by Dale Mayer
Ian cast a dark look at Sian. “She wouldn’t join the others. She’s only doing this for her son’s sake.”
“Oh, I do understand what she’s doing and why,” Sian said in a gentle voice. “Still, how can she find out if she isn’t with them? If she doesn’t have access to their information?”
Wendy gasped. “What if she had access to their computers?”
Ian spun to look at her, hating to see the fatigue showing on her face. She looked damn tired. “What are you thinking?”
“Gloria’s laptop,” she whispered, excitement threading her voice. “She’d know about Gloria’s laptop.”
Sian bolted. She was there one moment and gone the next. Wendy turned to follow.
“Wait,” Ian said urgently. “Are there other laptops here? Other equipment from the blood farm that she might go to? Let’s not all focus on the one place. Rhia is a smart lady – she knows about Gloria’s laptop, wouldn’t she expect you guys to have guessed that’s where she’d go to search?”
Wendy chewed on her bottom lip, thinking about his words. “Many computers were seized in the raids. Potentially any of them could provide her with the information she needs or at least give her a place to start.” She turned and walked out to the hallway. “Let’s go to the tech room. Sian mentioned there are men working on deciphering the data we found.”
“Good. We’ll start there. Let Sian know where we’re going and she can meet up with us.”
Wendy already had her phone out and was texting.
“Did anyone try texting Rhia?” he asked. “Maybe she’s not completely turned to the other side. Maybe she’s looking, hoping for someone to stop her from doing this. Maybe it’s the mind control.” At Wendy’s horrified gasp and worried gaze, he shrugged.
“Anything is possible now.”
*
Rhia leaned against the back wall of the small room she’d locked herself in, tears in her eyes. Oh Lord, please let her be doing the right thing. She had to save her son. Life wasn’t worth living if she was responsible for his death. She couldn’t have that be the end result. Seth was a good kid, becoming an honorable man. She didn’t know who was ultimately to blame for what happened to him, but she steadfastly believed in his innocence.
She was a prime example of what happened when those bastards got their drugs into someone. And that wasn’t her fault, and neither was it his. The things he’d done while under their control also weren’t his fault, but she’d never be able to prove it to anyone when she’d done some horrible things too. Thankfully she hadn’t been under the drug’s influence for very long. She’d already done major damage in that little while. Imagine if that was years like what Seth had been through. She partly blamed Tyson for this. He’d been the one to get his claws into her son. But in truth, they were all to blame for this sickening situation. She still struggled with not having noticed a change in her son’s behavior.
As his mother, she should have seen it.
Another failure on her part.
They were starting to rack up.
Now what she was doing was going to be considered traitorous by so many. But what choice did she have? She had to help him.
She stared down at the half-full needle in her hand, shuddered once, then squared off her chin. She had no choice.
And she shoved the needle into her arm and pressed down the plunger.
Chapter 8
Once out of the elevator, Tessa let Cody lead the way to the security room. The air showed no sign of new energies having arrived or left recently. Weird. Where had everyone gone? They’d sent out several messages asking multiple questions but so far, there’d been no answers.
Cody sidled up to the corner ahead, his hand telling her to stay back. She smiled. She could see energy billowing around the corner up ahead but it was older, stale.
Cody peered around the corner and pulled back. She shifted closer.
Anyone there?
Yes. Approaching.
The feral tone of his voice had her looking at him. Remember, not everyone here is an enemy.
And not everyone here is a friend.
He jumped forward in front of the newcomer. He pulled a fist back… and damn if a strangled squawk didn’t escape.
“Cody?”
She raced around the corner, worried at what he’d be facing – and stopped.
She stared.
She giggled.
Then she burst out laughing. In between her giggles, she managed to say, “Hi, Bart. I wondered where you got to.”
And damn if the tubby vampire didn’t turn white like the tiles surrounding him. His jaw dropped and he looked frantically around as if searching for a way to escape.
So not happening.
Cody stepped to the side of him, effectively boxing the vamp up against the wall. Tessa brightened her smile. “So tell us, Bart, what are you doing here? And how does this place fit into the blood farms?”
“No, oh no. Not you again.” Bart finally found his voice. He shook his head like a lumbering bear. “Hell no. You have a death wish. I don’t want to be anywhere around you.” He turned to look behind him, but there was a hint of something there…fear, maybe.
What would make Bart afraid? Curious, and feeling it was important, she studied Bart, looking for his reaction intently as she said, “What are you scared of?”
His eyes rounded before he started to shake his head. “Nothing. I’m not scared of anything.” He glared at her. “Except maybe the trouble you bring. A damn trouble magnet you are. Worse – you go looking for it.”
He suddenly stopped talking and leaned forward as if his eyes didn’t understand what they were seeing. “You’re different.” His gaze narrowed. “What happened?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he shook his head rapidly and backed up. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He took another step back and Cody stepped in the way, caging him in again. Bart glared at him. “You’re just as bad if you’re with her. I don’t want nuttin’ to do with either of you.”
Tessa laughed. He was a beauty. She’d never met anyone before or since like him. Now if only she knew which side he was on. She asked him.
