Chapter 35 #2
Cally took that as the all-clear, braced herself, and headed in.
The room was a charnel house, with a dozen Order soldiers strewn across the floor, every lifeless body a testament to brutal violence. She tore her gaze away and focused on Nico instead, who stood in his clear-walled cell, eyes red with rage.
Antoine rapped it with his knuckles, testing its strength.
Nico’s gaze fell on Belle. “You!”
She rested one hand on a cocked hip. “Just here as an impartial observer.”
“This is ironic, isn’t it?” Antoine said. “I had intended to kill you, but there’s a poetic justice to leaving you in a box. No chains, no water, but… it will do.”
“I will get out.” Nico thumped both hands against the polycarbonate, and it thudded dully. “One day, Antoine, I will get out.”
“Entomb you then kill you?” He pretended to ponder. “I find that idea agreeable.” He turned to Cally, gesturing at a man unconscious at Belle’s feet. “Is that Darian?”
“No! You can’t leave me in here!” Nico banged the wall again.
Even face down, Darian’s finer clothes gave him away. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Excellent. Let us take him somewhere quiet.”
“Antoine!” Nico yelled. “Lady Belle, this is unjust!”
“Impartial observer, remember?” She dragged Darian behind her by one ankle, as if he weighed nothing, his head bouncing against the floor.
“I will have my revenge, Antoine!” Nico shouted. “I swear, I will find you!”
“Now I regret removing the door,” Belle lamented, as Nico’s screams of rage followed them down the corridor. She released Darian and wiped her hand on her torn dress. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Eve first,” Antoine said, eyeing his unconscious form like a wolf sizing up a juicy steak. “Then we’ll come back for him.”
There was one more floor, and only two Order soldiers remaining. Belle had dispatched them before Cally reached the bottom of the steps, and she ignored their bodies as she ran to the door of their room, sliding back the bolt.
“Eve!”
She was sitting on the bed fully dressed, and jumped up as Cally entered. “What the hell is going on? Did I hear gunfire?”
“Are you hurt?” Cally cried, pulling her into a hug. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, patting Cally’s shoulder. Then she drew back, her smile faltering as it formed. “Holy fuck. What happened to your face?”
“This is your Eve?” Belle said from the doorway. “I saved her!” she declared with genuine delight. “Now she owes me a visit.”
“No, Belle,” Antoine said firmly.
“They didn’t torture you or threaten you?” Cally asked.
“No, they just left me in the room,” Eve said slowly. She took in Belle’s ripped dress and blood-stained appearance, half warily and half in shocked fascination. “What did I miss?”
“Not quite everything.” Antoine headed off back down the corridor.
They retraced their steps with Eve wide-eyed at the destruction, her hand clamped over her mouth. Darian waited where they’d left him, still out cold. Antoine plucked him from the ground, and as he did, Darian’s phone fell from his pocket.
Eve picked it up. “Locked. There must be something useful in here.”
Cally looked at it speculatively. “Do you think we can get a passcode out of him?”
“What a convenient excuse,” Antoine said. “Where did he interrogate you, ma chérie?”
“In there.” She pointed to a room further down the hallway, and Antoine nodded.
“Perfect.”
He picked Darian up with a fist clenched in his shirt, carried him in and slammed him into the chair. Then he slapped him sharply across the face, twice, his strength carefully in check, the blows only hard enough to rouse the Order Sentinel.
Darian jolted upright, his gaze flicking from Antoine to Belle like a cornered rabbit. He stopped on Cally, then grimaced, his jaw clenching with an audible crack.
“Fuck you, harlot.”
He began to shudder in his chair.
“He has a cyanide pill!” Cally blurted, taking a step back. She hadn’t truly believed him when he’d told her, but couldn’t look away as Darian convulsed, clawing for breath, lips frothing with pink-tinged foam.
“Does he now?” Antoine sounded amused. “How… quaint.” He crouched before Darian, watching him gasp like a stranded fish. “You thought you would choose your own end?” His voice was soft, in contrast to the violence of Darian’s choking. “No, mon ami. That privilege belongs to me.”
He lunged forward, sinking his fangs into Darian’s neck.
“No!” Cally shouted, flinging up one hand. Damn it, was that her fault too? Was he risking himself just because she’d asked for a fucking passcode?
“Don’t fret, ma fillette,” Belle said. “It won’t harm him.”
Darian moaned, but not in pain. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his lips parted as his breathing grew heavy. Antoine pulled back a moment later. “Ugh.” He wiped his mouth. “That may be the vilest thing I have ever tasted.”
Darian slumped in his chair, choking another breath, but this time his lungs filled. “What did you… do to me?”
“I healed you,” Antoine told him. “Enough to let you answer some questions.”
Darian pressed a hand to his throat. “You’ve turned me… into… an abomination.”
“No, you did that to yourself.” Antoine paused. “Oh, you mean a vampire? My apologies but no; we have standards.” Antoine held his hand out toward Eve, and she gave him the phone. “The passcode, please?”
“Fuck you… and your…”
“If your next word is ‘harlot’, I will break both your kneecaps. If you don’t give me the code, I will let the cyanide you have swallowed eat you from the inside.
” Antoine tilted his head thoughtfully. “I imagine it is working very painfully on your stomach as we speak.” He raised the phone again. “The passcode?”
Darian tried to swallow, then groaned in pain.
“I can save you,” Antoine told him. “More of my healing, and you will be restored—though still not a vampire.” He crouched before him, pulling back Darian’s head by the hair. “Does it burn, mon ami?”
Darian whimpered, clutching at his stomach as his limbs trembled uncontrollably.
“I am in no rush. You, I fear, have less time.”
“Four… nine, seven… six… five, five.” He sagged in his chair as he gasped out the final number.
“Thank you.” Antoine keyed them in. “Good, that worked. You have earned your reprieve. Unfortunately, you also hurt Cally, and that debt is unpaid.” He gave Darian long enough for the words to sink in, then gripped his head and twisted. The crunch was final.
“We’re done here,” he said, slipping the phone into his pocket. He held out his hand to Cally. “Let’s go home.”
She took it, letting him pull her against him.
She half expected to feel horror at Darian’s death, but she didn’t.
Not really. He might have been human, but he reminded her of Minh.
He had threatened Eve, her dad; he had hurt her.
And Antoine had done what she never would’ve been able to bring herself to do: exact her vengeance.
He turned and led her out, and she clung to him, unwilling to let go.
“Have we time for a stop?” Eve asked from behind them. “They had a library. Can I rifle through their books?”
“Of course,” Antoine said. “Though I doubt they have anything by Dumas.”
Belle pressed close on his other side, hooking her arm through his. “Do you remember where I left my shoes?”