Twilight Vendetta (20 page)

Yet another wave of weakness hit Devlin and he knew the sun must be kissing the sky, even now. “I won’t leave her.” His words were slurred.

“We’ll come back.”

Devlin’s eyes fell closed and his body started to sink toward the floor. He felt Willem Stone gather him up, fling him over his shoulder. And then he felt nothing.

“Where is he? Where is he, dammit?”

Emma stirred from the deepest sleep she could remember at the angry, shouting voice. She was still blinking the haze from her eyes as Commander Hobbs spoke to his radio, and her cell door clanked and rolled slowly open. Then he was beside her, hands on her shoulders, pulling her upright and shaking her. “How the hell did that vamp bastard escape? Answer me!”

She came fully awake when the flat of his hand connected with her face, rocking her head back.

And only then did his words connect. She looked past him at Devlin’s empty cell, at the still slightly open door. He’d made it out. It had been a couple of hours since he’d left, and she hadn’t heard any commotion, but then again, she didn’t have hearing like a vampire. She’d been worried sick, wondering. She’d used the time, though. Her phone, still laced snugly inside her borrowed boot, had still been there, and she’d used it to compose and upload a post about this very compound and her own captivity to the ERFU blog. All anonymous, of course, but if the government saw it, they would know. She was the only human prisoner here, at the moment.

“Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what happened.”

She blinked up at him. “I don’t. I think he put some kind of spell on me. Made me sleep through it. They can do that, right?”

His saggy face and hateful grimace stood in stark contrast to the man’s eyes, which were dark brown and thickly lashed. They looked like kind eyes. Like little boy eyes. But those eyes were a lie.

“On your feet,” he said slowly.

She got to her feet, which were clad only in socks now. She’d removed the too big boots and tucked the cell phone inside the mattress, after tearing it open in a spot they might not notice right away.

She wondered where Devlin had gone, whether he’d made it back to the island yet, whether he would try to come back for her. But no, he would have to find Sheena and Wolf first, wouldn’t he? They were young and vulnerable, and being hunted by DPI. He would have to go after them first. And he should.

She would be fine. She wasn’t a vampire. These guys wouldn’t hurt her.

Hobbs held her upper arm in a grip that said otherwise and would likely leave bruises. He marched her out of her cell and down a hall, through a door with an oddly bent knob, and into a white room. There was a table in the middle. It looked like an operating table. Her blood went cold.

“Lie down,” Hobbs commanded.

She blinked hard, noting the restraints, the overhead light, the cabinets, one of which stood open. Then she pivoted and lunged back into the hall.

Something jabbed her in the back, and then electricity crackled through her body, making every part of her jerk and shake and go completely limp. She fell to the floor, twitching and praying for the pain to stop.

“You will learn that it’s best,” said Hobbs, bending over her, his chapped lips moving so close to her ear that they touched it. “To do as I say.”

Then he pulled the Taser’s prongs out of her back and straightened, scooping her up off the floor. He carried her back into the room and dropped her onto the table, and then he buckled the leather restraints around her wrists and her ankles.

“You’re going to tell me where that vampire went. Or I’m going to hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine. Are you ready now?”

Bit by bit the effects of the Taser were ebbing, but the fear, the paralyzing fear of torture was taking hold. She was brave. She was an adventurer. She’d had a lot of injuries, a lot of pain. But the notion of someone deliberately inflicting it on her while she was strapped down and helpless to protect herself was frightening, even for her. She would not tell this man about the island. She would die first. Knowing that made her situation even more terrifying.

Hobbs went to the shiny stainless steel tray that stood near the open cabinets. Then he began taking items out and placing them there, lining them up with great care. Sharp edged blades, a plier-like tool, a large drill, several gadgets with hooks on their ends. “Where to begin, where to begin,” he said softly, rattling around in the cabinet for more items. “Ah. This might do the trick. You know sometimes, the simple things are the most effective.” He emptied out a plastic bag full of syringes, then pushed the instrument tray right up beside the table on which she lay. He had the bag in his hand. He had nudged the tray lower so he could get closer to her head and then, smiling evilly, he slid the plastic bag over her head while she thrashed and strained against her bonds, twisting her head from side to side. It did no good. He leaned over her, his hip nudging the tray lower as he closed his hands around her neck to hold the plastic tight.

She tried to breathe, but only succeeded in sucking the plastic right into her nose and mouth. He was going to kill her. She was going to suffocate. She strained even harder to get her hands free, and as she did her fingertips hit the edge of the tray. She angled her eyes as low as possible, and she could see it. The tray, within reach of her fingertips if she just angled them right.

Big black spots started blotting out her vision. Dizziness and desperation and panic tried to overwhelm her, but she told herself to be calm. He wasn’t going to kill her. He was trying to torture her into talking. He’d take the bag off any second now. But just in case....

Her fingers tipped the tray a little and inched up it, closing around the first instrument she touched. She worked its handle down into her palm, and clenched her fist around it, her eyes straining to see what prize she had won. A scalpel. Beautiful.

Now if he would only move closer to it so she could plunge it into him.

He didn’t. Her vision was going dark, and her struggles weakening. Don’t drop the blade, don’t drop the blade, she told herself. But it didn’t matter. He would see it soon.

