Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Two weeks earlier…
Smoke billows, filling the hallway. It hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, knocking me to the floor. With each breath, scorching heat sears the walls of my lungs. Yet, somehow, I’m able to crawl on my stomach like a snake through the carpeted hallway away from the inferno that is the banquet room. Screams of panic disorientate me, and I want nothing more than to curl into a ball and make it all go away. But something inside me won’t let me give up.
I crawl faster, digging my toes against the floor to propel me onward. I think I’m going in the right direction, but I don’t know for sure. The combination of pot and liquor in my system doesn’t help.
I never wanted this stupid party, and I sure as hell don’t want to die here.
My muscles strain, and my entire body heaves for oxygen. The harder I try to breathe, the worse the pain becomes until it feels like I’m being stabbed in the back and chest. I can’t see into the smoke, and I begin to cough violently. I cover my mouth with my arm and roll to lie against a wall.
A large vampire bat flies past me, a blur of flapping fire in the smoke. His screech of pain is enough to make my ears bleed. With a hard thud, the creature crashes into a wall. The screeching stops. I hear a second thud when it drops onto the floor.
Fire burns where the bat landed.
I push up and feel material against my cheek. It’s one of the old banners hanging in the hallway. I jerk it off the wall. The rod along the top strikes my back, causing me to flinch as it knocks my head against the floor.
I crawl toward the bat, dragging the banner to smother the flames. The vampire has transformed back into his human shape and isn’t moving. As I push down, his body turns to ash. I’m too late.
Ash and smoke surround me. My cough worsens, and I collapse against the floor, hacking and gasping. The air is gone. I’m going to die in here.
My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. Instead, I’m locked in fear and regret. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I’m only twenty-eight.
My body is weak. My eyes burn and tear. My legs flail. I try to pull myself somewhere, anywhere, but it’s like my limbs have stopped working.
Curling into a ball, my hand strays to my necklace. My grandfather said it would always protect me. I know it was just a story, but I’m desperate for it to be true. I clutch it like a personal talisman and wait for that white, peaceful light everyone talks about seeing when they die.
The light doesn’t come, and I remain in dark pain.
It feels like an eternity before I see the faint beam of a flashlight zip past. I try to call out but only manage a croak. Everything is a blur as I’m jerked off the floor. Time feels stunted. One moment, I feel arms holding me. The next, I’m on my back on the sidewalk, an oxygen mask on my face, with ambulance lights flashing around me. People are poking me with things and asking me questions that I can’t comprehend.
Conrad is standing behind the EMTs, watching. His mouth is pulled tight, and a strange light is in his eyes. I try to yank off the mask to get a better look at my surroundings. Where there was pain moments before is now only a dull ache.
An orange glow shines from the windows of the old stone building. Smoke pours from broken panes, staining the night sky. Embers flutter in the darkness like fleeting butterflies, swarming and dying as they drift into eternal ash. How can something so awful, like a fire, produce something so beautiful? It doesn’t seem right.
Streetlights illuminate the tragedy, and emergency vehicle lights flash all around. A spotlight passes over the gargoyles, staring down from a small clock tower. It might be a trick of the light, but it appears as if the creatures move their heads. I can’t be sure. Something sizable lands next to the gnarled figures, only to fly away.
The oxygen seems to be working, as my lungs feel better. Or possibly it’s just being out of the smoke that helps.
Shouting voices come over the static of radios, creating chaotic music accompanied by the pounding of feet and the clang of emergency equipment.
“Easy now,” a woman says. Her hands move over me methodically. “I’m Stacy. We’re friendlies. We’re taking you to the private clinic.”
The private clinic is an exclusive wing of a hospital that treats supernaturals. They rarely need it. Mainly, it caters to vampires and other ghoulish creatures shopping for blood and discarded body parts.
I try to pull the mask to tell her I’m not special.
Stacy’s eyes flash with a tint of red that could easily be mistaken for the flash of emergency lights. Her partner leans close, shielding her with his body as she lifts my hand.
Before I realize what’s happening, Stacy bites below my thumb. I flinch at the puncture of fangs in my palm. I try to jerk away, but her grip is firm.
Recoiling, she tosses my hand aside and says to the partner. “Ugh, she’s only a human. Drunk. High. Who knows what else? We’ll lock her in quarantine until we figure out who she is, but I’m sure she’s unimportant.”
“She’s probably someone’s dinner.” Stacy’s partner laughs as he tightens the straps over my chest.
“She does taste like someone was preparing for a fun blood feast,” Stacy agrees.
“You know how the rich do,” her partner answers.
Stacy’s interest in my well-being fades quickly as she stops paying attention to me. I search for Conrad, but he’s not standing behind them. The EMTs’ movements become rougher as they raise the gurney. They push me close to the ambulance but don’t put me inside.
I have just enough wiggle room to lean forward and pull off the oxygen mask, even as the straps pin down my torso and upper arms. I frantically search for my family, not that I’m worried. They’re supernatural and would have made it out all right. But I want them with me. I don’t want to go to the hospital alone.
“We found another one.” The digitalized voice comes over one of the emergency workers’ radios.
“Another what?” I try to ask, but they’re not listening to me. I no longer matter.
“Make that two dead in a closet,” the voice corrects.
My blood turns to ice. My brother and his friend Louis were hiding out in a closet. It’s where we had smoked the joint to escape the birthday party.
It can’t be Anthony. It can’t. It just can’t.
I’d left them to go to the restroom. I try remembering what happened after that, but it’s a blur. I’m still high and drunk and must have blacked out. One moment, I was leaving, and the next, I was on the floor surrounded by smoke.
What happened? Why?
“Conrad?” I croak, trying to yell as I struggle against the straps holding me down. “Conrad!”
I search for Conrad and my parents. I need them to tell me it’s not Anthony and Louis.
“This is a fucking mess,” a firefighter mutters as he stomps through the chaos staring up at the flames before he says into a walkie-talkie, “Watch your asses, boys!”
“Someone barricaded the doors on the north end,” a voice answers.
I find Conrad standing with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the building. My parents aren’t with him.
“Conrad!” I yell, using all my strength to push through the pain in my throat.
He turns in my direction briefly before looking back up.
“Shut her up,” Stacy says.
“On it.” Her partner comes at me with a syringe.
I kick to keep the man away, but he laughs at my restrained movements. He jabs me in the thigh, and I feel the drugs flooding my system. The medicine overtakes my will even as I fight to stay awake.