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SOMEHOW I MANAGED TO grab something. No, not something, a broken piece of plywood that hadn’t rotted away yet. Splinters pierced through my hands as my skin slid against the edges. But I clamped on, my fingers the only thing keeping me from falling through to the next floor.
“Sophia!” Viktor called out somewhere from above my head.
I couldn’t see him yet, the dust collecting in my face and making my eyes water. It took a few tries before the words came out. “I’m all right.” Well, kind of. At least I wasn’t lying in a heap several floors below.
“Grab my hand.”
I looked up into his bright blue eyes and searched for his arm. Something hit the floor behind him and the entire piece of plywood I was hanging onto dropped several inches. My left hand slipped free, making my right one hold all of my body weight. My legs swung below me, kicking back and forth in the dust billowing up from the floor beneath us. A scream I couldn’t contain escaped my lips.
My knuckles ached and my fingertips burned with despair as I desperately tried to hang on. As the wood dropped again, I felt the last little bit of grip disappear in one swift second.
And I fell.
But only a few inches before a sharp pain dug into my wrist. I glanced up to see Viktor’s hand wrapped around my arm. He was the only thing stopping me from falling right now.
“Sophia!” He yelled, the building collapsing around us almost too loud to hear him. “I’m going to let you go. It’s okay.”
“No!” I screamed, looking below me to the second floor. This wouldn’t be just a one floor fall now, it would be a two story drop to my death. “No! Don’t let go!”
His fingers slipped a tiny bit and he shouted something into the hole. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I knew for sure that if he let me go, I would die. “Please don’t let me die,” I repeated.
“Sophia, trust me!”
Viktor opened his hand and let me go.
I screamed. There was no being brave anymore. The dust cloud shrouded me in darkness while I plummeted into the unknown. My body began to turn, twisting so that I would land on my back—surely a quick death then. Cracks and crashes echoed around me, screams other than mine filling the void.
I fell. And I fell. What I’d thought was going to be a two story drop seemed to be even longer. Time stopped while my body ripped through the seconds. I could no longer see Viktor and I could no longer see where I was going. I knew I’d make an impact at any moment, so I closed my eyes and waited.
And then I slammed into something much softer than the ground.
“I got you,” a deep voice said.
The collision made my head bounce back a bit too far and my throat instantly regretted the movement. But I was alive. I hadn’t crashed into the bottom of the warehouse. I’d crashed into a person. No, not crashed. He’d caught me.
“Don’t try to move yet. Give your body a chance to catch up.”
He continued to speak to me, but I couldn’t yet focus on his face. Or on the fact that he’d caught me. “How...?” I tried to form a cohesive thought.
“Is she okay?” Viktor landed beside us in a crouch. Or maybe I’d just imagined that movement since I’d seen it many times before. Wait, did he just jump three stories?
“I think so. Here, take her. We’ve got to move.”
Another piece of the building crashed beside us and I did my best to focus on my surroundings. I looked into the eyes of Bo, the bear shifter who’d been searching this floor with Nadya.
Nadya. “Where’s Nadya?” I asked as Viktor helped hold me up.
“She’s already outside,” Bo answered quickly. “Come on. Move!”
Viktor pushed me ahead, placing me firmly between him and Bo. That might have normally irked me, but there was no time to debate male chauvinistic behavior right now. After all, I was the one who’d just fallen through the ceiling.
We reached the metal stairs and I welcomed their holes that allowed me to look at the floor below us. That was our safety underneath and we needed to get there now.
The walls of the warehouse crumbled to the ground, sending more plumes of dust filled with drywall and probably asbestos into our escape route. Bo reached behind him to grab my hand and I did the same for Viktor. We were so close now, it would be ridiculous to lose each other.
Bo leapt over a fallen beam and I followed. He dodged around debris, pushing several large pieces out of the way, until we finally saw the exit. So close now.
The moonlight seemed brighter than before as we stumbled into the parking lot. We all coughed and dropped to our knees, trying to catch our breath—not so much from the run but from the amount of particles we’d inhaled in the past ten minutes. For too long, I coughed harder than anyone else. It was like I couldn’t get enough breath in before my chest tried to expel more bad air. My throat tightened in panic, aching with the injured muscles I’d endured from my fall and hating that I couldn’t breathe.
