It was awful. The entire thing. I didn’t know what to say, or what to do. It hurt me, pained me as if the entire thing had happened to me. As if I had lost everything, too.
It often felt like I was about to. I had experienced and felt loss for things that I was still fortunate enough to have. But I had grieved for them, for those people, as if I had lost them.
She forced a laugh, nothing more than a sniff. “Vanity is a poor substitute for a heartbeat,” she said quietly. “But it’s what we’re left with as vampires. The glory of self above all …”
The lump in my throat subsided slightly.
“It’s a miserable way to go through life. I wouldn’t want you to have to live with that. Like I do.” She glanced over my shoulder at the car, now running quietly, and sighed again. “You might just understand that on a visceral level now.”
“I think I sort of do …” I said, hoping my tone conveyed how deeply I did understand what she was talking about.
Iona slid her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. “All set, Lockwood?”
He inclined his head. “Everyone is settled in and ready to go, Miss Iona.”
Iona looked at me again. “I realize this is probably a waste of time to even say it, but … this time, stay out of the vampire world, okay? For real.”
Guilt made my cheeks grow hot again. “Yeah …” I said weakly.
“But … if the vampire world does come to call again, and sets its sights on one of your people, I know you’ll throw what I’m saying right out the window. So. If that does happen, then please, call on me. Okay?” She snapped the visor down, her haunting eyes disappearing behind the black shade.
“Definitely,” I said. “And Iona?”
She looked placidly at me.
“Thank you. For everything. Always.”
I could hear the smile in her voice. It was such a rare thing. “It’s what I’m here for, I guess.” And she turned away.
“So … no selfie together, then?” I asked.
Iona sighed, and reached into the pocket inside her jacket. I froze. She didn’t think I was serious, was she?
She pulled whatever it was free, and then tossed it to me. Startled, I reached out to catch it, but it fumbled between my fingers, and then hit the ground below me with a metallic clank.
I stooped down to pick it up.
Round, made of a very light metal, it looked like a wide choker that came to a tapered point right below the collarbone. Something a knight might wear, or a person cosplaying.
“What’s this?” I asked, turning it over in my hands.
“It’s called a gorget,” she said. “To protect your neck. If you’re going to keep meddling in the affairs of vampires, you might want to make it a part of your ensemble.”
I stared, weighing it. It was cool beneath my scraped and dirty fingers. “Um … I really appreciate you looking out for me and all, but …” I held it up between us. “A metal collar? It’s freaking Florida. Hot? Sticky? Humidity in the range of being in the ocean itself?”
Iona shrugged as she turned and started back down the alley toward her bike out front. “You’re tangling with vampires. Wear it. And learn to love the look of turtlenecks. And sweating. It burns calories.”
She slipped around the corner, and was gone.
I gaped as I stared at the collar in my hands.
After everything I had been through tonight, maybe something like this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Chapter 39
I got my first glimpse of the crew when I hopped in the front seat beside Xandra. It was a tight fit, but there was a middle seat between Lockwood’s seat and the passenger door.
“Special installation,” Lockwood said. “For larger parties such as this.”
“And what a party it is,” I said, looking around.
Xandra was sucking down what appeared to be her third water bottle. Gregory had an ice pack over one of his eyes, glasses tucked in the front pocket of his shirt. Laura was pale and wide-eyed, a tissue stuffed up one nostril.
Mill was lying with his head back, a clean shirt wadded up and pressed against his abdomen. Dark blood covered half of his face, the wound on his head starting to heal. He looked exhausted.
“How are you?” he asked, not even opening his eyes. Somehow I knew he was talking to me.
“I’m … fine,” I said. “You?”
“Surviving,” Mill said, crackling one eyelid. I saw a pupil looking at me.
“Where should we go?” Lockwood asked me, apparently since I was the only one of us coherent enough to give guidance.
Mill grunted something from the back seat, but I ignored him.
“We should get Mill home first, before the sun comes up any more.”
Lockwood nodded, and we started off down the golden-streaked road.
I turned around in my seat and stared at Mill. He looked as if he could be sleeping.
