When Garrison bent down and grabbed the man’s hair, a pale, tortured face appeared, the same one she’d seen in the hallway a few minutes ago. The video was black and white, so the smears on the man’s face could’ve been any color, but in Zoë’s mind, they were blood red. He peeled back his lips in a snarl, revealing long, white fangs.
“Holy shit!” Jenson whooped, whipping his head back and forth between Garrison and the monitor.
Zoë’s hand went to her mouth again as her stomach heaved. Her phone shook in her hand, but she didn’t pull it away. She let the recording continue while, onscreen, Garrison dragged the man to his cruiser. She only pressed the end button when Lester cut off the video.
“Wild, huh? But that’s not the only thing.” Garrison hitched up his duty belt and smirked. The others turned to look at him.
“We tossed him in the back of my unit while we checked out the rest of the scene. When we got back to the cruiser, the sun had come up, and this freak is staring at the sunrise like he’s never seen one before. And his skin was charred like overcooked barbecue.”
Jenson scrunched up his face, turning his ginger eyebrows into a long caterpillar. “That dude? But he’s as white as a cue ball.”
Zoë’s mind flipped back to the memory of his pale skin, as smooth and flawless as a baby’s — like he’d never even had a tan before, let alone third degree burns.
“Yeah, well, one of the firemen tossed his jacket over him and put him in the ambulance, but by the time he got there, he was back to normal. Strangest thing I ever saw. They wouldn’t even admit him.”
Jenson dug his fingers into the armrests of his chair and shook his head. “That’s a whole lot of freak show for one night, man. What are you going to do with him?”
Garrison shrugged and smoothed his uniform shirt over his thick middle. “I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s even a law on the books against drinking somebody’s blood, but we’re classifying it as assault, for now. Might need to get a psych consult.”
Hinkle leaned over Lester’s shoulder. “Hey Lester, can you send me a copy of that? I want to show my girlfriend.”
Jenson stood up, and Garrison moved towards the door, so Zoë scurried out of sight into another room. She waited behind a door, peeking through the crack as she watched the policemen head off in different directions. None of them went down the hall towards the cells, though. She waited several more minutes to make sure they weren’t coming back before slipping out of the room.
She couldn’t resist; she had to get one more look at the prisoner.
She picked up her broom and hustled down the hallway, past the cells filled with the other prisoners. They whistled and catcalled at her, banging their fists against the bars, but she didn’t pause, and their noise died down before anyone came out to see what was going on. It wasn’t unusual for them to get riled up about something or other.
When she got to the end of the hall, she crept around the corner and peered into the solitary confinement cell, a tiny, gray, concrete block square just big enough for the cot bolted in the corner and the metal sink and toilet next to it. A row of black, metal bars ran along the front of the cell, with a door in the middle.
The man sat on the bed, draped in shadows, although the sun streaming through his window painted a square of yellow light on the cement floor of his cell. His hands were wrapped around his legs and his head was pressed to his knees. He sat so still and silent, he might’ve been a statue.
Zoë didn’t make any noise, but he jerked his head up like she’d crashed into a drum set. He stared at her without moving or saying a word, and it freaked her out more than all the other prisoners’ lewd reactions combined.
There wasn’t anything particularly strange or scary about his appearance, but he definitely didn’t seem normal.
“I heard you singing. You have a lovely voice.” His own voice was deep, vibrating like a bow pulled across a cello. Hypnotic.
The next thing she knew, she had moved across the hall and was standing in front of him. She shivered as her hands wrapped around the cold, metal bars of his cell. He didn’t move, though, just stayed on his bed, watching her.
“What’s your name?”
“Zoë.” The word came out before she had a chance to think about whether it was a good idea or not to tell him. There was no rule that said she couldn’t talk to the inmates, but it felt dangerous for him to know her name.
His skin was just as smooth and flawless as she remembered, pale against his dark hair. Had the light played tricks on Garrison to make him think the man was burnt?
Zoë glanced at the light coming in through the window. It had moved a millimeter closer to his bed as the sun inched further west. The man followed her gaze to the floor then swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, his body still in a strip of shadow beside his bed.
He skirted the edges of the patch of light as he moved towards her. Zoë’s heart started thudding, and she sucked in a breath but didn’t move. He stopped a few feet away from her, just out of reach.
“My name is Rowan,” he said, even though she hadn’t asked him, and she felt her lips move as she mouthed the unfamiliar name under her breath.
He took a step closer, and her legs trembled. She gripped the bars tighter, her hands now slick with sweat. “Do you always come to stare at the prisoners, Zoë, or am I just particularly interesting to you?”
“You don’t look like the typical prisoner,” she whispered. Up close, he was more attractive than she first thought, with sharp features and piercing, obsidian eyes.
He smiled at that, curling his lips in a slow, controlled grin. “How so?”
She was about to say he didn’t look dangerous or scary like most of the others, but that wasn’t true. His calm, calculated nature was even more frightening.
“I overheard the officers talking about you. They said you were drinking blood from an accident victim.” Her eyes widened as the words tumbled out of her mouth. What was she doing?
