Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
W hen I opened my eyes, I was staring at myself in the ceiling mirror above the bed.
My hands were in white gloves covering my skin to mid arm, and one wrist was tied to the bed.
“Hello?” I croaked, rolling to a sitting position.
I couldn’t wiggle my fingers. The memory of the biting woman’s clawed grip and the searing pain ripping through my veins rolled over in my head like a B-movie. This passing out thing had to stop.
I attempted to pull the glove off with my teeth, but it was knotted and smelled like funky hay. Medicine? Maybe the biting girlfriend incident had infected me.
The room had a different look to it this time. The window glowed still, but the light was different, artificial. I was going to bet it was night. Not that I had any clue what time it had been before, or at this point, even what day it was.
The thump of approaching boots sped up my heart rate. Was Wald’s vampire girlfriend still here? Conflicting shivers of concern and desire wavered through me as he walked in.
“Untie me and get these off me,” I ordered, shaking the hair out of my face and looking up at my reflection in his sunglasses.
“Another twen?—”
“Twenty minutes,” I finished for him. “What the hell did your girlfriend do to me?” I nodded at the bathroom door. “Give it to me straight. Am I dying? Am I going to be a vampire now? Or some serpent thing?” I narrowed my eyes for effect.
His lips curled with amusement. “No, you’re not dying, and there are no vampires. The bite was to counteract the poison. It did not have the effect I expected. I apologize for that. It should work properly now.”
“What, your girlfriend sinking her teeth into me fixed it?”
He shook his head. “Britannia is not my girlfriend.”
The tension in my shoulders melted away. Great. Not his girlfriend. Plus, his tight expression said he wasn’t fond of her. We had something in common. “Let me guess. You can’t touch me again, right?” I asked as he approached.
“It wouldn’t be a good idea, no. How do your hands feel?” he asked, nodding at them.
“Numb,” I replied. I couldn’t move my fingers much.
“Not sore?”
“I don’t think so. How about you take these gloves off me, and we can find out?”
“Good, then the salve is working. You should not hit things.” His lips quivered like he was suppressing a laugh.
“Says the man with the biting… Britannia. Who is she?”
He paused, his bottom lip twitched. “Jealousy is unexpected. Endearing.”
“Arrogant much? I’d have to not despise the ground you walk on first.”
“She is my sister. I will return. ”
“Another sister? Don’t you dare leave me,” I said hoarsely. “Water. I need water.”
Wald turned his head toward the bathroom. I blinked, and he was gone. I closed my eyes, sure this was all some horrible dream. When I opened them, he was back with a glass of water and a stainless-steel straw.
“Here, drink, but take it slow.” His S’s bristled like a cheap makeup brush. He angled the straw, and I puckered around the cold metal. His gaze focused on my slow, careful sips, and I was too aware of how he was watching. I wanted to chug it just to break the moment.
Glass shattering turned my bones to ice, and I snarfed water.
Wald whipped around and set the glass on the side table as I coughed up a lung. “Silence—and don’t move.” He blurred slightly before virtually disappearing. Still choking, I cowered against the headboard as a shower of white glass skittered across the bedroom floor.
The shower stall had clear panels, but the bathroom skylight was frosted.
My heart battered my ribs. Boots thudded in the bathroom.
I couldn’t see them from the bed, but it was more than one person, and Wald had been scared of them.
Guttural growls etched my ears, like a SWAT team taking on wild animals.
I smothered sobs as crunching glass and wall-shaking thuds were added to the grunts and snarls.
Picking the door lock would take hours, and the windows couldn’t be shattered.
Without an axe, going through a wall wasn’t happening.
Folding into a ball against the headboard, I prayed for something other than death and that Wald had won.
Another crash was followed by a second showering of glass in the hall.
That would be the shower stall. Then a loud thud, followed by more shattering.
Sink and mirror? China smashing. Toilet?
I bit my tongue as the sounds stopped. The silence deafened.
Oh my God. What if the boots now crunching over the glass wasn’t Wald?