“That was pretty dumb, what you did back there,” I said before I could stop myself. All of the worry and fear I had been feeling suddenly shifted to anger. “If Gregory and Laura hadn’t come out to help you, all of this could have gone a lot differently.”
Mill didn’t answer. Out of guilt? Trying to tamp down his own anger?
“If something had happened to you …” I started, but quickly recovered. “I don’t know what I would have done. About any of this.”
“Who was that woman on the motorcycle?” Mill asked.
I swallowed, but didn’t think it was best to tell him. Not yet.
“She’s just a friend.”
“Has she been helping you this whole time?”
“No,” I said. “She told me to stay out of it from the very beginning …”
“It was like a movie,” Gregory said. His words were somewhat mumbled; his bottom lip was swollen. “She showed up in the nick of time, right? Like boom, there she was. Rescue shows up just before the hero gets taken out.”
“Except this is all real life,” Mill grunted.
“How did you two take down Ivan?” I asked, turning to Laura and Gregory.
They exchanged glances. Laura decided to answer.
“Well, Gregory got a stake through one of his wrists when he grabbed him around the throat,” she said. She sounded like she had a head cold with that tissue stuffed up her nose. “And then I poured holy water on it. While he was freaking out, Mill grabbed him, ripped the back of his shirt off, and we found the armor underneath.”
Gregory nodded.
“Somehow, one of them managed to splash some holy water into his mouth—purely by accident, I assume,” Mill went on, his eyes still closed, head back. “But as he sputtered, I managed to get a stake under his armpit. I shoved it in, and I hit the heart.”
He did sit up now, and his intense, dark eyes stared right through me.
“I was trying to get up to help you when we saw Roxy dragging you down the sidewalk toward the entrance.”
“Yeah, ouch. That was not cool of her to do,” Xandra said. She reflexively touched her own head gingerly, as if feeling Roxy’s fingers there herself. “She had no respect for hairstyle.”
“Maybe that sunk in before she died,” I said.
“But what that motorcycle chick did …” Gregory said. “That was insane. Brutal, even.”
Mill glared at me. “You really won’t tell me who she is?”
I shrugged. “I guess she wanted to remain anonymous for a reason.”
Mill rolled his eyes, letting his head fall back against the seat again. “She wore a helmet because it was sunup, not because she was hiding her face.”
“You assume,” I said. “But I’m not gonna out her. She’s done a lot to protect me.” Too much to just toss her identity out there. Even if Mill had more than proven himself tonight. And before.
Xandra and Gregory seemed content to discuss how crazy Iona was, and what sort of vampire she must be to ruthlessly murder another one like that. Laura was smiling a little, but it seemed … f
orced. She kept looking at her hands, knitted together in her lap.
“Tough night,” I told her. “It’s okay to be a little shaken up. Seriously.”
We pulled up to Mill’s condo building, and Lockwood drove into the parking garage, finding a spot in the middle where the shadows were the darkest.
Gregory started to get out to help, but Mill shook his head.
“I’m good, kid. Thanks, though.”
I stepped out, though, and walked around the car to meet him.
We stood there for a few seconds in silence. I checked out all of the little scrapes and cuts he had, where his shirt was torn over his heart. But he was standing. He could walk.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Really.”
I smiled weakly. My breathing was painful again; my ribs reminded me hotly that they were not happy with me.
“Mill …” I said and looked up into his face.
There was something deep in that gaze that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said. “This whole thing, all of it … was insanity. The entire night … it could have gone wrong so many times …”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I had to keep going.
“But it didn’t,” I said quickly. “And it’s all because you were there, at every turn, saving me.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m literally useless,” I went on. “I mean, I don’t even know how to defend myself properly. I kept thinking that all night.”
The gorget was still clasped in my hand.
“I guess if I’m going to keep getting dragged into your world, I’m going to have to learn how to fight, aren’t I?”
Mill nodded. “Might not be a bad idea.”
It was a little scary that he agreed with me. Guess I really was in deeper than I thought.
“Who do you think could teach me to fight vampires?” I asked. “I mean, I can’t exactly go asking in my local dojo, right? I’d need a special trainer.”
