Shadow Bloodlines (Shadow Bloodlines #1)

by A. R. Cooper

  Instead of answering her, I laughed. This had to be a joke. “Let me see your mirror.” I felt foolish asking, but it was a way to show her and myself that it was the trick of the light.

  She flipped open her makeup mirror and handed it to me. “See for yourself.”

  I gasped. In the black light, my eyes looked exactly as she’d described. Her eyes didn’t do that. No one around us had glowing eyes. “Sit over here. Maybe it’s just a light shining on me.”

  With a shrug, Jacqueline scooted off her stool and took my place. However, no matter where I stood or sat, her eyes didn’t look like mine had in the mirror. What the hell was going on? I couldn’t have odd glowing eyes. It must be some fluke, or just the crazy lights making an illusion somehow.

  “It’s you, Beth,” she whispered. “Do you feel okay?”

  “Of course, I’m o—” My words stuck in my throat like peanut butter as the song ended and the house lights came back up. The bodyguard from earlier strolled in through the front door. “Oh my God! It’s the guy from school.”

  “Who? Is he hot?”

  I ducked behind her. “No, the one with Ms. Moor. The one I told you about in the car.”

  “Shit, are you sure?” Her face paled.

  “He’s coming this way!” I dashed behind a kissing couple, then hastened to the ladies’ room. Inside the restroom, I gave a shaky smile to a woman washing her hands.

  No window. Why didn’t they make restrooms with escape routes? All I had was self-defense classes I took with my mom last summer.

  Jacqui burst into the bathroom. “Beth! You were right. Oh my God, I’m shaking.”

  “What happened?” The skin stood on the back of my neck.

  “A guy is looking for you.” Her words came out in a rush. “Asked for you by name. He said they already went by your house after school.”

  “What?” Mom! Was she okay? I pressed my arms over my stomach.

  “Yeah. Said you won a scholarship to the Art Institute.” Jacqui smirked, but her eyes were wide with fear.

  Me? Art? We were allergic to each other. I couldn’t even draw stick figures.

  Holy Shit! What was I going to do? They knew where I lived. I had to get out of here.

  I’d seen what they did to Coach. It wasn’t heatstroke or my imagination. Why were they after me? It hurt to breathe.

  “What are we going to do?” She bit her lip.

  My stomach churned.

  “Shit, what do we do?” Her eyes widened.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.” My breath came out in pants and I felt dizzy.

  “It’s only a matter of time before they figure out you’re in here.”

  “And how do I get away without being seen?” I waved my hand to the bathroom. “We need a distraction… or a disguise.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Leave it to me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Stay here until I come back.” She left.

  When more women came in, I moved out of their way. I bit my nails. Every swing of the door made me jump. Terror squeezed my lungs. The bathroom was becoming too crowded. I had to run.

  As I reached for the door handle, Jacqui returned with a jacket and a baseball hat.

  “Where’d you get those?”

  “Stole them.” She tossed me the black sports jacket and I donned it. Then she helped me stuff my hair up into the cap.

  The jacket hung to my knees and swallowed me. My stomach clawed into my throat.

  “It’s the best I can do on short notice.”

  “And my skirt?” I tugged the sides of the black dress. “They’ll never buy that I’m a boy if they notice it.”

  “Keep your head down and keep moving.”

  Uneasiness crawled into my gut and my heart slammed against my sternum before my fingers even brushed the door. Jacqui pushed past me and straight to one of the muscled guys who barely gave her a glance.

  I snuck out of the bathroom, thankful for the throng of people. In the corner, Jacqui flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder to distract the suited guy.

  Across the dance floor, I spotted another of Ms. Moor’s minions and ducked under a table. The couple gave a gasp and I shushed them.

  “Sorry, it’s my ex. He’s crazy.” I crossed my fingers that they’d believe me.

  “Don’t need to tell us about crazy exes,” the girl answered.

  Peeking out, I realized I’d lost sight of Jacqui. Had they figured out what she was up to?

  There. She stood a few tables from the dance floor waving her hands like she was flagging a street race and I dashed to the other side of the bar. My heart thumped in my chest like I’d swam a hundred relays. How could five feet from the door seem so far?

