“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just have fun.”
Her mouth twisted into an uncertain smile as the corners of her eyes wrinkled. “Okay.”
The jack-hammer tune faded into a slower ballad. Cara closed her eyes and started to sway with the song, slowly, from left to right. She tapped her fingers against her thigh in time with the beat.
“Good song,” she murmured.
I couldn’t agree more. While she writhed with the music, I tested out my own moves. Jerky at first, then smoother, I found my rhythm, and it felt good. Taking a deep breath to slow my racing heart, I drew her closer. Our bodies melded. She didn’t resist. We moved as one, letting the music guide us.
“Justin.” She slid her fingers higher, up my collar, then around the back of my neck, nestling her fingertips in my hair.
“Cara.”
She opened her eyes. “I’ve never danced with anyone before.”
“Me neither.” I half-laughed, half-sighed. “It’s nice.”
“Uh-hmm.” She rose on her tiptoes and pulled my head down at the same time. Our mouths were millimeters apart.
I curled my toes, waiting, afraid to move. Her lips hovered over mine, igniting a deep burning throughout my body. I trembled.
Her mouth covered mine. The kiss was warm and sweet, and oh–so-soft. She leaned into me, plush where I was thin. Shudders rippled through me. I cradled her head with one hand while drawing a finger along her jawline with a finger.
I licked her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth. I deepened the kiss. She responded with a moan.
This is where I belonged. Right here. Connected to her.
And I’d found her in the den of a monster.
Just before dawn, Alex rushed in, flying by Cara on her way to the kitchen to return our glasses. She gasped, and the glasses smashed to the floor, spilling the remains of our breakfast smoothies.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I’ll clean this right up. Please forgive me,” she sputtered.
Alex stopped her. “There’s no time. Abarron’s coming. I’ll have to hide you somewhere, preferably downstairs. Let’s hope he doesn’t smell you. Cara, come with us.”
He spun the dial on his safe, retrieved my stake, and tossed it to me. “Better take this.”
I clutched the thing to my chest. Abarron himself? “What the—”
“No questions. Move.” Alex swung his arm for Cara to follow.
“What happened?” I stumbled behind him, confused.
Alex growled. “Margaret happened.”
My throat went dry. “She told him about me.”
“Yes. Quickly now.” He led us to his bedroom.
“I knew she would,” I said.
He pierced me with a glare. “We can argue about it later. I’ll be sure to praise your ability to predict the future.”
Cara stopped short at the threshold, stuck there like she’d hit an invisible force field. “I can’t go in there!”
I bumped into her. “Why not?”
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” She kept her hands fisted at her sides, arms ramrod straight.
“I give you permission,” Alex said, his voice soft.
Her eyes widened. She whimpered, “But… but…”
“Come here.” He collected Cara in his arms and carried her to the mirrored closet door.
“Why is she freaking?” I asked.
“Open the door.” He shifted Cara over his shoulder.
She flailed, whacking his back. “Put me down!”
“Alex,” I said.
“I’ll explain later when the danger is over,” he said. “Door. Open. Now.”
We spilled into his walk-in closet. Alex deposited Cara on the floor and closed the door behind us. He yanked a shoe rack away from the wall and tipped it against the door. Moving the rack had exposed a panel on the floor with a keypad fastened to its surface. Maybe he had weapons in there. Would’ve been helpful to know the last time I hid here. Alex typed in the code to unlock it.
Cara folded her limbs around herself and rocked. I watched the door, holding onto my stake like a knife, expecting Abarron to burst through at any moment.
“Comfort her, will you?” Alex grumbled.
“Yeah, okay.” I abandoned my watch to sit next to Cara.
She laid her head on my chest. Her tears soaked my shirt.
“Why is she so scared?”
“She’s not allowed to enter my bedroom under pain of death.” Alex paused. “It was Margaret’s idea. She didn’t want a slave interrupting us when we, you know…”
I raised my eyebrows. Eww. At least he had the decency to leave out the details.
