◊
WE PACKED WHAT LITTLE we had and left it with Paul so we could regroup later. His job was to make sure the cabin was ready for guests. It would be our meet-up spot if things went sideways. He was also our getaway driver. It felt like old times again. Corinth pulled his bullet proof vest on and then threw a shirt on over that. He sheathed the blade and tucked it into the side of his belt.
“Why do you keep looking at me like I’m going to break?” he asked, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m no porcelain doll, sweetheart.”
“You sure about that?” I asked. “I saw those bruises… I just want to make sure you’re okay with all of this …” The knife Alastair had given me was tucked into one of my vest pockets. I felt for the cool bone handle. Curling my fingers around it, I silently willed it to bring me calm before the storm. There was something comforting about having it in my grasp. It was like Alastair was here with me, rallying me on. Wherever he was, I hoped he was okay.
“I’m fine,” Corinth said more loudly than necessary, bringing me back to the present.
My gaze snapped to his honeyed eyes. “You’ve been through a lot in the last few days. You’re still recovering—”
He cut me off, repeating, “I’m fine.” It came out sounding angry and rehearsed, as if he was trying to convince himself but was losing the battle.
Vinson walked into the room to grab the rest of our gear as Corinth pushed past me, but before he could storm off, I grabbed his arm. “You gotta do better than that, Taylor.”
He ran a hand through his mop of hair, causing it to stand on end. I remembered how I used to love it when he did that. As a matter of fact, I still did. I had known him so long; his body language provided me with all the information I needed to know. It was telling me that he was frustrated, tired, and scared.
It took him a second, but when his eyes finally snapped up to meet mine, the fire in them was enough to convince me that he was ready. I let him go, trying to tamp down a sudden urge to knock him out and leave him behind. Yet here we were, about to rush right into the frying pan once again. I took only a small amount of comfort in knowing we might never get out of that pan alive. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to deal with my burgeoning guilt. I missed Alastair. He had been gone so long, but now that I knew he was alive, well, it made that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that much worse. Was he still out there somewhere, fighting for our cause? Should I be doing more to find him? Were my conflicting emotions for Corinth only brought on because we relied so heavily on one another? I cursed myself inwardly for my ambivalence.
Vinson brushed past me, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the task at hand.
We needed something a little stealthier than the Volkswagen, so Paul had rented us a sleek SUV and left his baby parked at the cabin.
As we piled in, Vinson spoke up from the front seat. “You two are distraction. Once we’re inside, you’re on your own. I’ll take out as many as I can. Once they see him, they’ll go сумасшедший.”
I didn’t know what that last part was, but I was pretty sure it meant “crazy.”
Corinth and I exchanged a glance. “He’s talking about my fan club, right?”
“Get your head in the game,” I told him. “This is no time for jokes.”
He flashed me a lopsided grin. “There’s always time for jokes and games.”
***
After thirty minutes on a deserted highway, we were eventually deposited out onto a dirt road. Another half hour went by, and Paul finally pulled over in the middle of nowhere and swiveled around in his seat. “This is the spot, gentleman… and lady.”
Grabbing my bag of goodies—by goodies, I meant “dangerous weapons”—I threw it over my shoulder and got out.
Paul nodded at each of us in turn. “I’ll see you lot soon. Okay?”
Paul was the one person who seemed to bring back the most painful and yet achingly satisfying memories of my father. His story of how my dad saved his life struck a chord. I had had so few of those moments with my father, and now I wanted to hoard those recollections like a pirate hoarding treasure. Paul was proof of how unyielding, brave, and amazing my father had turned out to be. Even as a blood-craving vamp. It gave me hope that maybe I wouldn’t turn out so bad either. Paul was my father’s best friend, and that made him as close to family as Corinth was to me.
He stuck his hand out for me to shake, but instead, I yanked him into a tight hug. After a second, he pulled back to clap me on my shoulders, his mustache twitching and eyes shining.
“Thanks, Paul… for everything. We’ll see you soon.”
Not wanting to draw out the moment, because this wasn’t going to be our last goodbye, I turned around before he could say anything. It wasn’t his style to respond, anyway; he was the strong, silent type.
“Oi!” He called out after me. I turned back to see him pulling out a pack of smokes from his pocket. “Alastair knows what he’s doing, love.” He threw a cigarette into his mouth. “Don’t you worry about him—he’ll be back when he’s good and ready.”
I nodded my thanks as he turned to walk back to the SUV, grumbling under his breath, “I still think this plan is the worst.”
Keeping the headlights off, he maneuvered back onto the roadway without a backward glance. His headlights disappeared around the corner, shrouding us in darkness.
Corinth said, “Someone please explain to me why I’m always the victim in these scenarios?”
“Because you volunteered, and you’re so good at it,” I quipped.
He stuck his tongue out at me and moved to the center of the roadway, Vinson following him. “You need to make it look convincing,” Vinson said in his stilted English. “They will be distracted by smell of human blood.”