  When the guy talking with Jacqui suddenly turned to see what she was staring at, which was me, I tucked my hat down and shook my shoulders as though laughing with the others near me.

  The goon stared at me and his eyes narrowed. Then he spun and careened through the crowd, barreling right for me. God! He’d spotted me.

  I jerked away from the bar to run. Muttering an apology, I pushed around people while constantly looking back at the guy, who was now shoving dancers out of his way. Acid rose in my throat. His flicked out his cell and yelled something into it.

  My breath came out in short huffs. Could I make it outside? I sprinted through an opening in the crowd.

  Nearly to the door, a brawny guy grabbed my arm and I screamed. The music drowned out my protest.

  My assailant gave the bouncer a wink and a fist full of cash, which he shoved into his pocket and looked away.

  “Let’s go, freak,” he seethed into my ear.

  Chapter Five

  I struggled away from the thug’s hold, but the guy’s grip wrapped like cement around my arm. With his free hand, he waved to other goons in the club and they followed us out. I dug my heels into the floor, until one broke off from the force of his dragging. Tripping over my own feet, I glanced around for someone to help, but everyone danced or drank and didn’t notice me.

  Outside I shrieked, and was rewarded with a meaty paw smacked over my mouth. The copper taste of blood made me gag. He pretended we kissed with his hand between our mouths. Gross!

  “She’s had too much,” one of the men nearby said, evidently to someone who had poked their head outside before the door clicked back closed at his comment.

  My assailant didn’t let me budge or show my face, so the guy from the bar wouldn’t be able to tell my age or the look of horror and disgust on my face. So he just took a stranger’s word for it that I was drunk! I kicked and squirmed out of cement hands’ grip, but by then, the man from the bar was back inside. Without looking back, I dashed back to the bar, but two more of Ms. Moor’s goons exited.

  Holy Shit! I dodged away from the guy behind me, but when I turned toward the main street, another muscled dude scowled and stalked towards me. There was nowhere to run except a dead-end alley. Here, there was a better chance of being heard or seen.

  “Help me!” I screamed, but the four of them surrounded me now. And my screams were drowned out by the club’s thumping music.

  My stomach braided itself with terror and bile.

  I kicked and punched, but might as well have been wrestling giants. “Keep it up and we’ll slice your friend open,” he whispered in my face, his rancid breath choking me.

  Jacqueline? What would they do with her? I twisted and jerked, but their grip didn’t loosen.

  They hauled me into the next-door building. The lobby was vacant. Where were all the business people? Didn’t anyone work after six on a Friday? Or a security guard? But as we passed the desk on our way to the elevator, the guard was passed out or knocked out in his chair. His eyes were closed and his head lolled to the side.

  “Let me go!” I kicked the guy holding me in his knee and he loosened his grip. “Police!”

  “Shut her up.” A guy with a hook nose and deep-set eyes punched the button to the elevator.


  A fist smacked me in my stomach and I crumbled against the wall. The elevator door dinged open and they tossed me inside. My shoulder bashed against the metal wall. Pain radiated down my spine. Thoughts of abduction and rape filled my mind and my body shivered.

  Or human sex-trafficking. I’d never gotten past second base with a guy.

  I wouldn’t let them! I’d escape or something. But how could I against four huge men? I knew a little self-defense, but it wouldn’t work on all of them. I just needed to pay attention and get away.

  As a hand reached to pick me off the floor, I clawed at it. My captor cursed and dropped his hold on me. I elbowed him in the knee but grazed his thigh instead. I scrambled backward.

  “Grab her,” he mumbled as he sucked on his injured hand.

  Hooknose hauled me up and slammed my body against the elevator wall. Spots danced before my eyes as he squeezed my throat.

  “Let Moor have her. She’ll get pissed if you kill her now,” a guy with tattoos along his bulging arms and neck said. Was he talking about the substitute biology teacher?

  Hooknose dropped me and I crashed to the floor. I saw the button for the roof was lit up. Why were we going to the roof? Dread coiled in my stomach and I swallowed back the coppery taste of blood.

  When the elevator dinged open, the wind whipped through me and I shivered. Two guys dragged me out and my feet scraped across the threshold. I didn’t know what they wanted with me, but it wasn’t anything I desired.

