| |
When I stepped out of my vampires’ house, I’d noticed that the night had felt like it was bound by a rubber band. Silent. Still. Waiting for just the right moment to snap.
Later that night, while I lay inside a jail cell covered in my own pee, it did.
I jolted upright, hardly daring to breathe as I listened for what had awakened me, for how I knew that something had changed. The walls, floor, and ceiling of my cell were painted black, and I searched each crack and corner for answers. In between my bouts of unconsciousness, I’d thought I’d seen flecks of golden light rising off of my skin and disappearing into the ceiling. A dream, surely. But I remembered it had filled me with panic, though I had no idea why.
“Hello?” I called, but my cell seemed to swallow my voice. I tried again. “Hello?” Not much better.
Exhaustion clung to my limbs, my head felt like my brain had been plugged into an electrical outlet, and it was the weirdest sensation, but a part of me felt like I’d dropped something important. Not my cell phone. Not my Pebbles stake. Something...else.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Someone was coming.
Taking a deep breath, I hauled myself to my feet and then swayed.
Drugs. They’d drugged me. Detective Appelt or that strange officer or someone. No wonder I felt off. That was grounds for a lawsuit right there. And a very strongly worded letter of complaint.
The footsteps thudded closer. I glanced down at myself, my gaze catching on the large wet spot on my jeans and the puddle on the floor. Whoever was coming had likely seen worse. Smelled worse, too. I positively reeked.
The shadow of the approaching figure slanted across the gray-tiled floor in front of my cell. Unease flickered inside my gut. The shadow was as black as melted tar, a shapeless mass oozing closer. It triggered an itch at the base of my skull, like a memory about to surface—a nightmare sight in a graveyard filled with nightmare static sounds. Except I couldn’t hear a thing over the thud, thud of approaching footsteps.
I ticked my gaze up just as the figure stepped into view, and then I reeled back. The officer’s—the same one from before—body was warped and twisted, his bulging eyes unblinking as they melted down his face. Long, horrific fangs stretched to his chin, where muscles and veins pulsed without the cover of skin.
A tremor stormed up my back. It was just like in the graveyard, except instead of statues melting toward me, it was humans, which was ten times worse.
But how was this happening? What was happening?
He reached through the bars of the cell, almost snagging my shirt. His flesh sloughed to the floor with wet splats.
This wasn’t real. This was Paul fucking with me.
Focus on my slayer sense. I could almost hear Sawyer’s voice in my head telling me this. My slayer sense would tell me what was real and what wasn’t. I closed my eyes, waited several heartbeats while I concentrated hard, and then opened them again.
Nothing had changed. My stomach dived toward the puddle on the floor.
The officer grabbed a baton from his belt and swung it at my head. I dodged out of the way, just barely, my reflexes feeling like I’d drowned them in pudding.
Maybe it was this cell dampening my slayer powers. The drugs. Who the hell knew? I wasn’t going to waste any more time living here in a waking nightmare.
The guard swung the baton again. I brought my arm up to block my temple, and the baton cracked against my elbow. Pain flared. I focused on it instead of my revulsion as I surged forward and reached for his collar, my knuckles skidding over the raw tendons in his neck. Some of the flesh clinging to one of the eyeballs sliding down his face touched the back of my hand. No time to vomit. With every bit of strength I had, I jerked him forward into the bars as hard as I could. He slammed into them head-first and then dropped like a board.
Wasting no time, I sank to my knees and reached through the bars for his keys on his belt. Almost there. I adjusted my angle, and with the side of my face pressed against the metal bars, the static noise blared outside my cell. It sank chills into my skin and throttled every bone and muscle in my body.
Paul. Paul was here.
I needed out of this cell. Then I could replace everything with reality by my slayer sense. Inside this cell, that sense didn’t seem to want to work.
A little farther, and then my fingertips brushed the keys. I swiped them, and with my hands trembling, my knees knocking, I stood and fit the key in the lock. The cell swung open, and I stepped out. Static roared, crowding everything else in existence out.
Focus. Focus. FOCUS.
Nothing. No slayer power.
A sob welled in my throat, but I didn’t have time for a nice mental breakdown. I stared down at the officer, who was thankfully still, and then ripped my Gumby T-shirt off. No way I could just walk out of here, but I would sure as fuck try. Maybe it wasn’t the cell dampening my slayer powers but the whole police station. I ripped the fabric from the bottom hem of my shirt and then plugged my ears with it so I could hear myself over the thundering static. I just wished I could plug my eyes too. Shadows dripped off the walls and contorted the long hallway of cells into one long hellscape. A hellscape I’d have to pass through to get out of here.
After I ridded myself of my rank, wet jeans, I quickly undid the officer’s uniform and his Kevlar vest and put them on.
“Eddie! Jacek! Sawyer!” I shouted.
If it was the police station affecting my powers, maybe they couldn’t sense me. But if there was ever a time where I needed their help, it was right now.
With the officer’s keys biting into my palm and his uniform swallowing my frame, I strode down the long hallway. Some of the cells I passed appeared empty, except for the shadows swarming into shapeless beasts. They lunged and rattled the bars so hard I thought the metal would snap. Melted humans lurked in other cells, their faces warped into murderous rage. They reached through the bars and tried to snatch at me. Some spat. Others threw shivs and broken glass that sliced at my bare forearms and face.
“I will fuck your cunt until you are dead,” one of them growled, and it sounded as ancient and rustic as Paul. “Then I will fuck you again, you hear me?”
Even through my stuffed ears and ringing static, I could hear his voice as clearly as if I’d said it myself.
“Kill. Kill,” another one chanted.
