I step into the room filled with medical equipment and wonder if this is where he’s been taking the victims. Is this where they die before he leaves them for us to find? Puts them on display in an attempt to scare Finn into listening to him?
“The noise is coming from this room,” Claude says as he rushes past another open door to the last one. He kicks the door, but it only dents it. This door is much more secure, but it’s still meant for a human, not a vampire.
Could Finn be here? If Finn’s inside, I could grab him, and we could run. We now know who it is. We could have the entire police force looking for him and protecting Finn. I just have to get Finn free.
I rush up and together, we kick the door in as Karsyn keeps a close eye on the open doorway.
The door breaks and swings open, revealing a body lying on the ground, but it only takes a moment for me to realize it’s Charlie. She’s bound and gagged in the corner, only able to roll this way and that. She must have been kicking the wall, which alerted us.
Claude is on her first, but he needs my help breaking the binds meant for a vampire. Charlie claws at the gag before pulling it free. “He’s got Finn. I heard him throw him into the room next door and about ten minutes ago he came back for him.”
“Do you know where he might be?” I ask.
“I don’t know… but I have an idea how to find out,” she says as she struggles to get to her feet. It’s clear she’s been without blood for too long. Her skin is horribly pale and her eyes are dull. Claude hooks an arm around her and helps steady her. “We have to be fast. He has the vampires he created at his every beck and call and he might be sending them here.”
“How’d you figure it out?” I ask.
“Help me to the computer.” As Claude does so, she keeps talking. “He was acting weird and I thought something was up. He was obsessively going down here every day which seemed odd. So one day, I managed to get through the locked basement door and came down here where I found his computer. I realized that he’d been following and documenting locations for years. It was very strange,” she says. “And that’s when I realized what it was… he was following Finn. He was manipulating his prostheses. That’s how he was even able to make them stop working to ensure Finn came in to see him.”
She sits down at the computer and turns it on.
“He doesn’t know I saw what I did at the computer, but he caught me down here. He probably hasn’t thought to shut the GPS trackers off yet. We can find him. I promise.”
I just hope she’s right.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
FINN
I’ve been unable to ask about Orin since Watson came back for me. When he’d opened that door, covered in blood, I knew that Orin wasn’t all right. Watson was pissed and short with me as he yanked me out of that room and dragged me up to his car before we left.
And I don’t know what to do as he drives, not saying a word. He’s angry right now, so I don’t want to infuriate him further when it’s clear he’s unstable, so I sit quietly as the car speeds down the highway and think.
I am nothing compared to a vampire like this. I can’t outrun him, I can’t outfight him, but I might be able to outsmart him. Not if I’m being stupid, though.
I turn to look at Watson and he glances at me. Since returning, his eyes have been red, almost glowing, and his expression sour. He’s pissed about what has happened and I’m walking a fine line. I know it’s best not to bring up Orin. I have to just beg that he’s still alive, but I know that nothing at this point could change it. For now, my goal is to protect the people I love as well as myself. If he told me that he killed Orin, I’m not sure I could stay composed. So I have to beg and plead that he’s fine and convince myself to keep moving forward.
I take a deep breath before reaching over and setting a hand on his leg. “I wish you’d told me. I wouldn’t have been so scared if you’d have told me.”
He glances at me again. “You never have to be scared again because I’ll protect you. I’ve already proven to you that I can take better care of you than everyone else. I’ll keep you safe. It was stupid of me to think others could do it. And you’ll be a good boy, so I won’t have to risk killing you.”
I force a smile onto my face. “Thank you.”
As he drives, I try to memorize the route in case I figure out a way to contact Marcus and can get them to find me, but his ease at letting me see it all tells me he’s probably not going to make a mistake. He’s not going to mess up and he’s never planning on letting me go.
He heads out of the city, and as he gets away from straying eyes, he picks up speed well into the outskirts, and eventually, into the country. After another forty minutes, he pulls onto a narrow road that winds between trees, taking us deep into a wooded area and up to a house. He parks before coming around to my side and reaching in for me. I push my seat belt off before holding a hand out to him.
Watson seems pleased as he quickly takes it. As he walks, I notice his thumb traces over the back of my hand, rubbing it again and again, almost lovingly.
“You’re so precious. You know that, right?” he asks.
“I don’t feel it. I just feel so… normal, you know?”
He gives my hand a squeeze. “You’re not. You’re so much different, Finn. So much different,” he says as he leads me inside, and I feel strangely like a child. I’m probably playing this wrong. He doesn’t want me to fawn over him in a sexual way. No, I’m like a doll to him. At least he seems satisfied with me playing along with him because he likes the attention.
He takes me inside and I’m led straight into a room filled with medical equipment, which makes me hesitate. “I won’t hurt you,” he says. “Get on the table. I want to remove the GPS from your arm and leg.”
“Oh… okay,” I say as I slowly take my shirt off, wanting to kill time. I forgot about the GPS on the devices. If Marcus has a way of tracking that, he could find me and the longer I fumble here, the longer he has the chance of seeing where I am. Does he even know I’m missing yet, though? He’s at work. He won’t be home until four or five and that’s hours from now.