  Two men held me, Hooknose sauntered before us, and the stomp of boots told me the fourth was behind me. The elevator dinged closed and my breath froze.

  Halfway across the roof, Hooknose stopped. There in front of him stood Ms. Moor. Her glasses were gone and her hair was unbound. She still wore her black suit from when she was subbing my bio class.

  A strange-looking dagger was clenched in her hand. Holy shit! What was she going to do with that? It was silver and pulsed in the moonlight.

  “This one’s been a pain the ass. We want double.” Tattoo guy held one of my arms in a vise grip. Soon my arms would go numb from how much both thugs were squeezing them.

  “What do you want from me?” They weren’t after Coach, and look what they had done to her. Acid bubbled in my gut.

  She smiled and I recoiled. “You’re death and the destruction of all of your kind.” At her nod, the guy holding me on my left jerked my arm forward.

  What the hell was she talking about? She was psycho. They all were.

  She lifted the dagger. I screamed and twisted to get away, but tattoo guy held my hand out while the other trapped my body so I couldn’t move as she dragged the knife across my pinky finger. The sting made my eyes water. Blood bubbled up from the wound. Hooknose leered at me from Ms. Moor’s side.

  I writhed in vain as she lifted the bloody blade to her lips. Her tongue darted out and she gave a shiver when she tasted my blood. “Sweet.”

  Was she a vampire?

  This wasn’t happening. Spots danced before my eyes and I couldn’t take a deep enough breath. This was a nightmare. Or maybe someone had spiked my coke and I was having one of those don’t-do-drugs trips.

  “Barely a trace of copper. She’s a half-breed.”

  These people were nuts. I had to get out of here. “Help! Someone help me!” I yelled.

  “No one here but us.” The guy whose knee I had swiped earlier drew up beside her, still hobbling.

  Ms. Moor wiped the dagger off on his shirt. “We have to make this look like a suicide. The last death had the cops snooping around too much.” Ms. Moor pulled out a syringe from her suit pocket as she took a step toward me. She took off the clear protective cap.

  Suicide?! No! Why did they want to kill me? Panic seized me and I thrashed against my captors as they snatched at my arms and legs. I was afraid of heights or, rather, falling. They were going to drug me and then throw me off the roof!

  I shrieked until my voice was hoarse. My kicks met solid walls of flesh that refused to move. The hands on my arms tightened. My uneven heels threw me off balance.

  “Hold her steady.”

  She jabbed the needle in my arm and my muscle twitched. Coldness seeped into me. Still they did not release me, but I wrenched an arm free and clipped one of the minions nearest to me in the chin. I elbowed another guy holding on to me and fled. Reaching the elevator, I jammed the button a dozen times. Their shouts followed me. I had to escape.

  “Come on!” My heart pounded against my chest. I dashed for the staircase.

  Someone grabbed the borrowed sports jacket, but I wiggled out of it as I kept running. Almost to the stairs!

  One of the men tackled me and we both crashed into the edge of the cement stairwell. I skinned my knee and elbow. “No!”

  No matter how much I fought, he hauled me back over to Ms. Moor.

  It was useless against four guys. Then hooknose was there. He twisted my arm behind my back. His breath of cigarettes and lemon made me choke as he laughed against my ear. “Time to die, half-breed.”

  What were they talking about? Was my dad into drugs or something? Was that why he’d sent the text message not to go to school today, and I’d missed the cryptic warning? Next time a little more heads up, Dad. I swallowed down bile that burned my throat.

  Tattoo guy marched forward and yanked me back by my hair as they both shoved me toward Ms. Moor.

  She slapped my face, but I refused to whimper. “It’s a shame we have to get rid of you, such a bright, pretty girl, but we must rid the world of your kind.”

  They were all insane. I struggled even as they heaved me closer to the roof’s edge, despite my screams.

  Chapter Six

  My arms and legs grew heavy like they’d changed into cement. What had they injected me with?

  The wind whipped through me and I shivered. Ms. Moor stood behind her minions, as though seeking their bodies for protection, but still close enough that she could watch. My captors resembled images in jagged fun house mirrors as they carried me closer to the roof’s edge.

