Twilight Vendetta (16 page)

A letter and a number.

Okay. Silently, she peeled off her button down shirt, leaving her in only the tank top beneath it. She spread the shirt on the floor, removed every single key from the rack, and then rolled them up in the shirt to keep them from jangling. Knotting it, she stuffed it into her backpack, and tiptoed to the door again. She was just exiting the motor pool when an explosion rocked the night, jostling her off her feet and onto her knees. Fear for Devlin, for her father, for the others made her heart pound so loud she thought it must be audible.

A giant spotlight flashed on from somewhere above and started sweeping in giant arcs over the grounds, and men came pouring out of somewhere.

She lunged behind the rusting shell of a Jeep that had no frame, wiggled her way underneath it, through the opening of a wheel well that didn’t have a wheel, belly crawled to the other side, and peeked out. That small building, the one where Devlin sensed people, was only ten yards ahead of her. Goops–crows as Devlin called them–swarmed out of it, wearing black fatigues and riot gear, and charged toward the area the explosion had come from.

One of them came flying back again, landing on his back on the ground directly in front of her. No doubt one of the vampires had pounded him or thrown him or...didn’t matter. He was there. And he was unconscious, and therefore, a gift.

She crept out silently, grabbed him by his boots, and dragged him under the Jeep.

Devlin was not expecting land mines.
Can you move fast enough to survive, Bell?

I think so,
his young friend replied.
Anyway, if I don’t try, I’m a pretty good target for those crows I see heading my way.

Devlin heard Bell’s mental countdown, followed by a huge explosion, followed by Tavia’s anguished shouts of “Bell! Bell!” Those shouts drew a hail of gunfire. Dev moved closer, but only in time to see Bellamy, thank the Gods, diving into Tavia like a wrecking ball, and taking her down in a tangle of limbs before the crows could shoot her where she’d stood.

Retreat!
Devlin told them.
Get back to the Jeep. Go, now!

Bell and Tavia sprang up and took off at speeds no human eye could follow. He felt them leap the fence and race toward Emma’s waiting car, which they’d left hidden a half mile away. They would make it in mere seconds. Devlin darted from one piece of wrecked equipment to the next, each sprint rendering him a dark blur in the night. He’d managed to get behind the crows, who were flocking into a large half-moon shaped motor pool building where lights flashed on. Crouching low, he watched as a larger door was wrenched open, revealing the dozens of vehicles inside. He expected them to come to life and go speeding after his crew, but for some reason they didn’t. And then someone was shouting about missing keys.

He frowned, then called out to Tavia and Bellamy.
Are you back at the Jeep yet? Is Emma there?

We are, Devlin. And no, Emma’s not. Andrew was here before us.

There was something in Tavia’s energy there, something in her tone, for her voice came as clearly into his mind as if she was speaking aloud. He’d had misgivings about Andrew for a while now. He’d told her as much, silently, when he’d sent her off with him and Bellamy.

Get back to the island,
Devlin told Tavia.
Do it now. I’ll contact you as soon as I can. Make sure you’re not followed and don’t forget to grab your phones. Leave mine.

But–

Do it. Trust me, this is the best move. Get back. I’ll contact you. Until I do, you’re in charge, Tavia.

She didn’t reply and he could only hope she had decided to obey him. He had plans for that island, big plans. But he couldn’t go and leave Emma here. And now that he was nearer the main part of this secret base, he felt her energy. Just as he had always felt it. Like a siren’s song, luring him in to get her out of whatever jam she’d got herself into. He only hoped this time she wasn’t leading him straight to his own demise. If she was this close to the building, there could be only one reason why. She’d been caught.

He couldn’t resist going after her, and wouldn’t walk away even if he was capable of it. He could tell himself it was because she was one of The Chosen. But he knew better. No other woman, Chosen, or vampire, or ordinary human, had ever attracted him the way she did. The force she exerted over him was powerful and it was unique. He was helpless to leave her. And even if he hadn’t been, he still would have gone after her.

So much for remaining detached.

As men came pouring out of the motor pool, he rose from his hiding place, raised his hands over his head, and said, “You’ve caught me.”

There was a soft sound, punctuated by a jab in his chest. He looked down at the dart sticking out of him, reached up to pluck it free, and sank to his knees as black ink seeped into his vision, into his awareness, covering it completely.

Emma couldn’t believe what she was seeing! Devlin with his hands up, surrendering? Then knocked out with some kind of tranquilizer dart? What was he thinking?

As he fell, first to his knees, then in ultra slow-mo facedown in the dirt, men swarmed around him, and she ran forward too, unable to stop herself.

“Stop right there.”

Emma froze, ice water trickling down her spine at the voice from behind her. It was a voice she’d heard before, commanding crows on the Pacific shore the night two teenagers had been shot and taken prisoner. She didn’t dare turn around, glancing down at her ill-fitting black fatigues and wondering if they concealed her identity at all. There were thirty or forty men there. No women that she’d seen so far. Had she remembered to silence the cellphone that was tucked inside one too large boot? She thought she had and prayed it wouldn’t make a sound if she hadn’t. They were all around her; she’d lunged right into their midst when she’d seen Devlin go down.

Then she noticed that everyone had stopped moving, and they were backing away from Devlin.

“Alpha Team Leader, organize your men and sweep the outer perimeter. Vampire combatants are to be taken prisoner. Humans, shot on sight,” said the commander.

