Graduating (Covenant College Book 5) (22 page)

“I think you’re a dickless wonder,” I said. “I also think you’re going to get everything that’s coming to you.”

Blake shoved me into the room – and perpetual darkness. Before the door shut, I heard a scuffle behind me.

“What are you doing?” I recognized Will’s voice.

“While you’ve been a great help,” Reagan said. “Your services are no longer required.”

“What? You promised me a position in your cabinet.”

“I’m a politician,” Reagan replied. “I lied.”

The door slammed shut, cutting off the small trail of light from the adjacent room and trapping us all inside.

I heard the growling at the far end of the room almost instantly.

“Great. Now what?”

Will was banging on the door, screaming like a maniac. “Let me out of here! You liar! You filthy liar! You let me out of here right now!”

“Stop your crying, Will,” I said. “You had to have known they would cut your throat at some point. When you ally yourself with snakes, sooner or later you’re going to get bit.”

“Do you have any idea what’s in here?” Will asked.

“Paris, I’m assuming.” I reached out with my hands. “Paris, can you hear me?”

I heard whimpering and followed the noise, my hands finding a warm and shaking body in the dark. “Are you hurt?”

“They have me tied up,” she said, her voice hoarse. I had a feeling she’d been screaming all night.

I felt up and down her body, finally finding restraints at her ankles and wrists. “Hold on.”

“Hurry up,” Paris said. “We’re about to be in a whole world of trouble.”

“It gets worse than this? How?”

The room suddenly went from dark to light, causing me to flinch as an overhead bulb snapped to life. When my eyes adjusted, I looked around. We were in a small room – with a cage grate on the opposite end. The grate was still locked down, but whatever had been growling a few moments before was now throwing itself against the metal as soon as it caught sight of us.

I focused on Paris. Her face was pale and dirty, her eyes red from crying. Other than that, she didn’t appear to have been hurt. That was one thing to be thankful for – a very small thing.

I managed to untie her ankles, even though my hands were shaking. The rope securing her wrists was another story. “I can’t reach. Will, stop beating on that door and get your ass over here.”

“Screw you!”

“They’re about to let loose whatever is in that cage down there,” I said. “I’m going to let it eat you if you don’t help me.”

“It’s going to eat me regardless,” Will said. “I’m hoping it goes after the two of you first. You’ll probably give it indigestion.”

I scowled, focusing back on the ropes. “Do you know what’s in there?” I asked Paris.

She shook her head, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying. “Whatever it is, it’s just been in there growling and screaming for hours. How long have I been gone?”

“About fifteen hours,” I said, gritting my teeth as I tugged on the rope fruitlessly.

“How did you find me?”

“Your mom.”

“My mom?” Paris choked on the words. “My mom is here?”

“She’s outside,” I said. “She’s safe. I told her to wait for Aric.”

“They’re sending wolves after Aric,” Paris said. “They plan on killing him.”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that he’s not alone,” I said. “His father sent reinforcements. I’m sure they handled the situation.”

“What do you mean?” Will was suddenly focused on us. “Winters isn’t dead?”

“Shut your mouth,” I said. “I can’t even stand looking at you. You’re trash.”

“I’m an important person,” Will said, kicking the ground angrily. “I’m an important person.”

“Then why are you locked in here with us?” I challenged. “Face it, Will. They used you. And, now that you’re a liability, they cut you loose. Killing you with us was an easy solution, you moron.”

“It was Mark,” Paris said. “He was in the bushes. I thought I was safe when I saw him, but then … .”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “He was out there. I’m going to beat the crap out of him when we get out of here.”

“We’re not getting out of here,” Will said, laughing hollowly. “This whole place was constructed to kill you.”

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what’s down there chomping at the bit to get out and eat us, do you?”

“It’s a vampire,” Will said. “We’ve been starving it for months. It’s going to rip us to shreds.”

Fear clenched at my heart. “What vampire?”

“You know which one.”

Rafael. A flash of anger rushed through me, causing sparks to fly out of my fingertips. The sparks were so intense, they singed the ropes at Paris’ wrists. I tried again, and the rope burned a little more. I pushed out one more time, and suddenly the rope broke and Paris tumbled to the floor.

I knelt next to her, watching as she rubbed the circulation back into her wrists. “I hate to do this to you,” I said. “You need to get up, though.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“You have to try. They’re going to let Rafael out any second, and when they do … .”

“He’s going to eat us,” Paris finished.

I pursed my lips together. “Unless I … stop him.”

“Can you stop him?”

“There’s only one way I know to do it,” I said. “And, frankly, killing the guy who has saved me on occasion and helped me a bunch of other times doesn’t seem like a fun way to go.”

Paris nodded, struggling to her feet. I helped her to the far end of the room and left her standing at the door. I pointed a warning finger at Will. “If you touch her, you won’t have to worry about Rafael ripping you to shreds. I’ll do it myself.”

Will made a face. “I hate you.”

“Right back at you.”

I approached the cage slowly, hunkering down a safe distance away. The light in the room was dim, but a glance through the grate told me that I didn’t want to see the horrors Rafael had faced over the past few months up close.

“Hey.”

The bars of the cage shook as Rafael threw himself against the frame.

“I know you’re in there somewhere,” I said. “I know it’s hard to focus, but I really need you to try. You have survived this far. I’m going to find a way out of this. I promise. Just … try not to eat us.”

The cage door jerked upwards, making a grating sound as it disappeared into the wall. There was nothing standing between Rafael and me, no barrier to fight off his hunger.

He crouched low to the floor and bolted out of the cage. I braced myself for impact, wondering if I had it in me to kill him if I had to. Instead of jumping on me, Rafael streaked to the back of the room.