“Yes, well, I gave her a conflicting order.”
Cara sniffed.
Alex opened the panel door. Darkness yawned inside. He jumped through the hole and popped his head through. “Come on, hurry.”
“We’re hiding in the floor? He’ll find us.”
“It’s the ventilation system.”
I cupped Cara’s cheeks between my palms. “I know this is scary, but you’ve got to keep it together. Just for a little while longer. Once we’re safe, you can cry as much as you need to.” I told Sammie the same thing when we ran for our lives. It worked then.
Cara blinked. “Okay.”
“Give me your hand, Cara. I’ll help you.” Alex extended his arm.
She obeyed, sniffling.
I lowered myself after her.
Alex closed the panel door, shutting us in total darkness. Cara huddled closer to me. A hard plastic object smacked my palm. Cold fingers guided mine to a switch. A streak of white light illuminated a crawl space high enough to allow a grown man to walk at his full height. I swung the flashlight back and forth. Multiple dents and scratches pocked the metal.
“You would move far too slowly blinded,” Alex strode away, rounding a corner.
“Right,” I muttered.
Cara held onto my arm. We followed the monster through the steel maze, stopping at another locked door. Similar marks to the walls continued on its surface, each one telling a story of someone or many someones passing through here. Alex typed in the code to unlock it. A similar keypad hung on the door’s other side—access from both directions. Wonder what Alex did with this space, a strip of ducting amounting to little more than a steel tomb. Better not to know or even guess. I shoved down my questions and focused on our footsteps as they rebounded back to us. Except Alex’s, of course.
“Where does this go?” I asked. “I don’t want to wander around here forever.”
“You’d better be careful about uttering the term forever. I dare say it has much more literal meaning to me than it does you.” Alex paused to sniff the air like it’d tell him his location.
“This isn’t right.” Cara’s grip around my arm tightened.
“You have every right to doubt me.” Alex chose a side duct. “But rest assured, if I get caught with Justin, I’m in as much trouble as you.”
Of course he would be.
We came to a dead end.
“Now what?” I kept the flashlight trained on Alex and checked my hold on the bloodstained stake. It was my only defense if Alex went all fangy.
“We go down.” He knelt next to another floor panel and keyed in the passcode. The hinges gave off a deafening shriek of metal. Cara clapped both hands to her ears.
With a smile, he hopped through the opening. Another game? Was Abarron really coming?
“Whose place is this?” I peered through the hole, examining the insides of a Vie closet similar to Alex’s but with women’s clothing and brighter paint instead of his muted suits and neutral wall color.
He grinned up at me. “Margaret’s. She’s not here.”
“Margaret’s? Are you kidding me?”
He flicked his hands, arms wide. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”
“No, it’s too far.” Cara tugged at my sleeve.
A breath hitched in my throat. Sammie had said the same to me on the rooftop. How I wished
things had gone differently that night.
“Trust me.” Alex nodded encouragingly.
I hesitated. We had no tangible proof—other than Alex’s word—Abarron was on his way. Then again, this was a lot of work just to pull off a prank. Then again, why the special doors to the ventilation ducts in the first place? Has he done this before? With who? And why? Clots. I was done guessing.
I handed Cara the flashlight. She hugged it to her chest. This was way outside her comfort zone. I gave her quick kiss on the cheek. “It’s going to be all right. I promise.”
Staring down at Alex, images of the past few days scrolled through my mind like a vidscreen on rapidsearch. Alex sinking his teeth into Sammie’s neck, him wrestling with Margaret after he drank my blood, the vid of him draining a slave like a suckling pig. He was a monster. Nothing more. My stomach turned, closing in on itself until it hardened to stone.
The vow I made trickled to the surface. The one where I promised I’d stake him for good. I had a stake. I had a chance to escape. And I had Alex staring up at me, open-faced and expecting. Totally unsuspecting. It was too easy.
Palming the stake, I jumped into his arms.
Alex caught me without so much as a grunt. He set me on the floor before directing his attention to Cara.
