Blood Moon (39 page)

“She was there,” I mumbled.

“What?”

My vision blurred as the image in my head
sharpened. “At the club…” Still confused, Nick turned to me, and I
brought my eyes to his. “A couple weeks ago, David and I took the
statement of a girl at that creepy nightclub, and the owner brought
us surveillance footage of a man and a woman making their way
through the bar.”

Nick cleared his throat, his eyebrows
pulling together as something strange flickered through his eyes.
It disappeared before I could figure out what it meant, but it
bothered him. That much was obvious. “A man? You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed, recalling more and more
of the tape. “The way they moved was eerie, and the girl we
questioned described her interaction with them as almost
hypnotic.”

“Compulsion,” Nick interjected, shaking off
whatever haunted him moments ago. “Their very presence can be
intoxicating for humans.” Pausing briefly, he looked at me as
though afraid to say whatever was on his mind. But he found the
courage necessary. “Do you have it? The disc?”

“It’s at the precinct.” I wondered why he
asked at first, and it didn’t take long for me to pick up the
reason behind his question. “Locked away in an evidence locker.
Why?” I only asked because I could be assuming wrong…at least, I
hoped I was, because he couldn’t possibly be asking me to—

“I’d like to see it,” he replied. “Can you
get it?”

I stared at him a moment, uncertain if I
heard him correctly. Of course I did; I just couldn’t believe he
would even suggest it. “You want me to just waltz right in there
and take the disc?” Nick stared at me, his expression blank yet
expectant. “You know that’s obstruction, right? I could get into a
lot of trouble.”

Looking apologetic, he shrugged. “I do
realize that, I just thought maybe…” He sighed, running his hands
over his face. “Maybe I’d be able to see something that might have
been missed.”

“I’ve watched it repeatedly,” I explained
gently. “Other than the way she looked at the camera—”

“You saw her face?” I nodded and saw that
same haunted flicker in Nick’s eyes again. “What about the
man?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No. He seemed to
be a little more reserved…guarded.”

“So you didn’t see his face? You couldn’t
identify him?”

Confused, I furrowed my eyebrows. Why did it
feel like there was something he wasn’t telling me? “No.” The
relief on his face after hearing my reply was even more perplexing
than the troubled expression he wore moments earlier, and it
brought back my earlier question. “Nick? Why me? Why did she send
Samantha after
me
?” He didn’t answer at first, so I kept
going. “Is it because I’m a cop? Because we were closing in on
her?”

His dry laugh echoed around us. “Cops are of
little concern to Gianna,” he said very matter-of-factly. “She
could obliterate your entire team within seconds.” When I didn’t
understand him right away, he exhaled loudly. “Just like we can
smell them, they can smell us. I’m assuming your scent was all over
that club.”

Something stirred inside me, telling me that
it was more than that, and I was suddenly thrust back to when
Samantha was in my house. I wracked my memory until I remembered it
was something she said that made me feel like this wasn’t about
what
I am, but
who
.

“She said that if you found me alive to tell
you this was your fault,” I whispered, drawing Nick’s full
attention as he swallowed thickly. He definitely knew something.
“She also mentioned a fire up in Alaska.” Nick’s face blanched as
he held his breath. I could smell the light sheen of perspiration
that covered his body, and his heart picked up speed. I was like a
human lie detector now. “Did she send someone after me because of
that?” While he didn’t vocally confirm this, I could see in his
tense expression that I was right. “Why?”

“I-I can’t say for sure,” he stammered
slightly. I sensed he wasn’t being entirely honest, but before I
could call him out on it, a breeze picked up, bringing with it
Samantha Turner’s scent.

We both turned our heads to the mouth of the
alley, and there, standing confidently with her arms crossed, was
Samantha Turner. Her mouth spread into a wicked grin, canines
gleaming against her ruby-red lips. “Tag,” she said. “You’re
it.”

