by Luxie Ryder
The darkness inside the compartment did nothing to impair his vision but he couldn’t see beyond the metal shell. The sound of shoes tapping along the hard hospital floors gave him warning that two people were approaching the exit. Amber’s voice filtered through all the other noises, getting louder the closer they got, her irritation at David evident. The car’s doors opened and the vehicle shook as they seemed to throw themselves down into the seats. The snap of seatbelts, followed by the spark of the ignition, echoed throughout the vehicle, jarringly loud to Bane’s ears. He rolled backwards when David applied the gas and Bane braced himself against the frame so they wouldn’t hear him being thrown around behind them.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing to keep the acrid petrol fumes from burning his nose and mouth. He would sleep if he had the time. Like many of his breed, he could depend on all of his senses to alert him to any danger. Even the smallest rise in temperature would drag him from his slumber. No attackers would come during daylight hours anyway. They had the same weaknesses as he did.
His hearing locked onto the rhythm of Amber’s heartbeat, and Bane allowed the sound to become a part of him. Any change in the tempo would rouse him. Focusing on the soft thump drowned out the noise of the car and their incessant bickering.
He woke when the tension level inside the cabin of the car had multiplied for no apparent reason. The decrease in traffic noise told him they were no longer in the city.
“I didn’t agree to this David.” Stress, distrust and weariness were evident in her tone and Bane wondered why she would choose to be around a man she obviously had no desire to be near.
“They wouldn’t have discharged you unless you had someone with you. You take my bed and I’ll crash on the sofa. I don’t want you alone tonight.”
“Your concern is touching. It’s a shame you weren’t so worried about me when you paddled away in the dinghy.”
“I’ve explained about that,” David said, his voice seeming louder as the street noise diminished. Bane felt the vibrations from the car’s engine bouncing back towards him and a sudden build-up of pressure in his ears and guessed they’d driven inside a building. Seconds later, the vehicle stopped and they got out and walked away.
Waiting until he heard elevator doors close, cutting off the sound of their voices, Bane placed the flat of his hand against the trunk’s lock and gave it a hard tap. The lid flew open and he caught it seconds before it slammed into the glass on the back window. The sedan’s alarm screeched to life, propelling Bane into action. He forced the trunk shut using the same brute strength with which he’d opened it and disappeared into a dark corner. David stepped from the elevator minutes later, frowning at the car from across the lot as he disabled the alarm without checking to see what had caused it.
“It’s always going off on its own,” he explained to someone behind him in the elevator that Bane couldn’t see and assumed was Amber.
The elevator departed again and the echo chamber of the stairway helped Bane track them to the top floor. Waiting until he heard a door close behind them, he made his way into the hall. Two residences shared the landing but their scent told him which one he needed to watch.
The service hatch above his head leading to the loft opened with a hard shove, then he reached up to grasp the edges and pull his body up into the space. Satisfied he could get to her in split seconds if necessary, Bane settled against the heating vent leading down into David’s apartment and waited.
* * * *
Amber awoke with a jolt. How long had she slept? She groaned when she looked at the clock and saw she’d only been out for a few hours. Sleeping in a strange bed had always been a problem for her—and that was without the added pressure of knowing the one she was in was David’s. She should have put her foot down earlier and insisted that he take her home but she’d been too exhausted to protest much. She could barely keep her eyes open now. Amber rolled over, turning an unfamiliar pillow that smelt all wrong over to the cool side. She let her head flop onto it, determined to force herself back to sleep, when a sudden noise from the living room scared her upright in the bed.
Gurgling—was that what she could hear? Was David choking? She threw back the covers and placed a foot on the floor, about to go check he was okay.
“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” a male voice said, from somewhere in the darkness hugging the edges of the room.
Amber spun towards the sound with a scream, turning so fast she lost her balance and landed in a heap next to the bed. Whoever had spoken cast a massive shadow against the wall beside the door. Before she could move, a gentle but unyielding hand on her breastbone forced her flat onto her back.
“Stay down and shut your eyes.”
The low, commanding voice vibrated through her ribcage and made her heart clench in fear again.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Amber begged, barely able to force the whisper from her constricted throat.
The stranger pinned her to the floor, a deep rumble emanating from him as his massive frame loomed over her. Amber couldn’t take a proper breath with the giant hand pressing down on her and she began to pant, suddenly light-headed as well as terrified.
The man’s face came into view in the semi-darkness and she forgot to be scared as she stared up at the intruder in confusion, wondering at the sense of déjà vu. Long strands of dark hair kept the man’s face in shadow but eyes she couldn’t quite see the true colour of still seemed to blaze as they reflected the tiny amount of streetlight coming through the windows. Amber felt a pull in his gaze, as if being hypnotised into moving closer. The thought that she could be dead and just not yet know it flitted in and out of her mind.
Suddenly, he dropped her stare and turned to look at the door, his lips curled back on a quiet snarl. The mystifying tranquillity drained out of her to be replaced by the fear of moments earlier. The man spun on his heels, lunging forwards into a crouch, and the air seemed to ripple around him while he waited with his head turned slightly to one side, as if focused on a sound she couldn’t hear.
