I hoped, prayed, that if he did have extra-strength hearing, he was too enraged to hone in on me quickly. With luck, he’d check every room leading up to this one, buying me just a little longer. The one I found myself in was an elaborately decorated bedroom. A king-sized bed with a canopy bed frame reached almost all the way to the ceiling. There were large windows against the far wall, also bolted up with metal sheets. Dust clogged the air. No one had been in here in a long time.
There was a loud crash against the wall in the hall, and I nearly leapt out of my skin. The door would not hold him.
I lunged into the en suite bathroom.
Another door led out from it—into, I hoped, another hall. A splintering explosion went off behind me.
He was through to the bedroom.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are … my princess!” Byron hollered.
I shoved through the next door, trying to make as little sound on the carpeted floor as I could. I cried out in pain when my elbow caught the doorknob, and then bit down on my hand until I drew blood, furious with myself as I ran farther down the hall. The lanai had been two-story, which meant that there had to be an entrance upstairs somewhere. It would either be attached to the master bedroom, or to some sort of living room.
As I ran, I grabbed a door or two and pulled them shut, hoping and praying that the sound would throw Byron off of the trail.
Then I dove into a room on the eastern side of the house, closest to the pool and the lanai.
I also made sure to keep the door open that time. Double doors beckoned on the back wall. Desperately as I ran across to them, I hoped with everything in me that they were unlocked—or that I could force my way through before Byron caught up.
I threw myself against the doors and pulled against the handle. They didn’t budge—but my knuckles grazed the lock, a simple twist mechanism without a key.
I didn’t think I had ever felt terror and then elation back to back like that.
I hoped never to again. The doors opened easily. I slipped out, closing them as quietly as I could behind myself. No lock on this side, unfortunately—but if Byron caught up, it wouldn’t matter anyway; he’d pull a Jack Torrance and be through the door without a pause.
I was out in the lanai, but I was trapped up on what looked like was a balcony. The pool and concrete surround were far below me. It would be suicide to try and jump from here. I’d easily shatter my legs if I even landed in the pool; the water couldn’t have been more than four or five feet deep.
I ran to the door on the other side of the balcony, grabbing at a stitch in my chest.
I tried the handle. It was locked.
I screamed in frustration and ran to the next closest door.
It flew open as I threw my weight against it.
I knew that there had been a chance that Byron could have been waiting for me on the other side of the door, but he wasn’t, and so I didn’t stop to count my blessings.
I ran out into the hall and heard Byron’s voice back near the room I had just left.
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea!”
I ran back toward the stairs, as quickly as I could.
“My love as deep. The more I give to thee—”
He laughed, and I wanted to hurl on the carpet.
He was enjoying this.
“The more I have, for both are infinite!”
And here I’d thought that the only way to die listening to Shakespeare was from boredom. Down the stairs, past the shattered remnants of my stake, toward the front door … It was locked.
“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs.”
I whipped around, and there stood Byron at the top of the stairs, looking down at me with an utterly deranged expression. His chest heaved, yet he looked exhilarated. His ruffled hair was askew, his eyes wide with rage and longing.
He took one step down the steps.
I was frozen in place.
“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”
I threw myself against the door.
Still it didn’t budge.
Byron threw his head back, belting a high, wild laugh.
No way out—I was trapped with him. And again, that meant I had to find some way to defend myself.
His laughter followed me as I hurried back down the hall on the first floor, heading for the dining room. He didn’t run down after me, though. He could have been by my side instantly. Instead, he just laughed from high up—savoring the chase.
If I could get inside, close the French doors, I might, might, be able to bar myself inside.
The doors were already ajar, and when I leapt inside, I slammed them shut.
Without hesitating, I grabbed the dining chair closest to me, and I swung the arm of it over one of the handles, preventing it from being opened. Another chair secured the other door.
Then I overturned the table—it was a heavy thing, took almost all my strength to do it—and shoved that against the chairs to lock them in place. Even so, it still might not be enough to hold him back.
I yanked the rest of the chairs over to the doors and intertwined them on top of one another, the arms and legs all tangled together, creating a sort of shield between myself and the doors.
Byron started to beat against the door, a whirlwind of explosive thuds louder than any punch delivered by a human had any right to be. The first made me jerk in terror, even though I knew they’d be coming.
“Cassie, really, your determination is admirable,” he shouted over his furious pounding. “But you’re destroying our house. I understand that the style may not be to your liking, but we could have discussed it before you started the demolition.” Again and again, he pounded—and with each echoing THUD there came a splintering sound as the wood began to give way to his fists.
I whirled around, looking for something, anything, that I could use to help me.
My eyes fell onto a picture on the wall of a quiet harbor with a flock of seagulls circling above. With a leap of my heart, I realized that the frame itself was made of wood.
I yanked it off of the wall as the doors into the dining room broke apart.
I slammed the frame against the floor, ripping the canvas, and snapping the frame into two splintered pieces.
