by Various
She needed to see a doctor and soon, but now that would have to wait. Escape. She had to get away.
How had she let things get so crazy? Why had she needed to stop that stupid fight? She stumbled once going out the side doors of the hotel where she had asked for the cab to wait for her. All she needed was for Houston to see her in the state she was in. Weak, groggy. Pissed. Nothing was right anymore.
Her hand found a wall as she waited for her vision to clear. She was sicker than she thought if she couldn’t walk a straight line. The tears were making everything swim. She crawled into the cab and ordered it to the airport. Her head fell with a weak thump to the seat, her eyes closing almost immediately.
A black cloud was blanketing her mind. She was dying. Had she waited too long to do anything about her health? Why hadn’t she paid closer attention to it? She hadn’t really felt bad, but now it was racing up on her and sapping her strength. She felt weak all over.
The cab had only moved for a few minutes when a curse bellowed from the front. The driver slammed on his brakes, followed by the wrenching sound of the door she sat near. It was ripped clean off its hinges.
“Have you lost your mind?”
She recognized the snarled voice. She tried to open her eyes, but her vision was hazy no matter how hard she fought to focus on his enraged features. Hadn’t she just fired him?
“Are you still a vampire?” She spoke through lips that felt too thick, a tongue that was too dry.
His body was shaking violently with unrelenting arms keeping her captive to his chest. “Yes.”
“Then no.” Nothing was computing properly. She was going to the airport. She was trying to get away from him. Wasn’t she? Why was he holding her, marching up the street?
Without warning, his arms tightened like vices, his stride jerking. Diego buried his nose in her hair, hissing a long sound of pain, then he collapsed to his knees. With a faint recognition, she heard the report of a gun silencer. “I will find you,” were the last words he uttered when he toppled completely over, pillowing her body with his own.
Shapes were swimming, lights were melding, glaring back at her. It almost hurt just to breathe.
Titania heard footsteps running toward her. But she couldn’t talk, couldn’t ask for help. Every muscle had turned to stone.
“Is he dead?”
Someone pulled her up, threw her like a sack over a shoulder. “Yeah, the bullet nearly went through. No pulse.”
“Roll him in the gutter. The cops won’t find him ‘til morning.”
Her head was shrieking at her. Dead? Diego? No! she silently screamed. She passed out, trying to find any hint of Diego.
And failing.
Chapter Thirteen
Diego groaned. A comforting hand rested on his shoulder. “Don’t move. I’m almost done.” His eyelids flickered. Laney. Which meant…
“Some bodyguard you are.” Houston. Diego’s shot in the dark had worked.
“I would like to see how good you look with a bullet in you.” He clenched his teeth as Laney finished her ministrations.
“It’s almost out, but you can’t heal this by yourself. It took a chunk of something I don’t want to name.”
“No gymnastics, then?” His teeth clacked together when a finger dug deeper, but he forced himself to remain perfectly still.
“I wouldn’t,” she offered, sympathy in her words. He clenched a fist while her fingers probed, then they both sighed in relief when he heard the distinct metal clink of the bullet hitting pavement. She pressed a cloth to the open wound in his back.
“I have stopped the bleeding.”
“Nice trick,” she mused. “Did you stop everything? I swear you were dead when we got here.”
“I can shut down my heart at other times than to rest. It would have been inexcusable to bleed to death from a bullet.”
“Come on, pal.” Houston hooked a hand under an arm and helped Diego move, to prop him against a building.
Diego searched beyond Houston, seeing they had brought him into the shadows of the alley hidden from the street where he had been shot.
“Want to tell me what happened so I can validate killing you?”
“I told her the truth.” Diego’s head sagged to rest against brick while dragging in the cooler night air, concentrating on the wound to make it bearable.
“And she lost it.” Houston looked away, his expression saying it all. Diego still had ground to cover to be called a friend.
“I was shadowing her thoughts, though. Then something changed. I could not find the path. It was like all her thoughts began to scramble. I could not reach her directly either.”
Houston spun to face him, his mouth a thin slashed line of anger. “You have been sharing a mental connection with her?” Houston demanded.
“Yes, since the beginning.” Diego did not avoid Houston’s accusing glares. Diego found a pebble and pitched it. It bounced for almost a block. “It was one of the reasons I could not stay away. I was too intrigued by it, by her.” He tried to find her, even then, and only found open space.
“I told her over and over,” Houston bitched.
“So did I.” Diego sighed.
“You know, for two men…” Laney coughed into her hand to hide her sarcasm. “Neither of you have a clue. The more you order her, the more she’s going to fight it. She knows she’s different. She would appreciate it if all of us quit shoving it down her throat, using it as an excuse to control her.”
“I can’t let her run rampant,” Houston said, throwing out an arm. “Look who she brought home the last time.” He gave Diego a scathing stare.
Laney rested a hand on Houston’s arm. “Did you ever think maybe she was supposed to?”
“Wha—?” Houston almost collapsed to his butt from his crouch. “Laney, how could you say that? You know what he is.”