“I’m okay, Cara, see?” I said.
Alex raised his arms to catch her. It gave me the opening I needed. One shot. I could do this. Gritting my teeth, I plunged the stake into Alex’s lower chest, aiming it upward toward his heart.
Alex groaned. He clutched his chest at the stake but didn’t let go. I shoved him with all my weight. The stake shifted deeper. His blood gushed out, covering him, me, the carpet, everything. We collided with the opposite wall. He slid to the floor, curling into a fetal position, a grimace mutilating his face.
“No!” Cara screamed. “What did you do?”
“What I should have done a long time ago.” I jerked the stake free. Rather than closing up like last time, the wound continued to pour out blood. I must’ve hit my target. Good. Smiling, I stuffed the stake in my pocket. Never knew when it might come in handy again.
I shifted my gaze to Cara. She peered down at me, her brow furrowed. I stretched my arms out to her. “Jump. Hurry!”
Cara slipped her legs through the hole, stretching as far down as she could before letting go of the ceiling edge. Her fists flew once she landed. She pounded at my chest, arms, stomach, anything within reach. “Why did you do that?”
Instead of moving away, I trapped her hands in mine. “He’s a Vie. He’d kill us eventually. Now, come on, we need to get out of here.”
She stilled, staring at Alex. It was almost scarier than her freaking. “He was our way out.”
Alex watched us, pale as a ghost. “I would’ve freed you.”
“You’re nothing but a liar,” I snarled.
“That’s not true,” he exhaled. His blood oozed from the wound in a slow trickle, but no magic-like Vie healing stitched him back together. “Cara, you know what to do.”
Her bottom lip quivered. Shit.
“Just die already,” I spat at him.
He closed his eyes, head sinking deeper into the carpet.
I blocked Cara’s view of Alex with my body. “He’s gone. You don’t have to do what he says anymore. So, are you coming with me or staying here?”
“I can’t leave him.”
“And when Margaret gets home? What will you do then?”
Her eyes widened. “She’ll kill me.”
“Then we need to disappear before she gets here. Do you know the code?”
“I think so, if it hasn’t been changed.” She took a tentative step away from her master. Then another. An unsure smile slipped across her face. It was a taste of freedom. Springing to action, she dashed to the door. She had to enter the passcode twice, her hands shook so badly.
We scrambled down the hallway to the elevators. I pounded my fist against the button until the door opened.
A blur of movement to my right caught my attention at the same time I shoved Cara into the elevator.
A Vie, older, male, eyes sharpened by age and power. Nathan Abarron himself. I recognized him from all his vidscreen interviews with Vincent Marks and his advertising billboards plastered all over the city. His lips curled back with a predator’s fury.
Blazes, Alex wasn’t lying.
I dove into the elevator.
He lunged as the doors slid shut.
Cara yelped. She slapped the button marked L repeatedly.
The elevator started its descent. I slumped against the wall, dazed. Cara panted. She collapsed to the floor, hugging herself, staring into nowhere.
I had to snap her out of it, so I knelt next to her, eye to eye. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to die,” she sobbed.
“It’s okay. We’re safe.” I smoothed her hair.
“How did he find us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he heard us through the vents?”
Something slammed against the elevator, rocking the car. The roof’s twelve-inch-wide access panel flew off its hinges. Abarron stuck his head through the hole.
“Where do you think you’re going, Anemie?” he roared. His ice-blue irises were nearly eclipsed by the dilation of his pupils. Bald with deep wrinkles on his forehead and on either side of his mouth, he looked old—like ancient-forefathers old—but the vaccine gave him the strength of fifty guards combined.
Cara screamed and covered her head. I ducked as he slashed his arm at us, claw-like hand wide open to shred us to bits.
The elevator stopped. When the doors opened, Cara and I spilled into the hallway, both entangled and panting.
“Move!” I yelled.
