When Mia turned away from him, she took in her surroundings. Several levels of jail cells reached up to the ceiling where they stood. There was nothing warm about the place. The gray paint was old with various patches chipping off the wall. It was dead looking. It gave off a cold, empty feeling, just like the many eyes that were staring at her.
The air thinned, and a sense of claustrophobia began to creep up on her. Everything seemed so confined. Bad men were everywhere. Some were playing basketball, others—cards, but all of them had one thing in common. They were criminals.
Cole grabbed the underside of her upper arm. Picking her up off the floor, he moved her along with his cop grip. “We need privacy. Now.” His steps were urgent as they walked the entire length of the cellblock. When they reached the elevator at the end, Cole pushed the button, and the doors opened.
Once inside, Mia realized she hadn’t gotten any feelings or visions since the moment Cole had said, “Calm down.” She filed that away in her memory since she was trying to learn how to control the feelings, and everything else in her life at the same time.
When the elevator door closed, Cole turned to her. A savage light came into his eyes as if someone flipped his switch to “on.” His lips came down onto hers, hard and hungry. He devoured her mouth demanding a response.
There was something to this feeling. It was a mix of danger and excitement, and it ignited a fire inside her that she wasn’t ready to extinguish. She was starting to crave it. Mia felt as if he was going to push her through the elevator wall, and knowing his strength, he could probably do it. When the elevator bell rang, he released her from his grip, pulling his lips away, leaving her flesh burning. Breathless, she gazed at Cole and drank him in, swallowing a lump at the sight of his fangs. His eyes darkened with desire, and the fabric of his clothes stretched under his taut muscles. Mia lost herself in the depths of his deep brown gaze, staring at the tiny black speck by his left pupil. It captivated her, like an imperfection in a diamond. It was her speck—she claimed it like an undiscovered star.
“Now, how do you expect me to control my anger when you can’t control your urges? You’re not a very good teacher, Detective.”
His lips curled, and he straightened his posture. With an arched brow and a flirtatious grin, he responded, “As I told you before, you make it hard for me to control myself.”
“And you make it hard for me to control my anger.” She lifted her chin, and they exchanged a back-to-work look.
As she passed Cole walking out of the elevator, he bent down and whispered in her ear. “I don’t sleep in the dirt.”
His low seductive voice rolled around in her ear causing her body to shiver. She smirked. “Where are we?” Mia shook herself, mentally trying to jump back into reality and out of the land of lust. These feelings were so unlike her.
“This is the section where the high level criminals are kept. Most of them here are on death row.” He placed a hand on the small of her back and moved her forward through the L-shaped cellblock. Mia shifted her eyes to the men in the cells; evil filled their hearts. She blew out a burst of air.
“Death row. That’s a joke.”
“What do you mean?” he asked as they reached the last cell. Cole searched his clothes and pulled a security key from his pocket, swiping it across the pad to open the door in front of them.
“Death row is a joke, that’s what I mean. This guy for example,” —she turned away from the door and faced the cell that was behind them— “gets to choose how he dies. He gets a nice peaceful death by lethal injection. Do you think his victims had a choice how they died? Do you think the woman he strangled and stabbed, then raped had a choice? How about her little girl? He suffocated her with a pillow first and hid her body so she wouldn’t see what he had done. Do you think she had a choice?” Mia’s voice grew louder as she spoke.
The man rose from his bed and looked at her with surprise. She stared into his cold eyes. “Ooh… I’m sorry. They didn’t know about the little girl. They never found her, did they? Well, they will now.” Mia stared him down, taking a step closer to his cell, anger built inside of her. “She’s here, and she’s not going to let you get away with it. Her name is Emily. Do you remember her?” Mia gave a reassuring look to the apparition next to her.
The man lunged his hand through the bars, grabbing the hem of her shirt. Cole quickly snatched Mia out of his grasp and met her eyes with a look of understanding. “They get theirs, Mia, don’t worry.”
Right, she thought with disgust, and pulled his arm off her.
A red light lit above the cell and rotated inside its dome. As the alert-light swirled around the room, casting its glow over her, Cole swung her around and pressed her back against the security door.
He fumbled in his jacket until he pulled out the key. As the cell door slid open, it squeaked on its neglected tracks. “Fuck. Too late.” He stood stock still in front of her as a wall of protection. Cole’s fangs slid out, and an excited glow crept into his eyes.
Mia watched him, her breath became rapid as the nervous energy repelled out of the holding cells and wrapped around her. Something’s coming. A nervous realization washed over her as Cole rested his hands on the door, one on each side of her head. His lips pulled back exposing his fangs. He knows what’s coming.
“Mia, I can’t open this door when the cells are open. Stand still, and don’t move.” Concern laced his voice, chilling her to the core.
The heavy door leading into the cellblock swung open and hit the wall as if it was as light as a saloon door. Something flew by Mia leaving a trail of color like a shooting star. Terrifying screams were followed by a voice that chilled her to the bone.
“No. Stop.… Please! Just kill me… please, let me die.”
A shiver of panic ran through Mia until she looked into Cole’s eyes. The screaming continued along with the sounds of a growling beast. She stared at Cole, taking refuge in his gaze and blocked out the sounds. There was a final plea for death that gurgled out, then silence. The glow from the flashing red light stopped, and the cell door squeaked until it was back into its locked position.