  One of the spaghetti strings on my black dress had broken. Thankfully, the edge of the material was trapped under my armpit so I didn’t give them a peep show as hooknose jerked me forward. Tattoo guy on the other side bumped me also like I was a pinball stuck between two pop bumpers. Back and forth, but no escape. The other two guards marched a step behind us. Even if I could move without the feeling of fighting against mud, I didn’t think I’d make it very far. At least not with all four of them after me.

  I searched my captors’ faces, hoping for a sign that one of them might help me. Hoping for a measure of sympathy. Their eyes seemed drained of life, like a dead fish. My gaze landed on the huge gargoyle perched on the ledge, as though ready to launch any moment. The only witness, besides Ms. Moor and her minions, to my murder: a statue. So unfair. I thought I’d at least die of old age while swimming with Great White Sharks.

  My stomach clenched and dove to my feet. I was about to die by my greatest fear: falling from a height. Tears stung my eyes as I wanted to plead with them, but my tongue lay pasty in my mouth. Was this from fear or the drug they gave me?

  The world around me grew fuzzy and warped like I was looking at everything through bubbled water. A giggle escaped from my mouth. Maybe I could swim through the air; after all, the air flowed in waves like the ocean, and I was a good swimmer. Maybe I just had to be high enough to fly? My head felt dizzy and my limbs stuck to my sides.

  Swimming was release. I’d be buoyant, free.

  Some part of my mind was bellowing, but I couldn’t understand the words. It was like the drone of a car engine in the distance.

  One of the men let go of my arm, and I held my hand in front of my face, amazed at how red my blood looked. She’d only sliced my pinkie tip, but the blood coated my palm.

  At the roof’s edge, I grabbed the gargoyle’s head for support. A shock raced up my arm as if I had touched metal on a winter day. It didn’t feel like stone exac
tly but quivered beneath my fingertips. Or maybe it was that I couldn’t stop the shivers that were racing through me. My blood smeared across the stone.

  The concrete ground at the bottom of the building and vertigo rushed to meet me and wavered at the edge of the building.

  Tattoo guy let go of my arm, but I couldn’t move. The height of the ground, the drug, my terror, all made it impossible to budge. Hooknose dropped my arm. He shoved his hand into my back and I stumbled forward, my feet slipping off the edge. I was falling.

  The air swept past me and my black torn dress fluttered around me. When a body falls on TV, it’s fast. But time slowed as I watched the road below closing in. All I could think of was why and that Jacqui was going to be pissed I ruined her dress. The drug made a giggle rip from my mouth at that thought.

  As I fell through the sky, part of me was blissful. I started laughing, then yelling.

  No, wait, that wasn’t me screaming. It was Ms. Moor and those guys. A grey figure swept towards me.

  The gargoyle's wings had transformed into black feathers like a crow. Was I imagining it? His arm wrapped around my waist, and the breath shot out of my lungs as he broke the trajectory of my fall and carried me close enough to the moon I wondered if I could touch it. I must be dreaming. Or dead. Doesn’t it take several minutes for the brain to die?

  I squinted to get a better look at him but, in my drug-induced haze, his features blurred between gorgeous and the gargoyle’s sinister grin.

  His body felt cool beneath my fingers. Is he naked? My face heated. Could he feel my blush against his skin? Wait? What about his stone body? It felt like flesh beneath my fingertips. Who knew a pre-dying vision would be so real?

  If this was my last dream before I died, I was going to make the most of it.

  The guy was too handsome not to kiss. I didn’t know how long the dream would last before the end. Lying in his arms, my body held against his solid chest, I lifted my chin and kissed him on his mouth, then whispered, “Thank you.”

  He gazed down at me with hazel eyes that made my heart flutter. His stare smoldered like he wanted to kiss me again. His lips paused a breath from mine and when I sighed, he brushed his mouth over mine. Tingles spread from my lips to my toes and back up again. It was like riding a rollercoaster while eating chocolate. Thrilling and decadent. His lips moved against mine and I drew my arms around his neck and kissed him back. My heart fluttered in my chest like an excited bird in a cage.