Accidentally Dead, Again

by Dakota Cassidy

  Nina crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, smart ass. So from now on, ask everyone you meet to bend over.”

  “Nina,” Sam warned, flipping open the laptop to find that it was on.

  “Look, your sense of smell’s going to take on a whole new meaning, Strawberry Shortcake. You’ll be able to smell others like you and others not like you. It’s in your best interest to fucking learn the difference, because sometimes the others not like you are the bad guys. So pay attention.”

  Phoebe took an exaggerated sniff of the room, a gesture clearly meant to taunt Nina, but then her head cocked to the right. “Huh. I do smell it. Do you smell that, Sam?”

  But Sam was too busy staring at his computer screen and the scattered DVDs to address it—a computer screen that was just like he’d left it before he’d gone to the party. A computer he’d turned off that was now on. “Well, whatever this vampire was looking for, they thought it was on my laptop, but it looks like everything’s the same as it was when I left. But do note, I shut down before I left for the party the other night. This was on.”

  Nina was at his side in an instant, leaning over his shoulder to gaze at the screen. “So what’s on it besides porn and a website for the rules on how to hook up with a vampire at a Halloween party?”

  Sam scratched his head in feigned thought, planting a hand on the desk to brace himself, keeping his face blank. “Nothing important. It’s my work computer. I bring it home a lot in order to work on pest-control formulas. All sorts of boring bug-related stuff you wouldn’t understand. But it wasn’t the sort of stuff breakthroughs are made of. It was just a bunch of research data, mostly old, mostly already marketed and sold. I keep copies of everything I had a hand in helping create.”

  Nina flicked the laptop with her finger. “So whoever the hell this was thinks you have something important from O-Tech—which means it isn’t safe for you to go to work, Sam. Not until we know what the frig this is about.”

  Just when you thought you’d pinnacled the crazy meter … “So what do I do, call in vampire?”

  Nina’s eyebrow rose. “Got any sick days? Vacation days?”

  Sam avoided her eyes, pretending to look down at the computer. “Yeah.”

  “Use them. Make some family bullshit up or whatever,” Nina ordered, picking up a stack of computer paper and putting it neatly back on his printer. “And while you take that shower and change into your man garb, think. Think about anyone in the recent past that seemed suspicious at O-Tech. Any fucking little thing is worth mentioning. Go take a shower. We’ll get this.” She waved a hand at the overturned furniture.

  Sam hesitated when Phoebe shot him a look of cornered animal from across the room. “If I leave the two of you alone, do you promise to play nice with Phoebe, Nina?” he asked, keeping his tone jovial and light.

  Nina snorted, giving Sam a sly grin. “Don’t you worry your cross-dressing, gel-bra-wearing head. Me and Barbie here are gonna straighten up the Dream House. You got so much shit all over the place I won’t have time to beat the fuck out of her with a rope of garlic. Promise. But hurry it up, because I’m tempted.”

  Phoebe mouthed the words thanks a lot to him via her plump, full lips, then followed up with an upward jut of her middle finger.

  He chuckled on the way into his bathroom, one room that was oddly intact but for the vanity, where an empty drawer was open. Grabbing a towel, he stopped at the mirror above his sink and wondered how he’d shave without tearing himself up if he couldn’t see what he was doing.

  Not that it mattered. He did have the ability to self heal.

  And run like he was the millennium’s latest answer to the bionic man.

  And maybe, if he was anything like Nina, read minds.

  Which meant he could find out if Phoebe thought he was as hot as Sam thought she was.

  Flipping the tap on, he grinned at the notion, then chastised himself for wondering if she wanted to see him naked as much as he wanted to see her sans clothes.

  Bad, bad Sam.

  He had other things to worry about, and none of them included becoming involved with Phoebe. However, it was the other things that were going to keep him glued to her side whether he wanted to be or not.

  Because at all costs, he was going to ensure her safety.

  Duty called.

  “I’M almost afraid to ask what this is,” Phoebe pondered more to herself than Nina as she picked up a Tupperware container with the biggest beetle she’d ever seen. She dropped it on top of the dresser where Sam kept his specimens.

