by M. J. Scott
Something thumped in my ears. Or maybe thumped wasn’t the right word. Pounded, perhaps. The sound was rhythmic. Regular. It should’ve been comforting, but something about it disturbed me. I rolled to one side then stilled as dizziness swept over me. The pounding grew louder and I finally worked out it was the sound of my pulse, throbbing in my head.
Something was wrong.
Why did I feel so strange? My eyes felt dry and crusted, resisting my efforts to open them. Even after rubbing them, I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded. Wherever I was, it was dark. Pitch black. Hot. And moving. I levered my arms underneath me, tried to sit up. My head hit something with a thump.
Pain flared and I slumped back down, cursing. The new ache didn’t make it any easier to remember something—anything—that would explain where I was. I searched my memories but it was like grasping at melting snow. Images flitted before my eyes then melted away. A man with dark hair, another with eyes that flared ice blue, and a pale rose tilting sideways in a darkened garden. None of it made sense.
Only one thing was clear. Wherever I was, it wasn’t good.
My pulse pounded harder at that realization, racing as panic swept through me. I grasped for calm, schooling myself to breathe slowly. The air smelled like dirt and oil and something less pleasant like rot or mold. Not comforting.
Nausea rose as the scent and the continuous motion made my stomach churn. I swallowed hard. Throwing up wasn’t going to help anything.
Abruptly the motion ceased and I lurched sideways, banging my head again. Light blazed as the surface above me suddenly vanished.
Hands grabbed me. I screamed and kicked out at them, blinking back the tears the burning light brought to my eyes.
“None of that, you shouldn’t even be awake,” a male voice snarled.
I kicked harder, connecting with something warm and solid.
“Ow. Bitch.” Fingers twined in my hair, grasping hard, bringing a gasp of pain to my lips. “Not so fun now? Good.” The grip tightened, raising my head then slamming it backwards. Sparks flashed behind my eyes then darkness took me again.
***
When I woke for the second time I wasn’t moving. Or, at least, whatever I lay on wasn’t moving. My head, however, was spinning and it took me three tries just to roll over. A move my muscles protested vigorously, adding a chorus of aches and throbs to the sharp twinges in my skull.
Keeping my eyes closed so as not to make the spinning any worse, I ran my hands cautiously over the bits of me I could reach. Nothing felt broken or bleeding, though there was a lump on my forehead and another one at the back of my head that made me see stars behind my eyelids when I touched it. I was still wearing my suit trousers and my shirt but my feet were bare. And the cross around my neck had vanished.
Good news. I wasn’t naked and I didn’t seem to be tied up.
Bad news. I felt like someone had driven a tractor over me and then left the remains out to be trampled by elephants. Even my fingers hurt. What I really wanted was to go back to sleep and hope that this was all a nightmare. But I knew it was real. The fear quickening my pulse told me that.
I had to face my situation.
The surface beneath me was soft. A bed? I cracked my eyes open cautiously. The pain in my head stayed at the same level so I risked opening them further, desperate to find out where I was. My vision was blurry at first but soon the details came clear. A single bed in a room of about ten feet square. Dim light came from recessed bulbs in the ceiling, a sort of diffuse glow that gave no indication what time of day it might be. From my position I could see a door the same pale maybe-white, maybe-cream color as the walls and nothing else. I stared at the door—something about it was off. Then it hit me. No handle.
Locked in.
Fear flared stronger. Where the hell was I?
I drew a shuddery breath and steeled myself for the pain of rolling to my left. It took an effort. I panted through my mouth until the worst of the sensations subsided. I shouldn’t have bothered. My new view revealed nothing. No windows, no pictures, no other furniture. Just a few slits high in the roof that had to be some sort of ventilation system and more of the lights in the ceiling. The air was cool and smelled kind of stale, the way rooms get when they haven’t been used for a while.
Four bare walls and a bed and me. That was it.