By some silent signal, things began to happen around her very fast. The bedroom door disintegrated before her eyes with a loud, splintered crack, shards of wood flying in all directions—yet the man in front of her did not flinch, even when she screamed and tried in vain to get up. Light flooded the room but his mass blocked most of it from her. His watchful gaze remained fixed on the void beyond the doorway for maybe a heartbeat longer then he leapt forwards in a sudden explosive burst, like shot out of a cannon. Someone—something?—came from the opposite direction to meet him at an equally brutal speed, and Amber heard and felt their collision as it shook the floor beneath her. The large stranger’s charge carried the other intruder backwards and slammed him into the wall, destroying the plaster with the force of their impact. Squinting through her fingers, she could just make out the figure of someone squirming for release from the strong arm that held them. For one terrifying second, she thought it could be David, come to save her. But then the sound of savage snarling emanating from the captive chased away that notion.
“Amber. Close your eyes and cover your ears,” the stranger muttered over his shoulder without turning from the ferocious being fighting for its freedom. Confused that she could hear his command at all over the noise, she looked away without questioning why, knowing that she shouldn’t see what would come next. Her hands did a poor job of muffling the animalistic growls filling the room and she pressed them harder against her ears as she squeezed her eyelids shut.
The snarling intensified for a moment before coming to an abrupt stop, replaced by a sound like crunching bone. A loud thump on the floor in front of her caused her eyes to open against her will but she shut them again instantly, her mind refusing to acknowledge that she had seen a body lying near her feet. Amber screamed and scooted away to cower against the nightstand.
The smell of burning sent a new wave of panic through her and the desire to stay alive won out over the need to
protect her brain from further trauma. Peering over the bed, she saw the large man, either her saviour or executioner, throw a burning mass from the window.
Her legs came to life and she crawled for the doorway, getting onto her feet and stumbling through it, unsure why the man behind her hadn’t tried to stop her flight. She ran through the lounge, her eyes focused on the main door that was her only means of escape, until she stumbled over something in the middle of the room. Groaning in pain when she slammed into the hard floor and the wind was knocked from her, she fought to untangle her legs from whatever had tripped her. Writhing in panic, she wrenched her body away and turned to check behind her, sure the stranger would be there, reaching for her with his massive hands. But it wasn’t the stranger that her gaze fell upon.
Amber scrambled to her feet and staggered backwards as a scream tore from her throat. David’s body lay across the rug in front of the sofa. The macabre angle of his head and neck made him look like a discarded rag doll thrown to the floor by a spoilt child. But the horror etched onto his once handsome face made it clear nothing accidental had caused his death. His hands were curled into claws as if he’d been clutching at something when his young life had ended.
Amber’s vision blurred seconds before the wave of nausea forced her to her knees. The pathetic amount of food she’d managed to consume in the last day came up and splattered onto the rug, but she continued to retch even when her stomach seemed empty.
Someone had murdered David?
“Get dressed.”
She jumped at the quiet command, turning to find the man standing over her. Amber couldn’t move despite every instinct she had screaming at her to run away and never stop running. Casting her gaze downwards, she cowered, rendered motionless by the terrifying sensation that a predator had her in its sights and any movement from her would start a feeding frenzy.
The stranger spoke again. “Are you hurt?”
Amber kept her head down, her heart racing. Suddenly, the man knelt beside her and grabbed her chin, trying to force her to look at him.
“Do you remember me?”
The question surprised her, and she lifted her gaze without thinking. His eyes were the first thing she focused on. Almost black, they watched her as if trying to gauge her reaction to what she saw. His raven hair had fallen forwards around his face and neck in sharp contrast to his alabaster skin and accentuating his firm, darkly pigmented lips.
She definitely didn’t know him. Who the hell would forget him? Despite the very normal looking T-shirt and jeans he wore, the man had something other-worldly about him. Yet Amber didn’t know quite what caused that effect. Maybe it was nothing more than his size and his strange onyx eyes.
“Why would I remember you—who are you?”
Her voice shook when the panic she’d had to swallow down in order to speak threatened to erupt again at any second. She had no idea what he wanted, but for some reason he’d saved her from whoever had done that to David. At the thought, she wrenched her face from his grasp and turned towards the broken body of her friend.
“My name is Malachi Bane. You can call me Bane,” the man said, as if trying to drag her attention away from the disturbing image, “and I need to get you out of here right now.”
“But why…I mean, who did this?” Her stare was fixed on David and she didn’t notice that he—Bane—had got to his feet until he grabbed her upper arms and forced her to stand. His mountainous frame dwarfed even her tall one, and she shrank away from him again.
“I will answer every question you have once you are safe.” Amber wrestled from his grasp and opened her mouth to protest but he stopped her. “Listen to me, woman. You are leaving with me within the next few minutes. You can do it dressed and on your own two feet, or half naked and over my shoulder. It’s up to you.”
