“It’s clear now; tell everyone to come on.”
Slowly they moved into the yard. She passed the first security guard on the ground; his neck was at an odd angle. It made her wince. The next guy wasn’t so lucky, a knife protruded from his chest. The smell hit Evaine in a wave. It was all she could do to keep herself from falling on the dead man and devouring him. She knew she had to resist, but she took a step toward him anyway. Immediately she heard Luca’s voice in her head.
“Stop!” He was several yards away, but she knew he could feel her just the same. She bared her teeth at him, and he stepped closer. All of her senses were completely heightened now. “This is why I told you to eat before you came, but you refused. Now come to me.”
Hunger and reason fought inside her. She wanted to give into the hunger, but this was a person, she reminded herself. A dead person, but still a person. A human. She looked at the man again and almost stepped toward him, but at the last second she walked to Luca instead. Uncertainty emanated off of him.
“I’m fine. I can control it.” She glared at him hard until he nodded his head. She hated lying to him, and she was pretty sure he knew she wasn’t fine. She stepped to the side, away from Luca’s prying eyes, and waited to enter the building.
Raze and Kade peeled off from the group and took weapons out, guarding the door just outside of the area where the floodlight lit. Victor held the door open. When Raze and Kade were in place Victor went through, followed by Luca. Evaine came next and finally the rest of the group. They walked down the unfinished hallway, a sick feeling surfacing in the pit of her stomach. She was reminded of the night that Luca had come and taken her out of a similar building. A small itch of panic scratched up her neck. Luca slowed down and turned to her. She shook her head and told him to keep going, afraid that if she didn’t keep moving she might go into a full-blown rage and freak out on everyone.
They rounded a corner and came to a stairwell. She gave the door a small mental pull; there was no one on the other side. Taking the stairs down as far as they would go she again pulled a door open. The group stepped out into the hall; it split in both directions. The sound of water dripping down pipes could be heard from above. The smell of stale air filled her nose. Trash littered the hallway, as if squatters had once lived in the unfinished building. Victor, Luca, and Evaine went right. The rest of the group went left.
* * *
Tristan waited by the fence, scanning for movement. He had stopped his car a half mile away and waited ten minutes before getting out and walking down the dirt road to the abandoned building. He hadn’t expected to drive all the way to Boston. But nothing was stopping him now.
Following the chain link around the perimeter, he found a cut in the links big enough to fit through. What the heck were they doing in there? Tristan’s blood chilled at the next thought. They were making more like Evaine. The anger rose inside of him. He had to stop Luca and get Evaine back.
A cry rang out. Two men burst from the building into the yard and two more men stepped out of the shadows and attacked. Tristan bolted down the side of the fence, glad he hadn’t made a run for the door. He had to find another way in. Yells of pain and a gunshot from the fight only fueled Tristan’s adrenaline. A hundred yards away he slowed to catch his breath. He really had let himself go these past few months. It showed in the weakness he felt in his legs and the burning in his chest. Tristan searched for another hole in the fence, no longer able to hear the fighting over the pounding of his own heartbeat. He came to a downed section of fencing and hesitated for a minute. He stepped over the chain link and ran for a broken window on the bottom level of the building.
* * *
Evaine, Victor, and Luca continued down the hall until it branched off. To the left lights flooded out into the hallway. Victor headed down first. Several voices and screams drifted down from the lit room. The newborns were awake. Victor charged his energy, and the lights overhead flickered momentarily. Halfway down the hall two men walked out of a room carrying a screaming newborn in a strait jacket. They struggled with her so violently that they didn’t even see Evaine or the other two.
Luca backed up, shielding Evaine, as Victor let out a kinetic blast. The men fell to the floor in a heap, but the newborn was unfazed. She charged Victor. The guards got to their feet as Luca ran straight at them. Without even thinking Evaine lifted the newborn into the air and pinned her to the wall. Luca continued right by her to the two guards and was on them in an instant. He snapped the neck of the first before the other man could even get to his feet. The second man was behind Luca. Evaine let out a yell but it didn’t matter, Victor was on it. Knife in hand he quickly plunged the blade into the second man’s neck. Evaine heard the crunch and smelled the blood before the dead man hit the floor.
