Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Ethan
He was alone.
He had been nothing. Gone. And when he was Ethan again, he was alone.
It was eerie, how dark the building was at night.
Was it even night? There were no windows in his basement lab, but somehow it felt late. It felt gloomy and ominous. It felt like the time when wicked things claimed ownership of the world, moving through the shadows to steal the lives of any who dared intrude during these unholy hours.
The shadows owned this moment, so the shadows were all he saw.
Except…
There. A red light blinked on a monitor. The only light in the room. Dim at first, and then brighter, his surroundings flashing between the pure darkness of a void and the eerie red glow that showed the walls dripping with blood.
His heart thumped in time with that flashing light.
Thump. Flash. Shadows.
Thump. Flash. Bloody room.
Thump. Flash. Something moving in those shadows.
Thump. Flash. Blood hitting the floor with a drip, drip, drip.
Why was there so much blood?
It oozed from the computers.
It leaked from the lab equipment.
And it trickled from the corner of his lips.
He tried to spit it out, but more filled his mouth the moment he did. Not overwhelming, not choking, just a steady drip of blood sliding down his chin and spilling onto his white lab coat, the crimson stain spreading across his chest.
This wasn’t happening. His lab shouldn’t be covered in blood. He rushed over to the mass spectrometer, trying desperately to find the source, but the blood came from inside the machine, leaking out of every aperture and orifice in the equipment.
“No,” he muttered. “This is wrong. This is all wrong.”
“Or is it so perfectly right?” a female voice hissed, the words floating over his shoulder and sliding into his ears like an unwelcome intrusion.
He whirled around, but there was no one there. Only the steady blink of bloody light and menacing shadows.
He glanced down at his wet hands. So much blood. It was everywhere. On everything. And no matter how hard he tried to wipe his hands clean, the blood wouldn’t leave. It stained his skin. His clothes.
His soul.
“Light,” he mumbled. “I need to find a light.”
“No light for you, little moonflower,” the voice replied in a taunting tone.
He spun around again.
Nobody there. Just a shadow.
He ran for the door, desperate to escape the bloody lab and the horrific red light.
He grabbed the handle and tugged. Jerked. Yanked. Slammed his foot on the door and pulled with all his might.
It wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t even a bolt or latch to unlock it. He was stuck inside.
Find a key, he thought, glancing around.
Nothing. No keys. Only blood and shadow.
Try again. Pull harder. Do whatever it takes.
He reached for the doorknob once more, but it was gone. No knob. No lock.
No door.
“No escape,” the voice came again, crawling into his brain.
Ethan screamed as he pounded on the space where the door had been only moments before. Just a smooth expanse of wall, as if no exit had ever existed.
“Let me out,” he shouted as he backed away from the missing door and bumped into a shelf of test tubes and petri dishes. “I want to go home.”
He grabbed the neck of a nearby beaker and smashed its base on the edge of a worktable. He held so tight to his improvised weapon, he feared it might fully shatter in his grip.
The voice chuckled softly. “But Ethan, you’re already—”
He didn’t hesitate that time. When the voice started speaking, he whipped around. “I will fucking end you!” he screamed as he plunged the broken glass into the chest of the vampire.
“—home.” She grinned at him, blood spilling from her mouth in a thick crimson waterfall.
And then she started to change.
Flash of red. Her nose straightened.
Flash of red. Her eyes lightened.
Flash of red. Her skin darkened.
Flash. Flash. Flash. Change. Change. Change.
Until Tressa stood before him, staring down at the glass jutting out from her chest.
“No,” he whispered, rushing forward to catch her. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, lifting a hand to brush back the hair dangling in front of his face. “Everything… is going to be… okay.”
Then she died in his arms.