“Paris.”

I swiveled, my hands outstretched. I might not want to kill Rafael, but I had to save Paris.

Rafael wasn’t going after Paris, though. He was on Will, his fangs extended and sinking into his flesh, before I could even register what was happening.

Will screamed, ineffectively pounding his fists against Rafael’s chest. Rafael was drinking, draining Will. I had a choice. I could save him, or I could let Rafael finish the job. I lowered my hands, meeting Will’s terrified – and pleading – eyes across the room.

“Save me,” he begged.

In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. “Have a good afterlife.”

It was over within minutes, Rafael dropping Will’s lifeless body to the floor with a loud thud when he was done. Paris edged her way around the room, joining me at the opposite end, and waited.

Rafael’s face was hidden in shadow. He lifted his arm and wiped it across his mouth, not even glancing in our direction. “I’ve been dreaming of doing that for months.”

I sighed, relieved. “You’re not going to try and eat us, are you?”

“Not right this minute.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve been kept in a cage and starved for months. What do you think?”

“I think you’re crabby.”

“Don’t push me. I don’t have a lot of control right now.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you can use your lack of impulse control and knock that door down, can you?”

Rafael regarded it wearily. He lifted his leg, kicking it hard and completely knocking it off its hinges. He peered out into the outer room, and then motioned for us to follow. “It’s empty.”

“Once you took out Will, and it became apparent you weren’t going to kill us, Blake and Mark probably ran,” I said. “Reagan has a rally to get to. They’ll probably go there for protection.”

“I’m going to kill each and every one of them,” Rafael promised, jogging toward the stairs.

“Wait!”

Rafael’s face was twisted with rage when he turned back to me. “What?”

“It’s light out.”

He hit the wall in frustration, chipping a huge chunk of brick out of the wall.

“Just … wait here.”

“I am not staying in this basement a second longer,” Rafael said.

“Just let me check upstairs.” I glanced at Paris. “Stay here with him.”

“You said my mom was here.”

“She is,” I said. “I just need to make sure no one is up there.”

“And, if they are?” Rafael asked.

“Then I’m going to fry their asses,” I said. “I’m sick of this crap.”

“If you get into any trouble … you need to yell for me,” he said.

“If I get any trouble, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later.”

The house was empty – or it appeared so – when I made it to the top of the stairs. Instead of risking a walk through the dark house, I moved to the back door and threw it open. Someone had obviously closed it in their haste to get out of the house.

Four figures were instantly rushing up the back steps – causing me to take a step back and stumble into the back wall. God, Blake had called for reinforcements.

“Don’t touch her! She’s with me.”

The sound of Aric’s voice filled me with relief. The four men in front of him – all dressed as commandos – stilled at his order. Aric pushed past them. He had a cut on the side of his face, and his shirt was ripped, but otherwise he looked healthy.

“I thought you might be dead,” I admitted, throwing my arms around him.

He pulled me close, burying his face in my hair. “Join the club. What happened here? Where is Paris?”

“She’s in the basement with Rafael.” I pointed, and Aric’s cohorts immediately started trotting down the steps. “Don’t you dare hurt him!”

Aric linked his fingers with mine, tucking me in at his side to keep me close. “They won’t hurt him.”

I followed him back downstairs. One of the men was already leaving the small room at the back of the basement when we reached the bottom. “There’s a body,” he said. “He’s definitely dead.”

Aric sent me a questioning look.

“It’s Will. I let Rafael eat him.”

“You let him eat him?”

“Hey, it was either him or us. They’ve been starving him for months.”

Aric glanced at Rafael. “Are you all right, man?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Well, we’ll get you out of here. There’s some protective sheeting in the van. We’ll lead you out under that and get you back to your house. I’m sure Fiona will be happy to see you. She’s been looking for you.”

“We were, too,” I said. “We just didn’t know where to look.”

“You seemed to find Paris,” Rafael pointed out, a touch of bitterness in his voice.

“Her mother found her,” I said. “I was just along for the ride.”

“Where is my mom?” Paris asked, her lower lip trembling. “I want to see my mom.”

“She’s upstairs in the back yard,” Aric said. “She wanted to come into the house, but we made her wait.”

“Can I go?”

Aric nodded. “We secured the area. It’s safe.”

Paris moved to run up the stairs, stopping long enough to give me a quick hug. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“I’ll always come for you,” I said.

Once she was gone, Aric wrapped me in another tight hug. “I was worried I was too late.”

“It was a piece of cake.” My words had more bravado than my heart did.

“How did Will end up in there with you?”

“When I got here, Blake, Mark, Will and Governor Reagan were waiting for me. They were expecting me.”

Aric’s body tensed. “Reagan?”

“It’s him. It’s always been him. He wants to wipe out the werewolf population and put his own minions in power here.”

“He admitted that?”

“Yeah. He admitted sending the vampires after us, too. He bartered with them to get them to do his bidding.”

“What did he barter?”

“Food.”

“The bodies at the library?”

“Yeah. He admitted he arranged them that way to give me something to focus on so I wasn’t focusing on Blake and the Academy.”

“I need to call my dad.”

“He’s having a rally on campus today,” I said. “We can still catch up to him before he has a chance to leave.”

Aric ran his hands up my arms, ultimately cupping my chin, and then kissed me. “We have to end this today.”

“I’m so ready to end this.”

“Well then, we’ll do it together. No more getting separated.”

“Baby, the last thing I want to do is get separated from you again.” I tightened my arms around his waist.

“Right back at you.”

This time when he kissed me, it was with ferocious determination. Things were finally coming to a head at Covenant College – just in time for graduation.