someone. I know that it is hard to understand—even for me, I still do not understand it—but I can assure you that you mean a lot to him.”
I thought again about our conversation in the woods.
“I know. But he acts so strangely with me that I lose sight of that.”
“Listen. He almost ruined everything when he learned that Huan violated you in the abandoned warehouse.”
I stared at François, surprised.
“You saw how he killed him . . . Phoenix does not usually take pleasure in killing, that is not his way. If he did that, it is because that man dared touch you . . . It made him crazy. I had to hold him back with my strength to keep him from attacking Huan that very moment. Then he chose not to pursue Karl because it meant leaving you. Before meeting you, he would never have made that choice.”
I didn’t dare fully assess the implication behind what François was saying, so I changed the subject.
“He doesn’t want me to go with him anymore.”
“It is only temporary.”
“You think he’ll be able to kill him?”
“He and Karl were very close. Despite the depth of Karl’s betrayal, I am afraid that it will not be so simple.”
“I think so too . . . So I’ll do it for him,” I declared fiercely.
“That would maybe be better, yes . . .”
After a long silence of mutual reflection, we returned to the manor and discovered that Phoenix had already left—to protect us, and maybe also to protect himself from us.
A week passed, and Phoenix hadn’t found a single trace of Karl. My boss had made his report directly to Talanus and Ysis, who were relieved to know that the blood traffickers had been massacred. However, our success wouldn’t be enough to hold off the Elders, whose arrival was confirmed. They wouldn’t tolerate the Secret being threatened again, and they would only consider the matter closed when the vampires who were behind the blood trafficking were presented to them for execution and would serve as an example to others. It wasn’t promising . . .
We only had five days left. Phoenix got a call from Kiro, who shouted into the phone something about rumors circulating that one of the warehouses in Kerington’s industrial area was starting to be the center of shady activity again. It could have been the mafia trafficking humans, but Kiro explained that a large, bald, tattooed man had been seen in the vicinity. Bingo. That was the very description of Thirsty Bill.
After hanging up without saying a word since Kiro wouldn’t have been able to hear him anyway, Phoenix pulled on his coat. I planted myself in front of him.
“I’m coming.”
He stepped around me and headed for the door. Determined, I caught up and blocked his path.
“Bring me with you.”
At that, Phoenix looked up and stared hard into my eyes. “That is not up for discussion.”
He tried to push me aside, but I held on to his arm.
“Karl was your friend. Let me kill him.”
Phoenix mellowed when he realized I only wanted to spare him from executing the man he thought of as a brother. He slowly pulled his arm away from my hand and looked at me kindly.
“Thank you. But this is a task I have to carry out alone.”
Defeated and terribly worried, I let him leave, hoping he would return safe and sound. I returned to the parlor and sat near François, who looked as gloomy as I felt.
“Sorry you have to babysit,” I said sincerely.
“It is better to not leave you alone. Karl could return to have his revenge.”
“Hm . . . I admit that I’m not sleeping well at the moment. When I think about what he said . . . he’s hated Phoenix all this time . . . Phoenix doesn’t show it, but I know he’s in pain, despite all that you vampires say about your emotional independence.”
“He was my friend too . . . he fooled me as well.”
His bitterness was almost palpable.
“I’m sorry.”
He offered me a contrite smile and suggested changing the subject.
“Angela told me that her return home went well,” I began.
“Yes. No one noticed her disappearance except Matthew. She told him that an elderly aunt needed her urgently. I think she was able to convince him.”
“Poor Matthew. Now two of us are lying to him.”
“Sometimes it is better to remain ignorant about the reality of the world.”
“Well, I don’t regret no longer being ignorant. My life may be more dangerous now, but it’s also much more interesting. Besides, now . . . I have friends.”
François smiled sincerely that time and tapped me gently on my knee with his hand. Then we embarked on our thousandth conversation about science fiction. During one of our many talks, we’d discovered a mutual love for Battlestar Galactica.
We’d moved on to a debate about Hellboy’s personality when we heard a noise coming from the entryway. We stopped talking at once and listened carefully. François stood up, but I held him back.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Stay here, I will go look.”
Had he never seen any horror films? When someone went to look for the source of a strange noise, that was when the character got stabbed, or cut into pieces, or eaten, or all that at once. It wasn’t a good idea to split up, but François must have been thinking that even the psychopath from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre couldn’t do much to him. He left my line of sight.
