Semi-Twisted:

by Isabel Jordan

  Lucas cussed under his breath, but Hunter said, “And yet he didn’t try and run. Maybe he’s ready to end this.”

  Mischa swallowed hard. End just sounded so…final. Potentially deadly.

  “What do you think, doc?” Lucas asked. “Think he’s ready to end this?”

  Vi adjusted her suit jacket and slipped easily back into professional mode. “His kidnapping of Emily and the destruction of the flowers is a break in his normal pattern, and demonstrates an anger with her that was never present before. I’m guessing that seeing her with Michael triggered the anger and possibly some feelings of betrayal. So, to answer your question, I’m hypothesizing that yes, he’s ready to end this.”

  “And by end this,” Mischa began carefully, “I’m assuming you don’t think he plans to turn himself in and let everyone go, right?”

  Please say yes. Please say yes.

  Vi’s ensuing silence spoke louder than words ever could.

  Mischa sighed. “Right. Okay, fine. I’ll take that to mean we need to get everyone out of there before this escalates and gets out of control.”

  Lucas shook his head, looking disgusted with the situation and everyone involved. “I’ll approach the house. Present myself as the hostage negotiator. See if I can find out what his plans are. What he wants. If he’s at all reasonable, I’ll try to get him to let Michael go as a sign of good faith.”

  He shoved his hands through his hair again—at this rate, he’d be bald by morning—and added, “Hopefully the fucker won’t shoot me on sight.”

  “Regular bullets can’t kill a werewolf, can they?” Vi asked.

  He snorted. “No, but they sure as shit piss me off.”

  “This should be fun,” Hunter said for the second time that night.

  Mischa shook her head. “We really need to work on your definition of fun.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Lucas’s skills as a negotiator left a little to be desired.

  It had all started off peacefully enough, but after about twenty minutes of talking, Royal flat-out refused to comply and let Michael go. Mischa couldn’t remember every word that was said after that, but she knew that Royal hadn’t appreciated being called a “pathetic blood-sucking psycho,” or a “fuckwit parasite.”

  She was definitely going to recommend that Lucas take some anger management classes. If they all made it out of this clusterfuck, that is.

  So now, Royal stood on the porch of his dilapidated crack shack with a forearm around Michael’s throat and a gun at his temple. Hunter had suggested (using every bit of his power) that Lucas shut the hell up. So Lucas was currently sitting on the ground with his back against one of the maple trees in the front yard, rocking an impressive man pout.

  Tina was practically digging a trench through the yard with her heels as she anxiously paced back and forth, shredding a tissue between nervous fingers. Vi had taken over hostage negotiations. But Mischa kept her eyes on Hunter, who was too quiet and intense-looking for her liking.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered. “It looks like you’re doing math in your head.”

  “I am doing math in my head.”

  She frowned. “Like trig? Is this really the time?”

  He narrowed his eyes as he continued to study Royal. “Just trying to determine if I can move fast enough to grab Michael before Royal can pull that trigger.”

  “And?”

  “It’d be close.”

  “Close like if you forgot to carry the one, Michael’s brains could end up on the front door of this house?”

  He glanced down at her. “Pretty much.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I don’t like things that close.”

  “Me neither.”

  “What about mind control?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “He’s got some good internal shields. Like you. And his guard is up right now. If I catch him when his guard is down, maybe then.”

  With everything that had gone on so far? Yeah, she wasn’t counting on him letting his guard down anytime soon.

  “So we’re back to trying to negotiate our way out of this, huh?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Vi seems to be doing OK.”

  That didn’t really surprise Mischa. Crazed stalker or not, Royal looked like every nerd ever to grace a John Hughes film. Maybe an inch or two taller than Mischa with a slight build, unfortunate overbite, and freakishly large forehead, Royal was probably thrilled to be talking to Vi, in all her icy blond, classically pretty perfection.

  But it was taking for-freakin’-ever. Seriously, Mischa was immortal and even she felt like she was going to die before this thing ended.

  Hunter nudged her with his shoulder. “Michael has a bullet wound. Left upper thigh.”

  Mischa almost groaned at the reminder. Michael’s blood smelled like brown sugar and melted butter. It was all she could do to try and ignore the untimely blood thirst the smell stirred in her. “I know. I can smell it.”

  “Notice how the smell has gotten stronger while he’s been standing there?”

  It had, she realized. Almost like…“Shit,” she muttered as realization hit her right between the eyes.

  “We need to end this quickly. He’s losing too much blood.”

  He did look a little pale. And he seemed to be leaning back on Royal heavily for support.

  Harper would never forgive her if she let anything happen to her brother.

  Mischa turned and forced Hunter to look her in the eye. “Do you trust me?”

  He frowned down at her. “Of course I do. You know that.”

  She snaked a hand behind his neck and dragged his mouth down to hers for a quick, hard kiss. “I just needed to hear it out loud. And I need you to remember it, because you’re not going to like this.”

  Before she could change her mind, she turned away from Hunter and took a step toward the front porch. “I got this, Vi,” she said. “Go over and sit with Lucas.”