He just glared at her.
She narrowed her gaze at him this time. “I asked you a question,” she said. “One I’ve asked you before. As I recall, you didn’t answer then either.”
“I don’t know what I might have answered back then, but it wouldn’t have been any different than now,” he said. “I’m not on anyone’s side. I want to be left alone. You go off and live your death wish. The others can go and kill each other. I don’t give a damn. Me…I want to live a life of peace and quiet.”
“Then you don’t mind showing us the security room, do you?” said Cody.
Bart glared at him. “What part of wanting to be left alone don’t you understand?”
The grin on Cody’s face had Bart backing up again.
“It’s just around the corner,” he blustered. “Go find it yourself.”
“And you?” Tessa asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Me?” He tried to inch past her. “I’m going back to the damn caves where I’ll be alone.”
“If that’s the case, why are you here?” Cody’s voice vibrated in exasperation. “You’re in a hospital that is run by the same people who ran the blood farms.”
“What?” Bart cried out in a shocked whisper. “I am not. I was brought here to look at the heating pipes.”
Tessa’s antenna perked up. “What about the duct work, Bart?” she asked in a soft voice.
Her tone had him backing up again.
“Hey now. No threats. I ain’t harming anyone.” He glared at her. “They got a problem – so I’m helping fix it. Done it lots of times before.”
“Maybe not, but if you are part of their plans for the ventilation system, then you are definitely hurting others.”
“Whoa, what plans?” His gaze widened to huge orbs. “I don’t know anything about thei
r plans.”
“If that’s the case, then you don’t mind telling me what you were fixing with the system, will you?” Cody snapped.
Bart glared at them but remained silent.
“Tell us,” Tessa urged. “Please. This is very important.”
“To you it is.” Bart shifted his big belly. “It isn’t to me. I go where I’m told to go.”
“Told by whom?” Tessa gave him a cold smile. “Bart, give.”
“Oh, whatever. My buddy said they needed the system fixed for some reason.” He shrugged. “So I came and made a coupling so they could attach some damn canisters.”
Tessa’s skin ran cold. She glanced over at Cody. He looked ready to tear Bart to shreds. “And have they attached their canisters to the system?”
He shrugged. “They were working on it when I left.”
And then she knew. “You left without them knowing, didn’t you? You figured out what they were up to so you took off, didn’t you?” She snorted in disgust.
“Hey, I did not. But they couldn’t be doing anything good, and I didn’t figure they’d leave me around to tell any tales so I made sure I did the job well and disappeared.”
He shoved his chin forward, his gaze pugnacious. “I don’t like to get involved.”
“And you like living…?”
“Yeah,” he eyed Cody nervously. “I do like living. So?”
“So if you want to continue to do so, you’re going to help us stop them.”
*
Cody wanted to laugh at the look of chagrin on the old fart’s face. Just what the hell was he doing here anyway? Cody never trusted the guy in the first place and now that he was here…well, once again…it was suspicious. He might have let him go last time as a bad coincidence, but to come back again…that was two strikes and likely not forgivable the second time. First time was ignorance. The second time, however…
“I got nothing to say.”
“Good. Then I’ll make sure you can say nothing,” Tessa said, calmly lifting her hand as if to slash across his chest.
Cody knew what was coming next. “Whoa, what are you doing?”
She stayed her hand, her gaze never leaving the cringing vamp.
“Yeah, what are you doing?” Bart stuttered. “Jesus, you are weird.”
Tessa lowered her arm, much to Cody’s relief, and glared at Bart. “I was going to make sure that you didn’t cross us.”
“Hey, let me go and I’ll be happy to disappear.”
Tendrils of loose hair flew everywhere as Tessa shook her head. “Not happening, Bart. You can’t walk the middle road anymore. Give us something helpful to stop these guys from drugging everyone in this hospital or I’ll take you out now.”
“Man, you need to take anger management courses or something.” He reached up and gave his old ratty shirt collar a snap. “Boy.”
He turned his attention to Cody then froze. Horror slowly whispered across his face. He slowly turned back to face her. “Did you say drugs? Drug everyone in the hospital?” His voice rose to a squeak at the end like the mouse he was.
Cody wanted to reach out and give him a good shake. “Surely you understand what’s going on. There’s no way you couldn’t.”
Bart’s eyes bulged as he processed the information Tessa had threatened him with. “Whoa, I don’t have anything to do with drugs.” He spun to face Tessa. “You know that.”
“Really? And yet by your own words you just said you fixed the system so they could hook up their new canisters.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t drugs,” he protested. “If they were, I didn’t know.” He spun around and stared behind him, a stricken look on his face. “We have to stop them,” he cried, and he bolted back the way he’d come.
Cody hadn’t even had a chance to register that the old vamp had moved; then he was struck by how fast the bugger was scuttling away.
With Tessa was racing behind him.
Shit. Cody took off after the other two.
“Tessa, I wouldn’t trust him. He could be leading us into a trap.”
“Yep, he could be,” she called back. “But I don’t see that we have much choice.”