Mere
seconds passed, but they felt like hours. I was starting to be truly afraid.
“François?” I ventured, rising from the sofa and staring hard at the door to the dining room without daring to go in.
“Sorry, but François is . . . as one might say . . . dead. For good this time.”
As if I’d been thrown into a lake in the middle of winter, my blood froze in my veins hearing that reviled voice from the other side of the door. My hair would have stood straight on end if it could have, as well as every hair on my body, to warn me that Death had finally decided to come looking for me in the form of the hateful and horribly smug Karl.
He entered the room and smiled at me in a way that revealed all that he had planned for me.
“I know where you keep your weapon. Don’t try to reach under the sofa, or I will rip your arm off.”
The threat was simple and efficient, his goal very clear. He was going to kill me, and I wasn’t armed. Well, I didn’t have a gun. After our return to the manor, Phoenix had made me wear two silver knives on my belt . . . except that I was still no good at throwing them. To have a chance at getting out of this alive, I would have to fight Karl in close combat, and I didn’t want that at all. I didn’t know when my boss would return, so I could only count on myself.
“So you finally decided to show up,” I hissed.
“As you can see. I have missed you since the other night. I should finish what I started.”
“You’re just too afraid to fight Phoenix directly.”
His horrible smile widened, increasing my fear.
“I have a score to settle with you first.”
“And you killed François while you were at it.”
He was still moving forward, closing the distance between us. I was going to have to act. If Karl was lying and François wasn’t dead, François would have already come to help me, so I knew I only had myself to rely on.
“He was in my way. You are alone now, and you are mine. This time, Phoenix is not here to save you.”
His promise, an echo of my nightmare, was the trigger. I ran to the hallway, throwing everything I could get my hands on at Karl’s head. The last thing I sent flying at him, before he caught up, was a vase filled with flowers that I’d picked the evening before. He lifted me up from the ground as if I were a feather and threw me against the wall with incredible power.
Lying on the ground, surrounded by the shards of mirror that had come with me in my fall, I didn’t have enough time to react when he grabbed me and threw me against the wall again. Then he grabbed me by my hair and sent me crashing into a table, which shattered into pieces as well.
The pain was so intense I couldn’t even think. My vision was blurred, and I only just had time to move before Karl jumped on me again. I was near Phoenix’s office.
When my attacker grabbed my arm again, he didn’t send me flying this time. Instead he pulled me from the debris and dragged me along the floor to the middle of the hallway. His eyes were shining, and his fangs seemed to be begging to sink into my flesh as soon as possible. However, he didn’t swoop in on my neck. He did something worse.
Sitting down on top of me, he tore my shirt open and licked his lips greedily, staring at my bra. Having perfectly understood his intentions, I shrieked and struggled like a whirlwind . . . which earned me a magisterial slap that almost made me lose consciousness. He responded by shaking me.
“Hey, stay with me, Sam. I want you to be fully awake when I fuck you. I want you to enjoy the show and take pleasure from me just as I will from you.”
Shaken by the shock and the crude description of what he was about to do, I let him rip open my bra; however, his laughter and his hands on me brought me to reality in all its horror. I tried to defend myself again and fight him off with my legs, but my efforts were in vain. When he tore my skirt and his hand traveled up my thigh, panic overwhelmed me and I screamed in despair.
My fist slammed into his temple, and he backed off, stunned. He stared at me, not understanding how I could have shown such force, but I knew. The mark was acting on my body again, and despite his absence, Phoenix was lending me his strength to encourage me to keep fighting. After all, I still had two assets on my belt . . .
The very moment Karl jumped back toward me, I grabbed my knives and planted them in the first place that presented itself: his eyes.
A torrent of blood spilled over me, and my enemy uttered an atrocious howl, testament to the indescribable suffering he must have been feeling. Despite being blind, he tried to grab at me again.
“I’m going to break your neck! You won’t get out of here alive!” he shouted.
As I was trying to escape him, sliding on the ground because of the viscous liquid that covered the hallway floor, his words reverberated in my ears and led me toward safety: I couldn’t get out, but I could hide. I heard Karl behind me, tripping, falling, and swearing, but I was faster.
With all the adrenaline of desperation, I ran to the bookshelf where Candide was shelved and pulled on the book. I thought all was lost when my attacker arrived as the door of the hidden room was still closing. Luckily, his blindness prevented him from finding me even as he turned in my direction and shouted, “I’ll kill you!”