  They’d been straightening up toppled furniture and bug specimens in relative silence while Sam showered and changed, giving her far too much time to think. How could she possibly keep her small business afloat if she couldn’t go out in the daylight hours? Last she’d checked, Tiffany’s wasn’t open at midnight.

  Mark could only handle so much without her input. They were already on client overload as it was, and next week was one of their biggest, most important client shoots. Scheduled for six A.M. so they could get the best lighting, so sayeth rapper Dawg and his crew of grill-wearing, drooping-trousered boyz.

  Pressing a thumb to her forehead, Phoebe paused and wished she were still able to take a deep, cleansing breath.

  “You all right over there, princess?”

  Her spine straightened and cracked, she shot upright so quickly. Okay. Enough with the snide nicknames and openly rude remarks about her person. The Phoebe of just twenty-four hours ago would never have stood by and allowed anyone to take potshots at her while she bit her lip to keep from creating drama.

  Nay.

  The Phoebe of twenty-four hours ago would have confronted her attacker, whether she was her sister or not. Out of respect for their new situation, she’d fought the impulse to continually fire back, but really. She’d had it up to her eyeballs with the wisecracks.

  She lobbed a colorful pillow she’d planned to fluff at Nina, marveling at the speed it sailed across the room with. “Lay off the stupid pet names, Nina. You do not want to tangle with this Barbie.”

  Nina’s hand was in the air in a blur of lean fingers, deftly catching the pillow and dropping it to the floor. “Back at’cha, princess.” Her pale face offered up a challenge from the confines of her hoodie.

  Anger, red and hot, flushed Phoebe’s gut. Anger she fought hard to maintain control of despite the surge of spiky heat along her scalp. “I said knock it off.”

  “Or what?” Nina spread her arms wide and rolled her neck. “You’ll pull my pigtails? Please. Look, lemme lay this shit out for you, so I’m crystal fucking clear about where I stand on this bogus bullshit. So we’re half sisters. Or whatever-the-fuck. You have proof. Big deal. Just because a piece of paper says I’m your blood doesn’t mean we’re gonna do each other’s hair and play Mystery Date. I don’t want a sister. I don’t need a sister. I’m only in this to make sure you’re all right because, in truth, I cornered you and made you trip over Sam. I own what I did. My bad. You need to own that you just weren’t quick enough for the likes of me. Your bad. And now, I’m doing my part in this flippin’ accident, but it doesn’t mean I want to have Sunday blood brunches with you.”

  “Well, thank God for small favors. I’ll consider myself lucky, then, because I’d bet you chew your food with your mouth open!” Phoebe spat, Nina’s childish behavior finally getting the best of her.

  Nina smiled her agreement. “Yeah. But I beat the shit out of people with my fist closed.”

  Phoebe’s finger shot up in the air to punctuate a forthcoming thought. “You forget, sister. I’m just like you now. Just as strong. Just as scary. I also have that not-afraid-of-a-whole-lot gene you possess, and I had it before you did this to me, you poster child for anger management! So while we look and dress like we’re poles apart, be warned. I’m the socially acceptable, better-grasp-on-the-English-language version of you.”

  Nina’s hands clenched at her sides, the thin blue veins in her neck straining against her cr
eamy white skin. “What the fuck is it that you expected from me when you showed up? Did you think I was gonna grab your hand and skip through fields of buttercups with you while we fucking picnicked and sang folk songs in the sunshine?”

  Well, it hadn’t exactly been like that. There were no buttercups. Okay, so maybe there’d been a picnic … on a checkered blanket … in Central Park. So?

  The dream had been more about them maybe having dinner together once in a while. Calling each other occasionally—like Christmas and birthdays. Nina being a supportive shoulder to lean on when her boyfriend dumped her because she was defective. Reaching out to someone before she wasn’t able to reach out at all …

  It had been about feeding her curiosity and checking off the no-regrets box before she literally lost her wits. It had been about ensuring the future of … She shook her head to ward off the one last piece of information she’d kept from Nina and the others. After Nina’s reaction, there was no need to disclose anything else.

  For all the warnings her mother had given her about Nina and her sour disposition before she’d died, Phoebe couldn’t have possibly imagined the reality. She just hadn’t expected the height of Nina’s wall to be so impenetrable. “I expected next to nothing and got less. More’s the pity. But my mother warned me about you. So I was semi-prepared.”

