by Dale Mayer
She was the only one straddling the line between that experience and the one she should be experiencing. She was the only one that could understand what he was going through. She had to help him. Failure was not an option.
And that meant finding out what she’d done to him.
The only way she’d come up with so far was dangerous.
And so far from ‘right’ that she knew no one else would help her. But as she couldn’t remember what she’d done while under the influence of the drugs, there was only one way to return to the state where she could access the memories.
Therefore, she had to get hold of the drugs and take a small dose – hopefully putting her half in and half out of the state that she could remember what she needed to remember in order to save Seth.
And hope the others around her would understand.
But she doubted it.
Rhia? Serus snapped inside her mind. I can hear you worrying. Don’t do anything dangerous. There is always another way.
No, she whispered. There isn’t.
And she gently closed the door between her and her best friend and first and only love.
She’d never felt so alone. But it was the only way to right the wrongs she’d committed.
*
Jared stopped at the front entrance way to the school, Chelsea at his side. The parking lot was full of cars. There wasn’t a soul around.
She continued to walk past him, lost in thought. Several steps on, she turned and looked back at him. “Are you coming?”
He really didn’t want to be here. Finally, he nodded and said, “Yeah, it just feels…odd to be here.”
“If you didn’t skip as much, it wouldn’t.” She laughed. “Come on, we’re late enough already.”
He didn’t think such a thing was possible, but he did want to finish his year and get out of here for good. He joined her at the bottom of the front steps. “I’ll see you after last class then?”
“Absolutely.” At the top of the stairs, she opened the front doors and entered. He stepped in behind her. She walked straight down the hallway, calling back, “Find me if Taz gets back to you with news.”
“Will do.” He stood and watched her walk away. She was nice. Friendly and caring but not flirty. He liked that. In fact, he liked her.
With a happy smile, he turned to the left hallway and headed to his class. He should be just in time for his lab.
The bell rang as he walked, confirming his assumption. Now if only the day would go by fast. He pulled out his phone to check if there was a message from Taz. None. And neither was there anything from anyone else.
Damn.
*
Ian woke with a start. He froze in place, listening for something off. Something that would tell him where he was and what was going on. Something had changed in his world, but he didn’t know what. And he was so damn tired he knew he was in a dangerous state. Anyone could have snuck up on him.
Looking around, he recognized one of the Council Hall rooms. He should be safe here.
Then again…none of them were safe anymore.
A movement rustled beside him. His breath caught in the back of his throat. He slowly turned his head.
Wendy lay curled up at his side. Sound asleep. Astonished, he could only watch in wonder as she snuffled, a tiny endearing sound that made his heart ache.
When had she returned to bed? They’d spent several hours together earlier then Sian had knocked, asking for a few moments of Wendy’s time, and he’d fallen asleep while they spoke at the doorway. From the dark shadows under her eyes, he suspected she hadn’t had much rest. Then again, given the time that he could see on the opposite wall, it was daylight and well past her bedtime.
They were safe and survived some horrific times already; that they were here together right now was precious. He slid down and wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled in close.
He closed his eyes and fell back asleep.
*
Jewel opened her eyes, gasped, and slammed them closed. Same bed. Same room. Same place. But what place?
She held still, waiting for the horrible memories to drain away. She’d slept, but not well. She knew she was alone in the bed as she could feel the edge on both sides. So a cot then. And damn if that didn’t remind her of the hospital room she’d been in. But David had found her and rescued her. Brought her back to Council Hall. She should still be there. She opened her eyes enough to peek under her lashes. It looked like a hospital room, but the Council Hall had similar rooms. She’d seen them years ago and often wondered why they’d be needed when vamps could heal themselves, but she’d been chastised for questioning the wisdom of the elders.
Now she hoped it was the same room. She didn’t want to be anywhere else. She rolled over slowly as if still asleep and peered out.
She was alone.
Thank heavens for that.
The room, small and sparsely furnished, was barely big enough for her needs. Not that she planned on staying. On a small table to side sat a pile of folded clothes. Her own clothes, now washed and dried and ready for her.
She sat up slowly, aware of a booming headache going on at the base of her skull. She had no idea why but had to consider an injury or worse, drugs.
She shoved back the sheet and swung her legs off the bed.
“Whoa,” she whispered as the room spun. When gravity reasserted itself, she slid to the floor and used the bed for support.
Why was she so weak? Then again, when had she fed last? Surely her body just needed sustenance. She walked slowly over to the small room at the side, relieved to find a bathroom. There were also toiletries. A further search found a small shower.
She smiled. Wouldn’t that feel perfect right now? Her smile fell away. Except she was weak. She didn’t want to fall and have to call for help to get out.