“—cry. You’ll cry for your mommy when I’m done with you.”
No. No, there would be no crying. None of this was real. This was Paul, trying to break me so he could kill me easier.
I fisted my hands at my sides, chomping down on my back teeth, as I shot for the elevator. Once inside, I jammed the black skull key into the panel, then smashed my finger into the close doors button to silence those threats of violence against me for good.
Too bad it didn’t last.
As soon as the doors opened again, a red laser dot swept the inside of the elevator. I ducked to the floor just as an explosion of bullets battered the wall behind me.
When the gunfire went silent, the static roared even louder. My heart pummeled the floor beneath my ribs. Cold sweat clung to the back of my neck. I didn’t dare breathe.
Then a voice rose up above the static and hissed, “She’s here.”
It was there on the floor of the elevator, more frightened than I’d ever been, that I realized what was happening. Yes, this was Paul trying to break me, but every one of the prisoners downstairs and the hissing voices had sounded just like him—like broken bones rubbing against dead leaves. It was as if the stroll he’d taken had been through everyone, loud enough that I could hear the static. He was pulling the strings of everyone here and was directing them to take me out. The whole police station. No, not just the police station. All of Podunk City since everyone’s doors had crashed open. That had to have been him, demanding entrance so he could stroll on in on that not-so-lovely night.
That realization had only taken a second.
Spying a doorway on my right, I chucked the keys in my fist to the left. They clanked against something metal several feet away, providing the distraction I needed. Hopefully.
Gunfire erupted in the direction of the keys. I surged to my feet and flew to the doorway. Once inside the room, I shut the door and then ducked to all-fours, navigating the dark room by touch alone. Outside, glass exploded, blinking out the light through the frosted glass window in the door. Then the gunfire stopped.
I likely had seconds before they found me.
If I had luck on my side, I would’ve found myself inside a weapon storage room or the evidence room where my stakes were surely kept. If I had luck on my side, I wouldn’t be in this damn situation to begin with.
Just as I thought, no such luck. I was in an office with metal chairs and a wooden desk, the drawers of which held files, paper clips, pens, and pencils. I took a handful of pencils since they were close to stakes. Though they would do jack against a gun, they were better than nothing.
I crawled across the tile floor and felt my way along the wall, hoping for a second exit. In the corner of my eye, a shadow moved beyond the window in the door. Someone was coming.
My breaths grew ragged. My movements jerky and frantic, I slid my fingers along the wall. They slid into a dip. A door! The doorknob on the one behind me began to turn. I stopped breathing. My knuckles hit a doorknob, and I shoved my way through and closed the door within the span of three wild heartbeats.
No time to waste. I shot across the dark room to where I thought the door to the hallway should be. Once I fumbled my way through, I sprinted across to the maze of cubicles and chose a random one to squat in so I could catch my bearings. Pushing my lips together to keep myself quiet, I stretched my neck to see over the three-foot-high barrier that separated this cubicle from the next one. There, about fifty feet away, was the exit sign in bright, beautiful colors. So close and yet so far. I had no idea how many people were after me in here, but if I could make it out, then maybe my slayer powers would work again. Strength, speed, healing—all good powers to have.
Fifty feet.
I slinked out of the cubicle and started forward.
At the first cross-section of pathways I came to, a figure moved just to my left. I froze, my body coiling to spring and fight or spring and run. It was a man from the shape of him, walking away, his black uniform writhing in the creeping darkness as if it contained nothing but snakes. I crossed behind him on silent feet to the next section of cubicles.
Forty feet.
Up ahead, someone rounded the corner, into the pathway I was headed down. I dove left behind a cubicle wall and pressed my back against it, biting down hard on my tongue. Had he seen me?
I waited and waited, my muscles screaming at holding still for so long. Finally, moving with the speed of a turtle so I wouldn’t make a sound, I peered out from behind the wall. And couldn’t see shit. It was too damn dark with the swarming shadows. But I did see the exit sign shining like my last hope.
With my breath held, my ears perked for any sound over the static and my Gumby shirt wedged inside them, I flashed out onto the pathway again.
A blast lit the police station with a burst of white light. Something tugged at my back from behind. Hard. Sharp. Almost powerful enough to lift me off my feet and drop me to my knees. Somewhere in my mind, pain registered, but I wasn’t about to stop and think about it.
Thirty feet. Twenty-five. I didn’t stop. Even as the pain stormed through the side of my back, I didn’t stop. Most blasts ricocheted around me, but I kept my head low as I zigzagged between cubicles.
Fifteen feet.
Then I was hurtling toward the exit sign above a heavy-looking door. Good thing that door wasn’t made of glass. I’d have to jam it shut as soon as I closed it. My gaze snagged on the hinge attached to the top of the door as I erupted through. Bingo.
Gunfire blasted behind me, raking against the door and spraying wood shards over my arm.
Ignoring the sting, I unlatched the belt on the officer’s pants I wore, whipped it off, coiled it around the hinge, and buckled it tightly as the door snicked closed behind me.
Loud bangs echoed from the other side, and the door jumped inward, but it held. For now.
I whirled toward the final exit across a small waiting room.
Underneath another sign that marked it as such, the double glass doors of the police station slammed inward. A pair of red eyes pulled me up short. I skidded to a stop. Not just one pair of red eyes, but three, all of them raging and murderous. Their faces and bodies were warped, ugly nightmares, completely unlike my vamps.
My vamps, here to kill me. Here because I’d called for them.
The air drove from my lungs as if I’d been sucker-punched by Paul.
Their fangs glistened, even in the darkness.
Eddie stepped forward and licked what was left of his lips. “Fancy meeting you here, Sunshine.”