The newborn thrashed against Evaine’s mental hold, yelling obscenities at the top of her lungs. Luca walked up to her, trying to communicate. She stopped and glanced over at the dead men. Luca shook his head, and she began again with her string of profanity.
“Put her in that room and lock the door.” Luca motioned to a door across from where Evaine stood. Evaine dragged the girl down the hall, opened the door with her hand, and pushed her inside with her ability. They could hear the voices from the room more clearly now. There were five, maybe six people inside. Victor walked forward as quietly as possible and took a look around. He motioned to Luca, who in turn told Evaine.
“Three guards, one doctor, and two newborns. Victor will blast everyone; he and I will enter the room. You stay in the doorway till we assess what’s going on. Help if you feel you need to. Otherwise, stay out of the way.”
His impersonal nature hurt for a moment, then she remembered he was on pins and needles. Not just because of the mission, but because she was here. She tried to send him a calming thought to sooth his fears, but he shook his head and she stopped.
Victor was first through the door. She heard a shout and then a moment of silence. Luca ran in as Evaine headed in. Everyone was on the floor, including the two newborns. The guards were the first on their feet. Luca charged them, caught the first in the chest, and knocked him back down, but the second was on him from behind, wrapping his arm around Luca’s neck. Evaine wanted to help, but she was afraid of hurting Luca. Everything moved so fast she was unsure of what to do. Victor struggled with the third guard, who was almost as large as he was. His knife had rolled across the floor, and he was engaged in hand-to-hand combat. She wasn’t sure who was winning.
Out of the corner of her eye Evaine saw a woman in a lab coat coming toward her. Before Evaine could react the woman stabbed her in the arm with a syringe. Evaine roared in pain. Picking her up, Evaine pinned the woman to a chair, pushing the chair deep into the corner. Pulling the syringe from her arm she threw it on the floor.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Evaine growled between clenched teeth.
The woman didn’t speak. Evaine kept waiting for a feeling of numbness or drowsiness to overcome her, but nothing happened. The woman’s face was oddly familiar, but in the chaos Evaine couldn’t place it.
Within a minute Victor and Luca had subdued the other two guards, dragging the bodies into the corner. It was over so quickly that Evaine was still on a high from it all.
It took her a moment to realize the newborns were missing. She looked around the large makeshift hospital room. She’d seen them when she had first come in, but now they were gone. As Evaine’s eyes traveled over the surfaces of the equipment and the hospital beds with the straps, memories of being held captive flooded her mind. Her rage built quickly. These people had done this to her. They had done this to all of them.
Luca was able to coax one of the newborns out from under the bed. He was talking to him when Quinten and Aron arrived. Soon followed by Trey and Ronan.
Evaine’s rage cooled at the sight of them. She watched as Luca got a female newborn to come out from her hiding spot as well.
“Nice work.” Victor squeezed Evaine
’s shoulder where the syringe had stuck her. “We’ve never been able to get one alive before. And since they didn’t have time to destroy the computers, hopefully Ronan will get some information off them.”
The woman pinned in the chair looked terrified and defiant. Her lips clamped together hard as if she were trying to keep words from popping out of them.
“She stabbed me with that syringe on the floor,” Evaine told Aron. He picked it up and looked at it.
“That’s weird, it’s empty. She must have been using it as a weapon.” He threw it back down. “We found the docking bay. There was a moving van in it. Looks like they were on their way out. It’s full of supplies and medical stuff.”
“The computers are mostly gone,” Ronan said. “There isn’t much left. I can gather some small amounts of data. Vitals, when they were unconscious, how long, but that’s about it.”
“I wish there was a way to find them quicker.” Aron looked around. “I thought Karen said there were three.”
“One’s in a room down the hall. She’s raging so I shut her in,” Evaine said.