But the hot water would feel so good on her aching muscles. She studied the shower and realized that there were bars and supports as if intended for patients or the elderly. She couldn’t think of one vamp that had ever been so weak as to need such things, but it made her feel better to think she might not be alone.
There were towels in a cupboard in the bedroom. She grabbed three. Was she the only female to use so many? She had one to stand on, one to wrap up her wet hair, and one to dry off with. She shrugged. So what? There were obviously laundry facilities here.
Standing under the hot water, she let the heat soak through her wings. They’d been so useless for weeks it almost felt normal to not move them, but she wanted that sense of freedom back. She needed it. If she’d had the full use of her wings a long time ago, she imagined she’d have been able to get herself out of trouble before this. Now with more drugs…
Tears clogged her eyes and throat at the fear that was sitting just inside. Always there, warring with hope that her wings would heal again. She hated being injured. Always had. But this was different. A break she could watch heal. A scratch or bruise took minutes to return to normal. Drugs though, they wrecked her body and played with her mind. She didn’t even want to think about what they did to her emotions. She wished David had stayed with her. She really didn’t want to be alone now.
Through the misery in her mind, she thought she heard a voice calling. She froze, staring at the door. Had she locked it?
She could feel herself readying for a fight to come. Pretty pathetic. A young sick female standing soaking wet and nude – what was she going to do, throw water in their eyes?
Then – her heart gasping in shock all the while her mind struggled to believe – she felt her wings unfurl. And damn if one, at her instinctive command, didn’t wrap around to hide her slender form.
Chapter 4
Tessa walked back along the hallway, a quiet audience behind her. She had no idea how the black energy was being transferred amongst the young men she’d saved. If she couldn’t figure it out soon, the system could be repeated. She’d quickly lose control of who was on which side.
She spun aroun
d and looked back at the open window. There was a pooling of mixed energy sitting right there. Made sense. Anyone who needed a breath of fresh air would have been tempted to stand there.
Had the men been on the other side waiting for an unsuspecting dupe? If so, how had they administered the drugs? The canisters they’d held? If their canisters could be retrieved, the contents could be checked. She studied the turbulent mix of energies and realized the darkness, the original darkness, was thin and light and surrounded a much wider area than she’d suspected. From the looks of things, it had been turned into a deadly gas and sprayed on or around the men as they stood there – much like perfume would have been.
The men likely never knew anything was wrong. An odd smell perhaps, but likely nothing more than that. So how many had been affected and how could she tell for sure?
Plus she needed to save the two affected men. If she could.
And why administer the drugs this way? Or was the enemy trying new methods to regain control of the hospital? Still, this would be an incredibly slow method. Just one or two men at a time. “Of course,” she muttered, her gaze going to the large group still following her. “As a core sample, it’s a hell of a way to figure out whether this form of administration was effective or not.”
“Administration of what?” Cody asked beside her.
“Drugs,” she said succinctly. “In a gas form. Sprayed into the air in front of us. We walk through it and inhale a hefty dose.” She looked back to see the two men and called them closer. The sea of men parted to let them through. She swept the black cloudiness from the first man’s energy, noticing how much straighter he stood.
There was silence around her, watching her every moment.
“Surely that wouldn’t make sense. It’s a poor delivery system,” Cody said while she worked.
“Maybe, but not as a trial.”
“And if it works? Then what?” someone asked behind her.
“How would they deliver something like that on a massive scale?” Cody said, shifting his position so he could see what she was doing.
Murmurs around her had men crowding around in anger. She quickly cleared the second man’s system. At the raised voices, she held up her hand.
“Think, everyone. What could they use to deliver a massive dose of drugs to everyone here?”
“Shit.”
Cody’s heartfelt whisper had her turning to him. She made a clipped movement with her head. “Exactly.”
“What?” cried the young man she’d been working on.
“What are they planning?” the other men cried.
“The ventilation system would make the most sense. They have a massive duct highway running through the hospital. If they wanted to, they could release the lethal gas into the vents and it would filter through the entire building. We’d all be affected.” She stared at them grimly. “It would happen so fast we wouldn’t have time to react. Hell,” she said, shifting her gaze. “We might not even notice when it happens.”
Silence.
“That would ruin the building for themselves as well, right?”
Several of the men looked around uneasily.
Tessa shook her head. “Not if the drug had a limited time of effectiveness. They could drug us all and come in later today, for example, and either kill us off or inject us with other drugs – if we hadn’t already converted to their cause.”
She shrugged, her mind thinking madly of all the other applications for such a delivery system. “Think about them going to schools and gaining hundreds of potential blood farm victims in one stretch. They’d never be short of supply again.”
Shocked gasps filled the air.
“You have one twisted mind,” said someone quietly from the back of the crowd. “You know that?”
“Good thing that’s only speculation,” one male said, but he eyed the ventilation shafts above his head uneasily.
