Elise giggled. “You’re going to get us killed,” she complained at Rose.
“My older brother used to say that I was destined to die from ill-timed sarcasm,” Rose said. “The joke’s on him. I died from something totally different.”
Erastos watched their banter without a hint of interest—or emotion of any kind, for that matter. “Are you wearing the Stone of the Eklektos?” he asked.
“No, I have another glowing necklace,” Rose said sarcastically. Then, to make sure he understood her sarcasm, she reached into her hoodie and pulled out the heavy, glowing Stone. It responded to her touch, glowing even brighter.
He reached out and touched the Stone of the Eklektos with his cold, pale fingers, and it instantly stopped glowing. “Good,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
Elise leaned forward, frowning at the Stone that hung from Rose’s neck, watching as it glowed red against Rose’s skin. “What kind of necklace is that?”
“The kind that got me killed a month ago,” Rose muttered.
“There is one more thing you need to know,” Erastos told Rose.
Rose tucked the Stone of the Eklektos back into her hoodie, the black fabric barely cloaking its crimson glow. “Well, what is it, Snow White?”
Erastos just frowned for a moment, not seeming to realize that Rose was talking to him. But then, he continued anyway, “You are a walking paradox. You are the intersection of light and darkness. You live by light and draw your power from darkness. You have spent your lifetime burying your darkness, and you continue to do that now. But you must not do that tonight. It weakens you.”
Rose frowned at the strange advice. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Erastos stepped forward. “You must surrender to the darkness.”
An eerie chill ran down Rose’s spine. It was as if her mind were trying to warn her of something. Her recurring nightmare flashed through her mind—the dark abyss. “Surrendering to the darkness sounds like a bad thing,” she said.
“It only sounds bad because you are afraid of that part of yourself,” Erastos explained. “But you mustn’t be afraid of the darkness. It is your power.”
Rose chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Okay, so hypothetically, if I did believe you and try to surrender to the darkness at some unknown point in the future,” she sighed, “what does that even mean? And how would I do it?”
“You’ll understand when it happens,” he assured her.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Why did I not see that coming?”
“Just remember,” Erastos said. “Surrender to the darkness.”
“Sure. I’ll remember your statement that makes no sense,” Rose said.
“You must go now,” Erastos told her. “We will see each other again.”
“The next time that something horrible is going to happen,” Rose said.
He bowed to her, and because of his closeness, his strange, clean scent filled her senses. He smelled as sterile as he looked. “Goodbye, my Eklektos.”
“Bye, Robotic-Ghost-Guy,” Rose said as he disappeared into the night.
Elise glanced at Rose with wide, blue-gray eyes once they were alone in the woods again. “I have so many questions. I don’t even know where to start.”
Rose grimaced. “Honestly, I don’t have any answers,” she admitted. “That guy is a complete mystery to me, still. I don’t know how he knows what he knows. I don’t even know if I should trust him. But so far, he’s been right.”
“That’s not good,” Elise sighed. “Who do you think is going to die?”
Rose felt the adrenaline pulsing through her bloodstream. “No one.”
“But you just said he’s always right,” Elise said slowly, frowning.
“Maybe he is,” Rose said, shrugging. A red spark flashed briefly in her eyes, so briefly that Elise thought she might have imagined it. “I don’t know for sure if he’s always right. What I do know is that I will not let anything happen to the people I care about. I will do whatever I have to do in order to protect them.”
“Even surrendering to the darkness?” Elise asked. “Whatever that means…”
“Even surrendering to the darkness,” Rose confirmed.
—
“Here it is,” Elise announced, gesturing toward the ominous building.
Rose stopped at the old, rusted gate that had once closed off the mental asylum. It opened onto an overgrown lawn, now filled with trees and weeds, and at the end of that lawn, a creepy, three-story, stone building set, covered in vines, beneath a bright, full moon. “Oh. It looks so cozy,” she muttered sarcastically.
Elise grimaced. “I can’t imagine that it’ll look any less scary inside.”
“Do you think Kara is in there?” Rose asked curiously.
