Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
Asher had just insinuated I wasn’t human and I was crashing out. I slowed my walking, the streetlights blurring as my eyes burned. “Listen, this has been wild, but I can’t do this anymore. I’m on drugs or something. This is all a trip.”
He glared at me. “Really? After everything you’ve seen?”
Shame crept in, heavy and suffocating. I began to back away from him, suddenly aware of how wild this all sounded when laid out plainly.
Feeling so embarrassed for buying into it.
The people he’d been killing all night were figments of my imagination.
How convenient that there was no blood or bodies left over.
I was going home to sleep, and in the morning, I’d tell Rae everything and commit myself for psychiatric evaluation. There was no shame in getting help for something like this. I needed help. I could see that now.
“Stella, please believe me. If we split up, you’re dead,” Asher said, and I swallowed hard.
Fear twisted in my chest, but stubbornness rose right alongside it.
“Then it really will have been a crappy birthday.” I turned away from him, walking back toward the park. My mind was set. I couldn’t play into this anymore, or I’d lose it.
My legs felt heavy, like I was trudging through water. I wanted to go home. I wanted sleep. I wanted to tell Rae about all this and google what might be wrong with me.
I needed this all to make sense.
“Stella!” Asher reached for me, and I ran.
“Stay away from me!” I screamed, tears filling my eyes as terror gripped my heart.
The night swallowed my words. Truly, I felt like I was having a psychotic break from reality, and I was terrified. Would this be my life now? Was Asher even real, or was I walking down the street talking to myself?
One of the most terrifying things about being an orphan with no birth history was that you didn’t know anything about your genetics or medical issues to look out for.
Was my aunt diabetic? Did I even have an aunt?
Was there a history of panic disorders or ADHD?
Was my mother somewhere right now talking to a vampire hunter named Asher as well?
If that was the case then I wanted help—needed it.
I wanted the doctors, the treatment, the drugs that would balance my brain or whatever magic mental health workers did to help people like me.
My breath came in ragged bursts as I pulled out my phone and texted Rae, fingers shaking so badly I nearly dropped it.
Stella: Rae I’m scared. I…think I’m seeing things that aren’t there.
No response.
She probably went to sleep.
A sob tore from my throat as I ran harder across the bridge that hung over the river and back into the park. Cold air burned my lungs, tears blurring the lights into streaks of color. The couple was gone now, and in minutes, I was back at the SkyRide.
I slowed, wiping my tears with the back of my sleeve and trying to ground myself.
The urge to collapse right there was overwhelming.
I considered just admitting myself to the ER.
I was definitely having a panic attack at this point.
I couldn’t settle my breathing, my heart was racing, and my hands shook as I tried to calm myself down.
I was about to head for the park exit when three people suddenly appeared before me.
I yelped because they were nearly identical.
Triplets.
All men in their early twenties.
They loomed over me at almost seven feet with porcelain skin and red-tinged lips, blocking my path like a wall.
More of my delusional vampires.
I reached out and pinched the skin on my arm hard to wake myself up from this nightmare, but it just hurt and nothing happened.
“You’re not real.” I shook my head.
The men grinned at the same time, and something about the synchronicity made my stomach churn. I noticed these ones didn’t have the red glowing eyes or the silver ones like the man did. These ones were blue.
“A hunter.” The one on the right spat. “Can’t feed from her emotions, but we can kill her.”
Crap.
On the off chance this wasn’t a delusion, I reached into my boot and pulled my stake, fisting it. My hand felt ridiculously small around it. It had stabbed two of these bastards so far, and neither one had died.
Suddenly the men split up, one staying before me and the others zipping to my left and right, surrounding me.
My pulse roared in my ears.
I looked down at my little stake. Did I think I’d stake all three of them with all the badass training that I didn’t have? What was I thinking, leaving Asher with the big old sword?
I needed something more. I needed a machine gun or…
The memory of the wafer tin in the pocket of my new baggy jeans hit me.
I quickly reached into the cargo pocket, pulling out the tin that held the wafers as I stashed my stake in my belt.
One of the vamps moved for me, but I rushed backward, flipping the lid off the tin and grasping the first wafer I could find.
If I were the same as Asher, a hunter, then this would work on me too, right?
I popped the wafer into my mouth just as the vamp plowed into my body, knocking me off my feet.
My butt slammed into the ground, and the wafer tin went flying, just as a hot burning sensation poured down my throat and erupted in my stomach.
I groaned, wanting to vomit the wafer back out, but the triplets were on me.
Two pinned my arms while the other held my face.
“Snap her little hunter neck,” one hissed.
The burning in my stomach reached critical mass, and I was pretty sure I had just given myself an ulcer. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I screamed in the guy’s face who held me.
But no sound came out.
Only fire.
A hot stream of blue fire erupted from my throat and ignited the vamp before me. He quickly fell off me, screaming.
The other two who held me scrambled off me like I was a hot coal.
“Celestis fire,” they hissed, and then a black shadow swirled around them before they were gone.
The park fell eerily silent.
“Holy crap, did she just breathe Celestis fire?” a female voice called from behind me.
I snapped my head in that direction and came face-to-face with a man and a woman in their forties, wearing all black tactical uniforms and holding swords much like Asher’s and a stake much like mine.
My body trembled violently now that the adrenaline was fading.