Luca was staring at her hard. She was about to ask him what was wrong when she noticed a newborn staring at her as well. She peered at him. His shaggy blond surfer cut hair was starting to whiten. His glasses were gone, but he still had his good looks and his lanky, toned physique. Jeff.
She walked across the room to them, jealousy oozing out of every one of Luca’s pores. She stood in front of Jeff. He stared at her, a look of shock on his face.
“Evaine. We thought you were dead or something.”
“Well, you got the dead part right at least,” she said. “How did you get here?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But you recognize me?”
“Yes.” Jeff stepped up and hugged her. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I can’t believe you’re here.” She patted him lightly while staring at Luca.
“There has to be a connection.” Luca’s voice was gruff. “We need to find it, and when we do, we’ll be able to find the connection for all of us.”
“Hey have you seen my glasses?” Jeff asked.
“You don’t need them, but—”
Evaine looked around for the glasses while stepping over to Luca. She was about to say something, when she had a feeling of déjà vu.
Everyone else was busy doing something; no one had covered the doorway. Evaine turned to see a man standing there. The bright lights in the hall caused him to be backlit and she couldn’t see his face. She got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The man raised his hand and then took a step into the room. As everything came into focus, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Tristan stood pointing a gun at Luca. Before she could make a move he fired the gun. Evaine gave Tristan a mental shove. Instinctively she stepped to the right. He fell and hit the ground, but she knew it was too late. The explosion that hit her in the upper left chest area was like fire. She collapsed to the floor in a heap. Tristan lay across the room, horror-struck.
Evaine felt her mental hold slip, and as everyone turned to look at her, the female doctor grabbed the empty syringe off the floor and bolted.
Luca yelled her name; he was on her in an instant. He rolled her over, cradling her in his arms.
“What were you thinking? How could you do that? Why would you do that? Evaine, Evaine, do you have any idea what you have done? Look at you. Aron, Aron, get over here!”
She stared at Tristan across the room. He was still on the floor. “Not Evaine. Not my Evaine. I didn’t mean to. Wasn’t meant for her.”
Victor rushed to Tristan, his knife out. Just as Victor was about to plunge the knife into Tristan, Evaine sent out a mental push. Victor’s hand stopped midair.
“No, Victor.” Her words were barely a whisper. He turned to her, his eyes burning.
“Do it!” Luca commanded. Victor tried again, but Evaine pushed harder, and he was unable to move his hand.
“Stop it!” Aron yelled to them both. “You are going to kill her by making her use her ability while she’s injured. Let the boy go, Victor. Luca, give her your strength.” Luca looked down at her and they locked eyes. His anger was overwhelming. She smiled at him and then grimaced as Aron felt around her chest area.
“Why did you do that?” Luca whispered, a tear leaking out of his eye.
She laughed. “Don’t you know why by now?” She tried to wipe the tear from his eye but her hand fell into his lap instead. It felt like a ton of bricks.
“The bullet went clean through, but there’s a lot of tissue damage. It’s a good thing she fed before coming. It will help,” Ronan said.
“She wouldn’t feed. She refused.”
“What?” Victor almost yelled. “Luca, how could you be so irresponsible? How could you let her come on a mission without feeding?”
“I couldn’t force her,” he shot back.
Aron ran his hands through his hair. “She’ll have to feed now. It’s the only way. If she doesn’t feed she won’t heal before infection and rot sets in. Then…” He couldn’t finish, and he didn’t need to, Evaine knew what he meant. She would meet second death.
She pleaded with Luca silently. She didn’t want to feed here, not in front of everyone.
“Clear the room,” he said quietly. Quinten and Raze were the first to go, followed by Ronan and Jeff, who was staring wide-eyed at the scene. Aron didn’t move and neither did Victor, who still held onto Tristan’s jacket collar.
“Go,” Luca said to Aron. “I can handle this.”
For a minute she thought Aron might protest. “I’ll wait outside in case you need me.” He looked down at Evaine. “You need to feed on the organs, not the tissue. You need as much as you can get.”
