I wasn’t just going to make them bleed; I was going to cause permanent damage.
Needless to say, tensions were high. And not just mine. All of the slayers were exhausted. Our current schedule was grueling. Too much so. We kept this up for much longer, and we’d collapse.
But maybe that was Anima’s plan. Exhaust us, and after we collapsed, pick us off one by one.
The conversations around me ceased abruptly, jarring me. I focused. Cole had just returned to the gym, his expression dark. My heart rate quickened, and not because of my steady jog.
He stopped beside me. “You’ve got a phone call.”
I wiped the sweat off my brow, smoothed my damp hair from my face. “Who is it?”
“Ethan.”
Finally! I jabbed my finger at the machine, and the belt froze. I hopped down and raced out, only to realize I didn’t know where to go.
“The cell is still in Ankh’s office,” he said. Mr. Ankh had it hooked to some kind of tracing device.
I picked up speed. Mr. Ankh was at his desk, and he did not look happy.
“Ethan will only talk to you,” he said.
We’d all prayed this day would come.
Just this morning, Kat had patted me on the back, smiled her most wily grin and said, “Let them think we’re going their way, while we really go our way...the best way!”
Now threads of nervousness slithered through me; I had to cut them with mental scissors as I reached for the cell phone.
Mr. Ankh donned a set of earphones so that he could listen to the entire conversation. He gave me a stiff nod.
“Hello, Ethan,” I said, proud of my seeming calm.
“Hello, Ali.” He displayed the same calm.
“Where have you been? Why the delay?”
“A few things came up. Nothing you need to worry about, though. Justin hasn’t dropped dead or anything like that.”
Sweet confirmation. My gaze scanned the room. Cole had come in behind me and Veronica and Juliana behind him. River strolled in next, with Frosty and Bronx close on his heels.
Jaclyn raced inside, her gaze wide, hopeful.
Word had spread.
I gave everyone a thumbs-up.
“—there?” Ethan asked.
“Yes, I’m here.” Steady. “I still want to do the trade,” I said. “But I’ll need new proof of life.”
“You’ll get it. But first, there’s someone who’d like to speak with you.”
Static. Then, “Hello, Miss Bell.” A woman’s voice. Unfamiliar.
“You have me at a disadvantage. You seem to know me, but I have no idea who you are.”
“My name is Rebecca Smith. You may call me Rebecca.”
The head of Anima herself. Why not call her Becky?
Or Satan.
“You’ve caused me so much trouble,” she said, “I’ve decided to deal with you myself.”
“You’ll understand if I don’t wish you better luck, Ms. Smith.” My gaze found Cole—his expression darkened further. This was the woman his father and Helen had warned us about. The one known for her interrogation “technique.”
She chuckled, as if she’d expected no other reply. “A born rebel. Just like your mother.”
As if she knows me.
“We did some jobs together, you know,” she continued. “Not the one with your boyfriend’s mother, of course. That was all Helen. But others that were equally successful. I’d be on the field now if the antidote hadn’t stopped working for me.”
Bile...burning up my throat... My features remained relaxed. I wouldn’t give anything away to the onlookers. “Why don’t we concentrate on the here and now, hmm?”
“Very well.” I heard fingers tapping on a keyboard. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, you are the key to our success. With you, we can capitalize on all the good zombies provide while discarding the bad.”
“How?”
She ignored me and said, “I’m sending Ankh an email. There’s a video attached. You’ll want to watch it. It’s your proof of life.”
Okay, good, we were moving right along. “So, how would you like to do this?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I would like to send Ethan to your door and make the exchange that way, because it’s the easiest solution, but we both know you’ll only kill him and take the boy. Instead, I’ll expect to see you at—”
“You know what?” I interjected, as rehearsed. “You don’t get to arrange this. You’ll be at Hearts, the nightclub downtown, in two hours, with Justin, because he’s your ticket through the door. Fail to comply and my mission will be the destruction of everything you hold dear.” Actually, it already was.
Click.
I wanted to hunch over and vomit. Had I just made a huge mistake, insisting Ms. Smith meet us at Hearts, rather than playing the game by her rules? I hoped not. Mr. Ankh owned the nightclub, and our slayers were used to the building’s layout. We’d have the advantage.
We needed every advantage we could get.
“Did you get a trace?” Cole demanded of Mr. Ankh.
“No,” he snapped. “They rerouted the signal a thousand different ways. I’m guessing there’ll be no way to trace the email, either, no matter how many people I put on the task.”
Great.
We waited with bated breath for the telltale ding to sound, signaling the email had arrived. And when it did, we crowded behind Mr. Ankh’s desk as he pushed Play on the video.
Justin appeared on the screen—and Jaclyn would have collapsed, if Gavin hadn’t held her up.
Justin was huddled in back of a cage. He had on a pair of underwear, nothing more. Around him was a toilet, a sink and a twin bed. He’d lost so much weight, his ribs were visible. There were bruises under his eyes, track marks up his arms.
Was Anima pumping him with drugs, sedating him? Or taking blood?
Heck. Probably both.