He quirked a thin eyebrow but otherwise stayed perfectly still. “That didn’t scare you?”
She dipped her head in a tiny nod, her throat too tight to speak again. Her heart was pounding so loudly, he could probably hear it. “They said you probably need a psych consult.”
He smirked at that. “Did they say anything else about me?”
“They said your flesh burned in the sunlight.”
“And you wanted to find out if it was true?” He tilted his head and stared at her, his onyx eyes like bottomless pits, trying to suck her in.
He turned and held out his hand towards the square of sun till the light just barely touched the tips of his fingers. Did she imagine the soft hiss and the tiny curl of steam that swirled from them?
“What are you?” she whispered.
“What do you think I am?”
His face was pained, sad. Begging for some kind of relief. Her breath caught in her throat, and she took off — around the corner, down the hall, past the other prisoners — stopping only when she got to the janitor’s closet. She slipped inside for a moment to let her heart rate and her breathing settle.
He hadn’t answered her question, and she was too afraid to answer his. Would their answers have been the same? Was he what she thought he was?
Chapter 3
Zoë pushed thoughts of Rowan to the back of her mind and finished her duties as quickly as she could, staying clear of the solitary confinement cell. But as soon as she got in her car, the thoughts rushed in again.
The unnatural paleness of his skin, the chilling sound of his voice, the way his fingertips sizzled when they touched the light. And of course, the image of his face, blood smeared around his lips, when he lifted his head from the girl’s neck. And the fangs that glowed in Garrison’s spotlight.
Was he really a vampire?
No, that was silly, ridiculous. There was no such thing as vampires. They were just a myth. He was probably some psycho who wanted to be a vampire and went s
o far as to wear fake fangs and pretend to suck blood from accident victims. Which was totally crazy. He definitely needed psychological help.
Zoë drove home and parked in the scraggly grass in front of the trailer. The inside of the trailer was dark and dreary compared to the bright, summer sunshine outside, with wood paneling on the walls and brown, shag carpet.
Her mother snoozed on the ratty recliner in the corner with the curtains pulled over the window so the glare wouldn’t shine on the television. Zoë couldn’t imagine what it would be like to spend her days hiding from the light, but that was the way her mother lived, only coming to life when the sun went down and the bars got lively.
“Hey Mom, you doing okay?” Zoë picked up the overflowing ashtray and the empty cans off the TV tray beside her mother’s chair. Lizette ran a hand through her frizzy hair, more gray than blonde now, and brushed potato chip crumbs off her favorite, raggedy, Nirvana tee shirt. It looked looser than before.
“Hey baby, you home from work already?” Her raspy voice used to sound sexy, but now, after too many cigarettes and too much alcohol, it just sounded rough. She didn’t get asked to sing anymore, anyway. She was too old to pull off the Courtney Love image she used to rock and too caught up in the past to try to change.
“Have you eaten dinner?” Zoë asked. She knew the answer, but they repeated the same script every day.
“No, not yet. Let me see what we have in the fridge.” Lizette made a half-hearted effort to pull herself from her chair, but Zoë knew it would never happen. Her mother typically thought making food required way too much effort, and she survived on whatever snack she could find and copious amounts of alcohol, instead.
“Don’t worry about it; I’m gonna make a sandwich. You want one?”
Lizette sighed and slumped back down. “Yeah, that’d be great, love.”
Zoë headed to the kitchen, tossed the soda cans and dumped out the ashtray, then grabbed the loaf of bread off the top of the refrigerator. She rummaged around in the fridge for the ham she’d bought the other day, hoping that it wasn’t gone already.
The front door swung open with a creak then rattled shut when her sister, Daphne, got home. She breezed into the kitchen like she had a sixth sense and knew Zoë was in there fixing food. She dropped a couple shopping bags on the table — one from Bebe and the other from Frederick’s of Hollywood.
Then she hopped up onto the counter next to Zoë and shook out her long, blonde hair. A couple strands floated to the counter, and Zoë plucked them off and threw them away.
“Is that second sandwich for me or the whore?”
If anyone in their family was a whore, it was Daphne. She’d had decent grades in high school and probably would’ve done okay in college if she’d wanted to, but instead she decided to capitalize on her looks and become a dancer at a strip club, instead. She earned enough money taking off her clothes to get her own place, but instead she used it to fund her fashion addiction.
Zoë was doing everything she could to get out of there and make something of herself — going to school, working, saving all her money. She even put her hobby to good use — writing songs and posting videos of herself singing them, hoping someday she’d get discovered. She couldn’t understand why her sister seemed content to follow in their mother’s footsteps. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life in this dumpy trailer, working as a stripper?
“It’s for her, but I’ll make you one, too, if you want.” Zoë pulled out two more slices of bread because she knew what the answer would be.
“You’re the best, sis. I’m going clubbing with the girls tonight. You should come.” Daphne pinched off a piece of ham and opened her mouth wide so she wouldn’t smudge her hot pink lipstick.
Zoë shook her head. When she was a shy freshman in high school and Daphne was a senior, she used to fantasize about hanging out with her and her friends. But the fact they were still partying all the time like they did when they were 17 made them seem kind of pathetic now.