One of the crows stepped out, gave a snappy salute. “Yessir, Commander Hobbs, sir! Alpha Team, on me! Double time!”

About ten of the men quickly separated themselves from the crowd and went jogging away behind their leader.

“Team Beta, search the grounds,” Commander Hobbs shouted. “Inspect the fence. Bring back a damage report. Same rules apply to the enemy. Go.”

A second group, this one also including ten men, took off to obey.

The crowd was thinning. She still had on her riot gear, though some of the men had removed their helmets and visors by now.

“Delta Team,” the commander went on. “Return to barracks and get some shut eye. You’ll take watch in four hours. I need a volunteer to take our new prisoner to a cell.”

Emma swallowed the fear in her throat, pivoted smartly, offered a salute, and didn’t say a word. She kept her eyes downcast, and hoped the vest hid her breasts.

“Excellent, Ruis. Let’s do it.”

Ruis? Oh, right. Their names were on their pocket patches. She walked right up to where Devlin lay on the ground, bent down when the commander did, hooked her arm under Dev’s just as he did, and then hefted him up and tried to pretend it wasn’t an effort. They carried his upper body, letting his legs drag behind. She managed to hold her own, despite that Commander Hobbs wasn’t as much help as he would’ve been without his pronounced limp. They headed for the entrance to the building where Devlin had said he’d sensed lives.

She sneaked a look at the commander as they moved forward, then snapped her eyes front again, having confirmed he was the same hound faced man who’d been in charge down at the ocean, when they’d taken those two kids captive.

They went through the door of what looked like a decrepit building that was long and rectangular in shape. Inside, dead ahead, was a ruin. Crumbling walls, broken windows, plaster dust and debris. But immediately to the right there was a landing with metal stairs going down about four steps, then another landing where the stairs turned at a right angle, four more steps, another right angle landing, and so on. Devlin’s legs and feet banged over them all the way down, and the noise of that echoed and bounced off the steel and the narrow walls. Emma cringed and hoped he wouldn’t wake up hurting and bruised.

They reached the bottom, and she tried to see everything without being obvious. There was a long narrow hall with closed doors off either side. Most of the doors didn’t have windows. At the end of the hall they reached a T, and that was where the cells began. They went left, though there were cells down the right wing as well.

She glanced inside every cell, hoping and praying to see her father. She saw, instead, the wild tangled hair of the teenage girl who’d been shot point blank only to come back to life and kill her attackers. She sat on the floor in a corner, staring at nothing. She did not look at them as they passed, but Emma got a very good look at her, recalling her face the way she’d seen it before, lax, eyes closed, bathed in the glow of that van’s taillights. Emma wondered if Sheena knew this was Devlin being dragged past her or that he had come to rescue her. A few empty cells, and then they passed the one that held the boy, her male counterpart. Wolf. He lay on his cot, pretending to sleep. She could tell he was only pretending, by the way his eyelids moved.

The cells were tiny, cramped, and miserable. The bars, not black, but shiny as polished chrome. And still, no sign of her father. Just the two teens, though there might have been others down that left wing of the hall, and she wondered if that was where her father was being kept.

A few more steps brought them to another empty cell, and Commander Hobbs pulled a walkie from his belt and said, “Open Seven.”

There was a loud, electronic buzz, followed by the clack of metal locks springing free, and then the cell door slid slowly open. They dragged Devlin inside, and as they passed through the open, barred cell door, she glanced down at where it would meet the solid wall when it closed again, searching for the locking mechanism. Metal teeth stood wide open, ready to accept the tongue of the door. They would clamp down on it when it closed.

Inside, the commander just dropped Devlin, letting him hit the floor hard. She had no choice but to do the same, and tried not to wince visibly when his chin pounded onto the concrete.

Commander Hobbs had lost interest, apparently used to treating his underlings like pieces of meat. He turned around and stepped out of the cell, Emma doing so right by his side. “Guard the cell, soldier,” he said. “Report in the minute he wakes, and use extreme caution.” He was limping away down the hall as he spoke, not even looking back at her. She eyed the open cell door, and contemplated how she could keep it from locking when it closed again. Hobbs reached for his walkie. He was almost to the corner now. She had a metal barrette in her hair, underneath her helmet, but if she pulled the helmet off and he looked back, he would see that she was a woman and not one of his men. She hadn’t spotted a female in the entire bunch of them. Hobbs pulled the radio off his belt, lifted it to his mouth. Two steps before the corner, he said, “Close Cell Seven.”

The whir came, the cell door started to move. Hobbs clipped his walkie back onto his belt. He pivoted around the corner. Emma whipped off her helmet, tore the metal barrette from her hair, and jammed it into the lock’s open teeth as the cell door banged her hand. She clenched her jaw to keep from howling in pain. The mechanism immediately clamped down on the barrette and the door stopped moving. There was barely an inch gap in the cell door, and she had to twist and pry to get her hand free of it. She did, then rubbed her knuckles, wondering if any of those tiny bones in her hand were broken. Damn, it hurt.

Okay, it was done. But that was barely a beginning. How was she going to wake Devlin? And once she did, how was she going to get him out of here? And how could she open those other cells?

“You have a talking box too, don’t you?” asked a female voice.

Emma frowned, turning in the direction it was coming from. Then she walked that way, careful not to let her borrowed and way-too-big boots tap the floor very loudly, but hurrying at the same time.