Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
APRIL
When the asshole leading me to my imminent death starts dragging me towards the beautiful doors of the Millennium Hotel, a burst of hysterical laughter escapes me.
Tall, sand-colored columns stretch above my head, holding the overhang.
Pretty potted plants decorate either side of the large glass double doors.
I was standing here just last night, thinking of a way to break in.
Apparently, all I had to do was find an idiot to drag me in by the arm.
No one pays us any attention when we pass through the elaborate arched doors, but my jaw drops to my chest once inside.
Wide-eyed, I look around at the beauty surrounding me.
Colorful rugs cover the marble floors. Beautiful pieces of furniture are sprinkled around tastefully without making it look overcrowded.
The creams and light browns give me a sense of calm I shouldn’t be feeling at the moment.
Transported in time, I pay no attention to anyone mulling around in the lobby, until four bodies, all dressed in black, stop our movement forward.
“I need to see the Italians,” asshole tells them, jerking me in front of him like a shield.
All four of them take a step back, their faces twisting in disgust. I grin at them like a loon, proud that my stench is at least turning their stomachs.
I gave up on fighting the inevitable, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy seeing them suffer.
By the green look on their faces, they’re suffering all right.
“No one goes up,” the one on the left speaks, his voice sharp like a drill sergeant.
“They will want to see me,” asshole growls, clearly angry that he can’t just walk past them. The one that spoke lifts his lips aggressively, fangs flashing in the soft glow of the hanging chandeliers. “I have one of the run…”
Panic surges through me when I realize that he is about to tell four vampires, Guardians judging by the way they are dressed, that I’m one of the few remaining humans still hiding.
Stomping on his foot as hard as I can, I tumble on the ground when the asshole’s words are cut off, and he squeals like a cut pig, dropping me at his feet.
Scrambling around, I scurry like a rodent towards the only doors I can see on my right.
There is a sign next to them of a person and stairs, so I’m assuming that’s where the stairway of the hotel is.
Maybe I can get out through the parking lot, if the hotel even has one of those.
“Now you think of running, April, you idiot. You should’ve tried this earlier.” Huffing under my breath, hyperventilating from the fast beating of my heart, I almost fly at the doors in front of me.
The asshole yells something behind me, shouts ring out, and everyone present in the lobby turns around to see what the commotion is all about.
I’m so close to the doors that I can feel the metal of the door handle under my palm.
Until a body slams into my back, propelling me even faster towards the unforgiving wooden door that will no doubt knock me unconscious when I hit it.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I brace for impact, my entire body stiffening in expectation of the pain that will follow.
A whoosh of air washes over my face, ruffling my hair a second before my body collides with something hard, but not as hard as a wooden door.
A soft oomph reaches my ears before I’m tangled in a heap of limbs.
I’m grateful that I’m not knocked out, hoping to untangle myself and bolt out of here as soon as possible.
That hope dies when someone snatches me by the hair, pulling me away from three twisted bodies at the entrance.
“I apologize for this, sir. I didn’t expect them to be so fast,” the Guardian stammers, gripping my hair so tight that a pathetic whimper bursts through my lips.
Two pairs of red eyes lock on me from the twisted heap on the floor. Asshole starts yelling something unintelligible and the Guardian keeps spewing apologies like his life depends on it, but I can’t look away. Fear tries to rear its ugly head, but an overwhelming feeling pushes it away.
Safety.
How, in the middle of a vampire den, my stupid mind finds the idea to make me feel safe, I will never know.
Maybe asshole is right and I am mentally challenged.
It’s not like I can tell the difference since I’ve never stuck around anyone long enough to notice.
Even Eddie whispered behind my back about my peculiar behavior.
A blur of movement pulls me out of my internal debate about my sanity, bringing with it the sharp pain of my hair being ripped out of my skull.
“Release the human.” The deep voice resonates in my chest like the sound of a bass, sucking all the oxygen from the lobby. There is a slight accent to it, making me shiver for a very inappropriate reason given the situation.
“I will remove both at once, sir. As I said, I didn’t expect the boy to be that fast.” The Guardian turns around, pulling me along with him.
That’s when I realize that he is talking about me.
I almost laugh again, but luckily, it’s only an internal reaction.
He thinks I’m a boy, which is a good thing.
Especially when I’m surrounded by testosterone on all sides.
Asshole finally lifts himself off the floor, jumping for good measure when he straightens, like a fighter that’s been down for only a second.
“I’ll be taking the runner to the Italians,” stubbornly, he snaps at everyone, spitting the words I tried to stop from passing his lips.
Everyone freezes, and the Guardian’s head snaps in my direction.
My head rests at an awkward angle since he is still holding a fistful of my hair.
I can’t see anyone’s face, or above their shoulders, but I can feel their eyes burning a hole in my head.
The one with the deep voice speaks again, slightly pointing the finger at the asshole.
“Andrei,” he says, his voice soothing my anxiety, “the filth stays alive.”
I’m not sure if he is referring to me or asshole when he says filth.
Not that I can blame anyone if they called me that.
My mind doesn’t have time to register what is happening when a gust of air blasts my face.
The hand gripping my hair disappears, and streaks of movement dart left and right, making me cross-eyed when I try to catch a glimpse of what’s going on.
Thumps and sounds of furniture breaking into splinters still echo around the empty lobby when two sets of black boots stop in my line of sight.
Sometime, during the few seconds it takes everything to start and end, I must’ve looked at the floor to stop the spinning of my head.
Slowly lifting my face up, my gaze travels over two perfectly sculpted bodies, the fabric of their black military style pants and long-sleeved shirts stretching to its limits, outlining every muscle like it has been painted on them.
At five foot five, my eyes are level with their chests, so I tilt my head up, straining my neck to look at their faces.
I shouldn’t have looked.
Perfect, angelic features that have no right to grace the face of a monster are staring back at me. High cheekbones, aquiline noses, and full lips a woman would die for, face me without expression. Just their eyes glimmer with a red glow when my gaze darts from one face to the other.
“She came to us,” the one on my left, with dark brown hair tousled from his fast movement, says as he glances sideways at his friend.
“This is her?” Curiosity is apparent in the warm, musical voice of the blonde on my right. He tilts his head slightly, watching me like one would look at an exotic animal in a zoo. The dark haired one grunts in confirmation while they stare at me without doing anything else.
“I need to see the Italians,” asshole snaps from somewhere behind them, making me jolt out of the hypnotized state I was in while staring at the monsters.
“Shut him up, would you,” the dark-haired one implores his friend softly right before he lets out a heavy sigh.
Without moving his focus from me, the blonde turns his upper body slightly, throwing a punch.
The crunching of cartilage sounds around us before a loud thump tells me asshole is out for a while.
Some of my rational brain gets online, and my eyes dart around, looking for a way out.
It was a bad idea to look around me. Still standing right before the door to the stairs, I can see most of the lobby.
The beautiful room that I watched in awe, what feels like a year ago, is now wrecked chaos with headless bodies tossed everywhere.
Not just the four Guardians that intercepted us when asshole dragged me in.
Even the bystanders that heard asshole calling me a runner lay dead wherever they were standing.
Blood paints the creams and light browns of the hotel, the master artists that decorated it standing in front of me like statues of gods not blinking an eye at all the dead bodies.
A pathetic whimper is all I can manage when the situation becomes as clear as day. Asshole was taking me to the Italians.
I think we found them.