With one hand cuffed, I put as much of my body under the bed as I could. Every hair on my body stood up as the thud of the boots approached.
The boot person grabbed my gloved hand that was tied to the bed. I yelped.
“We must go.” Wald’s hot, smooth voice sent ripples of relief through me as he cut the string.
His face was raw with bruises and bashes.
A cut over one eye dripped blood over the sunglasses rim.
It was red. Somehow that soothed me, but every cell of my body wanted to peek into the bathroom. “You’re hurt.”
Wald didn’t wait for me to crawl out, effortlessly dragging my body from under the bed. He set me upright and pushed me toward the door. “Now.”
“What happened? Who was that? Are they still alive?” I asked, taking a step toward the bathroom.
“I said now .” He picked me up, as if I were a discarded hoodie, throwing me over his shoulders fireman-style. My breath whooshed out, and he had one leg and arm pinned before I began to thrash, kicking and beating at his side with my one free gloved hand as he walked out of the bedroom.
“Let me the hell down. Where are you taking me?” I wriggled with no effect.
I couldn’t even touch the bastard as he lumbered into a living area.
The room was stark Scandinavian style. Still no knickknacks.
The front door slid open as we approached.
Beyond the front door was a concrete underground parking garage.
Only one car, a black sedan, which beeped as we got close.
“Let me go,” I yelled, thrashing ineffectively. The pop of the trunk chilled me to the core of what was left of my lily-black soul.
Wald dropped me into the velvet box like a sack of laundry. I kicked him, but he pushed my boot back in. He was not shutting me in this box again, but the gloves made it impossible to grip anything. He pushed me back, and when he tried to close the lid, I braced both feet on the lid.
He leaned over, and I coiled, ready to punch him, but he caught my arm.
I yanked him to me, jamming an elbow into his chest. He released a breath into my face while I punched his chest with a bundled fist. Then he licked me chin-to-forehead with a flexible pink tongue that was part caramel sugar, even if it was mixed with tree bark and fur.
My limbs went limp. In dead shock, I was frozen, unable to move.
In that split second, he shoved me in and clicked the top shut. I screamed, knowing it was maddeningly futile. The car started and careened out of the garage, throwing me sharply to one side in a screech of tires.
The air in the box wasn’t stuffy, which meant there was an air intake.
If air came in, there had to be a way out.
First, the gloves were coming off. I bit at the muslin fabric using one against the other.
Tearing my hand free of the padded cocoon with a rush of elation, I whooped, marveling at how my flexing fingers were working perfectly.
No pain at all. Bizarre. I pulled the second glove off as the car swerved to one side, and the speed increased.
I methodically worked around the edges of the velvet ceiling, looking for holes while bracing my legs to keep me from sliding around. I found nothing. I couldn’t even tear the velvet, like it was made of reinforced material. I’d explored the full backside of the velvet box when the car stopped.
Game On.
The car door opened and thudded closed. I imagined Wald walking around the car. Counting footsteps I couldn’t hear in my head, my heart raced as I imagined him coming closer. When the trunk should have opened, I held my breath, my muscles tensing for immediate launch.
The asshole didn’t open the trunk.
I hammered on the lid with my fists. “Let me the hell out,” I shouted, pressing on the velvet and hoping for a depression. It was smooth and hard. Then the trunk popped open.
“You sister-killing, sheep-brained bastard,” I said, half crawling, half jumping out as the light blinded me.
“Shush.” Wald’s voice was smooth as silk. I wanted to rip his throat out.
“That’s it. I’m done with this, with you, and whoever is hunting you down. Point me to a door. I’m going home.” I shielded my eyes from the glare of the overhead lights.
The ceiling was high, and the walls were concrete. Car parts were piled around high-tech machinery for fixing vehicles. Wald’s face was clear of blood and scratches. He pointed at a door with a smirk.
I strode across the garage on shaky legs.
The floor was immaculate. No garage I’d ever been in was this clean.