N
ick and I wasted
no time running toward her. She moved so quickly that I thought
maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. Her lingering scent on the
air made me realize I wasn’t. My endurance was incredible, surge
after surge of adrenaline pumping as I pushed myself faster and
faster. I was gaining on her, and she knew it. It caught her off
guard and frightened her. I lapped up her fear like it was my oasis
in the middle of the Sahara.

Maybe trying to throw us off, she hopped a
fence and then led us down another alley, farther away from my
house. I jumped the fence with ease, Nick followed, and we kept
pursuit. When I saw the flashing red and blue lights in the
distance, I got distracted and faltered slightly. My instincts to
destroy her kept me going, but my heart wanted me to go back home
and check on David.

I was torn, and I didn’t know what to
do.

Samantha jumped at my momentary lapse and
sprang for me. Nick and I didn’t see it coming, because one minute
she was leading us in one direction, and the next she was flying at
me, teeth and claws engaged as she dove for my face.

She got me to the ground, straddling me
while her hands wrapped around my neck for a second time that day,
and she started to squeeze the life out of me. “They wanted you
alive, you know,” she sneered. “But I think you’re more trouble
than you’re worth. I’m sure they’d believe me if I cited
self-defense.”

My vision started to darken as I tried to
wrench my body from beneath her, but before I could succumb to it,
her body was ripped from mine, and I gasped for air, each glorious
breath feeling like a red-hot poker was being shoved down my
throat.

I pushed myself into a sitting position,
rubbing my neck as my eyes focused on what was happening. Nick was
holding Samantha more than a foot off the ground by her neck. She
didn’t seem fazed by his hold on her. Her body remained still and
she smiled down at him evilly.

“Where’s Gianna?” Nick demanded, his voice
deep-throated and rumbling.

Samantha grinned wickedly at him, her eyes
glimmering but narrow. “Gone.”

“Gone?” Nick queried. “Somehow I doubt that.
She’s sadistic, but she’s not stupid enough to leave a loose cannon
like you in charge of something like this. Tell me where she
is.”

“Who says I’m in charge of anything?”

Desperate for answers, I peered around
Nick’s hulking frame. “Why me?” I bellowed, my throat raw from
being strangled. For the second time that night.

Seemingly bored—or maybe annoyed—she looked
at me pointedly. “Funny, I’ve asked myself the same thing.”
Glancing at Nick, she rolled her eyes. “Especially given the
company you choose to keep.”

“Where is she?” he demanded again, his voice
so loud and rough I no longer recognized it.

Samantha just laughed. She wasn’t afraid,
and her lack of self-preservation baffled me.

“You think if you kill me they won’t come
for her eventually?” she goaded him. She flashed her elongated
canines with a smile and leaned forward, not affected by his hold
on her neck whatsoever as she whispered. She must have figured I
couldn’t hear her, but my enhanced hearing allowed me the
advantage. “You already know this, though, don’t you? It’s why you
jumped at the opportunity to come out here, right? Did you really
think you could save her? You are aware that they don’t care
what
she is, right? So what you did—”

Nothing she said made any sense, but
questions arose and I craved the answers. Before I could even get
them, Nick reacted.

With a flick of his wrist, he snapped her
neck, and I screamed, slapping my hands over my mouth. I watched,
somewhat horrified as he let her body drop to the ground, pulled
out his matches and lit her body on fire. There was an ear-piercing
shriek as the flame ignited, then nothing but the crackle of flames
as her body turned to ash.

Nick walked toward me, but I was too stunned
to move, watching the fire as it quickly engulfed her and then
dwindled to smoldering ash within a couple minutes.

“We have to go,” Nick said. “You should get
back to the house.”

“You… You just…”

Nick exhaled heavily. “She wasn’t human.
It’s what we do.” There was no remorse in his voice. It frightened
me.

My hands trembled in a combination of fear,
irritation, and shock over what I’d just witnessed. I was numb.
From my head to my feet, I was frozen, but Nick grabbed my arm and
pulled me to the mouth of the alley. “We have to go,” he repeated
urgently.

