Chapter 37 A Silent Prayer #2
He lowered himself beside me. Not too close, but at the same time—too close.
I couldn’t help but stare at his hands, seeking evidence of blood.
They were clean, but his black shirt was stained darker and soiled like an oil slick on an ocean at night.
I took a large gulp of alcohol and swallowed it down loudly.
“You have five seconds to tell me what you’re doing here, and how you found me.”
Katrina and Robert’s faces flashed in my head and suddenly the anger returned.
“Well, if you need me to explain all that, I’m going to need more than five seconds.
” His lips thinned, and he said nothing, but his look was enough to rattle the words from me.
“I found your address in the office at work, and a girl in the bar down the road told me I could find you here. I came to ask you if you murdered Katrina and Robert.”
He sat back, clearly perplexed. “What makes you think I murdered them?”
Was he trying to ascertain how many clues he’d left behind?
Like the fact that he’d just ripped the head off a vampire wasn’t enough evidence in itself.
“You told me Robert was drunk, and I knew he wasn’t drinking.
Then you told me Katrina went home ill. She didn’t; I saw her.
You ran me out of the fire and tried to pretend I’d run myself out.
So I knew you were not a normal human. Katrina had ligature marks on her wrists that were conveniently missed in the medical report.
Oh, and let’s not forget all the other car accidents that aren’t really accidents, and all those missing hikers. ”
He simply stared at me, and my heart sank. No denial wasn’t exactly a full confession, but it was as good as. The vampire’s death I could handle, maybe, but not people I cared about.
“You son of a bitch,” I hissed.
“You have no idea about the things you speak of, which are much more complicated than you know.”
“Complicated?” I repeated, my teeth grinding. “If that isn’t the biggest understatement of the fucking century, I don’t know what is. You make me sick.”
He reeled back like I had just slapped his face. Then he leaned forward and said in a low tone, but he may as well have roared, “You should consider your words carefully.”
“Oh, I’ve considered them. “My hand tightened around the bottle. “You are a—”
“We need to go.” Dahlia cut me off but kept her tone casual. She glanced across the room at all the vampires watching us pointedly. “You two can continue your lovers’ tiff at home.”
“He’s not—” I didn’t get my sentence out before her hand gripped my shoulder, her fingernails digging hard into my skin and making me flinch.
“Yes, he is,” she whispered, and her blue eyes were filled with an ice-cold warning.
Karson rose to his feet, hovering over me. “We are going home, now,” he ordered, raising the tiny hairs all over my body. When I hesitated, he grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
I gritted my teeth and hefted the bottle. He had it out of my hands before I could even attempt to swing it.
“Do not try and bite off more than you can chew.”
The threat slithered down my spine. “Fuck you. Let go of my arm.”
The people at the table beside us turned to stare. A girl clutched her hand over her mouth and choked back laughter. A male smiled a lazy smile, as if our argument mildly amused him.
“Lovers’ tiff,” Dahlia said to the vampire.
He gave a knowing nod, like he’d been there a thousand times before. Then he took a sip of whiskey, the glass distorting his grin to Hannibal Lecter proportions.
Shaking, I jerked from Karson’s grip and lurched toward the door, but he caught up in a few steps and grabbed my arm again.
“You are being ridiculous, Amelia. Walk beside me and behave yourself.”
I tried to jerk away, but he held tight. Dahlia opened the door, and we strode out.
The hallway wall provided support for the brunette I’d met in the restroom as she gazed into the eyes of a brown-haired vampire, like they held the answer to a universal secret. He cradled the side of her head with all the tenderness of a lover, then he moved his mouth toward her neck and bit her.
I shuddered.
Other vampires stared as we passed. Some seemed to be curious—others openly hostile. A boy in his teens, with stark white hair and eyes of black ice, hissed like an adder. I tensed and fought every natural instinct that told me to run.
“I wouldn’t consider it if I were you, Phillipe,” Karson warned with a dangerous calm. “Or you will not live to see sunrise.”
The boy glared, not at him, but at me with such hatred that my heart started racing.
Karson put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me against the side of his body.
It was a protective move, and at this point, the safest place to be.
As we emerged from the end of the hallway, a blur of red and blond caught the corner of my eye.
On my right, just beneath the stairs, a flaxen-haired woman was flat on her back.