He stared at her as he waited for her to react and an alien sense of calm washed over her again. She pondered at the sensation, wondering why all of a sudden it seemed like a good idea to do what the large and terrifying man had asked.
“But there’s a body in there,” she protested, pointing to the bedroom.
“What body? There’s nothing in there. See for yourself.” He placed a hand on the small of her back and pushed her towards the door. “I’ll wait for you out here. Don’t make me come look for you.”
As vulnerable as she felt, Amber realised she could offer no resistance. Her head throbbed anew from her injury as her gaze darted around the room, looking for the body she knew should be there. But he was right—the room was empty. More questions sprang to mind about the reason for the attack and what had happened to the headless corpse she’d seen laying on the carpet minutes earlier but she knew she had little hope of getting any answers.
Amber cast a glance at the window that looked out over the street—could she scream for help before he got to her? But what would be the point? Nobody would make it up to the apartment in time anyway. Complying with the intruder’s wishes seemed the safest thing to do. He planned to take her outside, where there would be people—lots of them. As soon as she could, she would raise the alarm and scream bloody murder. Or maybe she’d be able to run away. It wasn’t as if he’d be able to stop her in the middle of a crowded street. No, but he could catch me and snap my neck like a twig with those massive hands before anybody could stop him. She would need to be careful and choose her moment wisely. It was doubtful she’d get more than one shot at escaping with her life.
Amber dressed with her gaze fixed on the door in case he came back in. She threw a pair of jeans on to go with the T-shirt she already had on and slipped her feet into the sneakers she had worn to leave hospital. Uncertain of what to do next, she stood in the middle of the room, her legs unwilling to take her closer to the unknown. She spotted her rucksack on the dresser and took her keys and some money out of her wallet, then threw it and the bag down into the corner. She didn’t need Bane knowing her address and where to find her if she did manage to escape him.
“Are you ready?”
His words spurred her forwards and out into the main room before he saw what she’d been up to. Amber averted her eyes from David’s body, knowing that seeing him again would reignite the panic she was barely managing to control. She needed a clear head to get out of this alive.
“Where’s your purse?”
“I…I don’t have one,” she said, keeping her voice casual as she hid her eyes from him.
“You are mistaken. I know you have one. Here, I’ll fetch it for you.” Bane walked straight over to where she’d dumped it and a smile lifted the corner of his mouth as he handed the purse to her. “The information you are trying to hide from me might be useful to others.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, changing the subject, relieved he didn’t kill her for lying. “And what others?”
“Somewhere safe. That’s all you need to know for now. Come on.” He grasped her elbow in an iron grip that allowed her no choice as to whether she followed or not, and steered her through the door into the hallway, past the elevator. He shook his head as she paused near it. “Small inescapable places would be an unfortunate choice given your current predicament.”
“I don’t understand,” she said two minutes later, after he had forced her to sprint down the stairwell and out through the parking garage into the warm, dark street. “How do you know my name?”
Bane stopped dragging her along the sidewalk and turned towards her. “If I tell you that your friend saw something he shouldn’t, and that by talking to the press about it, he put you both in mortal danger, would you stop asking foolhardy questions and just trust me?”
“Can I trust you?” she said, sure she wouldn’t believe a word he said but needing to ask all the same.
He jerked his head towards the apartment. “You saw what happened up there. Why would I fight to protect you just to kill you later? I’ve had more opportunity than you know to do you harm if I wished.”
Amber didn’t have time to complain th
at the more he told her, the more confused and afraid she became. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a police patrol car slow down to a crawl on an adjacent street. She looked at Bane to check if he’d followed her thoughts but he simply stared down at her, his brow creased in irritation as he reached out to clasp her arm again. Amber grabbed at her chance, ducking his hand and taking a wild dash out into the road. She sucked in one jerky breath and threw back her head, releasing her fear, anger and grief erupt in a gut-wrenching scream. Bane would catch her and punish her—that much she knew—but fuck him if he thought she would go without a fight. She kept running, the flicker of hope in her chest burning brighter with each step she took. Amber yelled again, her voice echoing along the empty dark streets and bringing the cruiser to a sudden halt just as it was about to roll out of view.
When only a few feet separated her from the safety of the police car, Amber’s fear escalated. To get so close and not make it would be too cruel. She couldn’t hear Bane behind her but couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t down to the wild beating of her heart and the blood pounding in her ears. The skin on her back crawled in anticipation of his touch and she looked over her shoulder, certain he’d be there…but the street was empty. Amber collided with something solid and screamed again, sure he had caught up with her just as she’d been about to get away.
“I’ve got you, ma’am,” an unexpected voice said, halting her frantic struggle for freedom when she realised the hands on her shoulders belonged to the police officers she’d been trying so desperately to reach. Her legs buckled as relief coursed through her, forcing the officer to support her weight and stop her sinking to her knees in the street. The policeman almost lifted her onto the back seat of the cruiser.