The pressure around her neck eased. The bag was ripped away and she sucked in gulps of air. A female voice in the doorway, muffled by the roar in her head and her own desperate gulping breaths said, “Commander Hobbs, what do you think you’re doing? You are not qualified for enhanced interrogation. That’s my department, as you well know. This is completely– She’s got a scalpel!”

Hobbs turned and reached for her hand all in one movement. She drove the blade toward him, and his hands closed on her wrist, twisting and shoving it away. She strained, and he pushed harder, and then her strength gave out, and the blade sank deep into her own thigh. It was like stabbing a piece of tender meat. She didn’t even feel pain, at first.

But then Hobbs yanked the scalpel out of her, swearing, and the blood spurted with more force than she could believe. The newcomer said, “It hit the femoral artery! Get out of the way.”

Hobbs backed off while the woman, who didn’t wear a uniform, but rather, a long white jacket, like a doctor would wear, pressed both hands to Emma’s thigh so hard Emma thought the bone might crack. And yet her blood continued to ooze out around and beneath the woman’s hands. “Get me the bp cuff!” She all but screamed the words.

Hobbs lunged for the cabinets, slipped in Emma’s blood and fell to his knees, and when he got up again his hands were covered in glistening redness. She really was bleeding out, wasn’t she?

Emma felt light. Easy. Even a little bit giggly. “Good luck torturing a dead woman. Man, when my readers find out what you did–this will be great ammo for the movement, though, won’t it?”

“Dammit, I need that cuff!”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for!” Hobbs cried.

“Blood Pressure cuff, third cabinet, middle shelf, far left. Hurry!”

Hobbs rattled around, came back to the bedside, slipped and nearly fell again. There must be a lot of her blood on the floor.

“We’re gonna lose her. She’s lost too much,” the woman said.

She was going to die, she thought. She was never going to see Devlin again. She would never know what he felt for her. And she’d never find her mom...unless her mom was dead, after all. She guessed she’d know for sure pretty soon, wouldn’t she? Oh, her poor father! He was going to be devastated. She hoped he wouldn’t blame himself.

White coat told Hobbs to change places with her, and another big gush of blood came out as they moved. Then Hobbs was pressing on her thigh and the woman was lifting it, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around it and pumping it up. It hurt like hell.

“Okay, let up, Commander. See if this holds.”

Emma’s head was swimming. She was fading, she thought. At least Devlin got away. But damn, he would use this as an excuse to go all out violent against these assholes. And she was starting to think maybe he was right. They were going to torture her, an innocent, semi-famous daredevil writer who hadn’t even done anything all that wrong. They arrested her father. Too bad she wouldn’t be here to get him out. But maybe this would hit the news and people would start asking questions and....

“She needs a transfusion,” Hobbs said softly.

“We don’t have any BD Positive here, Commander. You know that.”

Suddenly, Emma’s mind relaxed completely. Every worry, every bit of sadness and regret, every fear, just sort of crumbled into dust and fell away from her. There was light all around her. Everywhere. She was floating, floating right up into it.

And then she wasn’t.

Emma felt as if she was falling, then she landed with a jarring thud. She opened her eyes. She was in her cell again, and for a moment she wondered if all the rest had been a dream.

But then she looked down at her thigh, and saw thick white bandages there. So it hadn’t been a dream at all.

Gosh, maybe she was dreaming now. Or dead. Could she be dead? Everything was so…
different
.

She could smell the scent of every person who had been in this place. Wolf and Sheena and Devlin. She smelled Hobbs and that woman who might be a doctor. She smelled her father, and jumped to her feet, half expecting to see him standing right in front of her, the sense of him was so real. And yet, he wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there in hours, maybe days. She knew that just by the scent.

She could feel each molecule of stale air that touched her skin. She could hear the vibrations of footsteps on the ground above and around her. There were murmurings of voices in the distance. And inside her head, noise that grew louder as soon as she paid attention to it. The thoughts and musings of a thousand individuals, maybe a million, all yammering at once.

She frowned and wished for them to go quiet. And they did. How very strange. Why was she suddenly so attuned? Why were her senses so...

Oh, God. It was coming back to her now. She remembered being on the table, the scalpel sinking into her thigh. She remembered that she’d been bleeding out, and that woman had said they didn’t have any blood of her type on hand. And she remembered something else. The last thing Hobbs had said. “We have
his
blood.”

And the woman said, “We have no choice.”

Half afraid to, Emma touched her tongue to her teeth, then drew it away with a gasp when it touched the razor sharp length of her newly modified incisors.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m a vampire.”

D
evlin woke, sat up, and shouted Emma’s name all at the same time. Then he sat very still and looked around to try and get his bearings. He’d expected to wake in a cell or someplace worse. But his expectations hadn’t even been close to the mark. He was in a bed with a mattress that cushioned him like a cloud, covered by a down-filled duvet of whitest white. Around him was not a cell, but a bedroom. Creamy walls and sheer ivory curtains over sun-blocking panels. Elegant furnishings, plush carpeting.

The door, painted white with an ornate brass knob, opened slowly and the human man he remembered from the night before–Willem Stone–came in, along with the scent of warm blood. Devlin’s muscles tensed. He got quickly to his feet only to find himself wearing a pair of pajamas, white with gray-green vertical stripes. What the hell?