Damn. Neither did he.
*
Jared stood in Taz’s home office nervously shifting from side to side. He was desperate to do something to help Chelsea. There’d been no further communication from her or her kidnappers. Just the thought of those bastards made his blood run cold. He didn’t want to think of Chelsea in their hands. That they would consider coming after him – that they knew him, where to find him – yeah, he might never sleep again. He looked around the brightly lit room, dark curtains still protectively covering the windows – even though it was dark outside – and wondered if they’d find him here. They could associate him with his uncle and aunt’s places, but would they find a connection to Taz?
He glanced sideways at Taz tapping away on his keyboard. Would Taz let him stay here? Surely they’d never think he’d hide out in a vampire hideaway.
Then again, this was only a half of one, with Taz being as human as Jared. Interesting times. He shifted restlessly.
“Pull up a chair, Jared.” Taz motioned to the far side of the room without taking his eyes off the monitor. “I’m going to be a while.”
Taking that suggestion to heart, Jared grabbed what looked like a Victorian-style kitchen chair and turned it around and sat down backwards facing Taz and the computer system. A very elaborate system. He wondered at that.
“That’s a lot of computer equipment,” he said casually.
“It is, and some came from the blood farm. I’m trying to decipher all the codes used for the victims we found hanging.”
“What codes?” He leaned forward. If this was related to his father, he wanted to know everything he could. Maybe he could help somehow.
“Drugs they were given and why. If they ever awoke. The drug doses. Health issues found.”
“Oh.” He tried to make his voice sound normal, but the thought of someone treating his father as a number to be analyzed hurt more than he thought.
His pain must have trickled through into his voice. Taz turned abruptly to look at him, his gaze foggy, lost in his thoughts. His expression cleared suddenly and he closed his eyes. “Lord, I am so sorry, Jared. I forgot about your father.”
“It’s okay.” Jared shrugged, wishing saying that would make it so. “At least it’s getting easier.”
“Good, but this has to be hard.”
“It is, but it also helps keep me focused on catching these bastards. Chelsea did nothing to them. They shouldn’t have taken her.”
“And Tessa would have said the same thing about you.”
Jared sat back. “That’s a perspective I hadn’t thought about. Tessa really started something when she came after me.” He hated that so far he hadn’t been able to do anything to help Chelsea. At least it seemed like nothing. Look at the war Tessa had brought on in her fight to save him. He felt like a nobody. A failure. He hadn’t managed to stir anyone to action. It was driving him crazy. He dropped his head on his arms over the back of the chair. “I’m really lucky that Tessa took up the fight to save me.”
Taz looked over at him, a crooked smile on his face. “If you had any idea how and what that girl went through well…” Taz shook his head and returned to his monitor.
“Maybe that’s why I’m so stricken now,” Jared admitted. “Someone saved me. I think it’s time for me to save someone else. I couldn’t save my father – I have to save Chelsea.”
“And we will. We will.”
*
Bart raced to the mechanical room and those bastards who were trying to drug everyone in the hospital. He damn near worked for nothing now to keep Lacy safe. They weren’t going to go back on their word and take her out with gas. Like hell. If need be, he’d carry her out himself.
He cast a glance behind him. They were still following. Gaining even. Not good. He hitched his pants up and tucked in his energy an
d sped forward. He might not be a warmonger like most of his clan, but he’d certainly picked up a trick or two in his time.
And he knew how to disappear. Escaping was his thing. From trouble. From battle happy vamps. From teenage girls who had a death wish.
Hell, they wouldn’t catch him easily.
Hopefully they wouldn’t catch him at all. He needed to talk to the guys he’d help install the canister for. Find out what was in it. Find out what the plan was for the contents. They made him a promise a long time ago.
And he planned on making sure they kept it.
*
The nurse clucked around Jewel like she’d been missing for hours. This was the nurse’s third trip to check on Jewel in just over an hour. All she’d done was have a hot shower. Who knew she wasn’t supposed to do such a thing so fast? She felt good physically. Maybe even mentally, but emotionally – yeah, not so well. David hadn’t shown up. She had no cell phone to text him with and the nurse had no idea where or who he was.
She also hadn’t explained where Jewel was either.
And her wings no longer appeared to be working. How depressing. At least they had worked once so she knew it could happen again. Healing was in progress.
And that made her more determined than ever to not let the nurse know how quickly she was recovering. At least until she knew if she could trust her.
“Now no more showers. Rest. Your body has been through a lot of trauma. It needs time to heal.”
“What trauma?” she asked curiously.
“Drugs, of course.” The nurse smiled. “What else could it be?” Her clear gaze suddenly intensified, as if thinking Jewel had hidden some kind of injury from her.
Not likely and certainly not after being found in the shower. A little hard to hide much that way.
“Now I’ll just be outside. You eat and rest.”
And the woman walked out.
Jewel looked at the blood slushies the nurse had left for her. She was so very hungry. Was it safe? Or were there more drugs hidden in her drink?
The door closed behind the nurse, leaving Jewel alone with her thoughts – and her dinner.