The massive roll-up doors were shut. The door Wald pointed to was solid stainless steel.
I assumed it was the exit. On the panel to the left was a button.
I smacked it, and the door slid open to reveal a long metal corridor.
Questions burned on my tongue, but getting out of here was more important.
Wald hadn’t moved. I walked into the all-metal corridor and smacked the button on the wall.
The door slid shut. With one direction to go, which I hoped led to out-of-here, I clanged down the hall as if the hounds of hell were behind me.
T he stainless-steel corridor came to a four-way intersection.
The place was an underground hamster trail.
Who the hell builds stainless corridors with no doors?
I leaned on a wall, my muscles burning as I sucked in air.
All the directions looked the same, but the floor of one hall was grimy.
I followed the dirt. Fortunately for me, there were ventilation units at regular intervals in the ceiling.
I came to another four-way. My heart pounded and the walls began to close in.
Would I ever get out of here? I tore down the left hall with the icky floor and came to another crossing.
Goddamn it. I chose left again, and my heart jumped into my throat as I spotted a sliding door at the end.
Yes. An exit. I ran the rest of the way and smacked the button next to the door.
It slid open. Anything was better than these stainless corridors.
I launched through it and skidded to a stop.
There was a big black car right in front of me.
I was in the same damned room.
No. This was not happening.
I raced around the car looking for Wald, but I was utterly alone. There was only the garage door and the door I’d gone through. Fine then, getting out of here was the prime directive. Garage door it was.
I scanned the walls looking for a control. Not finding one, I opened the driver’s side of the car and hit the garage door buttons on the visor.
Nothing.
I slid into the seat, put my foot on the brake, and hit the start button .
Adrenaline kicked in as the engine roared to life. I shifted into reverse and gave it full gas.
The trunk crashed into the doors in a crunch of metal filling me with twisted satisfaction.
The tires spun, burning rubber on concrete, but the now-dented doors didn’t budge.
I threw the car into drive and pulled forward, then said a silent prayer and hit reverse at full speed, bracing for the impact.
There was a bone-rattling bang, followed by whirring, then squealing tires.
The door was dented but still hadn’t budged.
I pulled forward to try again. With a fingernails-on-chalkboard screech, the door began to roll up on its own.
I reversed at full speed, not caring why the door was opening, only that it was my way out.
Fortunately, the concrete driveway outside could easily turn a stretch limo.
I turned the car around, then squealed up a concrete driveway through a forest. No one was following me.
I hit the car’s touchscreen to show the map and screeched to a halt to pan it out.
Crap. Wald had driven me over the Washington border to Idaho.
It took me a couple of tries, but I managed to punch my address into the map. It was six hours to get home. Home. My apartment flashed in my head like an oasis in the desert.
I pulled back onto the road, but as it curved, I saw the house.
With a screech of rubber, I skidded to a stop, narrowly avoiding the ditch.
The sinister sprawling Victorian was painted a deep green, almost black.
Even the windows were painted over. It had a full wraparound porch and was at least three stories, maybe four with the turrets.
For no reason I could fathom, the house beckoned, Come inside .
The spectral crawling feeling like I was being watched made no sense.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the back seat was empty. Nothing was behind me.
“I am not falling for whatever this is. I’m going home,” I said, stomping on the accelerator. The winding roads took me to the highway, and I switched the audio on. Chest thumping metal fueled my speed.
In four hours, I was breathing almost normally, but I noticed I was running low on gas. That was about the same time red and blue lights flashed behind me.
Christ, this was going to be a special conversation.
With a string of expletives, I maneuvered the car to the shoulder, then leaned over to check the glove compartment.
It didn’t have anything that it should have had in it, but it had a gun.
Was I ever screwed. Tears welled in my eyes as everything sank in.
I leaned back in the seat and rolled down the window, piecing together a story to explain why I was speeding in a seriously damaged stolen car without registration or insurance, wondering what my first meal in jail would be, and whether I’d survive there longer than Mama.