I shivered and dug my hands into the blanket covering the bed, rolling again so I wrapped myself in it. The wool was scratchy and uncomfortable but it was warm. Not that warmth helped my shivering as my situation sunk home.
I was alone. Trapped. God knows where.
The shivers turned to shudders and I curled into a ball, huddling into the blanket. As I lay, my head eased a little and I suddenly remembered. Bug. The garden. The coffee. The not-cop.
Kidnapped.
Most likely by whoever had Bug. Call me wimpy but on top of everything else the thought was enough to push me over the edge. Sobs racked me, deep, heavy, gasping noises, the kind you can’t stop even if you try. The kind you just have to cry out.
Eventually I did and then I just lay there, eyes and throat burning, trying to make some sense of what had happened. Trying not to succumb to the terror lurking in the back of my mind.
I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. My left wrist, usually occupied by my mother’s watch, was as bare as my feet but I was desperately thirsty and despite the residual sick feeling in my stomach, starting to feel hungry as well. So hours, not days. Surely I’d feel worse if I’d been out for days?
Though whatever they’d drugged me with could be affecting me. I’d had some screwy reactions to anesthesia in the past.
So really, I knew nothing. I lay still, trying to calm myself, and listened for clues to my location. Nothing. No road noise, no outside world noises, nothing at all to indicate anything lay beyond the four walls of the room. There was a soft background sound that made me think air conditioning but that was it. Wherever I was, it was well soundproofed.
I reconstructed events in my head. I’d been in some sort of vehicle when I’d woken the first time. The details were sketchy but I was sure I’d been in a trunk. Which wasn’t entirely useful. After all, I had no idea which way we’d gone or how long we’d traveled.
But arriving in a vehicle meant there might be one around if I managed to get free.
Big if.
But I was alive, so whoever had taken me didn’t want me dead—not immediately anyway.
Hello not-so-comforting thought.
I burrowed deeper still into the wool blanket as another set of shivers wracked me. I breathed deep, hoping its stale scent could drive all the scary thoughts from my head.
Focus on the positive, Keenan. One bout of hysterics was all I was allowed. All I could give into if I was going to survive.
Okay, so I was alive. That might mean Bug was too. And, if I had anything to do with it, we were both going to stay that way until Dan—because if I knew anything, I knew Dan would leave no stone unturned to find me—rode to the rescue.
Summoning more courage than I knew I possessed, I forced myself to sit up. They might as well know I was awake, if they didn’t already. Just because I couldn’t see any cameras in the room didn’t mean they weren’t there. And there was no sense playing dead. A vamp or were could hear my heart beat several feet away.
Mr. Not-cop had been a were, so it seemed reasonable to assume that there could be more of them around. I might as well find out what I was up against.
I sat clutching the edge of the bed and waited. And waited. I have no idea how long I sat there but it felt like hours. And with each beat of my heart my nerves grew tauter and tauter.
Just when I was starting to think no one would come, that maybe they were just going to leave me here to rot, the door slid open with a faint hum.
And the face of the man who walked through the door was enough to make me wish that rotting was my fate.
Tate.
His face had haunted my nightmares for tw
elve years.
I knew every line of his features. I’d studied the pictures in the paper obsessively, wanting to be ready if I ever came across him. Ready to do what, I’d never been entirely sure but it involved pain and death. His.
But the papers couldn’t convey the reality of the monster.
He looked normal enough. About six foot, average build, sandy brown hair in a nondescript spiky cut. The sort of guy you’d pass in the street without a second glance.
As long as you didn’t look in his eyes.
That was the part the pictures didn’t reveal.
Whatever was behind those eyes had nothing human about it. It wasn’t just vampire but something far more primitive. Soulless. Something that screamed predator. Evil. Run. Hide.
Die.
The sort of terror in the night that men had discovered fire to protect themselves against.
I pushed myself back on the bed instinctively.
“Ms. Keenan,” Tate said. “How nice to see you.”