Her smile became angelic, and Diego could have kissed her himself. He forced his expression to remain unmoved instead. He never would have believed to have one of them on his side. The picture of Houston tearing out his throat was not exactly the way to friendship either.
“Remember what happened when I met you?” Her green eyes sparkled in memory. “I never planned on making that audition. I was going to audition for that commercial. I thought it would get me into Hollywood.”
Houston wore a silly grin for a split second. He rubbed a hand over his cheek. “Yeah, how could I forget? You walked onstage with that kitten and all hell broke loose.”
Laney shrugged, innocent of any wrongdoing. “How was I supposed to know it didn’t belong to the studio and that you hate cats?”
Houston grew silent for a minute, everything he felt for his wife playing across his eyes. He sighed once, making a decision. He shifted, focusing on Diego. “I’m not letting you forget this, Diego.”
Diego took a deep breath, testing his lung capacity. His left lower lung was sore where the bullet had nicked him, but he could live through the pain less the need to breathe. He pushed it to the shadows of his mind.
“I will get her back. I promise you that.” Diego used his hands to brace and then steady himself against the wall. Standing, he stretched and winced. “No gymnastics,” he repeated in self-warning.
He took a deep breath, registered the time of night, the arc of the wind, even how close his best chance of prey was. Diego asked, “I am just curious in this, but why does she not know your secret? Does not seem fair if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.” Houston offered Laney a hand, curving her protectively under his broad shoulder. “It just never came up, honestly, and she would never ask. When I met her, she was skinny, all eyes, and scared to talk to anyone, fearing she’d overload. The only outlet she had was her singing. And man, when you hear her sing…”
Diego smiled, clapping a hand on Houston’s shoulder. “You feel blessed.”
“Yeah. That’s it.” He turned, walking with Diego toward the street. “Eventually she opened up, and I met her
folks. I think her dad was hoping I’d ask, but I don’t love her like that. She feels the same way.” Houston shot Laney a look. “Meeting the parents. Now that, I want to see.”
Laney punched Houston’s arm lightly, biting her lip to keep from laughing, hiding an all too apparent guilty look from Diego. He was beginning to feel a touch of acceptance in Titania’s life from their teasing, at least from Laney.
Diego stopped them in the shadows just off the street. “For all the years you offered her your friendship, and more, I thank you.” He gave Houston a gallant little bow.
Houston accepted the thank you with an offered hand of friendship that Diego gratefully clasped. “You were someone important before this happened, weren’t you?”
Diego glanced away. “Once. Yes. A commander, second to DeSoto.” He faced the couple. “I need to replenish.” He purposely avoided using the word feed out of consideration. “I gleaned an address from the two who have been scouting the hotel.” Houston cursed under his breath. “I guess she has not found it necessary to share this information with you?”
“She’s been giving me the silent treatment unless I look for her first,” Houston told him with disgust.
Diego did not mention that was because he had been with her almost nonstop. Some things were better left unsaid. He sought into the night again and felt the emptiness over his heart. Titania was missing, and every atom of his being shrieked at him to find her. The demons of retribution were clawing at him.
He closed his eyes, gathering his energy. “I need to go.” He gave Houston the address. It was pointless to tell him not to come. “When you arrive, stay silent. I will find you.”
He heard Laney’s gasp as he dissolved, then shot into the sky to find what he sought. He needed to be at full strength to bring Titania home. Diego knew Tenorio meant business. He continued to search for her, but found nothing but empty space where usually her light laughter resided.
* * * *
Titania tried to roll over but was stopped short in quick order. She moved her arms again and came up short. Her shoulders ached, her entire body felt leaden and uncooperative. She let out a long breath. She was breathing. That was good. Her head was killing her. That was bad. The headache had to be the absolute worst in history. When she tried to pry open her eyes, light sliced her brain in half. Her lids snapped shut on a yelp of pain.
She lay still for several minutes, trying to figure out where she was. She moved her hands again, and this time the weight of the manacles circling her wrists registered. She found the cold iron of one, rolling it against her hip. She was shackled? She tugged and got nowhere.
She lay frozen and listened. She could hear her own heartbeat, her breathing. And nothing else. She dared to open her eyes again and managed to make them into slits. Tears streamed from them, but she forced herself to concentrate beyond the discomfort.
She was in a room, a stark, metal, gray room. It slowly registered that she was stretched out on an examiner’s table, cold steel with one bright light directly overhead. She shifted her weight as far as she could to her hip. Her feet didn’t move.
Titania tried to find her feet, inching them this way and that. Weight impaired any motion. They were tied down too? She focused down the length of her body. And screamed. Her clothes had been sliced down the middle, splayed like a filleted fish. She was as naked as naked could be.
Panic swelled, obliterating the pain of the piercing light as she fought the metal weights. She yanked frantically on the wrist cuffs. Iron links held her. She couldn’t possibly break them.
She closed her eyes and shivered. She needed to concentrate. She needed to find a way out of this, whatever this was.
“Cara?” He sounded so far away.
“Diego! Help me.”
“I am on my way. Tell me what you see.”