I think Watson is reaching for my arm, but instead, he cups my face and just smiles at me. “My beautiful doll. In all my life, this life I gained, I never came across anything that makes me… feel like you do.”
“Really? I’m special?” I ask.
“So extremely special. You have to be! Right? Look at all the shit I let you get away with! Again and again, I just give you chances and more chances but I can’t stop because you’re so special.”
“Why?”
“That’s a silly question. There’s no ‘why.’ You just are. The moment I saw you, I knew you were mine.”
He seems to think this is a good little joke, so I just smile and fumble with my arm. He eventually lets go of my face and grabs my arm before removing it. Then he waits for me to take my pants off. Once he has my leg and arm, he carries them over to the counter and begins to fiddle with them as I look around the room. He’s so carefree with me because he has no fear.
I won’t get away from him. I can’t do anything faster than him, so I’m of no concern.
My eyes drop onto a heap of clothes in the corner and I recognize the color of them. Police.
He must notice me looking because he says, “Don’t mind that, I didn’t have time to… clean up after a pesky human thought they could bother me last night. Do they not know that it’s best to just bow before me and give me their throats?”
“Someone stood up to you?” I ask, acting aghast at the thought.
“Not everyone is smart like you are.”
“For a human, right?”
“You’re smarter than even most of the vampires I know.”
If his uniform is here, he likely had a gun on him and it’s a good chance the bullets in my sock will work with it. Is the gun with the clothing?
“You’re not… keeping my arm and leg, right?” I ask.
“Of course not. I
know how antsy you get when you don’t have them. You do know if you didn’t hurt yourself, you wouldn’t be without them so much.”
“One of your guys hurt me last time.”
He stops moving and I’m afraid I said the wrong thing. “Oh, the rage I felt when I saw that. I killed the one responsible for touching you as everyone else watched. They’re my children, but I will not hesitate to kill them because none of them matter like you. You’re precious and breakable, Finn. I can fix your arm and fix your leg and make you beautiful again, but I couldn’t save you if you were to die.”
He comes back with my arm and leg and puts them on before cupping my face again. His fingers trail through my hair as he stares at me, a smile on his face, unlike anything I’d ever seen him wear. “My beautiful doll. So lovely. But for now, I have to go hide the car. I’ll be back shortly. We’ll need to make arrangements to move farther out, but first, I must make some plans.”
He takes my hand and leads me off with him through a door and into a room with a keypad. Are the numbers the same? He doesn’t realize that I knew the right number because I never pushed open the door.
This could be my chance to get free.
“I know this seems a bit… harsh, but I want you to just be good while I’m gone, alright? Our life together will be much better than this, but for now, I want you just to relax. So be good.”
Ah, he knows me too well.
“I will be.”
He smiles at me. “I even forgive you when you lie right to my face. I must be ill!” Then he slams the door and heads off.
So does he know I was lying? Is he hoping to believe me but uncertain if he can? Is he testing me to see if I’ll stay in this room?
I don’t think he’ll kill me. If I make a mistake, if I try to run, yes, he’ll catch me, but I don’t think he’ll kill me.
And with that thought shoved into my brain, I rush up to the door. He could be waiting right outside it or he could already be halfway down the driveway. I have no way of telling until I open this door.
But what if he takes it out on someone else? What if this puts Marcus or Aria or anyone else I love and care for in danger?
I take a deep breath.
I have to try or he’ll just keep killing. Just like he killed the girls, just like he killed the officer last night. He’s a monster to his core and killing and maiming is what he does.
I press my finger against the keypad and the buttons beep loudly with each push. If he’s in the house, he’ll immediately know I’m fucking with the keypad. Hell, he could probably hear the loud beeps from outside.
9314
It flashes green.
I yank the door open and look into the house, but I hear and see nothing. But that’s meaningless when faced with a force like him.
Quickly, I rush back to the room and over to the clothes lying in the pile. I start yanking them toward me, piece by piece, but it doesn’t take me long to find the holster, gun missing.
Fuck.
I need a weapon. Running is stupid. Even if I run five miles before he comes back, my scent will be everywhere and lead him straight to me within minutes. There is no way I can escape this man unless I kill him or find a fucking army to save me.
I rush over to the cabinet and search for anything, even a scalpel. I’m not sure how it’ll help me, but it’s better than having nothing. Desperately, I begin opening and closing cupboards. There’s medical equipment inside but nothing big enough to be used to kill a vampire and if he finds me with it, it’d probably cause me more harm than help me.
I’m going to get caught and for what? I’ll have gained nothing. I’ll have nothing to show for it. How did things end up like this? Where did I go wrong? And how… how could it be Watson? I cared so much for him. He nursed me back to health. On those first nights, he’d stay by my bed for hours and I thought it was because he cared, and now I see that he was just watching what he was convinced was his.
I open the final cupboard and a purse tumbles out. I look inside the cupboard at the different items, likely from victims. I yank the purse open, searching for anything, before pushing it to the side and pulling out the next bag.
