Chapter 27 – Cassini
CASSINI
Megan’s body is nothing but bone and sinew.
She can’t weigh more than ninety pounds, and even with my jacket draped around her tiny body, her whole frame trembles in my arms. The thin fabric of her bloodstained chiffon dress does nothing to shield her from the late evening chill.
Her head lolls lifelessly against the crook of my arm, and I tap her pallid cheek with my hand as I hurry through the back alley, hiding in the shadows and searching for my car.
“Stay with me, Megan,” I plead. “I’m going to get you someplace safe. You’ve come this far. I just need you to hang on a little longer.”
If she dies, this will have been for nothing. All of it. I can’t have that happen. She has to live. When I plead with Megan to stay with me, to hold on a little longer, I’m not just talking to her. I’m saying a silent prayer for Lily.
Hold on. Please hold on. I’m so sorry.
I know Lily must be feeling the betrayal, but I had no choice. I had to take the only chance I’d get to rescue Megan. Without fulfilling the blood pact, I’ll only grow weaker, I have a long list of people to destroy, starting with the twins.
I’m going to tear Roel and Ronan apart for what they were planning to do to her.
Lily’s blood is potent but it didn’t last. I could only see flashes of violence—hear snippets of the disgusting thoughts that crossed their minds but that was enough for me.
The memory alone makes rage burn white-hot through my chest. Tonight, I’m going to make them pay for every sick fantasy they entertained about her.
The pain of leaving her with those animals tears at me from the inside, but I take some comfort in knowing she’s not in any immediate physical danger.
The twins like to play with their food for as long as possible.
First, they begin with psychological torture, then comes the violence.
They won’t have hurt her yet, but they’ll be scaring her.
Making her feel powerless and afraid, wondering when the physical pain begins and bracing for impact.
I just need to get to her before they move to the next phase.
Lily, hold on.
I push the thought toward her as hard as I can, but it hits a wall of static. Something is blocking our connection. She’s nothing but emptiness. Despite the blockade, I keep trying anyway. Chanting over and over, like I’m reciting the rosary.
Hold on. Please hold on. I’m coming. Amore, I’m coming.
When I reach my car, I breathe a sigh of relief and duck down beside it to avoid a couple of patrolling vamps. It won’t be long until they discover that Megan is missing, and I intend to be far away when that happens. I place her in the front seat and pull the buckle across her bony chest.
Her eyelids flutter open, and she blinks slowly as she struggles to identify me. Unsure if I’m a friend or foe. The dark, hollow space inside her calls out for a modicum of warmth and kindness. I reach inside her mind and flood her with benevolence. As much as I can give her.
“Where are we going?” she rasps. “Please don’t take me back. I can’t go back. Please…just kill me… I can’t go back.”
“I’m taking you home.”
Beau is waiting for me on the porch of the safe house when I pull up, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. When he sees me carrying his daughter, his face crumples.
“Is she—” he starts, but his voice breaks.
“She’s alive,” I say, even though the word feels wrong. “But she needs a hospital.”
She’s alive, yes, but there’s no life in her. She’s a shell in the truest sense of the word. An empty husk, broken by months of torture and abuse. Beau may have his daughter back physically, but she will never be the same again.
I lay her on the porch swing, and Beau drops to his knees beside her. His hands hover over her weary body like he’s afraid touching her might make her disappear. Then he puts his head in his hands and sobs. Huge, loud, wet cries that cause his chest to heave and the air to thin around him.
With hesitation, I do something I’ve never done before.
I lay my hand on his shoulder, and I comfort him.
He doesn’t reject it. He just takes Megan’s hand between his and kisses it, smearing his tear-soaked lips on her bony fingers.
When I look at them, all I can think about is the woman I left behind.
Lily, hold on. I’m coming.
Megan stirs, and with huge effort, drags her head to find the source of the noise. When she sees her father kneeling at her side—the unshakable former cop who loved her from the moment she was born and never gave up hope, sitting and blubbering uncontrollably—she smiles.
“Hi, Daddy.”
My work here is done. I squeeze Beau’s shoulder and turn to leave. I have to go, have to get back to Lily. Have to protect her from this darkness. At least now I have the strength to do it.
There’s already something happening in my body.
Something magical lifting and restoring the strength to my bones.
It’s small, but it feels like an imperceptible tingling in my fingertips.
A tiny electrical current pulsing through me and growing stronger with each moment.
I roll up my sleeve and hold my arm up to the porch light.
The blackened vein is fading, slowly, retreating like a beaten army.
At last.
Beau stands up, wipes his tears with the back of his hand, and clears his throat. “We’re done here. The contract is fulfilled.”
Instantly, my whole body lightens. The tingling in my hands spreads outward—my muscles remembering their strength, my reflexes sharpening to predatory precision.
Beau wipes his hand on the back of his pants and holds it out to me, and I take it, shaking his wet fingers between mine.
“It’s done,” I say.
He jerks his hand back and pulls me into an awkward bear hug, wrapping his arms around me and slapping me on my back like he’s trying to break me in half. The affection doesn’t come easily to him, or me, so we hold a stiff embrace for a second before breaking apart.
“How was it? What did they—”
“It’s better that you don’t know,” I say. “Not tonight, at least. You should focus on getting her well. Keep this moment a happy one.”
“Thank you,” he rumbles. “I mean it.”
I nod. “I know.”