Beside his cage were two other cages, and in those were countless collared zombies.
The camera moved away from him, the screen going blank, and Jaclyn cried, “No!”
I blinked back tears.
“I doubt they’ll really try and do an exchange,” Cole said, checking the magazine in his gun. “We’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. They’ll either try to capture us all or kill us all. Flip a coin.”
He was right. I’d known it all along, and yet, here, now, with slayers I’d only ever wanted to protect standing around me, it seemed wrong. “I’ll do it, then. I’ll trade.” No double cross.
“No!” He spun around, glared at me. Except, it wasn’t anger I saw. It was anguish. “No.”
“Yes! Dang it, yes!” I stomped my foot. “How many times do I have to remind you? One person will give her life to save many. This is what I’m supposed to do.”
He got in my face, yelling, “And how many times do I have to remind you that you can’t know that for sure? That I refuse to lose you?”
“You have a funny way of showing it!”
He backed up a step, drew in a breath.
I squared my shoulders. “I’m making the trade, Cole.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Even if you are the one, I won’t let it happen. None of us will. So. Not another word from you. Go weapon up. We’ll do the same. Everyone meet in the foyer, ten minutes.”
“Cole—”
“Not another word! We’ll go as if they plan to make the trade. We’ll fight, kill as many of them as we can, finally put a dent in their forces.” At the end of his control, and with a final glare aimed at me, he left.
Chapter 26
AT THE CORNER OF
MURDER AND MAYHEM
The countdown had begun.
Five minutes, and I was armed and ready.
Six minutes, and I gathered in the foyer with the other slayers and hugged Reeve and Kat goodbye.
“You come back to me, Ali-cat,” Kat whispered. “You’re nothing without me.”
“Um, I think the saying is actually ‘I’m nothing without you.’”
“Exactly what I said.”
I smiled despite the tense situation. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. And you had better be careful, Frosty,” she called. “Or else.”
“Always, baby.”
They’d made up. Good. Heart squeezing, I peered at Cole. To my utter shock, his gaze was already sealed on me. Narrowed. Intense. As always, shiver-inducing. There were a thousand things I wanted to say to him, a thousand more I wanted to do.
Look away.
Somehow I managed it.
Eight minutes, and the slayers were striding toward the two SUVs outside.
I headed for the car in front, reached for the handle of the back door. My wrist was grabbed and I was spun around, a hard weight pushing my back against the cold metal. I gasped.
Cole!
My heart squeezed harder.
He cupped my cheeks, his hands warm. His gaze was pure violet fire. “I’m sorry. I’m miserable without you. Haven’t been eating or sleeping. Just wanting. And there is no way I can let you head into a situation as dangerous as this one without telling you.”
I trembled, overcome. Finally, one of us had breached the wall between us. The stronger one, I realized. “We—”
“I’m not done. I love you,” he continued. “I’ve missed you. I don’t like that you’re talking to Helen. I’ll never like it. I don’t trust her, and I’m so afraid only terrible things will come of it. But I trust you and your instincts, so I’m taking it on faith—in you. I’m backing off.”
I clutched the collar of his jacket. “I’m sorry, too. I handled things poorly and—”
He shook his head. “Still not done, love. There’s one last thing, and it’s a bit of a topic switch, so try to stay with me. Ready? Camilla made a play for me. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say I turned her down and nothing happened.”
“What!” I exploded.
He pressed his mouth to mine. I melted against him. The kiss was a balm. The pain I’d felt these past few days melted away. The sense of rejection. The anger, the bitterness, too. I was swept up in our connection, the heat of him forging me into something greater.
Catcalls. Grunts of irritation. Prods to hurry. They penetrated my awareness as Cole lifted his head. I was too dazed to move, so he spun me around, gave my butt a smack and helped me into the car. He climbed in beside me. We held hands the entire drive.
Camilla was lucky she was riding in the other car. Later we would be having a chat. Maybe with knives. I wouldn’t allow her to walk away—she’d have to crawl.
Once we pulled into the club’s parking lot, my internal clock kicked back on. We had a little less than an hour and a half before the exchange was to take place.
I’m not sure how Mr. Ankh had managed it, but he’d already cleared the lot. We strode inside, our booted footsteps echoing off the walls. I’d been here a few times before, but it had always been overcrowded. Now we were the only occupants.
Frosty and River took positions at the front door, and the rest of us marched to the center of the dance floor. Chance and Mackenzie kept going, a team, taking posts at the back doors, making me wonder if something had happened between them. All the others formed a circle around me, each one facing a different direction. Mr. Ankh had cameras outside and in. Cole, Frosty and River each wore an earpiece, allowing the males to stay in constant contact.
Twenty minutes passed without incident. Thirty. Forty. This could go down so many ways, my head spun. Anima could bring Justin or leave him behind. Could come in the front door or try to ambush us through the back. Or both! They could be no-shows. They could send one man or a hundred.
If worse came to worst and they came in hot, without Justin, we would fight, as Cole had said. We could cripple their forces and even take hostages. Do a little interrogating of our own. I’d give River free rein. I was past the point of caring.