He might have been greeting someone at a garden party. The sheer detachment in his tone was creepier than any threat or menace could be. Despite myself I inched further back until I felt my butt hit the edge of the mattress. Any further and I’d fall.
“Pity I can’t say the same,” I managed to say with a mouth suddenly dry as dust.
“Now, now, be polite.” He leaned against the door, a slight smile on his face as if he were admonishing a naughty child.
I bit back the retort that rose to my lips. I didn’t want to bait him. Not when I had no idea how he might react.
No taunting the serial killer.
Instead, I studied him, avoiding his eyes.
He submitted to my examination, the smile still playing around his lips. It looked fake somehow. Like expressions and emotions were something he practiced in front of the mirror rather than something he had any real experience with.
Whatever it was that lurked inside him, it felt nothing.
“See anything you like?”
I dropped my gaze, tried to grow smaller. I didn’t look away completely though. Number one rule in every self-defense class I’d ever taken is don’t take your eyes off the attacker.
I had no idea what Tate might do.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He flowed into the room, put a hand—inhumanly cool—under my chin, and forced my head up. I didn’t resist but made sure we didn’t make eye contact.
“You’ve grown up quite nicely, haven’t you? One of the lucky ones.”
Lucky ones? I jerked away. His grip tightened, stopping me.
“You have an interesting definition of lucky,” I said.
“You’re alive. That’s pretty lucky.”
Alive and held captive by the monster who killed my family, oh yeah, I was rushing right out to buy a lottery ticket. “My family isn’t.”
“Ah yes. Caldwell. That was fun. So much pain in one night. Do you like pain, Ms. Keenan?”
I shook my head, suppressing a shiver.
Tate laughed delightedly. “Excellent, I knew I picked the right one.”
I jerked my head up. “What does that mean?”
“You didn’t think I left you alive accidentally? Oh no. I chose my survivors.”
“Ch-chose?”
“Yes,” he sat on the bed beside me.
He smelled almost human. Normal scents of cotton and soap and aftershave surrounded him. But underneath it was something I couldn’t describe. Couldn’t name. But the smell set my teeth on edge, made me want to run.
“You see, it’s not very interesting just to kill everyone.” He ran a hand across my hair and my stomach turned over. If there’d been anything in it, I might have thrown up.
“I would’ve thought that was plenty of entertainment for someone like you.”
“Yes. You would. No one understands.” He sounded scornful. “No one has the vision to realize it’s better with survivors.”
“Better?” I didn’t want to hear this but somehow I couldn’t stay silent. Not if he was going to tell me something about that night. Or offer some justification—however twisted—for what he’d done.
“Someone left behind to feel the pain.” He pushed off the bed, faced me. “Someone to suffer. To hate being left alive. I picked the ones I felt would survive best. The ones who would hurt most even though they’d lived. You looked strong. You saw me . . . do you remember?”
I shook my head, swallowing against the pain and regret tightening my throat. I didn’t remember anything about that night between the time I’d gone to sleep and the time I’d been woken by the sound of sirens to find my sister dead on the floor beside me.
“What a shame. We had a moment, you and I. You saw me. Standing over your bed. But you didn’t scream. No. You reached for your phone. So I had to put you under. But I knew then you were a survivor. A strong one. I wonder, if you’d screamed, would you have warned them? Would they have lived?”
No! I almost screamed it. No. There was nothing I could’ve done.
But part of me doubted.
Part of me wondered if he might be right.
Part of me died a little, thinking if I’d screamed, maybe I’d be dead, yes. But maybe they’d be alive.
“Think about it,” Tate continued, “If you’d screamed, perhaps your father might have heard you. Saved you all.” His hand stroked my hair again and I fought not to leap away. Stay still. Don’t attract attention. Don’t draw the gaze of the big bad predator.
“Then again, he didn’t hear me come into their room. At least, not until your mother started screaming.”