Her cherry-red lips were open, and her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling.
Her skin was unnaturally white, devoid of any color—as if all the blood had been sucked from her.
With a flash of gut-wrenching horror, I realized it had.
The party went on around her body as if she were nothing but a scrap of food tossed to the floor.
Karson yanked me forward. “No,” he said in a low rumble into my ear.
“Jesus, we have to help her!” I protested, trying to duck out from under his arm, but he held me firm.
“It’s too late,” Dahlia muttered, glancing down at the girl with a furious expression on her face. “Bastards.”
Karson tugged me forward, forcing me through the doors and out into the crisp night air. It wasn’t until we’d turned the corner of the alleyway that he let me go. I jerked away from him, breathing furiously. His phone vibrated, and he pulled it from his trouser pocket.
“Ethan, she’s here. I’m taking her home. I’ll bring her back tomorrow.” He hung up.
“I’m not staying at your house,” I argued, crossing my arms. “I’ll stay at the motel.”
“You will not.”
“I will damn-well stay where I want to stay, Karson!”
“It’s no longer safe, Amelia. If one of them got your scent and decided you’d make a nice snack, they would find you. And I will force you to stay with me if I have to.”
How exactly he would force me I didn’t know, nor did I like the thought of it. Becoming someone’s snack sounded somewhat worse, though. Reluctantly, I relented.
“Fine, but Dahlia is staying too,” I snapped. I didn’t know what she was; I just knew she’d saved me, and I wanted her around.
He said to Dahlia, “Get her stuff and meet us there. I assume you know where I live?”
She inclined her head and moved off, disappearing into the night. Apparently she didn’t need any information on where I was staying, nor the key to get in. That wasn’t creepy at all.
Karson turned left up an alleyway enclosed by old brick warehouse-style buildings.
I lagged a few feet behind him, scanning pointlessly for any means of escape.
Cars ambled past, but even if I cried out and they heard me and stopped, what could they do against a vampire?
It’d be like leading lambs to slaughter.
I couldn’t run, I couldn’t fight, I could only follow, forcing one foot in front of the other.
We’d almost reached the end of the alleyway when he halted, pressing a button on his key ring.
A black garage door whirred and rumbled, opening up into a cavity of pitch black.
Karson moved ahead and opened the front passenger door of a car, causing the light from the interior to illuminate the immediate surrounds.
I stepped inside, keeping my eyes focused on the light, and slid into the car. He clicked the door shut behind me.
When he got into the driver’s seat, I shrunk myself against the car door, placing myself as far away from him as I could, and rested my head against the cool windowpane. I stared out the side window, the image of the vampire’s head on the floor flashed behind my eyes.
He blinked. He. Blinked.
A fresh bout of nausea churned my stomach.
“Are you coping?” Karson’s tone was soft—in complete contrast to what he was, to what he’d done.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. A lump lodged itself in my throat. I thought of the blond girl’s face, pale and lifeless. I swallowed down the lump and drew in a raspy breath.
“Am I coping? Yeah, I’m just dandy. You’re a vampire, and you killed another vampire like he was nothing. You kill people . . . That poor girl is . . . is dead. I’m just fucking fine,” I choked out.
He didn’t respond, but a muscle in his jaw tensed.
I turned my head, pushing it hard against the glass, and watched the buildings and dim streetlights blur by. I started counting them just to try to hold together my unraveling mind.
Ethan, my friend, who made me pancakes and held me until I fell asleep.
He couldn’t be a vampire, surely? I lived with him; I would have seen something that told me what he was.
After a prolonged silence, I asked, “Is Ethan a . . . is Ethan like you?” I couldn’t pull the word vampire from my lips, like if I said it out loud, it’d be real.
“Yes.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead.
One word, and it sliced through me like a blade.
“Well, Ethan is going to kill you,” I seethed, “when he finds out what you did to Katrina and Robert.”
He snorted. “I did not kill Katrina or Robert. I had no need to, and trust me when I tell you, Ethan is no match for me.”
“If you had nothing to do with their murders, why didn’t you notice their car was still at the ball when you left? You told me you thought they left early,” I accused.
“Because it wasn’t there! When I left, there were a few cars remaining, but theirs was not one of them.”
“Why did you lie about what time you left the ball then?”
“That’s not an answer you need concern yourself with,” he answered bluntly.