“Do you know that’s what’s happening, Tessa, or are you guessing?” Cody asked.
“Both,” she said in an equally low voice. “Deanna’s memories are telling me that such a delivery system was worked on a few decades ago. The concept had been brought back up again recently.”
“Ah hell,” said someone behind her. “If we aren’t safe here, where can we go?”
Just then, a weird hissing sound crept through the walls.
Horrified cries filled the hallway as everyone scattered in all directions.
Everyone but Tessa and Cody.
She watched them all stand back and staring at her. “We need to evacuate the building.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?”
“The same way the others left maybe?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I am not up on where we are for numbers of vamps still in the hospital.”
“Well, maybe I do.” David, a huge grin on his face, came around the corner, walking directly to them. “I think we’ve found a way out. It will take time and some methodical action on our part, but if you’re right, we could have an answer.” He quickly told them about the elevator Serus had found.
Tessa opened her eyes wide as the information filtered to the back of her mind and joined with information she had already stored there. Deanna’s memories.
“Deanna knew about the elevator. She’d used it before.”
“Where does it go?” David asked.
She sorted through the files in her mind, the folders flicking faster and faster as she moved through the information. Suddenly, it all stopped and the information she needed stood in front of her.
“Oh, interesting.”
“What? Tell us already, Tessa.”
“It leads to the main headquarters.”
*
Cody studied her features. “What headquarters?”
“The blood farm headquarters. It was in the basement of the hospital for decades. It might be still there.”
“Or they might have cleaned it out when we took over the building,” David said. “How would we know? We just found the elevator.”
“Does it give access to every floor?” Cody asked. At David’s nod, he frowned. “And more floors than we know of?”
“I can’t say. It goes to the morgue and the two garage levels.”
“Remember, Cody, there was the other elevator at the morgue level. That one goes below.” Tessa’s face got an arrested look on it. “I think the bottom button has a label that is misleading.”
“Bottom label?”
Cody got it. “There is no second garage level to this place. That’s where it is.”
David spun around. “You two stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
“Not alone,” Tessa warned. “You won’t necessarily know what you’re looking for. I got the impression the headquarters was well hidden.”
David paused. “How are you feeling, by the way? You had quite the trip.”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “A Deanna trip.”
Cody grinned, loving her sense of humor.
“I want to go with you downstairs,” she said.
That wiped the grin off Cody’s face. “Like hell.”
She turned to glare at him. “Why not?”
“For one, you don’t have your strength back. If we’re attacked, you will be vulnerable. Two, you’re the one that brought up this gas stuff. We need to be on that first. We can’t have everyone running scared now.”
“The elevator is basically the same issue for both problems. We need to get organized and get the men moving downstairs. I’ll go with David and the first group to make sure it’s safe.”
“Not a good idea.”
She stepped toward him, the look in her eyes damn near making his heart ache even more. She’d sent him around the bend for weeks already, and she could still do it with just one look.
“I need to do something,” she pleaded. “I need to move, to find a way to integrate the new energy into my system. I feel…full. No, overfull. Maybe moving around and doing something will help.”
“Then
you can do that here,” he said calmly, refusing to let her go back into the danger zone.
She smiled. In his head, she whispered, And I love that about you. But we need to be there to keep the others safe.
We? At her look of astonishment, he felt better. You didn’t mean to leave me here?
She shook her head vehemently. “No. You have to come with me.”
He paused. “Have to? Why?”
Confusion peeked through her lashes as he tried to read the look in her eyes. She looked as baffled as he felt. “Yes, have to. But I don’t know why.”
“That is so weird to have you guys speak half out loud and half in your heads,” David groaned. “And the why doesn’t matter. If he has to, he has to. Let’s make sure we follow it. There’s too much shit going on for us to screw up on something like this. Besides, it’s not like Cody has left your side willingly yet,” he said. “He’s not likely to now either.”
True enough. But there’d been a warning in Tessa’s voice. Something premonition-like. And that scared the crap out of him. He didn’t dare leave her alone now.
“Give us a chance to organize the exodus. We need to make sure we take care of our own first,” he said. “Then we’ll go. All of us – together.”
“Like always.” she smiled. “Thank you.”
He shrugged. “David’s right. I wouldn’t have let you go anyway.”
A light, tinkling laugh escaped. “I know. You’ve been a wonderful protector.”
“Okay, enough, you two. The rest of us would like to get to the end of this damn war so we can be with our honeys too.” David growled out the last words, reminding Cody that Jewel was at the Council Hall along with many other people.
“How is she, David?” Tessa asked quietly, instinctively understanding that her brother was hurting.
“She’s asleep. So are Ian and Wendy apparently. Hell, nice for them. I’d like to get this done so I can join them.”