Elise shrugged. “We’re too far away to distinguish her scent from the others,” she sighed. “I guess we won’t know for sure until one of us is inside.”
Rose frowned as she noticed a dark silhouette in front of the building’s double-door entrance. She watched as the shadowy form—a masculine form, she thought—moved away from the doors, as if he were trying to get a better look at them. “There’s a vampire guarding the entrance,” she whispered to Elise.
Elise turned toward her. “I have an idea,” she said with a smile.
Rose continued to watch the guard. He tilted his head to the side, watching them curiously. For a moment, he just stared at them. Then, he began to approach. Hesitantly. “He sees us,” she whispered. “He’s coming this way.”
“Trust me,” Elise said, and then, before Rose could figure out what Elise had planned, Elise wrapped her arms around Rose’s neck and kissed her.
Rose blinked in shock. “Um…Elise?” she mumbled against Elise’s lips. “What are you doing?” She felt Elise’s lips curve into a smile against her own.
“Just…trust me,” Elise whispered, her breath warm against Rose’s lips.
Rose glanced over Elise’s shoulder, at the vampire approaching them, and then, nodded reluctantly. With her small, slender arms wrapped around Rose’s neck, Elise drew Rose closer and kissed her a second time. Except…Rose didn’t pull away this time. The kiss felt nice, actually, Rose thought. Elise’s lips were soft, and she tasted sweet, like fruit and vampire blood. Rather than leave her arms hanging awkwardly at her sides, Rose lifted her hands to press against the side of Elise’s face, Elise’s soft, yellow-blonde curls brushing her wrists.
The vampire stopped, just inside the gate, watching them with puzzled, brown eyes. He cleared his throat. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Elise pulled back and glanced at him. “Oh. I’m sorry,” she giggled. “I didn’t realize anyone was here. We were just looking for a place to be alone.”
The man frowned suspiciously at them. “Well, this isn’t the place.”
Elise pointed her thumb over her shoulder, at the asylum. “I heard this place was abandoned years ago,” she said with a sweet smile. She leaned toward him and whispered, “You see, my girlfriend has this thing for creepy places.”
“Why do I have to be the one with the weird fetish?” Rose complained.
Elise elbowed her so hard that Rose wondered if Elise had broken one of her ribs. As Rose coughed and rubbed her side, Elise continued to talk to the vampire. “Have you ever heard the story of this place? It’s such a creepy story.”
“No,” the man said impatiently. “Now, I must insist that you leave.”
Elise began to play with the man’s tie, untying it and then retying it in a neater knot. “I could tell you the story,” she said flirtatiously, “if you want.”
Rose realized—a little late—that she probably should have warned Elise beforehand that she was a terrible liar. She looked up at the purplish-blue sky, pretending to be suddenly interested in the bright, full, yellow-orange moon.
The man raised an eyebrow at Elise. “I’m busy, actually.”
“Are you hungry?” Elise asked. “Because you look like you haven’t fed.”
He licked his lips. “I haven’t had a night off in a while,” he explained.
“Well,” she said, smiling at him. “I think you’re very attractive, and I think it’s just terrible that you’re here all alone with no one to feed from.” She shrugged. “Maybe, if you’re nice enough, you could have some of my blood.”
His brown eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Elise was practically batting her eyelashes at him. “Of course.”
He glanced at Rose with a frown. “But what about your girlfriend?” he asked quietly, as if he thought Rose couldn’t hear him. “Won’t she get jealous?”
Rose faked a smile. “It’s fine. I wanted to look at the moon anyway.”
Elise frowned at Rose, her lips twitching, as if she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or not. When the man shot a questioning look at her, Elise just shrugged. “I know. She’s weird, but I think it’s cute that she’s weird. Don’t you?”
“Not really,” the man said, his brows furrowing in confusion.
Rose scowled. “So, I guess I’ll just…be over here, looking at the moon.”
Elise gave her a look that clearly conveyed, “Stop doing the moon lie. It’s awkward and terrible,” but Rose just shrugged, not understanding her whatsoever.