Human, all alone… Who could resist such a tempting snack?
Even though the stars had been swallowed up by the night sky, I could still see Corinth’s eyes on me all the way across the road.
He knew I could hear him whisper, “Get a look at Sirius, Collins.” He drew in a sharp breath. “All stars shine, but not like the Dog Star.”
Sirius is one of the brightest stars out there. Corinth always pointed to this star first, it being his favorite. It came from the Greek word Seirius—meaning “scorching.”
I heard the soft thrum of bronze clearing leather as he drew the dagger out of its scabbard.
A moment later, Vinson joined me in the overgrown brush across the road. We wouldn’t be visible from the path in this spot. Someone could be standing on top of us and they wouldn’t see us. I tried concentrating on anything other than the fact that I was sure the blade would end up turning Corinth into a mindless zombie.
Above us a shadowed outline of a plane cut a path through the darkened sky, reminding me that we were still on the outskirts of the city, even though it felt like we were on another planet altogether. The crickets seemed to keep better company than Vinson. In fact, he was so quiet I wasn’t sure he was even breathing. Yes, that included using my super-hearing. His skill level when it came to stealth was one I’d never achieve.
Meanwhile, Corinth had propped his head up on an arm. An hour passed with still no sign of oncoming traffic, and in his impatience, he sat back up, playing with a blade of grass and occasionally slapping himself, cursing about mosquitoes being worse than vamps.
With nothing else to do but dwell on thoughts of the past, my mind flung me into a barrage of vivid memories of Corinth lying on the table in the warehouse—his face drained of color from extreme blood loss. It made me shudder, thinking about how slack and lifeless he’d been when I’d carried him out of the warehouse. I shook my head, trying to shake off the macabre thoughts. Did Alastair steal his blood? Even though Paul had told me to trust Alastair, I found I was doing the opposite. I had this nagging feeling that maybe he had been compromised—ever since Gabriel had compelled him to do his bidding, it had become a very real possibility that it could happen again. This was my biggest fear. He had intentionally left us out of his plan. Did he not trust me?
Thoughts of Alastair were only going to distract me further from the task at hand, so I tuned them out and sought the source of my Sight. I immediately drew comfort from the sudden arrival of its presence. Did Gabriel feel like this when he sought his Sight too? Had this darker side overtaken him? Or was it more gradual? What if his other half was the one controlling him? Maybe over time this was what happened to everyone who was turned. No… he was a psychopath hell-bent on tormenting everyone in his path. There was no remorse or humanity left in him. He’d proven that when he’d brutally killed my father in front of me. There was a tiny niggle at the back of my mind, though, that said if I wasn’t careful, I could become him.
As two more hours passed, I could sense Corinth’s tension from all the way across the road. Even though he looked like he was at ease, his rigid posture said otherwise. He slapped at a spider and then stretched out, placing his hands behind his head to gaze up at the dark, cloudless sky.
I wondered if he was thinking about our name-the-stars ritual. We’d gotten good at identifying the constellations. Now, as I also gazed up at the tree-lined sky, I realized we were on opposite ends of the spectrum from each other—he was slayer and I was vampire—and yet I felt more connected to him than ever before. He didn’t quite fit. I didn’t quite fit. How had he used vampire Sight without the blade? As vampires, we had this strange ability to tap into a kind of sixth sense. It was what separated us from humans. Well, that and the drinking blood part. I’d been thinking about this a lot lately. I sensed the supernatural in him. Even though we shared most everything with each other, I hadn’t been able to find the right words to admit any of this to him. Was it the dagger’s control I sensed?
Vinson finally stirred, and because I’d forgotten he was beside me, I almost went flying into the air like a startled cat. He whipped his head around and put a finger to his lips.
I took a moment to listen and then heard what he’d heard: the sound of a car’s engine, followed by tires on gravel. We crouched down lower, and I coughed, giving Corinth the signal.
After a sharp intake of breath, I smelled fresh blood. It instantly put me on edge as Corinth flipped back over onto his stomach, hiding the blade underneath his shirt.
The color of the car was a deep green so rich it blended in perfectly with the night around us. It came to a complete stop in front of Corinth, its headlights lighting up his body in an eerie afterglow. It upset me to see him in such a vulnerable position. I knew it was ten times harder being the cover than playing the bait, but I didn’t even know I’d inched forward until Vinson motioned for me to stop.
I could just make out the outline of three people’s heads inside the car. When no one made a move to exit, I realized they could be calling for backup. If they did that, we were done before we even started.
After what seemed like an eternity, the right-front passenger stepped out. She was petite and mousy and not at all like I expected one of Gabriel’s people to look like. Of course, he had tried to recruit me—and I definitely didn’t look like one of his cookie-cutter models, with their made-from-the-same-mold rock-hard abs. This woman appeared to be as unassuming as a teacher. I guessed she had been turned in her mid-twenties, and her brunette hair was stretched into a tight bun at the top of her head. The form-fitting black attire showed off her trim figure. She sniffed at the air like a bloodhound, and then turned excitedly back to her companions, who were still in the car, to give them a quick thumbs-up.