She nodded, understanding. Finally Victor pulled Tristan upright to drag him out of the room. Tristan wrenched himself free of the grasp and ran to Evaine’s side. At the sudden nearness of him Luca let out an inhuman growl. It made Tristan flinch, but not back away. Tristan knelt on the floor at Evaine’s head.
“Baby, I’m so sorry, I would never do anything to hurt you. You need blood, take mine. Take as much as you need, take it all, only don’t die. Please, Evaine, don’t die!”
“Tristan.” She was gasping. “You should go. Don’t…want you…see this.”
“No, I want to be here, I want to make this right. If you want to be with him instead of me, fine, but I need you to live.” He ripped off his jacket and pulled off his shirt exposing his chest and neck to her. “Here, drink from me.”
She was confused; Evaine couldn’t understand what he was offering her.
It was Luca who spoke. “She isn’t a vampire, you idiot! And we don’t have time for this crap. What’s about to happen isn’t easy to see, even for those of us who have to do it.”
Tristan didn’t move.
“Tristan, please. I don’t want you to.”
He shook his head. Luca motioned to Victor, who stalked forward and pulled Tristan to his feet again.
A thought struck her. “No. Let him see. Let him understand.” She looked at Luca and nodded. “It’s the only way.”
Luca watched her for another moment and then looked up at Victor and nodded. Victor let go of Tristan’s arm, but pushed him as hard as he could. Tristan hit the wall with a bang, but didn’t move. He stood against the cement wall, his eyes locked on Evaine. Victor’s rage was palpable. Evaine knew he wanted to rip Tristan apart. She didn’t have the energy to stop him again if he tried. Finally, Victor nodded and walked out.
Luca stared at Tristan, every muscle in his body tense with rage. “If you want to live through this, stay there and don’t move. Don’t scream. Don’t even breathe. And most of all, whatever you do, don’t run.”
Tristan nodded but didn’t speak.
Her chest felt dry and tight. Luca caressed her face. “Evaine, don’t be scared. I’m right here.”
“What if…I can’t stop?”
/> “I’ll help you stop.”
“I don’t want you to see…don’t want to hurt you.” Her eyes drifted to his left arm where she had bitten him.
“You won’t hurt me, and I’m not leaving.” He kissed her softly on the lips and lay her down on the floor. Walking over to one of the guards that Victor had killed, Luca jerked him close to her. Pulling out a giant serrated hunting knife from his boot he plunged it deep into the man’s chest. She could hear the bones crunch as he ran the knife through the rib cage and down into his abdomen.
The smell hit her in a wave of ecstasy. Her mouth watered and everything came into sharp focus. Thick blood poured out of the wound on to the floor. Luca turned and pulled her onto his lap. He bent her over the man’s exposed body. She remembered what Aron had told her she needed to do. She went for the heart. It was soft beneath her teeth and still warm. With every bite she could feel strength flow into her body. Her body tingled, the human high hitting her in waves. After several minutes she no longer needed Luca to support her and she knelt over the food on her own. A moan escaped her lips from the feeling of euphoria.
She had been feeding greedily when she heard Luca’s voice in her head. Talking to her, distracting her. “Slow down. You’ve had enough.” He wasn’t being forceful, only consoling. But she didn’t want to stop; she wanted to keep the feelings rolling inside her. If she could just get a bit more than she would feel even better.
She felt light pressure on her shoulders, someone touching her, pulling on her. Trying to force her out of her state of bliss. She pushed the hands away, but they became more persistent. Finally she was lifted off the cooling food. She didn’t want to be taken away, she began to struggle. Giving a mental shove she fell to the floor, Luca sprawled on the ground next to her. She sprang to her feet; he was up just as fast. Evaine took in every inch of him. He was hard and strong and his eyes burned like flames. She couldn’t help but feel waves of desire flowing through her. How was it that she had said no to him? How could she have not seen Luca for what he was? He was glorious. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
Dead Awakenings Page 20