I got my feet under me and pushed off. My leg stomach, neck, everything, quivered with every heartbeat. I tripped. Cara yanked me up. We dragged each other along, footsteps and heavy breaths flocking around us.
The screeching of tearing metal came from behind. Abarron was ripping the whole elevator to pieces.
“Run if you want. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to catch my own prey,” Abarron skimmed through the elevator doors just as they shut.
“How do we get out of here?” I asked Cara.
“This way.” She pointed to a service elevator on the right. Her fingers tapped in the entry code so fast I couldn’t catch the numbers.
Abarron streaked toward us. Head start was over.
I held the stake tight. “Faster,” I urged.
“I got it.” She pulled me inside and slammed the door shut behind us. “Press SB, quick.”
Abarron’s rage-filled cry reached us through several layers of steel. He was really pissed.
I held my breath until we reached the sub-basement. Concrete walls stretched for dozens of feet. Large pipes snaked along them. The damp cold made me shiver.
Cara opened a door to the underground garage. We jogged toward the curved exit ramp, past Alex’s Porche. I wished I had the keys, but I didn’t know how to drive. I wheezed from the exertion. Muscles knotted in my side. It’d been a long time since I’d run. So far, the garage was deserted. We paused in an alcove to check out the exit.
Cara dug her nails into my forearm. “Oh, no.”
“Blazes.” I said.
A guard paced the driveway, backlit by the brightening world. Hadn’t seen him when Alex took me on the joy ride to visit the Anemies at the pier. But if we could get past him and outside, any Vie, including Abarron, wouldn’t be able to chase us. Once again, UV rays to the rescue.
“Must be Abarron’s,” I whispered.
“What do we do?”
“Bum-rush him.” I started to rise, but Cara jerked me down.
“You can’t. He’ll break you.”
A half-dead, mostly-injured, fully-malnourished Anemie against a six-foot-six solid wall of muscle. Never let that stop me before. Then again, look where it had gotten me.
“Any ideas?”
She lick
ed her lips. “Yeah, actually I do.” She rose, spine straight, shoulders back. “Follow me.”
I sputtered after her. “You don’t think we’re just gonna walk out of here.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
The guard stopped us immediately. “Where are you two going?”
Cara lifted her chin and pointed to her Elite pin. “My master wants me to deliver this gift to a friend.” She gestured to me.
The guard looked me over. Twice. He scratched his nose. “Who’s your master?”
Don’t say Alex. Don’t say Alex.
“Margaret Abarron.” Cara’s clear voice rang out, bursting the guard’s doubt and punching me in the chest.
I nearly fell to my knees, winded. Margaret Abarron.
The guard backed off. “Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt. We’ve had a security breach, so you understand.”
“No problem.” Cara kept a hand on my elbow.
We walked slowly, deliberately, toward the street.
Static buzzed from the guard’s comm. “Special order from Mr. Abarron. Intercept anyone trying to leave the building.”
Cara squeaked.
“Run,” I said.
We took off, the sounds of our footsteps slapping the surrounding buildings.
“Get back here!” the guard called.
Something sharp bit the middle of my back.
Had the guard thrown—
Searing shocks of electric heat snaked through my body. I arched and dropped to the ground. Yep, a portable Zapper, something you toss at an enemy. It’s held in place by prongs that deploy and lodge into the skin on contact.
“Justin!” Cara cried.
My eyes rolled up as I convulsed.
The guard cut the juice. It took a minute for my body to settle. The ringing of my ears calmed enough for me to catch him mid-dialogue.
“…thought you’d escape, eh? Are you the reason Abarron stopped by? Boss wouldn’t say.” I opened my eyes enough to see the guard train a second Zapper on Cara.
“Please don’t,” she said, palms facing out in surrender.
“Please don’t,” he mocked. “An Elite slave running from a guard. There’s got to be a special punishment for that. Maybe they’ll air it on the vidscreen. You might meet Vincent Marks.” He grinned.
He stepped closer.
Dawn of the Vie (Immortal Aliens Book 1) Page 22
