Chapter 41
Unsurprisingly, the woman thudded against the door shouting for me to release her.
Too bad the music was blaring loud enough that no one else would hear her.
Whisking myself away and down the corridor from the woman’s shouts, I took a blurry photo of my neck from a low angle, like the photo was taken surreptitiously from a distance, and sent it off to the woman’s Events Team chat with a note: Last seen entering surveillance room.
I chose the surveillance room because it was on the second floor and I wouldn’t accidentally be drawing any more apothecary events team members past their accomplice I’d locked on the lower level, nor run the risk of tampering with the agents’ activities, or the evidence.
Because the surveillance room was actually two doors down the hall.
I was seated in the decoy, a room outfitted with wires running underneath the door to adjacent rooms to look like a hub of activity.
It was one of the traps the agents laid in case someone tried to mess with the security footage, or the cameras.
The laptop set up in the far corner of the room rigged to record and relay whoever attempted to access the computer.
Spinning myself in the office chair, I waited.
It wasn’t too long before the door opened and the younger man from the apothecary events team popped his head into the room.
“Sorry, am I not supposed to be in here?” I ran a hand over my belly. My words chosen with care because he needed to decide to enter the room without me applying any pressure which could be considered entrapment. “It was a lot down there, and I just needed a breather.”
“You’re fine here,” the young man said, stepping through the door way with another, larger, man close on his heels. “We were just sent to check on you.”
Shit, there were two of them. And Jezebel had only been able to get her hands on one pair of fluffy leopard print handcuffs. “By who?”
“Do you need some fresh air?” The bigger man didn’t answer my question, but at least they were smarter than the woman locked downstairs. No, ‘you-don’t-know-me-but-why-don’t-you-come-join-us-in-our-car’ asks here.
“I’m fine, I just need to stay off my feet for a bit, then I’ll be good to go.”
They hovered, both sets of eyes darting to my neck, then each other. But neither took initiative, and I couldn’t take it for them.
Swiveling side to side in my chair, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were thinking.
It wasn’t like they’d have an opportunity to bring me outside against my will, without being seen by half the fang ceremony attendees, and their behavior was not begetting trust. Especially, if they continued pressing into the room.
The only real option would be for them to wait for me in the hall, and keep an eye on me throughout the evening.
“We’ll be right outside if you need us.”
Like that.
Making note of the closet as they left, I reformed my plan to account for the second man. Working smarter, not harder was my forte, and the fluffy leopard print cuffs could still come in handy. But what I needed now, was some proof of their involvement.
It didn’t take long for the phone I’d stolen to buzz, a new message appearing in the group chat: We’ve got eyes. Bite confirmed. Surveillance room.
Good enough for me. I flung open the double closet door then smashed the office chair I’d been sitting on into the wall.
Yes, the bass was loud, but the bang I made was louder—for anyone stationed directly outside the door.
Dropping to my hands and knees, the men hurtled into the room, rounded me. “What’s going on? What happened?!”
The larger of the two men was in front of me offering a hand up, the other at my back. If I positioned myself just right, I could get them both in one go.
Accepting the man’s proffered hand, I smashed my knee up into the soft spot between his legs as I made to stand. “Oh my god, sorry!” I stabbed my foot back, feigning a recoil, only to hit a similar target on the man behind me. “Ah sorry!”
Both men doubled over and preoccupied by pain, I slipped their phones out of their pockets and into the bodice of my dress.
“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to.” My foot collided with the larger man’s chest as he made to stand, sending him sprawling backwards with a thump into the back of the closet. “Whoops!”
Okay, that might have been a little obvious.
“What the hell!” The younger man, bounced from foot to foot, still cupping the space between his legs. He looked about ready to pounce.
When he did, I was ready. All I did was stick my foot out, and he tripped himself, stumbling forward until he fell into the closet, landing directly on top of the larger man with a satisfying, “Oof!”
For being anti-vampers, they sure hadn’t trained to take on someone who was prepared to fight back. A fire lit beneath my skin. There were two of them, and they couldn’t even handle me. They were used to preying on the weak.