“No thanks. I’ve got some studying to do, and I’m working on a new song.”
Daphne picked up one of the sandwiches, tearing off tiny bites with her long nails and dropping them into her mouth. “Why are you bothering with school if you want to be a singer?”
Sure, Zoë dreamed about making it in the music world, becoming a famous singer someday, but she knew it was more a fantasy than anything else. She’d never even been popular, how could she ever become famous? So she took as many business classes as she could afford each semester that fit with her work schedule.
“I like school, and if I ever get a record deal, I’ll know enough about business to manage my finances.”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “That’s what a manager is for.”
“Guess what happened at the station today?” Zoë changed the subject since there was no point trying to get her sister to understand. All Daphne cared about was looking good and having a good time.
“Oooh, what?” Daphne scooted closer to the edge of the counter, making her tight dress ride up. She loved to hear all the crazy stories that Zoë came home with.
Zoë leaned in and whispered to up the shock value. “So they brought in this guy who they caught drinking blood from an accident victim.”
“Eww, gross!” Daphne gagged on her sandwich and twisted her pretty face into an ugly grimace.
“Check it out. I snuck a recording of the dash cam video.” Zoë pulled out her phone and played the video.
It was grainy and black and white, like the original, and a little wobbly since her hands had been shaking, but you could still make out Rowan’s pale, blood-smeared face and his long fangs. Seeing it again, up close like this, creeped Zoë out even more than watching it on Lester’s monitor.
Daphne made her play it two more times, screeching and shivering each time. “Oh my God, Zoë, is he like, a real vampire?”
“The cop who arrested him thinks he’s a nut case.” But the man she’d met seemed way too in control to be insane. But he had to be, right? Only a crazy person would drink blood from an accident victim. Or a vampire. But vampires weren’t real. Were they?
Daphne tapped a long, pink fingernail against the phone screen. “That’s what you ought to post on YouTube. You’ll get a million views. Think of all the exposure your channel will get.”
Zoë shook her head, mostly in response to her sister’s ignorance. Sometimes it was hard to believe she’d wanted to be just like her sister for most of her life. “I can’t post it on my channel; I’d probably lose my job if they found out.”
Daphne waved a hand. “Who cares if you lose your stupid job if you get an agent to notice you?”
Zoë took a bite of her sandwich and chewed on the kernel of possibility buried in her sister’s suggestion. “It might be illegal; it’s not worth the risk. But I could set up another account, an anonymous one. I might be able to earn a few bucks if it got enough views.”
“I guess, but that’s not nearly as cool as being famous. But whatever.” Daphne rolled her eyes then jumped down from the counter and headed for her room, grabbing her bags.
Zoë stuck her phone in her back pocket and carried a sandwich, a Coke, and the empty ashtray out to her mother. “Hey Mom, I think I’m gonna go to the library for a little bit tonight. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Her mom snagged the sandwich and shoved it towards her mouth, ignoring everything else. Zoë emailed the video to her Gmail account then pulled out her keys and headed back outside.
The bright sunshine snapped her back to reality, and she laughed at herself for considering the possibility that Rowan was a real vampire. He was just some weirdo acting out his fantasy inappropriately. Perfect fodder for a YouTube video.
Zoë made the short drive to the local library and sat down at one of the public computers. She didn’t know much about computer security, but she knew she didn’t want the new YouTube account to be linked to her home IP address. The police might still be able to figure it out,
but she didn’t want to make it any easier for them.
Thirty minutes later, she had a new account created and had pulled the video from her email and uploaded it, making sure to set it up so it would earn money. She didn’t really believe Rowan was a vampire, but she figured that a sensationalized title would help bring in viewers, so she labeled it, “Real vampire caught on camera, now in police custody!”
If it was a new song she’d recorded, she’d share the link on all her social media accounts, but she didn’t dare do that with this. Instead, she logged out, deleted the browser history for the last hour, then looked up a half dozen business articles. If the police tracked the video to here and the librarian identified her, she could say she’d come in to study for her college classes.
When she was done, she deleted the video off her phone and went home. Her mother was asleep again, and Daphne had gone out with her friends, so Zoë went to her room and pulled out her guitar. She’d been working on a new song that seemed perfect for the strange drama of the day, so she ran through it a couple times then decided to try recording it.
She changed out of her work clothes into one of the cute outfits she’d splurged on to wear in her videos, then she brushed her hair and touched up her makeup. Image was just as important as talent in the music industry, at least for girls. She wanted her viewers to idolize her, and they’d never do that if they knew she lived in a trailer and worked as a janitor while taking night classes at the community college. She wasn’t as pretty as Daphne, but she had a cute face and a nice figure, so with the right clothes, hopefully she could pull off the preppy, upperclass look she was going for.
She turned on her desk lamp and aimed it towards her face for better lighting, propped up her phone on her little stand, and hit the record button. “Hi everybody, this is Zoë Elonda, and this new song is for the mysterious, dark-haired guy I met today who made me believe in fantasies.”
Captured by the Vampire: Vampire Enforcement Agency Series Prequel Page 2