“Okay. Yeah, I guess,” the man said to Elise, a surprised smile pulling at his lips. “I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt anything if I fed…as long as I don’t leave.”
“All right,” Elise said, smiling. She pulled at his tie playfully, flirtatiously, turning him to face away from Rose. “Then, let’s get started, handsome.”
Rose grimaced as he kissed Elise, wondering how long she would have to stay before he was distracted enough not to notice the sound of her footsteps.
When he sank his fangs into Elise’s neck, somehow, between the moans and making out, Elise managed to give Rose a thumbs-up behind the guy’s head.
Rose moved as quickly and as quietly as she possibly could, circling behind the building, hoping to find another entrance, not visible from the front. The overgrown vines, bushes, and weeds were difficult to navigate through, but as Rose trailed her fingers along the back of the building—just praying that none of these vines were poison ivy—her hand suddenly ran across something metal.
She sighed in relief as she wrapped her hand around it.
It was a doorknob. A back entrance—exactly what she’d hoped for.
Rose turned and glanced back at the overgrown weeds, bushes, and trees, scanning for any sign that someone was watching her. The sound of frost-covered branches crackling startled her, but upon further inspection, Rose found an owl in one of the trees behind the alley, watching her with large, beady eyes. She tilted her head to the side, puzzled by how the owl seemed to acknowledge her and accept her, as if they were kin. It was as if the owl could tell that there was something wild and animalistic inside of her as well. She waved awkwardly at the owl. Then, she inhaled a deep, calming breath of air, and opened the door.
She jerked the doorknob as forcefully as she could, breaking the lock with one loud click. Then, she stepped into the building and eased the door closed behind her. She coughed as she inhaled the thick, dust-filled air of the building.
Papers scattered the floor of the room she’d entered, and dust dispersed up into the air as she walked through the room. The back entrance seemed to have opened into a file storage room. Boxes of medical records filled the shelves around her, many of them tipped over, their old, yellowed papers spilled out into the floor. She crept as quietly as possible through the room, toward the door.
She slipped out of the room and into the dark, dusty hallway. Medical equipment scattered the dark hallway—a tipped-over wheelchair, a discarded stretcher, a rusty scalpel… Rose scowled at the scalpel, not even wanting to think about why there would be a scalpel in the floor of a mental asylum. But while she was staring at it, she forgot to watch where she was going and consequently walked directly into something large and solid. She looked up, her eyes widening.
“Who the hell are you, and how did you get in here?” he growled.
Rose chewed on her lip nervously at she stared at the tall man standing in front of her, blocking the stairwell. “Um…the owl gave me permission?”
He stared blankly at her. “The owl?” he repeated bewilderedly.
Rose raised an eyebrow. “It’s a type of bird,” she provided.
“I know what a damn owl is,” he growled, his green eyes narrowing.
“You asked,” Rose muttered, glancing around the dark hallway, trying to think of a way around the vampire. “So…my name is Rose. What is yours?”
He raked his hand through his curly, reddish-brown hair, sighing out in frustration. “Lady, I don’t know who you are or why the hell you’re talking about owls, but you are not supposed to be here. Now, if you don’t give me a good reason for why you’re in here, I will have no choice but to kill you,” he warned.
“That’s a long name,” Rose said dryly.
He stared at her with wide, green eyes. “You’re incredibly annoying.”
“I don’t know if I can say all of that in one breath,” she continued, frowning at the rusted fire alarm beside the stairs. “Do you have a nickname?”
“My name is Kirk,” he growled. “Now, tell me why you are here.”
Rose glanced up at him. “You should cover your ears, Kirk.”
He tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowing. “Why?”
“Because of this,” she said as she reached out and slammed the fire alarm down. She quickly covered her ears with her hands to muffle the shrill, ear-shattering bells, but it didn’t help as much as she’d hoped. With her sensitive hearing, the sound still caused unbearable pain to burst through her ears, splitting through her head, and causing her to cry out in agony and fall to her knees.