  Phoebe watched the play of emotions on Nina’s hard face, the surprise that her mother knew anything about her wash over her. She also watched as Nina grappled with her own brand of curiosity. “And what the fuck does your mother know about me? I don’t know your mother, and she sure as shit didn’t know me.”

  Knowing she was stepping onto a virtual land mine, Phoebe chose to step anyway. Call it overwhelmed, fed up, whatever, but she wanted to rile Nina—to poke at her for being such a mean girl. “Ah, but our father knew all about you and he shared a great deal of it with my mother just before he died.”

  “Like?”

  “Like that you were angry about losing your mother and that led to all sorts of trouble when you were a teenager. Obviously, your mommy issues have taken you right into adulthood.”

  Nina was across the room in a shot, her hand around Phoebe’s neck. In a split second, she had her pressed to the wall, her dark eyes on fire. The menace, the hot angry film that glazed them, might have made Phoebe shiver if not for the fact that she’d purposely gone for the jugular, and she’d done it to wipe that smug look off Nina’s face. “Never, ever mention my mother, Phoebe. You don’t know jack shit about her or me and my life.”

  Phoebe lifted her chin, her mouth a thin line, her hands clenching and unclenching. “Let. Me. Go.”

  “When I’m ready,” Nina squawked, jamming her face into Phoebe’s.

  “Get ready,” Phoebe squawked back.

  Nina’s eyes became narrowed slits in her head. “I can kill you. You get that shit, right?”

  Oh, she got it, and she was tired of the threat. Phoebe opened her mouth wide and pretended to yawn in Nina’s face. “You bore me. You get that shit, right?”

  “Now, girls,” Sam said, poking his head between the two women. His gorgeous eyes amused, the fresh scent of his aftershave tickling Phoebe’s nostrils even while she was pinned to a wall. “Has it come to this in just the amount of time it takes for me to grab a shower?” He propped a disapproving raven eyebrow upward. Wrapping his fingers around Nina’s, he tried to pry them loose from Phoebe’s neck with little success. “Nina? Let go. Please. If you kill Phoebe, I’ll be all alone at Vampire Academy. There’ll be no one to study my awesome mind-reading skills with. Now let go.”

  But Nina didn’t budge.

  He nudged Nina’s shoulder and gave her a cajoling smile. “C’mon, vampire sensei. Let her go. We have more important things to do than kill Phoebe. We have to find the bad guy who trashed my place. We can’t do that if we’re too busy cleaning up Phoebe’s scattered remains, now can we?”

  Phoebe lifted her chin, and though she didn’t reach to attempt to pull Nina’s hands from her neck, she certainly wasn’t going to back down. “Let go of me.”

  “Or?” Nina taunted, smiling sweetly at Sam before snarling in Phoebe’s face.

  Or she’d knock Nina into next Sunday, taking Sam with her?

  THE burst of explosive anger that had sent Nina flying across the room with Sam behind her had Phoebe in a state of panic. Not just because she had no control over the force with which she’d shoved Nina, but due to what had happened to Sam who’d been caught in Phoebe’s cross fire as a result.

  Just as Nina was about to rush her in bull-like fashion, her eyes caught Sam’s body, making her skid to an astonished halt.

  Sam was stuck in the wall between his living room and what Phoebe guessed was his bedroom.

  He wasn’t the kind of stuck that entailed crumbling Sheetrock and cracked paint. Sam was literally wedged inside the wall.

  In. The. Wall.

  Well, that was that. Her crazy account was officially overdrawn.

  For a stunned moment, all she could do was stare at him. His long legs, encased in well-worn denim, were sprawled outward at an odd angle, hovering above the deep wood grain of the floor. The black cowboy boots he wore peeked out from beneath his pant legs, floating in front of him. Her eyes followed the long line of his enormous body to his waist, where he disappeared inside the Sheetrock.

  “Sam!” Phoebe yelled, scurrying across the floor to poke her head around the corner of his bedroom. His upper torso floated and twisted Matrix-ish above the deep brown carpeting, his handsome face disbelieving.