Spinning back around to her prey, she inched closer, but this time a lot less cautiously, while the others stayed put, guarding their precious cargo, no doubt.
The woman was almost close enough to touch him now. She cocked her head to the side, listening, and so did I.
Surely Corinth’s racing heart was going to give us away.
Her mouth twitched up at the corner, but the smell of his blood proved to be too much for her to resist, because with surprising speed and strength, she was flipping Corinth onto his back. I hadn’t noticed the thin blade clutched in her pale hands until it was too late. My insides turned to ice, and I quelled the cry of warning that bubbled up in my throat.
This had all been part of the plan. I had to trust Corinth could take care of himself for now. Fighting the impulse to go to him first, I took the lead, jumping up from my hiding spot to fly toward the back passenger. Hopefully, our appearance would be enough of a distraction for Corinth to react.
I was pretty sure that Gabriel’s vehicles had bullet-proof glass, so I didn’t go for my gun immediately. Instead, I let my Sight take over. By the time I arrived at the car in my current state of rage, I ripped the back door open, glad that modern door locks didn’t have anything on vampire strength. It must have been quite the sight, because even the passenger looked too stunned to react.
The driver, a wily-looking teen with honey-colored skin, stomped on the gas as Vinson popped the driver’s side door open, catching him by surprise. The goal was to keep the car in as good a condition as possible so we could use it to drive into the compound, hopefully without them noticing a few minor dings and dents. At this rate, we would be lucky if the car stayed in one piece. I felt fairly certain that I could fix the door later.
Vinson grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, yanking on it at the same time as he clocked the driver across the face. The kid’s head bounced off the steering wheel, causing him to reflexively stomp on the gas. The screech of tires tearing at gravel was deafening as the car shot forward—right for Corinth.
Please hold out until I can get to you.
As we rocketed forward, I clung to the car’s roof, giving the guy in the back seat enough time to recover from his initial shock. I would have gone for my own weapon, but I was hanging on for dear life. There was a bright flash and then the sensation of being hit in the chest with a baseball bat. The blast was enough to knock my already-tenuous grip loose. Centripetal force kept me glued to the side of the car as it swerved to the right. The young driver overcorrected, proving that gravity was fickle as we careened first one way and then back the other, reaching dangerous speeds. I tumbled over the top of the roof and went airborne. You don’t realize how long a second is until you’re cruising through the air without wings. I flew right over both Corinth and the woman currently attacking him. As if in slow motion, I watched the bun-headed woman start to plunge the thin blade down toward his chest.
And then Time’s hasty return brought me crashing back down to the earth like a bottle rocket. I skidded and rolled across gravel and dirt, skinning everything right before blacking out. When I came to, I couldn’t feel anything below my waist. Patchy black spots floated across my vision. The only thing I could move was my head, and I almost wished I couldn’t, because Corinth was getting his ass handed to him. There was nothing I could do but stare helplessly at him while my body went through the slow and painful process of healing.
Wild, wispy tendrils of hair clung to the vamp’s forehead as she crouched over Corinth. No longer a mousy teacher, she was a demented wolf with eyes flashing her murderous intent. I’d never seen him beat a vamp using pure strength. I had to hand it to him; he was holding his own against her.
Even after eight months of learning to adjust to miraculous healing, it was still odd—that sharp tearing of muscle and sinew, of tendons kneading and knitting themselves back together again. Intense pain tore through me and then rapidly vanished, as if I’d never been hurt in the first place.
Please, Corinth, hang on until I can move again.
I was so focused on Corinth it wasn’t until I felt the cold steel press against my temple that I realized I’d made a grave error. With eyes crossed slightly, I fixated first on the chrome barrel of the handgun and then the person holding it. The back seat passenger who I’d been fighting was wearing one of those brightly knitted red beanies. His eyes lit up like dwarf stars.
There was a tiny millisecond of space right before he pulled the trigger that I managed to operate in. The small smile playing on his lips said, “I won.” But in that same infinitesimal moment, my Sight took over—primal, alien instinct—giving me more than enough time to slam my palm against the side of the gun. It exploded in his hands, the discharge singeing the side of my face. A cloud of gunpowder smoke drifted past me, carried on a gentle breeze. The guy on top of me tried to push himself back down at the same time as I let out a roar of rage and kicked up. My foot connected with his groin and he grunted in pain. I had spent hours and hours practicing drawing my gun from my vest—and because of this training, my Sig was in my hand, lightning quick as I emptied a full magazine into his gut.
The overly bright red beanie soared into the air in a hauntingly bizarre tableau as he fell backward, as still as a corpse.
Without wasting another second, I turned to Corinth, who was now losing ground. It brought back flashbacks of Gabriel standing over my father with his sword pointed at him.
Blood dribbled down his arm in a steady stream. I was going to witness another death of someone I loved, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it from happening, just like last time.