I clapped my hands over my ears, bile rising in my throat. I couldn’t listen to any more of this or I’d go crazy. But despite the desperate press of my palms, I could hear Tate laughing.
A rolling, cutting, low sound that twisted humor into something much darker.
You know, I suddenly heard him, clear as a bell despite the fact he was still laughing. If you don’t take your hands down, I’ll just talk to you this way. But you might not like it. This way I can do more than talk. I can show you. Show you their faces.
I dropped my hands like my ears had caught fire. Only to be greeted by even louder laughter.
“Good,” he said. “This will all be dreadfully boring if we get to that part too quickly.”
This time I almost retched as I struggled to breathe.
Fear flooded my body, paralyzing me.
I knew I was meant to stay calm in this situation. To think. To help myself. But all I wanted to do was curl up and hide. Somehow I forced myself to stay still, to suck in air and continue trying to function. “What do you mean?”
“Ah.” He cocked his head, regarding me with an expression you might see on a small boy deciding whether or not to squish a bug. “I didn’t finish explaining.”
“Explaining what?” I didn’t want to know the answer but I could almost hear Dan in my head, the old rules he’d drilled into me when he’d been a cop. Self-defense if you’re attacked. Keep them talking. Buy time. Don’t antagonize but be strong.
Tate just smiled at me with those dead eyes.
“Explain what?” I repeated. “What do you want with me? Where’s my aunt?” Get information, that was the other rule. Though I’d learned that one from overdosing on cop shows rather than anything Dan had told me.
“I was explaining about survivors. All that lovely pain. And you know what the best part is?”
I stared up at him, unable to think of any sort of reply. He’d avoided my question about Bug. Was she even alive?
He leaned in closer so his face was only inches from mine. His breath stank like something had rotted in his mouth. “The best part is that survivors start to forget. They think it’s over. They relax.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” I spat.
He smiled, baring his fangs. “No? Maybe not. But you did relax, didn’t you, Ashley? You thought one bad thing was all that you were going to get.”
Not real
ly. Not after Dan. Did he not know about Dan? Somehow I doubted it. If he’d been watching me all these years then he had to know about the most serious relationship of my life. But maybe to Tate, anything short of death and mutilation didn’t qualify as bad. “I’m not a child. I know bad things happen.”
Tate, just for a moment, looked almost pitying. “But you’re all children. You never learn, you humans. Never learn it’s best to not to hope.”
Right now, the only thing I was hoping for was Tate’s death.
“All that hope for the future,” he said softly. “Shiny bright hope.” His finger ran across my cheek, making me flinch as he dragged his fingernail just under my eye. “Too bad. You shouldn’t have gone poking around in my accounts.” His hand grabbed my chin, fingers digging hard. “Silly girl. You reminded me.”
“Reminded?” I was sure my heart was going to explode as it raced, every instinct shrieking for me to run. I couldn’t think.
“That it’s time for the next step.” He released me and then, almost too fast for me to follow, rose to his feet and grabbed both my wrists in one hand, hauling me to my feet as easily as a man lifting a kitten by the scruff of its neck.
He held my wrists above my head, leaving me almost dangling, toes just on the floor. My shoulders shrieked with pain and my heart hammered loud enough for me to hear each beat.
“Time for round two,” he said and ripped my shirt from my body.
Chapter Nine
I screamed then, terror welling out of my throat and into the air before I could choke back the sound. Tate let me scream, holding me motionless while he ripped my clothes off with his free hand. Wool and silk and elastic all parted under his touch like tissue.
For a long moment he held me there, looking at me with a dispassionate expression then he released my hands so quickly my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor biting my lips until I tasted blood to keep from screaming again.
Tate crouched in front of me, yanked my head back by my hair, eliciting another shriek. I dropped my eyes, determined not to let him capture my mind.
“Oh, be quiet,” he said, sounding bored. “I don’t fuck humans.”