With determination, she managed to make out the surrounding flat metal walls but with no windows and a single, windowless, metal door. “Oh, God! What do they want?” There was a rack of surgical implements waiting on a table nearby and several white sheets neatly stacked nearby. Beakers, tongs. It was all so sterile looking. She felt a scream welling up again. She was in a lab!
“Stay with me, honey.” His voice was calm, soothing, and she reached out for him with a grasping mind.
Titania rolled her head to the side when she heard the security lock on the door click. Her eyes burned with the increased light from the outside hallway when it swung inward. Blinded by the excessive light, she could barely make out two men. One looked to be in a tux.
“Good evening, Titania. I see you are awake.”
She tried to place the voice. She couldn’t see enough. Fear chilled her through. “Let me go,” she pleaded. A hand drifted between her breasts in answer, and she tried to jerk away. Tears burned her eyes in humiliation.
Fingers pinched her jaw, yanking her aggressively. “Look at me, Titania.” When she resisted, the fingers clenched. “Look at me and obey.” She swallowed, hating herself when she couldn’t refuse.
“Listen to my voice,” he said close to her ear, a hypnotic rhythm in his tone. “You will stop screaming. You will take your injection like a good girl.”
She barely had time to fight the spellbinding commands before she felt the snap of a strap around her arm. Someone plunged a needle into a vein. She tried to jerk herself free, and the fingers forced her compliance. “Do that again, and I will twist your breast to hear your scream.” The needle and fingers were gone, and she wanted to ball herself up and cry. She whimpered in her mind.
“Diego?” Shards of pain exploded with the attempt, and she hastily withdrew from searching.
“Sleep, Titania. I’m sorry I cannot attend to you this evening.”
“Let me go,” she begged, sobs building as tears streamed uncontrollably.
“Soon you will be asking for what I have planned for you,” the voice told her. “Sleep. I will see you in the morning.”
Her limbs were already growing numb. She cried out for Diego one more time, the pain so excruciating, she knew she was dying. She had no strength to fight when the blank darkness took over.
* * * *
“Do you think she’s going to be trouble, Ten?”
Tenorio studied his captive with cold eyes. “For about ten minutes. She’ll crack. They always do.”
“But she was resisting you,” the man behind him pointed out worriedly. “No one ever has before. The dose we gave her was more than double.”
Ten waved a hand in dismissal. “Just proves I was very, very right about her. She’s capable beyond even what I had imagined. Studying her for the last three years gave me all the information I will need. We will extract her genetic code, as we did with the others. Production of the strands has been moving well. And our test subjects have been receptive.” A cell phone rang. Ten pulled it out of his pants pocket to glare at the screen. His look became thunderous as he spoke. “Fine. Tell the Senator I had to step out. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He disconnected with a snarl on his lips. “Can’t even go to the bathroom without him looking for you,” Ten griped.
The other man stared at their prisoner one long minute. “The tranquilizer will hold? She shouldn’t have woken up after only an hour.”
“She may not have drunk enough of the juice,” Ten replied unconcerned, spinning on a heel, leaving out the door. “Don’t worry. She’s out for the duration.” Tenorio shot his man a contemptuous look. “And she’s tied and harmless. A woman.”
The other man stood straight at the reprimand, closing the private door with a firm hand while Ten took the long hallway to the main house.
* * * *
Red flames colored the world through Diego’s eyes. He had felt her, heard her, the pain of her terror stripping every last civil thought from his mind. The bitter tang of her fear had coated his tongue, left a foul stench in his nostrils.
Even the hole in his back had ceased to matter. Nothing mattered but her.
The
y had taken her. They would pay. All of them. There was no room for compassion in his heart. His compassion had been stripped from his arms and was trapped somewhere in that large house.
Diego stood just outside the perimeter wall of the lavish, mansion-styled home in the northeast woods far from San Francisco. He had counted close to fifty men on guard, some relaxed, others patrolling. It did not matter. They all would die.
He watched with hate-filled eyes as a car pulled from the garage, the gates opening to let it out, vanishing down the long, winding road. Tenorio. The name was a hissed curse. Nails grew to claws, the thirst for blood, for revenge, demanding fulfillment.
Titania. His eyes closed, and he found the strength to let the car go. He had to find her. She was his only priority. Tenorio was a walking dead man who had no idea judgment had been delivered.
Out of the silence of the night, he found Houston’s wild scent. Stalking.
“Not tonight, my friend,” Diego told him softly when he was near. “No one is getting out alive.” When Houston stood at his side, he explained in brief the little Titania had been able to describe in her moments of lucidity before he had lost her again. “They are running experiments. He wants to create an army of clones with abilities. This cannot be allowed.”
Houston’s expression was somber. “You can get to her?”
“I will.” Conviction left no room for failure. “Down the road, there is a copse that covers the roadside. Wait for me there. I do not want you to be implicated when this begins.”
Houston looked up, side to side. “He has cameras.”
“And I am a ghost,” Diego replied, shimmering into a cloud of mist, hardly visible to the naked eye.
“Bring her home, Diego.” Houston’s words followed the mist trail over the wall.
Diego flew unchallenged right up to the house. Finding an open window, he entered without difficulty. This house had never been a home. Peace did not rest here at night.