Suddenly, Cole stiffened. “Two girls heading toward the front entrance.”
Girls? Without Justin?
I waited, fighting for breath, every second agony. Then Frosty stomped around the corner dragging Wren and Poppy behind him.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I pushed my way through the circle. “What are you doing here?”
“Some guy called me,” Wren said, anchoring her hands on her hips. She was a smart, beautiful black girl, with a stubborn streak a mile wider than my own. “He said I had better get here quick or I’d miss Justin.”
“And you believed him?”
Poppy, a model-pretty redhead, looked around. “What’s going on?”
We had to get these girls out of here. But we couldn’t send them off on their own. Anima could be waiting to grab them. We couldn’t spare a solider to escort them. We needed all the manpower we could get. But then, Anima had known that and had hoped to thin the herd.
“Take them to the back office,” I said. “Lock them in.”
Both girls stared at me with wide eyes.
“It’s for your own protection.”
“Seriously. What’s going on?” Poppy demanded.
“You walked into the middle of a war.” I waved Jaclyn over. “Whatever you hear, you aren’t to leave that office. And if someone you don’t recognize busts in, shoot.” I placed a .38 revolver in Wren’s hand. It had a manageable recoil for a novice. “Have you ever fired one of these?”
“N-no,” she stuttered, “and I never want to.”
Too bad. “It doesn’t have a safety, so if you squeeze the trigger, you’re firing. But it does have a double-action trigger, which means it won’t fire unless you squeeze all the way. Do not point the barrel at yourself or Poppy, understand?”
Jaclyn grabbed both girls by the arms. “Come on.”
“Guns? A war?” Poppy cried, digging in her heels, wheezing. I think she was having a panic attack. “What kind of war?”
“We don’t have time for this.” Camilla rushed over and flung her arm around Poppy, forcing her into the hallway.
Boom!
The entire building shook. A blast of white-hot air knocked me across the room, and something hard smashed into me.
Every inch of me throbbing, I fought to sit up. My ears rang. Smoke billowed, nearly choking me. I coughed, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Little fires, everywhere. An entire wall of the club, gone. My friends, scattered across the debris-laden dance floor.
Gavin was crawling to Jaclyn, who appeared to be unharmed as she helped Wren and Poppy to their feet. Also unharmed. Thank God!
River and Frosty were lifting a piece of plaster from Veronica’s chest.
Camilla was trying to tug River...toward the front door? He kept shrugging her off, determined to help Chance, who had an unconscious Mackenzie in his arms.
Bronx lay on the ground, struggling to rise.
Cole...where was Cole?
I spun, searching, desperate. “Cole!”
A wall of smoke cleared, and I expected to see him run through it.
Instead, I saw zombies.
More than I could count. No collars.
“Zombies!” I shouted and split in two. I withdrew my axes and hacked through a zombie’s spine, then another and another, staying in a constant state of motion. The creatures came at me from every angle. I fought, fought so hard, landing more blows than I took. But the fact was, I did take them. A lot of them. Considering I was already battered, every strike hurt more than it should have.
Whoosh. An arrow soared past me and sank in the eye of a zombie
that had been preparing to bite me.
Cole was there a second later, covered in soot. He punched into the end of the arrow, sending the tip deep into the zombie’s brain. Then he withdrew a short sword and sliced off its head.
“You’re okay,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah. Just got thrown outside.”
Two zombies rushed up behind him. I tossed my axes, nailing the offenders between the eyes. They soared backward, and when they landed, Cole was there, removing their heads, too. Yet, even without bodies, the mouths snapped at us.
Fingers tangled in my hair, jerking me down. I fell, rolling backward with the motion, kicking the zombie responsible. He stumbled, and I straightened, swinging my arm, cutting his throat. Black goo oozed.
I went to get my axes, but a hand reached out, tripping me. I crashed face-first, stars winking through my vision. Before I’d recovered, a hard weight dived on top of me, shoving the air from my lungs. But as quickly as the weight landed, it lifted. Cole jerked me to my feet.
He kicked the zombie reaching for me, then stomped on the creature’s hand, shattering the bones. Feeling no pain, the zombie leaned over and gnawed on his boot. He stabbed in the center of its skull, then, with the skull still attached to the blade, tossed it across the room.
I drew in a deep breath—mistake. Hacking cough. Watering eyes. Still too smoky in here.
In an effort to regain my composure, I rolled my shoulders, shook out my hands. If we were going to win this, I needed to push. I had the faith to do it, could even feel the energy gathering inside me, preparing. I could do this. I would do this. The zombies would lift, and they would ash, and that would be that.
Now! I raised my arms...and every zombie catapulted into the air.
A sense of triumph surged through me, strengthening me further.
Bronx and Mackenzie were on the ground, each writhing in pain. Frosty ran halfway, then slid on his knees the other half, reaching Bronx’s side. Hands flaming, Frosty punched into Bronx’s chest. The boy jolted, his back bowing.
Chance crouched beside Mackenzie and, after a slight hesitation, copied Frosty.
The White Rabbit Chronicles Page 100