  Vi’s brow furrowed, but she nodded and did as Mischa asked.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter asked, his voice taking on a razor-sharp edge.

  Forgive me, she thought, before turning to Royal and saying, “Michael’s not looking so good, Royal. If you kill a human, you’ll have the WHPD and the Vampire Council all over you. Let him go.”

  He sneered at her. “So your ancient boyfriend over there can mind-fuck me into turning myself over to the cops? No thanks. There’s no way I’m giving up my hostage.”

  Yeah, I thought you’d say that.

  She swallowed hard. “I’m not asking you to give up your hostage. I’ll take his place.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Royal was, of course, all too willing to rid himself of the bleeding liability of a human in his arms in exchange for Mischa, the vampire who all but trounced his beloved Emily in the Miss Eternity pageant.

  Hunter grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. “Are you fucking insane?” he hissed. “I’m not letting you hand yourself over to that sick fuck.”

  Her expression was maddeningly calm as she grabbed his hands, lacing her fingers through his. “I don’t want to go either, but we don’t have a choice. Michael will bleed out if he has to stand there much longer. He won’t take you or Lucas in exchange for Michael because you could overpower him. I won’t let him take Vi because she’s every bit as vulnerable as Michael. He’ll underestimate me because I’m small. I might be able to get him to drop his guard long enough for you guys to take him down.”

  Or maybe she could use her powers on him, she was thinking.

  His hands tightened reflexively around hers. “Don’t even think about it. Your powers are still too unreliable. If something went wrong…”

  If something went wrong and you died, I’d destroy Royal, this house, everyone inside this house, and maybe everyone in this city. There’s no one who could stop me.

  “I feel the same way,” she whispered in response to his unspoken confession. “But we don’t have any other optio
ns.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Give me an hour,” she urged. “I’ll give you a signal if I’m able to gain control. If you don’t get a signal, you can storm the place.”

  Storming the place sounded pretty good. But not with her inside at the mercy of some sicko.

  “He’s not a killer,” she went on. “I can see it. He didn’t kill those girls in the basement. He could’ve. And he hasn’t killed Michael. It’s not his intention to kill me. I believe that.”

  He dropped one of her hands to shove his fingers through his hair in frustration, only to realize that it had yet to grow back from his prison-issue buzz cut. He growled. “He tried to kill you onstage.”

  “We don’t know that. He could’ve just been trying to scare me.”

  “Well, it scared the holy hell out of me!”

  She captured his hand again and pressed it to her heart. “I deal with dangerous and unpredictable every day in my job. This isn’t all that different.”

  “I hate that fucking job,” he grumbled.

  “I know you do. But I’m good at it. Let me do this. Give me an hour. I’ll be fine. Please. Please trust me.”

  “Goddammit.” He squeezed his eyes shut. The “please” had always been his undoing with her. And she was right. They didn’t really have any other options. No good ones, anyway. “You have half an hour. If I don’t get a signal from you in that time letting me know you have everything under control, I will rip this place apart and kill anything that stands between us.”

  She smiled and pushed up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

  “I already do.”

  When Hunter was right, he was dead-on-balls accurate. Going in alone had been a stupid move.

  Mischa didn’t want to open her eyes. God only knew what was waiting for her beyond the quiet of her forced nap.

  The whole thing had gone down quickly. She remembered Royal shoving Michael down the porch steps into Hunter’s arms, then grabbing her upper arm and propelling her into the house. He’d slammed the door behind them and knocked her over the head with something blunt and heavy. She’d only had enough time to mutter, “Well, fuck,” before her vision had dimmed to black and her body hit the floor.

  “Is she OK?” a frightened voice whispered.

  “I don’t know,” another answered. “Who do you think she is?”

  “No idea. She’s too short to be another contestant.”

  Well, that hardly seemed called for.

  Mischa slowly raised her head and looked around the room, the light from a bare bulb screwed into the ceiling stabbed into her brain, making her hiss with pain.

  They were in what looked to be the kitchen of an abandoned apartment. The basement, she realized.

  The rotting remains of a farmhouse sink base cabinet leaned crookedly against the decaying wall. The smells of decades old mold and mildew filled the air, causing her nose to twitch. The peeling linoleum beneath her butt was a sickening shade of ‘70s avocado green and reminded Mischa of the time she’d had the flu as a child and puked up lime Jell-O.

  Across from her were the former Miss New York and Miss New Jersey. Their arms and legs were bound with silver, and they were chained to the old galvanized pipes that jutted up from the floor. The women were dirty and disheveled, but otherwise seemed unharmed.

  “My name’s Mischa,” she told them. “Let’s see if we can get you out of here.”

  She briefly explained her role in the investigation to find them, the hostage crisis currently unfolding upstairs, and Royal’s role in it all.

  Miss New York hissed. “I knew that uppity bitch from Utah would be a problem. I’m reporting her to the Council when I get out of here.”

  The more reasonable Miss New Jersey said, “Oh, come on. It’s not her fault the guy’s a crazy stalker.”