Over my knee I broke one of the corners—and whirled round just as Byron shoved my tangle of tables and chairs aside, leaping over what remained of the barricade.
I thrust the improvised stake out in front of me like a child’s toy sword—
And Byron laughed at it.
“Cassandra,” he purred, pacing before me, out of reach, “you can’t try the same trick on me twice. Besides, I’m not Theo. I’m not going to leap at you like some wild, feral animal you can skewer.”
“How do you know that’s how I killed him?” I said, keeping him in front of me, the broken frame between us.
“Well, you wasted the water on me,” he said, a darkness passing over his face. “So it wasn’t that. And you already made it obvious that Iona helped you …”
He stopped pacing and took me off guard when he launched himself across the distance between us, knocking the frame out of my hands, and then knocking me back into the stacks of chairs.
I cried out—
“You just don’t get it, do you, Cassie?” he asked, in my face.
The chair I had landed on had snapped under me. Blood, hot and wet, ran down from somewhere near my shoulder. A shooting pain radiated from my hipbone, and I worried that I might have broken a rib.
I winced, trying to sit up—but Byron’s body was strong against mine, holding me down. My hands couldn’t find purchase, anything to lever myself up with. Whatever I did find shifted as I leaned against it.
Face inches from mine, Byron inhaled deeply. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.
; “We are fated. Destined to be together.”
I shoved him, desperately—
He stumbled back, the headiness of the coppery scent of my blood having overpowered him. But it was only a moment’s respite—and as he righted himself, he twitched, neck and shoulders jerking in horrific spasms—
He staggered closer, his eyes jerking frenetically between a euphoric glaze and the determined fire of a man whose lust absolutely had to be sated, this instant. I gripped for the nearest thing I could find—and found smooth wood.
The leg of a chair.
The leg of a broken chair—and the one last shot I had at staving him off.
He came closer, closer …
My heart thudded madly against my throat. I could smell it too, my senses heightened, my nose picking up the awful iron tang of blood spilling down my arm, making it slick …
My blood-soaked grip tightened, praying that the broken chair leg was sharp enough to do this, praying that it would come free when I bid it.
“Cassie …” Byron whispered—
His feet tangled over a broken chair back. A spasm gripped him at the same moment—
He went down.
And I sprang. Lunging forward, I yanked the shattered chair leg up, free—and then slammed it right into Byron’s back. It tore right through him with a grisly sound, bones and whatever lay between it and his heart giving way—then slammed the floor.
The stake ripping through his body unleashed everything he had held back. Neck snapping up, eyes ferocious and dark, he roared a screeching snarl, like a trapped bear. His arms and legs whipped out in a mad frenzy, clawed, grabbing for anything he could find—
But it was no use.
As I backed up toward the wall, panting, the wound where the chair leg had pierced him had started to turn black and collapse in around itself. Realization passed over his face, cold and hard. The fight leaving him, he gasped, horrorstruck, the way I suppose I must have looked when I realized the true extent of the vampire plague.
He choked a cough. Dark, thick blood sprayed from his mouth.
“Cassie,” he whispered hoarsely.
My back hit the wall behind me. I slid down to the floor, keeping Byron in my sight.
More of the black, tarry liquid had spread from the wound. His body was starting to cave in on itself.
“We could have been …” he gasped. “Happy … together.” He coughed, more blood spewing. “I …”
His head fell against the floor.
“Melody …” And he said no more.
I leaned back against the wall, and cried and cried, until my throat was raw, and the tears had all dried.
Chapter 39
Cassie, pull yourself together. Byron is dead. Dead. And you need to find your parents.
I kept repeating this over and over to myself until I was able to stand up on my shaking knees. What remained of Byron was now the same large, black, acrid puddle that Theo had decayed into. The last that remained of him in his putrefaction was his face, which I watched disintegrate into the stinking mess of rotten gore with a mixture of disgust, terror, and spine-tingling relief.
It was over.
He was gone.
I was free.
When I finally could bring myself to, I rose, then carefully clambered over what was left of my pile of chairs. I pulled as many as I could away from the door and made my way out into the hall. Broken wood littered the floor like a tornado had blown through. One hand on the now softly oozing wound at the top of my arm, I crossed shakily to the wine cellar. The door was unlocked,and opened into cold darkness.
At least a dozen rows of shelves stretched all the way to the dark ceiling. The shelves themselves were curved, and in the slope of each curve sat a wine bottle.
The distinct, metallic scent of blood filled the air.
Anger bloomed in me, hate.
If Byron had killed them, had given me false hope …
I made my way around the shelves, slowly, hesitantly.
The rows and rows of wine bottles seemed to never end, all stacked neatly, most covered in a thin layer of dust. And then—a cry, muffled.
I turned, heart thrown into my mouth and beating so, so wildly—and there were Mom and Dad, up against the back wall of the cellar, their hands tied behind their back, their ankles bound, blindfolded and gagged.