I was scared to speak, afraid I’d cover them in fire. Their eyes were human, no weird colors. But they both had rune marks tattooed on their forearms, similar to the ones I had as a baby.
“Are you okay?” the dark-skinned woman asked. She wore her hair in long black braids, and they fell around her shoulder as she knelt beside me and helped me up.
Her touch was steady. Solid. Real.
The man, however, was frantically searching the park as if looking for someone.
I pointed to my mouth, eyes wide, and the woman frowned, looking over my face with a scrutiny and confused expression.
“ Oh , you can talk. The fire blast is a one-time thing. You’d need another wafer for that,” she told me.
Relief crashed through me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
“Oh, thank God,” I gasped. “Are you with—do you know Asher?”
Both of their heads swiveled to me. “You met Asher? Wait, what academy are you with?” the man asked.
“I feel like I know you from somewhere.” The woman sounded like she was dreaming as she scanned my face, head cocking to the side. She was looking at me intently now that we were close.
“She’s a lost-born.” Asher’s voice came from over my shoulder.
He spoke the words like a final verdict.
I spun to see him holding his sword aloft and tucking his arm to his chest like it was broken.
His breathing looked shallow, his face pale beneath the grime and sweat.
“She has to be. She was in the club, and the drainer didn’t affect her, but she doesn’t know anything about our world. I ran after her and missed the portal.”
“Asher!” The man ran over and inspected him, muttering something under his breath.
Asher looked smaller suddenly, like a kid who had been caught breaking something important.
“Sorry you had to come back for me, Professor Silex.” Asher lowered his head.
The professor didn’t look like any professor I had ever seen.
He was wearing black leather and was covered in weapons.
Knives, holsters, straps, metal glinting beneath the park lights.
His arms were bulging with muscles, veins standing out like cables, the kind of man who looked like violence was simply another tool he carried.
“It’s okay, Asher. We came as soon as we could.” The professor reached out and squeezed Asher’s good shoulder.
The contact seemed to steady him.
“What’s your name?” the woman asked me, and I turned to see that she was watching me intensely, head cocked to the side like she was trying to figure out a puzzle.
Her gaze lingered on my face too long, as if she were cataloging features.
“Stella.”
“Last name?”
“Adams,” I answered, shifting on the balls of my feet.
Her brow furrowed, and Professor Silex seemed to notice. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
The woman looked haunted, like she’d seen a ghost. “She looks just like Molly did at that age.”
The night felt very still then.
The professor leaned in as if seeing me for the first time and then stumbled backward. “Oh,” he breathed.
Asher peered at me, confused, and then back to the two adults, his gaze flicking between us.
“We need to get back,” Professor Silex said then, shaking his head as if to clear the thoughts. “The kids aren’t safe here.”
The woman with the long braids just nodded, watching me with an eerie look on her face. She was beautiful, with ebony skin and dark red lips that were currently pursed tight with something close to fear.
I cleared my throat, suddenly very aware of how small I felt. Bending down, I picked up the tin of wafers, tried to shove as many back inside as I could, and handed it to the woman.
She took it.
“Thanks for this,” I said and also went to hand her the stake, but she didn’t take it. “I’ve got to get home. It’s been a long night, and I’m not quite sure I’m in reality.” I laughed nervously.
The woman’s mouth turned into a frown. “Oh, honey, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but this is very real, and if you don’t come with us right now, you won’t survive the night.”
The certainty in her voice chilled me. It was the same thing Asher had said.
Goose bumps rushed up my arms, and I took a step backward. “To your other world? I’m not doing that. I’m not…leaving. I have…Rae and Linda. I have Linda, and she’ll worry.” My voice cracked as I struggled to come up with anyone who would miss me if I disappeared.
Tired Linda would miss me.
The woman stepped closer to me. “Stella. Your last name isn’t Adams. It’s Sinclair. I think you’re Molly Sinclair’s daughter.” She shook her head as if that wasn’t possible.
The world narrowed to a single word.
Daughter.
The runes.
My birth story.
Every strange gap in my past rose at once, lining up in a way that made my chest ache. I was so hungry for answers I’d do anything at this point.
Something beeped on Professor Silex’s waist, and he nodded. “Portal is ready. We have thirty seconds.”
The woman before me looked frantic, and I knew then that if I didn’t go with her, she’d force me. But I did. I walked right over to her because at the mention of a mother, I was putty in her hands.
“Who is Molly Sinclair? What happened?” I couldn’t help the whimper in my throat.
She reached under my arm and dragged me toward SkyRide car number six. Asher and Professor Silex were running alongside us, shoes pounding against the pavement.
Suddenly the glass car began to glow a blue color, and Professor Silex yanked the handle open just as I heard a hiss behind me.
I sucked in a breath, spinning as the beautiful woman next to me pulled a stake from somewhere in the sleeve of her shirt and threw it hard.
It flew through the air and sought purchase in the chest of a vamp with glowing red eyes.
He froze mid-step, mouth open as he stared down at the stake protruding from his heart.
It was a perfect shot.
Whoa. Badass.
“Stella!” Asher yelled, and then I was yanked backward into the blue light.
The glass door to the SkyRide car slammed shut, and the blue hue grew brighter to the point where I had to close my eyes. The sensation was disorienting, like being pulled apart and stitched back together all at once.
“Umm, what’s going—” The words had barely left my mouth when I felt a tug at my navel so hard that I blacked out.