  “It’s her fault she never told the cops about him.”

  Mischa had to agree on that one. But they didn’t really have time to discuss that topic in detail. “How long was I unconscious?”

  Miss New York shrugged, but Miss New Jersey said, “No more than a couple of minutes. He must’ve thought being tossed down the stairs would be harder on you than it was. I mean, he didn’t even bother chaining you up.”

  No, but being tossed down the stairs would explain the ache in her ribs and the bruise she could feel forming on her butt.

  “Time to get you out of these chains,” she muttered, crawling across the floor to them.

  “We already tried to break them,” New York said. “There’s no way you can do it. You’re too young.”

  She yanked their chains from the wall, the locks crumbing to dust under the pressure of her hands.

  “Holy shit,” New York muttered, eyes wide. “You been drinking Popeye’s blood or something, little girl?”

  No, just the blood of the oldest known vampire in the state. Maybe the country. No biggie.

  She glanced at the small, cracked basement windows. “Can you guys squeeze through one of those?”

  New Jersey snorted. “You’d be amazed at what I’m willing to try after being trapped down here for weeks.”

  “No shit,” New York agreed. “Are you comin’ with us?”

  Mischa shook her head. “I’m going after Emily.”

  New York frowned. “She doesn’t deserve your help. This whole thing is her fault. Come with us.”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  New Jersey tugged her into a big bear hug before disappearing out the window faster than Mischa could blink. New York hesitated, poised to squeeze through the tiny window. “Be careful, OK? He hasn’t hurt us, but he’s gotten noticeably more unstable over the past day or so. I’m not convinced he won’t try to kill you if you come between him and what he wants.”

  Mischa nodded. “Oh, by the way, when you get out there? You’ll see a really dangerous, nervous-looking guy waiting for me. Will you tell him I’m OK?”

  New York gave her a little half-smile before disappearing into the night.

  “All right,” Mischa muttered out loud. “Three hostages out, one to go.”

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  As a human, Mischa had always been a little clumsy. Harper had once said she sounded like a baby elephant tromping down the hall. But now that she was a vampire? Pfffttt. She was like a freakin’ ninja!

  She’d managed to get herself out of the basement and make her way up the rickety stairs to the charred remains of the farmhouse’s second floor without making a sound.

  Now, she slid down the hall with slow, steady steps until she was right outside the bedroom where Royal was holding Emily.

  “Stop crying!” Royal screeched. “I’ve given you everything you ever wanted. I gave you immortality. And you sit there crying because I let your little human boy toy go. How about a little fucking gratitude for everything I’ve done for you?”

  Thank you for stalking me, said…no one. Ever.

  So Royal had turned Emily. Interesting. Mischa wondered if he’d set up the accident that killed her, too.

  “I never asked you for anything,” Emily choked out.

  “No,” he answered, a sneer in his voice. “You were too dumb to ask for anything. You just blindly took what I offered you. Did you really think I’d never ask for anything in return?”

  There was a long pause. “What do you want?”

  “We’re leaving this place,” he said. “Tonight. You’re mine, Emily. Your little pet human can’t stop me.”

  Emily just cried harder.

  It was the sound of flesh smacking against flesh and Emily’s startled gasp that jolted Mischa into action. The bastard had hit her!

  With one well-placed kick, Mischa knocked the door right off its hinges and into a stunned Royal, who tossed the door aside and glared at her, confusion and shock and anger swirling in his black eyes.

  “I knew I should’v
e chained you up with the others,” he muttered.

  She shrugged. “Wouldn’t have done you any good. Apparently it takes more than a few lousy silver chains to stop me.”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. “You let the others go, didn’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to have to kill you.”

  She inched forward ever so slightly, eyes on his hands, which clutched a jagged-edged hunting knife in a white-knuckled grip. “Well, that works out fine for me, because I don’t really want to die.”

  “I said I didn’t want to have to kill you. Not that I wouldn’t.”

  He lunged for her, and Mischa aimed her best kick at his wrist, knocking his knife across the room. She pulled her 9mm out of her waistband and tried to aim, but he was too fast for her, and she got a sharp punch to the kidneys for her efforts. Her gun went flying. She lashed out with her foot, catching him in the knee. The resulting crunch gave her a certain grim satisfaction.

  “You bitch!” he snarled, coming for her again.

  “Get out of here!” she shouted at Emily.

  But Emily was too far gone to listen, curled up on the bed in the fetal position, holding her hands over her ears and crying like a little girl.

  If she lived through this, Mischa was totally going to spend some quality time smacking some backbone into Emily.

  Time to try another tactic.

  “Get out of here,” she said again, shoving as much of her power as she could into the words.

  And just like that, Emily stood up and started making her way slowly out of the room.

  “And stop sniveling,” Mischa added, gratified when the girl finally pulled herself together and disappeared from the room.

  Huh. Getting used to her vampire powers might be easier than she thought.

  Royal howled in frustration and made a move to grab Emily, but Mischa stopped him by slamming the heel of her hand into his nose, which was an effective little move Riddick had taught her.