Sullied

Chapter 1

One

Sullivan

My pulse pounds in my ears, racing faster than me. A lopsided gait is the best I can manage while clutching my favorite lab rat in one hand and the bloody mess of my stomach in the other. With each lurching stride, a fresh twinge of pain flares.

Damned barbed-wire fence. I seriously misjudged the danger of those spikes.

The threat of sunrise ticks closer with every passing minute. Darkness slinks away from the light. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be even more dead than I already am. Permanently dead.

Before I ever get a chance to live.

The coppery scent of my own blood spikes in my nostrils and awakens the thirst. My mouth waters.

I grit my teeth and redouble my efforts. How much farther could Dr. Martin’s house possibly be?

Though I studied the maps relentlessly while I planned my escape, the real world is much harder to navigate than the app on my stolen tablet. It’s bigger than I imagined, busy with unfamiliar textures and smells and animals and plants and, well, everything.

Plus, it’s late fall and freezing out. Colder than my cell. The chill burns the back of my throat as I gasp for each shuddering breath. Can’t slow down. Won’t quit.

The roads are mostly empty this early in the morning. No pesky witnesses to report my whereabouts. No one to notice the half-feral creature sprinting through the shadows in the woods by the road.

Even if I do make it to Dr. Martin’s, my safety isn’t guaranteed. He might be the only human who’s ever been kind to me, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be willing to help.

He might kill me himself.

But I have nowhere else to go.

Twenty-Four wiggles beneath my hand, climbing his way up to my shoulder as if demanding a better view. He probably is, clever thing. Maybe I should be asking him for advice instead of blindly charging toward whatever fate Dr. Martin sees fit to dole out.

No. I need to stop worrying about that. My instinct says he’ll help. Kind men don’t kill refugees. He’ll offer safe harbor to wait out the daylight. He will.

My memory of the map on the screen says I go right at the fork in the road, but I hadn’t realized it would be straight uphill through pastures with no forest for cover. The sky is lighter ahead, but I have to risk it.

Run another mile.

Take another right.

Seventh house on the left.

601 Dunraven Rd., Brownhill, NY 12856. I’ve had it memorized for three weeks and repeated the address in my head like a mantra. When I escape, head to 601 Dunraven Rd., Brownhill, NY 12856.

Hard to believe it’s actually happening.

My proximity gives me an extra boost of energy.

I hurry past the houses until I get to the seventh on the left.

Number 601. A ranch-style home with brown bricks, a brown roof, a black door, and a wide front porch.

One car in the driveway. He’s home. One window glowing yellow from inside. He’s awake.

Dr. Martin will save me.

He has to.

A rush of nerves sprawls from my chest, spidery tendrils with nowhere to go. Twenty-Four’s whiskers tickle my cheek. Blood drips through my fingers onto the crunchy dead grass at my feet.

My skin prickles at the back of my neck.

The sun.

It’s now or never.

I hobble to the front door, hold my breath, and knock.

Dr. Rupert Martin

I stifle a yawn. My morning coffee has yet to kick in, and I’m due to work the day shift at Innovation Immortal Technologies in just over thirty minutes. I need to get a move on.

My parents’ cat Socks—my cat now, I suppose, though you won’t catch me calling her that any time soon—glowers at me from her perch atop the refrigerator.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I gesture to her dish. “There’s food in your bowl already.”

Her glare hardens and she peers down her nose at me like I’d be beneath her notice were it not for the fact that I’m the keeper of the wet food.

“Fine.” I relent because it’s easier than being the sole focus of her feline rage.

The sound of the can opening has her leaping to the floor and executing perfect figure eights around my ankles as I scoop the stinky contents atop the rejected kibble.

“Happy?”

She chitters a rolling meow and tucks in.

I stare into the mostly empty fridge, wishing my food came in a convenient little tin too. Condiments, leftovers, some eggs. Nothing appealing. I’m still searching when a sudden banging at the door sends a jolt of adrenaline straight through me.

Why is someone knocking on my front door at this hour? What could they possibly want?

I don’t know any of my neighbors well enough for them to pay me a visit. Especially this early.

Heart racing, I head to the dusty window and peek out a slit between closed blinds.

Breath catches in my throat. “Sullivan?”

Sullivan—a new form of hybrid, lab-raised vampire—stands on my front porch, bedraggled, eyes so wide his pupils swim in a sea of white, green irises reduced to slivers. His long hair hangs in a tangled auburn mane around his shoulders.

His piercing emerald gaze locks on mine, desperate. “Help me,” he mouths through cracked lips.

I’m so shocked by his presence at my home—where he definitely shouldn’t be—it takes a second to notice the growing puddle of red on the wooden planks beneath his feet.

Holy shit.

That’s a lot of blood.

I yank open the door. “What happened to you?”

Probably not the first, nor the most important question I should be asking, but it rolls off my tongue faster than anything more suitable: Why are you here? Do they know you’re gone? How do you know where I live? Are you going to kill me? Wait, is that a rat in your hair?

He casts his frantic gaze over my shoulder then back to my eyes. “I have nowhere else to go.”

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. Injury or no injury, I should not let an extremely dangerous and possibly crazed vampire into my house.

He coughs, and a bit of blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. “Please? I need your help.” He ducks his head as if in pain. “The sun.”

I glance at the sky and sure enough, the first glimmer of light brushes a wide swath across the cloudy horizon. If it wasn’t overcast and misty, it would already be too late. Shit.

The way I see it, I have two choices.

Let him die. By far the safer choice. It won’t take long before he’s a shriveled husk marring the dingy old porch. I’d call the lab. They’d send a team for cleanup. My life would go on without interruption.

Or.

Let him in. Terrible idea. He could kill me in a heartbeat, and even if he doesn’t, harboring a fugitive from the lab where I work isn’t smart or safe. I want to get out of the company, not further entangle myself within it.

But…

Look at him. He’s all scared and bloody and frantic and maybe, beneath all of that and possibly worst of all… hopeful.

I won’t be the one to douse that hope.

Plus, I like Sullivan. He’s incredibly smart, despite every effort to keep him clueless. He’s kind. He’s interesting. And against all odds, he’s managed to develop a sense of humor even after a lifetime of captivity.

Fuck.

I can’t just let him die.

I swing the door open wider and step back. “Hurry up, then. Come in.”