As he pulled me farther and farther away, my
anger lessened, making room for my concern regarding David’s
condition again. I picked up the pace, following Nick through the
darkness, always looking over my shoulder as if Samantha could pop
out again. Then I remembered she was nothing more than a pile of
dust in a filthy alley.

The flashing lights of the ambulance and
police cruisers in front of my house came into view, and I stopped
abruptly, unable to find the courage to go on. What would I find
when I got there? Would David be conscious? What would my dad have
to say? What was
I
going to say?

“Tell them you guys fought and you went for
a walk to clear your head,” Nick said, turning my body toward his.
It was as if he could read my thoughts. “You don’t know anything
beyond that. Do you understand?”

I was looking at him, but I wasn’t really;
my mind was so overwhelmed that I looked more through him than
anything.

“Nod if you understand.” Slowly, my head
bobbed up and down. “Good. I’m going to try and pinpoint Gianna’s
whereabouts, but I’ll check in soon, okay?”

“O-okay,” I rasped, pulling out of his hold
on me and turning for my house without another word.

I’d made it to the end of the block before I
heard my dad’s relieved voice. “Brooke?” He was standing in my
driveway as I started to cross the street.

I looked up and increased my pace to a jog.
The flashing lights were messing with my perception of everything
because he looked off somehow. Worried? Scared? Sad? For some
reason, I just couldn’t pinpoint it. Then my eyes drifted past him
and I noticed the gurney being brought out of my house…

The gurney with the zippered black bag.

My knees buckled, but I pushed through it
and ran forward. “No,” I whispered, head shaking, heart racing,
pulse pounding in my ears. Tears burned my eyes and obscured my
vision. I was seeing things. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be
happening. “No!”

Before I could get close to the ambulance,
my dad grabbed me around the waist and held me back. He was saying
something I couldn’t comprehend in my frazzled state. I picked up
bits and pieces—“thank god you’re okay…so worried”—but all I could
focus on was the black bag that looked like there was a body in
it.

“He was fine when I left!” I sobbed, tears
flowing down my cheeks as I tried to wrench myself out of my
father’s unrelenting grasp. I punched his arm and pushed against
his chest, trying to force him to let me go. He held firm. “He’s
fine!”

My dad used all his strength to drop to his
knees on the pavement, taking me with him, and I gave up trying to
escape. I was far too overcome by emotion. “He was fine,” I
repeated quietly, crying into his shoulder while he stroked my hair
and tried to calm me down.

“Someone broke in. It looks like there was a
struggle as David tried to stop it. Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. They
did everything they could, but his heart stopped shortly after they
got here. They couldn’t bring him back.”

My cries became louder until even I couldn’t
recognize them.

David was gone.

E
verybody works
through their grief differently. Some people barricade themselves
in their house and cry for days on end, while others try to
distract themselves with whatever they can to try and forget.
Drugs, alcohol, sex, or whatever other vice they might have. They
shut down, the loss they feel so overwhelming it makes them numb to
everything and nothing makes sense. None of what happens is right,
every bit of it still hazy and surreal in the wake of emotional
trauma.

I know this, because I lived it once
before.

There was a light knock on the bathroom door
before it slowly opened. I sat on the porcelain floor of the tub
while warm water beat down on me, and I rested my chin on my knees
and sighed. There was only one person it could be.

“Brooke, honey?” my mom inquired softly,
carefully. She’d been tiptoeing around me these last couple
days—everyone had—and for good reason. “You doing okay?” She pulled
the steam-covered glass door open a little to find me on the floor,
and her forehead furrowed with concern.

“I’m fine,” I lied, tucking my legs closer
to my body and turning my face away from hers before she could see
the quiver in my lip. “Just tired.” I sensed she was about to add
something, so I cut her off. “I’ll be right out.”

She exhaled softly, defeated. “All right.
Well, just remember, the funeral starts at two.”

There was a soft click as she closed the
door behind her, and I stood up, pushing my face beneath the warm
spray of water, washing away a fresh onslaught of tears that
started to fall. I was so sick of crying, but I couldn’t seem to
stop. I knew exhaustion had something to do with it, but it wasn’t
the main source.