Phoenix had explained that the door and the walls of his room contained lead, so in theory, I was protected from Karl’s destructive fury since he couldn’t find me using his supernatural hearing. I had no trouble whatsoever imagining the torrent of swearing and cursing flowing from his cruel mouth because of his frustration at not being able to find me, and I remained paralyzed, half naked, covered in blood, and staring at the door in absolute terror, awaiting Death.
A noise brought me out of my stupor: the door mechanism had been activated. In a second, Karl would enter and finish what he’d started . . . My state of shock made it impossible to move. All I seemed able to do was wait, stuck in that room that would soon become my tomb.
The door opened completely, allowing me to see the face of the man now in front of me.
Phoenix.
Understanding that I was now safe liberated me from the tension that had overwhelmed me, and I started to fall to my knees. My boss caught me at the last moment and held me to him. I’d hardly wrapped my arms around his body when I was taken over by violent and incontrollable sobs—a release of the stress, fear, and pain that had piled up during my encounter with Karl.
The whole time I was crying and clinging to him, Phoenix stroked my hair and murmured soothing words. When I finally calmed down enough to speak, he gently pulled away from me. His gaze on my naked skin and my shredded clothes didn’t reveal anything, but I knew from his clenched jaw that he was ready to erupt with anger. Without a word, he took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders to protect my modesty.
Feeling tears starting again, I gave him the news.
“Karl. He killed François.”
Phoenix’s eyes were shining brightly, and I couldn’t imagine the rage that was boiling behind them. He buttoned up the jacket for me.
“No. He is alive and recovering slowly in the parlor. Karl stabbed him with a silver knife close to the heart. If he had moved at all, it would have killed him. I pulled it out when I arrived.”
“Why did he spare him?” I asked, astonished.
“He told François to tell me, in detail, everything he was going to do to you. You did not see him in the entryway but François was there. He ended up losing consciousness when . . . did he . . . ?”
I had some difficulty swallowing at the memory of what I’d gone through.
“He tried,” I whispered, holding back the sobs that threatened again.
Phoenix pulled me to him.
“I am going to kill him,” he murmured.
His tone left no room for doubt. Phoenix wouldn’t hesitate a second to kill Karl . . . and neither would I.
For the time being, I abandoned myself completely to his protective arms, where I was recovering little by little. I’d just had a brush with death
and . . . rape. Even if the memory of my powerlessness and his hands on me would follow me for some time, I would get over it, I knew it . . . because I’d escaped him . . . thanks to Phoenix . . .
I raised my eyes to my boss and looked at him with gratitude.
“Thank you.”
Still in thrall to his anger, he didn’t catch on to the meaning of my words until a few seconds later.
“I was not here. I could not protect you.”
“If you hadn’t shown me your hiding place or given me your mark, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.”
Silence. I thought I should explain.
“Something strange happened, like the other night. When Karl was trying to”—I swallowed hard—“when he was on top of me, I hit him . . . he felt it, which let me stab his eyes with my knives.”
“You were heroic whereas I fell for a trap, hook, line, and sinker,” Phoenix said miserably.
“It was a trap?”
“Yes. When I got to the warehouses, I found Bill’s trace. There were hospital stretchers and refrigerated cases, but no victims. I should have known. Thirsty attacked me, and we fought. When I finally got the upper hand, he laughed, telling me he was just a diversion and that a surprise was waiting for me at home . . . I decapitated him and rushed back. When I came across François and saw all that blood and debris, I thought I had a real heart again, that it was going to stop once more. François told me what happened while I pulled out the knife. I must say that it was your corpse I was looking for. I did not have any shred of hope until I saw the disorder in the office. I do not know what I would have done if you were not behind this door, safe and sound.”
On those last words, his voice shook, quickening my heartbeat. He shook his head and smiled at me. “Who else would I fight with?”
I laughed, then remembered something.
“Maybe we should get out of here. François must be worried.”
Phoenix nodded and lifted me in his arms to carry me into the parlor. After a few steps, he frowned while looking at me. “It looks like you only have superficial wounds.”
I checked myself over. Setting aside the cuts, bruises, and the lingering state of shock, I was fine, which was very surprising given how many times I’d been thrown around and crashed into things, and especially given the amount of blood that had spattered all over the hallway walls.
Samantha Watkins: Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life (Samantha Watkins Series Book 1) Page 32