I don’t have time for all of this. I don’t have time to search everywhere. He could be back at any moment. My hand hits something and I feel the familiar coolness of a barrel. Just as I wrap my hands around it, I swear I hear something. Quickly, I pull the gun free before shoving everything back and rushing to the medical table as I hear steps on the front porch.
Shit.
For a moment I listen before the steps seem to get farther away. Quiet as I can, I creep back to the room and slip through the open door before pulling it shut, locking myself inside. As fast as I can, I yank my shoe off and dig the three bullets out of my sock before forcing them into the gun with shaking fingers, thankful that the officer’s gun could hold these bullets. I dump the regular bullets into my pocket, not sure they’ll be of much help but not planning on tossing them anyway.
I slip the gun into the band of my pants before pulling my shirt over it and checking to make sure it doesn’t stand out. Then I sit on the floor and wait.
My heart is hammering in my chest as I try to calm myself. If he returns and my heartrate is this high, he’ll know I’m nervous or panicked about something. So I close my eyes and just breathe. I try to think about something else, but when I think of Marcus, I think about Orin, and then I’m feeling panicked as I question what will happen to them. So I try to think about Artie and Hela instead.
They had so much fun at the lake house getting walks every day and running around the yard. Artie even went out into the water with Marcus before deciding he was going to drown and trying to climb on Marcus’s head.
I would give anything to be in that moment again.
The keypad beeps, and I jump before realizing it’s Watson.
This is it. I have to decide now what I’m going to do. I have to make my decision and I have to live with it.
Watson looks in and just beams when he sees me patiently sitting on the floor. “Are you ready?”
“For?” I ask as I stand up. The moment my right foot touches, I force myself to stumble and grab for my leg. “Fuck… sorry… I must have been sitting wrong.”
Watson rushes for me. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
I grab for him and he wraps an arm around me, holding me up as I drop my weight onto him. “I don’t know. Sometimes it just gives out if I hit it just right,” I say as I hook my prosthetic arm around his neck like I need him to support me. Then I slide the gun out and press it against his head as I pull the trigger. With my arm around his neck, he drags me with him when he tries to escape, but I pull the trigger as fast as I can, burying the bullets right into his head. He throws me off and I slam into the ground so hard the air is knocked out of me as my ears ring. I can’t hear anything for a moment, but I can see him reeling back. He slams into the wall as he grabs for his head while I desperately push myself to my feet. I’d dropped the gun when I’d fallen, so I snatch it up as I race through the open door.
He grabs for me as he roars out something loud enough that I can hear it through the ringing.
The effect from the bullets wasn’t immediate with Marcus and I know that Watson’s different, but I got all three of them right in his head before he managed to push me away.
He reaches for me in the hallway, but I slip past him because his movements are jerky and jarring as I race away.
I can’t let him get ahold of me because my blood could be the answer to him healing. Instead, I keep moving as I look for something I can use that’s sharp and can cut a head off if I manage to get so lucky.
I hear him roar as the ringing in my ears lessens and I dive behind the medical table for a chance to figure out what to do next. Quickly, I dig the regular bullets out of my pocket, even though I know they won’t likely do anything to him but piss him off. My fingers have finally steadied themselves as I load the gun and tuck it back int
o my pants.
Thankfully, I can now hear his footsteps, putting him on much more even ground with me as I listen to him get closer.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” he growls.
Marcus’s senses were off when he was shot, so I’m praying that Watson’s senses are also off enough I can get away.
“Finnigan!”
He staggers into the room I’m in as my heart threatens to beat out of my chest, my fear rising, but I can’t see him. For all I know, he’s already found me while I’m hiding, but I try to keep myself steady as I hear him hit something across the room.
“What the fuck did you shoot me with?” he snarls as he begins to move again. His steps become quieter, telling me he’s traveling away from me as I peek around the corner of the medical table to see what he’d knocked over. Lying on the other side of the room, next to the fallen tray, is a cleaver.
Quietly, I crawl around the side of the examination table and look through the open hallway to where he’s leaning against the wall, clearly trying to listen for me but struggling to do so.
“Doll… come here, and I’ll forgive you,” he says, voice slurring slightly, but I was hoping he’d be worse after three bullets to the head. “Why can’t you just listen? Why can’t you be good!”
I slide forward, moving slowly as I focus on the blade. He hesitates and I know if he turns around right at this instant, he’ll see me, so I draw extremely still as his head moves a little to the right as he listens. With bated breath, I watch him until he starts moving again and reach forward and grab onto the blade, pulling it back to me.
“There you are,” he growls as he rushes toward me. I push up to my feet and desperately run for the front door. He’s not as fast, the bullets have slowed him down and blood seeps from the wounds as he moves toward me, but he’s still faster than me.
He blocks my path to the door, drawing to a stop in front of it, face filled with rage.
“You are pissing me off. Come here and beg me for forgiveness. I have tried and tried and tried with you and you just won’t fucking listen!”
How to Elude a Vampire (VRC: Vampire Related Crimes Book 2) Page 29