“Barnett, I didn’t see you there. Dude, I’m sorry. Were you feeding? I didn’t jump your dinner, did I?” the uniformed officer asked as Cole stood back, revealing Mia’s body. “Nice. Looks like you’re eating gourmet tonight.” He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“No, she is helping us out—sheriff’s orders.”
The vampire took a step back. “Are you the woman that did that to the vampire in the holding cell?”
Mia met his eyes, his face was still covered in blood, and he didn’t seem to care. This was natural to them. Gross. She glanced at Cole. His face held a look of apprehension, and she understood his expression. She avoided the vampire’s question all together.
“Is he dead?” She pointed to the man in the cell lying on the floor. Blood soaked his shirt and dripped from his neck into a red pool on the cement floor. The vampire looked at the cell and snickered as he turned back to her.
“Naw, he wishes. It’s against policy to kill them. We just drain them until they’re unconscious. He’ll feel like shit for a couple days, and then we can feed from him again. I’m going for another artery next time,” he said as casually as someone would say they wanted to king size their fries.
Conflict and nausea gnawed at Mia. This was too much for her to process in one night. She needed out of this tiny space and away from the blood. “Sorry for interrupting your meal.” She looked at Cole, but couldn’t fully meet his eyes. He’s one of them. She grabbed the key card from his hand, and held it in front of the security scanner releasing the door. She walked through, not waiting for Cole. There was only one door to the right, Mia headed toward it, fast.
Cole’s hand gently slid under her arm. “Mia, stop. Turn around, and look at me.”
She tugged her arm from his grasp. “I can’t look at you.”
He placed her against the wall and cupped her face with his hands. “This is what I feared. You’re really shaken. Look at me, please,” he whispered.
Tears stung her eyes as she met his. Conflict burned in her heart, seared by her scarred past. “You do that? Is that what you meant by ‘they get theirs’? Is that how you feed, how you bite? Violent, like that?” Her eyes clouded with tears. She needed a break, time to think. It was all too much.
“I have not fed on death row in a very long time, but yes, I have fed like this. This is not how I feed every day. Being a vampire cop takes more restraint than anything you could imagine. Sometimes urges are too great. This is how we release our anger, our frustrations, and our desire to kill the criminals we deal with day in and day out.” His eyes urged her to understand, but she couldn’t grasp everything that had happened. “You said it wasn’t fair that the criminals got to choose how they die, and that a peaceful death was unjust. Has that changed?”
“No, it hasn’t. Cole, that was one of the most horrific things I’ve ever witnessed, and you’ve done that.” She reached up and removed his hand from her face.
Cole’s body straightened, his face hardening as his jaw clenched down. His tone was harsh as he ground his teeth. “Is that what you can’t accept? You think I’m the animal, and not him? Not the criminal?”
The pain in his eyes resurfaced, tugging at her heart. Deep down, it was satisfying to know the criminals got theirs, but she didn’t know how to feel about Cole. She averted her eyes as she spoke. “Can we just go? I’m getting really tired.”
He clenched his teeth, making his jaw tick before he grabbed the door handle in front of them and motioned her to walk through the door. His eyes burned holes into her as she walked past him.
Mia didn’t think she could fear him any more than she already did, but as she went past him, her body clung to the wall. She heard his fangs snap out, fast like a switchblade. She didn’t dare look at him; she could feel his anger.
Cold, gloomy walls surrounded them in the hallway. Doors were on each side, and one at the very end. Mia walked to the first door and stopped. She wasn’t going to ask him which door to open. She wasn’t going to ask him anything for that matter. She cursed her pulse for giving her emotions away, she knew he felt it, and it had been elevated since death row with no ease in its pace.
Cole flew by her in vampire speed to the door at the end of the hall. Opening it, he glared at her as she walked toward him. He took a step forward, forcing her to brush past him and inhaled deeply as she passed. When he grabbed her arm, she stilled. Her heart pounded against her chest.
“What took you two so long? Mia, come with me,” the sheriff said.
Cole released her arm.
Mia sighed in relief but still couldn’t look at Cole. She felt his presence though, it vibrated through her with such force she knew Cole was about to explode.
“Cole, what’s the matter with you? You haven’t been right for days. I think you need to take a walk over to death row. Listen… I know it’s been a couple, well, more like eighty years since you fed there, but I think you need to go release some aggression. You’re like a time bomb lately, and I don’t need someone as strong as you blowing a fuse.”
“No thanks. You know that’s not my way,” Cole replied through clenched teeth.
John jerked his head back, his brows drawn in confusion. He shifted his gaze between the two of them then his face relaxed, and his expression changed as if a light bulb dangled above his head. “I see. Cole, I don’t want to do this, but if you’re struggling with something, I’m going to put another detective on as lead.” He chuckled to himself.
Cole’s eyes widened as he met the sheriff’s. “You’ve never had to do that before—why now? Why would you say that?”
The sheriff looked at Mia, and Cole followed his line of sight. “Because I haven’t seen you tested like this in over one hundred years, my friend. You fed off those two men earlier, and I can still see the bloodlust in your eyes. It looks like you’re being provoked by this little lady. Go take a break!” His tone was stern.
“No, thank you. I don’t need a break. This is my job.” Cole’s jaw twitched in defiance.
The sheriff took a deep breath, then sighed. “I’m not asking, I’m telling. The break isn’t from your job, it’s from her. We’ll see you in a few minutes.” With that, the sheriff took the back of her arm in the now familiar cop grip and walked her to the far side of the room to yet another door.
I feel like I’m in the matrix. I’m never getting out of here on my own, that’s for sure. Where is Neo when you need him?