But with her hands over her ears, she recovered much quicker than Kirk, who collapsed in the fetal position, his arms over his head, blood beginning to ooze from his ears. She slid around him and ran down the stairwell, down to the basement, assuming that was where they kept Kara. The upper floors had windows, so if Alana had kept Kara there during the day, they would have had no choice but to keep her in the basement. She took two steps at a time, nearly falling down the last few. By the time she reached the last step, the alarms ceased.
“Crap,” Rose said, realizing that Kirk must have turned them off and wouldn’t be far behind her. She lifted her face and inhaled deeply. She smelled dust, the scent of some kind of cologne, alcohol, two unfamiliar vampires, and then…violets. Violets and leather. Rose opened her eyes and followed that scent.
The rooms in the basement contained much stranger and much more sinister equipment than the rooms on the upper floors. Rose grimaced as she passed a room with electro-shock therapy equipment and other experimental equipment. Rose had nearly reached the end of the hall when she heard Kara.
“Rose?” Kara said, staring at Rose with wide, cornflower-blue eyes. She stood just inside the last room, almost straddling the threshold of the room…but not quite. She wore the same leather pants and thin, black shirt that she’d worn before she’d left the Tomb of Blood the night before, except now, there were tears all throughout her shirt and pants, revealing small sections of healed skin.
“Kara,” Rose breathed, taking another step toward her. “Are you okay?”
Kara glanced past her. “Get out your dagger. Quickly,” she warned.
Rose pulled the silver dagger from the sheath attached to her waistband and spun around, just in time to stab the vampire racing toward her. Her dagger slid right into the stomach of a short, tattooed woman with spiky, black hair.
The vampire froze, her cold, dark gaze shifting down toward the dagger in her stomach. She jerked it out without hesitating, causing blood to spill out over her body, staining her gray tank top and brown, cargo pants. She jerked Rose against her, her hand clutching Rose’s long, red hair, and pressed Rose’s silver dagger agains
t her throat. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she growled.
“Don’t hesitate, Rose,” Kara said. “You have instincts. Use them.”
Something about Kara’s voice, coaxing her on, seemed to give her the slight boost of confidence that she needed. Rose moved as swiftly as she could, grasping the dagger in the woman’s hand at the exact same time that she stomped on the woman’s foot. Catching the woman off-guard, she twisted, jerking the dagger out of the woman’s grasp. She turned and tried to run toward Kara.
But after only a few steps, the woman caught her again, jerking her backward with so much force that she collapsed on the floor. The woman turned toward her, and then, she pulled out her gun and pressed it against Rose’s head.
Rose stiffened, staring up at the woman warily. She knew that the bullet itself wouldn’t kill her, but it would leave her unconscious until she fed, which would allow either one of the vampires the perfect opportunity to kill her.
The woman cried out suddenly, her gun hitting the floor with a loud crash. At first, Rose didn’t know what had happened, but then, the woman fell face-first onto the floor. Rose scrambled out of the way, gaping as she saw the five small scalpels stuck in the back of the woman’s head. Rose glanced up at Kara, her eyes widening, as she found Kara grinning at her. “You did that?”
Kara shrugged. “They didn’t have quite the same feel as my throwing knives, but what can I say? When you have good aim, you have good aim.”
Rose laughed and reached out to grab her blood-soaked dagger.
“Careful,” Kara said as her hand neared the woman. “She’s still awake.”
Rose glanced worriedly at the vampire, climbing unsteadily to her feet, watching with a grimace as the vampire slowly lifted her shaky hand to jerk one of the scalpels out of her head. She kept her gaze on the vampire as she moved.
“You have to kill her before she regains her strength,” Kara warned.
Rose swallowed uneasily and took a step toward the vampire, cringing as the vampire pulled another scalpel out of her head. Rose flipped the woman over with her foot, wincing as the woman cried out in pain. She hesitated before kneeling to grab her dagger, which was a mistake, because as she did, the vampire wrapped her arms around Rose’s legs and jerked her legs out from under her.
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