A warm pair of arms wrapped around me and Viktor whispered into my ear. “Slow breaths, Sophia. Try to slow your breaths.”
I listened and I tried. Viktor sucked in air with me, encouraging me to follow his rhythm. It helped, and within a minute, the panic subsided. His hot breath danced across my bite, sending a sensation I shouldn’t be feeling right now straight into my core. That warmth helped me recover faster than I would have expected as I wanted to do more than just feel Viktor’s arms around me.
“Viktor, look.” Bo’s voice broke my trance and I allowed Viktor to pull me up to my feet. “Something’s not right.”
I noticed it too. The silence and the lack of anyone else in the parking lot. The warehouse was still falling apart behind us, but nothing else appeared to be touched by the shaking of the earth.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
Something growled in the distance and Bo jerked to attention. “Brandt?”
“Was that him?” Viktor asked.
“I don’t know, but I—”
Bo’s words were cut off when a bullet sliced through his shoulder. He yelled out in pain and immediately dropped to the ground. By the time he finished the roll, he’d completely transformed into a bear. No, not just any bear. A grizzly. And he was amazing.
He stood on his hind legs and roared like nothing I’d ever seen before. Another gunshot rang out in the night and hit Bo in the other shoulder. But it didn’t deter him. He spun in the direction of the shot and took off at a run so fast I made a note to never try and outrun a bear.
I was still staring in disbelief when Viktor pushed me to the ground. He fell on top of me so hard, I smacked my chin into the pavement and bit my tongue. Something exploded behind us.
“What was that?” I screamed.
Viktor didn’t move off of me. “A fucking witch,” he growled.
A witch? That was magic?
Another burst of energy blasted behind us, but close enough to send shards of pavement raining down over our backs. “God damn him,” Viktor said. I’d never heard him curse so much.
He jumped to his feet and pulled my underneath his arm. “We need to go,” he said yet again.
I couldn’t agree more.
But as soon as we took two steps forward, my instincts flared into action. The hair on my arms stood on edge. The butterflies in my gut prepared me to fight instead of run. And the bite on my neck sent a wave of heat pulsating throughout my blood.
We were surrounded by vampires.
More gravel pelted us when another energy ball, or whatever that witch had, hit where we’d been laying just a few seconds ago. “Where is everyone else?” I screamed.
“I don’t know,” Viktor said, head scanning our surroundings. “But we need to focus on us right now. Can you fight?” I nodded. “Good.” He grabbed a piece of metal siding that had either fallen away from the warehouse or had been thrown at us. In a few swift movements, he’d ripped it apart and reshaped it into two stakes. “It’s the best I can do right now.”
I gave his arm a quick squeeze and took my weapon. “It will do.”
A gray dog, no wolf, dashed across the lot in front of us, teeth bared and snarling in warning. I thought I was seeing things until I heard a bear growl from somewhere behind us. Fighting with shifters was something I would need to get used to, but they certainly were welcomed by my side any time.
“Get ready. They’re coming.”
I followed Viktor’s gaze into the darkness, waiting for the shadows to move. In fact, I was so focused on what I expected to emerge, that I never even heard them behind us. A sharp pain plowed into my side at the same time Viktor shot forward to protect our front. I found myself on the ground again, not sure exactly what had happened, but knowing that I didn’t like the way my left leg was already going numb.
A large ball of fur jumped over my head and hit the vampire behind me. I assumed that one of the shifters had just saved my life, and I scrambled to my feet to be a better fighter. The sound of punching and death filled the night air around me but I still couldn’t see. I reached around and touched my lower back only to find that my hand was covered with blood when I pulled it away. That wasn’t good.
A vampire hissed and darted out of the shadows. I swung my right arm up and ducked, forcing the metal stake into his chest when he tried to land on top of me. Flipping him backward, I rolled to the side and them immediately jumped forward again to pull the stake free and slam it back into his chest. I had to make sure I’d hit the right spot.