A jolt of electricity passes between us, landing somewhere in my core, and I take a deep, grounding breath.
This is what I’ve been missing. This is what I need to save Lily from the dark underworld she didn’t ask to be a part of.
This is what I need to keep her safe from my family.
The full force of my hundreds of years of strength, no longer restrained by the bloodbinding.
On the walk back to my car, I pick up a rock and crush it to dust with my bare hands and smile to myself. The powder falls through my fingers like sand, and I think about how easily I could do the same to bone.
For the first time in months, I feel dangerous.
And I’m about to unleash hell for the woman I love.
It’s only been thirty minutes, but it feels like an eternity. Lily hasn’t sent back any proof of life, and now I’m seriously worried. I’ve sent plea after plea to her, but nothing has come back.
Amore. Please. I know you’re mad, but I promise, it’ll all be okay.
Nothing.
My knuckles are white on the wheel of the Maserati as I put my foot to the floor and race toward Nocturne. It’s still early. I still have time. I can still make this right.
There’s nothing quite like the threat of losing someone to make you reassess your priorities.
With every moment that passes, I get physically stronger, and the possibility of reaching Lily before she’s harmed slips further away.
If anything happens to her, I’ll torch this place.
The righteous anger provides some comfort, but it barely dampens the shame that niggles at me.
I did this. I can’t blame anyone else for the danger I put her in. I’m the piece of shit that did this.
The black warehouse comes into view, bringing with it a tidal wave of relief and a tsunami of fury.
I’m here, my love. I’m coming for you. Just hold on a little longer.
The back alley is teeming with vamps searching for Megan, so I need to retrace my steps.
This time, when I reach the door of the club, I march straight through it, knocking the two goons into the gravel in my wake.
One tries to protest, baring his pathetic infant fangs at me, but they soon meet my fist.
When I reach the entrance to the private rooms, a stocky bulldog with a tattooed face wielding a canister of silver-laced holy water tries to block me.
“You need to calm down, buddy,” he says, holding the spray out with an unsteady hand. “We’ve had a major security breach, and you’re making people uncomfortable. Whatever you’re on doesn’t agree with you. Try downers next time, eh?”
With a desperate roar, I tear the can from his hand and toss it to the ground, crushing it in the process. The escaping liquid spills and burns into my hand, but I barely feel it.
“The blonde I was with earlier. Where is she?” I hiss, wrapping my steaming fingers around his throat and squeezing. “Tell me where they took her. And you’d better not lie to me.”
His eyes bulge with terror and search for the other goons who are already closing in around me. It doesn’t matter. I’ll take every single one apart if I need to.
“I don’t remember,” he lies. “We get a lot of people in. I can’t keep track of them all.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” I roar, slamming him against the steel door. The sound of it causes a group of nosy revelers to look up from their drinks and start paying attention. “Tell me now, or I’ll pull your eyeballs out of your head.”
He raises his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. The little blonde skirt who was with the twins? They took her to the Styx room. Booked it out for the whole night.”
I drop him to the ground and tear the door open with my bare hands, shattering the flimsy locks with brute strength. Behind me, I’m aware of the approaching sound of footsteps. Six pairs of heavy boots, to be precise, but the sound is drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears.
Microscopic traces of her scent linger in the air, and the taste of them turns me into a man possessed.
I’m unreachable, in a trance of blind, single-minded violence, following the trail of her sun-soaked essence like a treasure map.
Faceless men and women, all vampires, attempt to stop me along the way.
They come at me with fangs bared and weapons drawn, but it’s all in vain.
I shake them off like ticks, throwing their inferior, newblood bodies at the walls and the ground.
My strength feels even more intoxicating than I remember. Years of hiding have blunted me, months of blood magic have drained me. I’ve been sleepwalking for decades.
But now I’m wide awake.
When I reach the Styx Room, I break the neck of the unlucky vampire who stands in my way. It won’t kill him, but it will hurt. He groans as I step over the crumpled heap of his body and into the dungeon-like room. Bracing myself for what I’ll see.
It’s empty, and when I see that it’s empty, two emotions war inside me. Solace that she isn’t there, chained to the cross in the center of the room, or hung from the chains bolted in the ceiling. And panic, because that means they’ve taken her somewhere else.
Somewhere worse.
I tear into the wooden cross that dominates the room and reduce it to a pile of splinters, then slump against the wall, dropping to the ground in defeat. My shallow breaths heave through my chest.
Something among the splinters catches my eye—a sliver of something iridescent glinting in the dusky light. There, caught between two pieces of broken wood, is a thin silver chain. Her necklace. The delicate “L” pendant that sat at the hollow of her throat.
I pick it up with trembling fingers. The moment the silver touches my skin, it burns like boiling acid, but I don’t let go. I can’t let go. It’s the only piece of her I have left.
My phone buzzes against my thigh, and I fumble for it with my free hand, hope and dread stirring in my chest.
I believe we have something that belongs to you. If you want her back in one piece, you’ll meet us back at the Hollow. Come alone. - Julian
The metal sears my palm as I close my fist around it, but the pain feels deserved. She was wearing this when I left her. When I walked away and let them take her.
Julian. Of course. This was never just about the twins’ sick games. This was about so much more.
I pocket the phone and stride toward the exit, stepping over the moaning vampire in the doorway.
I’m coming, Lily. This time, I won’t leave you behind.