Handcuffing the closet door shut from the outside, I did my best to quell the rage burning within me.
“You bitch!” they shouted, banging their fists against the closet doors. “Let us out!”
The men continued to yell, bashing themselves against their makeshift prison.
With the amount of energy they were expending, they would tire themselves out before any real property damage was done.
The closet was solid, the hinges were on the outside, the handles sturdy, I was fairly certain the fluffy cuffs would hold.
The men would be dealt with later. They would get their just desserts.
Ignoring the ache in my back, I took a deep, centering, breath.
With the men locked away, there was only one anti-vamper left, which meant the odds were more than in Fawzy’s favor.
?
Taking a detour onto the terrace, I dropped two of the phones I collected into the pool, and one over the edge of the railing to preserve the messages, before returning indoors. Part Two of Operation Divide and Conquer would be underway soon, and I needed to be in place.
I clung to the walls to avoid being swept into the writhing mass of bodies, all pulsing against one another to an obscure slowing beat. Sweat dripped down my bodice. The heat was verging on unbearable, but it would be over soon. I just needed to hold out a bit longer.
Observing the swarm from the periphery, I spotted Fawzy towards the middle of the fray, getting all sorts of vamp attention. She was a natural, and when it came to the ceremony, I was sure she’d do just fine. Everyone else would just have to play their parts.
Skirting the edge of the room, I worked my way back towards the terrace doors for a bit of fresh air.
I was so close I could almost feel the breeze, when an arm draped around my waist, and tugged me against a firm form.
I fought off fight mode just long enough to sense lips at my ear.
The reverberations of a familiar voice. “Dance with me.”
Spinning in Jack’s arms, I placed a palm on his thrumming chest. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair mussed, skin glistening with sweat.
The music was slowing…the people around us crowded so close to one another it was hard to tell where one person ended and another began. Lenore was nowhere in sight.
I still had time.
“One song.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than all of me was pressed up against all of Jack. Anywhere else I would have been worried about our posture and proximity, but here, here we were blending in.
“You’ve been getting yourself into trouble.” Jack squeezed the hand I held against his chest, the pulse of the bass throbbing through us both.
Tipping my head up, my lips graced the shell of his ear. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re telling me you got this by accident?” He drew a thumb over the bite mark on my neck.
I shrugged. “Carmen was hungry.”
Jack drew a languid line up my spine. “Observe and report, Delilah. That’s the job.”
“I observed…” I pressed my chest flush with Jack’s. “…a lot of attention from the apothecary staff after Carmen had her snack.”
“If you’ve been observing, as you say, then you wouldn’t mind pointing these staff out, now, would you?”
Crap. He had me there. If I’d been observing, and only observing, I would have each of the suspects marked, and I’d have been able to give Jack their coordinates relative to landmarks in the room. Something he knew quite well.
I took my time, slithering my hand up Jack’s chest, rising on my toes, pressing my cheek into the stubble at the side of his face, ready to—
Strobe lights flashed.
The world slowed down, broken apart by the bright pulsing beams. Whatever I’d planned on saying evaporated on my tongue as Jack and I reared away from one another, scanning the crowd. Only catching glimpses between light and darkness, then—
SPLASH!
My stomach dropped. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Both Jack and I knew exactly one person who was prescribed anti-seizure medication, and he routinely failed to take it.
The strobing lights, the accompanying splash, could only mean one thing: Todd was having a seizure. And had fallen in the pool.
Jack and I exchanged one fleeting look before charging our way through the stop-motion crowd and onto the patio.
My heart stopped.
In the center of the blood-red pool was Todd. His body thrashing, rocking waves that crashed over the edges. People were shouting, staring, just fucking watching, as Jack and I pushed past.
Todd was seizing. In water. And no one was doing anything.
I saw red. I saw Todd. And the rest of the world fell away.
It didn’t matter that I was wearing a dress. It didn’t matter that I was carrying a passenger. It didn’t matter that Part Two of Operation Divide and Conquer was not going to plan. There was only Todd. And he needed me.