As he disintegrated in front of me, three more vampires with dark, soulless eyes attacked at the same time. I spun around with my arm out, trying to cut them all in one slice. It didn’t work, but it did keep them at arm’s length long enough for me to come up with a plan. I pulled the closest vampire, a young girl, toward me and whipped her around so that I held her in front of my chest like a hostage. The move sent a spasm of agony through my back, but I just squeezed her tighter to try and counteract the pain.
One of the vampires lunged at me at the same time, and clawed the girl’s face instead of mine. I pushed her into him and they both fell to the ground. But just as I was about to slam the metal through them, the third vampire jumped onto my back and wrapped his bony arms around my throat.
He must have been a kid. Not even old enough for puberty since he hardly weighed more than a hundred pounds. But still, he squeezed the throat muscles that already hurt and my chest one again screamed for air. I bent forward, trying to knock him free. But the little bastard held on tight. He had no intention of letting me live.
Arabella unexpectedly appeared in front of me. Once again her long, blonde hair had been professionally straightened and she wore high heeled boots with her all-black outfit. She winked at me a second before slamming her sharp heel into the chests of the two vampires I’d knocked to the ground. The squishing sound of her stiletto puncturing through skin and bones was a welcomed noise but scared me none the less. This was one demon not to be messed with.
A moment later, she disappeared and reappeared behind me. I didn’t see her, but I felt her pull the vampire from my back and blink out of existence with him in tow. I coughed, once again fighting for air, but then screamed when the vampire’s body fell from the sky and landed in the dust of his friends. His body cracked and the ground shuddered. Arabella must have dropped him from an incredible height for his form to implode like that. But those injuries wouldn’t kill him, so I scrambled forward and shoved the stake into his liquid chest.
“Sophia!”
I turned toward the voice. Silas’ voice. He didn’t sound good and I instantly tried to locate him.
“Sophia!”
Jumping to my feet, I ran along the side of the warehouse. The weeds were higher over here. Almost taking over the concrete completely and doing their best to trip me up. I jumped over a piece of the building and pushed my way through a pile of dust still oozing out an opening. Once I cleared those, I saw him.
I didn’t know why Silas called out to me, he seemed to be handling himself just fine. Before I could reach him, he’d sliced the heads off of two vampires with some kind of sword. I had no idea where he would have gotten that sword from but I definitely had weapon envy.
“Silas, look out!” I tried to warn him about the vampire approaching from the other side, but Silas had already spotted him. In one quick throw, the sword ended up in the chest of the vampire running his way. He shattered into dust before he even hit the ground.
I reached Silas’ side just as he hunched forward. “Silas! What’s wrong?” He inhaled a really shallow breath and started to fall. I caught him and helped prop him up against the building. And when I did, I saw all of the blood.
At first I thought maybe it wasn’t his, but with the way he wheezed, I knew this wasn’t good news. His shirt was soaked through all over his chest. Blood ran down his arm like a small stream and the bullet holes in the fabric helped me piece everything together.
“Silas, stay with me!” I screamed at him when he started falling to the ground again. It was hard for me to support his weight and I found myself sliding down with him. “Silas, no!” His eyes closed and his mouth gaped like a fish. He was trying to say something but he had no energy left for words.
And then Ashby was there.
“What the fuck did you do to him?” she snarled at me.
“I didn’t do this!”
She touched his face with one hand and slammed the palm of her other one into my chest. I flew backward through the air, landing a good ten feet away. My tailbone screamed at me when I hit the ground, the injury to my side not any happier. I struggled to face Silas and her again, but the second I saw them, Ashby blinked them both out of existence.
Uncontrollable tears filled my eyes and my extremities grew cold. Was I losing too much blood? Was I even sitting up?
I thought maybe I was already slipping away when someone grabbed me by the hair and yanked me back against their body. With my throat exposed and my legs not functioning, I knew I was in trouble.
“Not so fun to be the hunted, is it?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. But I did feel the cold steel of the metal blade she pressed against my throat. A vampire with a weapon? Not typical.
“I hope you burn in hell,” she snarled.
I wanted to give her a witty reply, but the knife sliced into my skin so fast, I couldn’t react. There was a very brief instance of pain where my throat had been cut, but as soon as the blood began pumping out of my arteries, all of my hurt seeped out with it.
*