  Nina was behind her in a flash, her eyes wide in shock. She slapped her hand against the doorframe in disgust. “For the love of Jesus and all twelve …”

  “It’s all fun and games until someone ends up inside a wall, eh, ladies?” Sam regarded them with a crooked smile. “So what to do, what to do?”

  Phoebe was kneeling beside him in an instant, her eyes roving his body, her hands hesitantly suspended over him, afraid to touch him for fear she’d hurt him. “Does it hurt?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nope. It’s sort of like … like floating. That’s the best description I can give it. Like I’m weightless.”

  “Should we try to move him?” Phoebe asked Nina.

  Nina ran her fingers through her long, wavy dark hair. “Fuck if I know. Can you move on your own, dude?”

  Sam wiggled his fingers and nodded. “Nothing hurts, I just can’t seem to get any leverage to pull myself out.”

  Nina moved around Phoebe to stand behind Sam’s head, bending at the waist. “Gimme your hands and I’ll pull you.”

  Sam reached upward, the strong muscles of his forearms flexing when he latched on to Nina’s hands, gripping them.

  “Gimme a holla if it hurts, okay?”

  “Fire when ready,” Sam instructed.

  Nina gave him a hard yank, but it wasn’t necessary. Sam slithered through the wall like a knife through soft butter. Nina pulled him to his feet with ease and clapped him on the back with an awestruck expression. “What the fuck is next with you two? Invisibility? I don’t get it. You can jam your ass in a wall, dude. She can teleport and see her reflection. Swear to Christ, if you two can eat, even one bite, I’ll stake you myself. I haven’t been a vampire very long, but I ain’t never seen shit like this. We need answers, man. I can’t help you if we don’t get some. Soon.” Her cell rang just then, and she looked at the number with a frown, prowling off to a corner of Sam’s bedroom to answer it.

  Phoebe’s eyes, filled with remorse, found Sam’s. “And the crazy just keeps on coming, huh?”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders and smiled, running his broad hand over the unmarred wall with a tentative finger to find it swallowed his hand whole. “It’s a little cool, if you ask me. How many people do you know who can get stuck inside a wall without breaking a sweat?”

  Clasping his arm, Phoebe winced. “I’m sorry you got in the middle of the two of us.”

  He cupped her chin, trailing
a finger over her bottom lip. “If we’re going to get through this, you two are going to have to work this out. We clearly need our wits about us, and the both of you at each other’s throats is nothing but a distraction we can’t afford. Wanna tell me what that was about?”

  Phoebe fought the urge to nestle against his hand. “I brought up her mother, a very touchy subject. I get that she’s feeling insecure and betrayed because there was this whole world that existed for her father that she had no clue about. I’d be angry if she knew about me, but I didn’t know about her, too. I was prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared to have her call me names and snarl at me every time I move. I also wasn’t prepared to become a vampire. C’est la vie. But you’re right. I let myself be goaded. It won’t happen again.”

  “That was some shove you gave her.”

  Phoebe looked at her hands as though they belonged to a stranger. “No kidding. I’m no candy-ass. I mean, I Zumba and I kickbox. I’m in good physical shape, but that surge of power was two things. Scary and damn heady.” She didn’t have time to reflect on her incredible strength further because Nina was plowing between the two of them and holding up her phone with a pleased look.

  “So good news, Supernatural Barbie and Ken. Help’s on the way.”

  “You’ve located the wall whisperer?” Sam quipped.

  “Always with the funny, huh, Sammy? No. But it’s someone who knows everything there is to know about vampires. He’s been around forever.” The doorbell rang just then, and Nina left to go answer it.

  Phoebe took a step backward into Sam’s bedroom, feeling trapped. She clung to the doorframe, pressing her forehead to it. “I’ve decided I don’t know if I’m up to another magical mystery tour tonight,” she hedged. “I need to catch my breath.”

  “You don’t breathe anymore,” Sam reminded her, brushing a strand of her hair from her cheek.

  “Or eat. Or go to the beach. Or—” Her anxieties were catching up with her.

  “Hey. We’re in this together, remember? I can’t do any of those things anymore, either.” Sam took her hand, cool and dry, and caressed her thumb with his in soothing circles. “But we won’t be in anything but ashes if we don’t find out what’s going on and why we’re different than all the other vampires.”