“Mom! Dad!” I cried, and I threw myself onto them, pulling the ties around their eyes away, and untying the gags from behind their head.
I gave them a quick once over, and with an immense relief, I realized that they were unharmed.
“Cassandra!” Mom cried, her eyes red and swollen from crying under the blindfold. “Oh, Cassie!”
My dad just gaped, his eyes glued to my face, as if I had come back from the dead.
“Sweetie, you’re bleeding!” Mom exclaimed, immediately grabbing at my arm as soon as I had helped untie her.
I pulled my arm from her grasp. “I’m fine, Mom, I’m fine,” I insisted.
“Sweetheart,” Mom said, taking my hands in hers. “There is a crazy man here. He is the one who kidnapped us!”
“We have to find a way out of here,” Dad said.
I studied their faces for a moment.
They didn’t know that Byron had been a vampire, did they?
I grimaced. He had stashed them here before they discovered the truth, still keeping that wedge between them and myself.
He was still trying to ruin my life, even though he was gone now.
I had to decide what to do.
I didn’t want to lie anymore. But how was I supposed to tell the truth now?
I shook my head. “It’s okay. He’s gone. But we should go.”
“We need to call the police!” Dad said. “We can’t let a psychopath like him go free!”
I knew that was the absolute last thing we should do. All they would find would be the black goo in the dining room. It would be obvious that a fight happened, and there was blood on the stairs.
But they would never find the culprit.
“Let’s get out of here first,” I agreed. I had to get them to safety first, out into the afternoon sun.
They agreed, and we all rose and started for the door to the wine cellar.
“How do you know that he’s gone?” Dad asked. “For sure?”
“Shh,” I said, and peered out into the hallway.
Only when I was certain we were in the clear did I lead them out.
My mother let out a yelp of surprise when we passed the dining room, the wreckage that had once been the doors leading inside, and the tables and chairs I’d used to fashion a crude barricade.
“Cassie, what … ?”
“Later,” I said, both to get us out of here and to buy me some time to get my thoughts in order. “Let’s just get out of here first.”
The front door had been locked with a key. Where it was now, I had no idea. Probably in The Goo Formally Known as Byron. I wasn’t much interested in fishing it out.
My dad’s approach was a good, old-fashioned show of force. Slamming his shoulder against it, on the fourth impact the lock gave and the door rocketed open.
Sunlight spilled across us, and I was sure that I had never been so happy to see the Florida sunshine.
We stepped outside, and I felt safe. Well and truly safe.
“Cassie, what happened in there?” Mom asked, grabbing my shoulder, and turning me to face her.
My dad had pulled his phone out of his pocket and was dialing. I knew it had to have been the police.
I knew they would find Byron’s text messages. I would have to answer questions from the police for a police report.
I didn’t think I had the strength to totally keep all of this from them anymore. They had to know.
At least some of it.
“This guy …” I started. “He … he’s been stalking me.”
My mother gasped, and my father lowered the phone from his ear.
“What did you say?” he asked.
I felt my bottom lip start to quiver. I suddenly felt like a six-year-old with a skinned knee at the playground.
More than that, though: I was tired of running, tired of dealing with it all.
I needed their support.
I couldn’t tell them everything. But I could tell them enough.
“Sweetheart …” Mom said gently, pulling me into a tight hug, “… why didn’t you tell us?”
“This … certainly explains a lot,” Dad said quietly, coming to put his arms around both Mom and me.
“I didn’t think you’d believe me,” I said, my cheeks hot with tears.
Top tier lie. Because it was damned near the whole truth.
“This guy …” I started. “Byron. He’s … he’s really bad, Mom. He’s … he’s a monster.”
Mom pulled me away from her and looked into my face.
All she would be able to see was the truth. Because that was all that was there.
Mom, being the attorney, knew what I was trying to say. It was enough to get her brain moving. Not that Dad missed the point. His face had lost all of its color.
“He made me do … things,” I said, knowing what they’d make of that. They’d be wrong —but it was easier that than telling them all the things I’d done since first crossing paths with him.
“Those things that you said to us the other night when you snuck back home …” Mom’s eyes welled with tears. “If only I’d listened to you. “
I wiped my face. The gash on my arm was throbbing, but the bleeding had stopped, the dried streams of it forming a dark crust all the way to my fingertips.
“Maybe we should just go,” Mom said. “Get home. Talk about what to do from there.”
I could see the lawsuits and the court time and the immense invasion of my privacy flicker across her mind. Her wheels were spinning. Figuring out the exit. There might have been something else going on there, I couldn’t tell. Her face was closed, lacking the anger that had been so prevalent in recent days. She was subdued, as though her guilt for not trusting me, for this whole situation, was blanketing her.
After a long pause, Dad said, “Let’s leave. And not talk about this—unless … do you think that this—this Byron … do you think that he is going to come back?”
No One Will Believe You Page 21