Maybe whoever taught him could teach me, too. Or maybe …
Mill considered my words, still hunched over slightly, cradling his injury. “When I feel better …” he said slowly, “Maybe I could.”
“Really?” I asked, daring to hope. “You, uh … seem to know what you’re doing.”
Mill shook his head. “I’m rusty.” He laughed lightly as he looked down at himself. “Obviously.”
“No, you were amazing,” I said. “More than once.”
A comfortable silence fell as we smiled at each other.
“I—” I started, and then cleared my throat. “I should let you get inside. Heal. Sleep.”
“Yeah …”
Mill turned slowly and started toward the elevator.
I watched him for a few seconds to make sure he was able to make it okay. And then I turned back to the car.
“Hey, Cassie?”
I wheeled around at his voice.
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself … okay?”
I smirked. “I’ll do my best. But just in case, keep your phone handy, all right?”
I hopped back in the car beside Xandra and watched him limp into the elevator as we pulled away.
Chapter 40
I relished the sunlight on my face as we drove away. The warm rays were like hope itself, washing away the fear of the night.
Tampa itself was starting to rise. More cars were pulling onto the road as we drove. The drive-through windows at every fast food and coffee place were packed, and people honked at one another at stoplights, late or impatient to get to their destination. And the smells! I drank them in: oil-fried foods, so inviting to my empty stomach as we passed by McDonald’s; gasoline pumped by the early risers at gas stations. Even the belch of fumes as we were stuck behind a truck was wonderful. It all meant I was still here.
It all meant I was alive. That we were all alive.
“That was the longest night of my life,” Xandra said heavily as we pulled into our neighborhood—home at last.
“Hey, Lockwood?” I said.
“Yes, Miss?” he replied, looking over at me, smiling.
“Thank you,” I said, “for …”
I didn’t finish. Couldn’t. I was happy to have made it through, ecstatic—but it was so fresh. Talking about it in real terms, I might just break, the night’s struggles finally pushing me too far.
But he understood. Eyes twinkling, he said, “You’re quite welcome, Miss Cassandra.”
Huh. I usually hated my full name. But from Lockwood … it sounded nice.
“What exactly happened to you tonight?” Gregory asked Xandra. The question had lingered in the back of my mind since rescuing her. I hadn’t asked, none of us had. But now we were in the relative safety of our neighborhood once again, Gregory must have felt what I had: that we could begin to unspool the events of the night without Draven and/or his cronies stumbling upon us.
“Well, after you texted me, I went to the airport to try and head you off,” Xandra started. “But when I got there and said who I was looking for, the security guard told me to follow him. I did. I thought something was wrong. It didn’t even cross my mind that he could be a vampire, though. Who knew they’d taken over security?” She paused, thinking. “This would kind of explain why the TSA literally sucks, though.
“Anyway, I waited in this room for like two hours, totally alone. No windows, nothing. The guard even took my cell phone. When he came back, he said there was someone who wanted to see me. I thought it was you, but … turns out it was Roxy. I thought she might be one of your allies, so when she asked me who I was and why I was there, I told her.”
I groaned, and she nodded.
“I know, I know. But what was I supposed to do? She hadn’t attacked me, so I figured she must have been one of those nice vampires you keep talking about.”
“I guess you wouldn’t have been able to know that she was one of those Instaphoto vamps,” I said sadly.
Xandra nodded again. “Right. Well, I guess by what I told her, she connected the dots that you weren’t who you said you were.” She looked pleadingly at me. “I’m really sorry, Cassie. I had no idea that you were trying to disguise yourself as a vampire. If I had known—”
“It’s okay,” I replied, putting a hand on her arm. “Really. It’s okay. It was … another lie to blend into their world, but it’s over and done with now. I’m not mad. Honest.”
And this time … I was.
“I really am sorry that you got involved in all of this,” I told her. “I feel so bad that you got hurt, and that you were in danger.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t of more help,” she said, rubbing her wrists. Like the fearful look in her eyes, and the narrow, shallow scrape on her forehead, I figured those red marks from her bonds wouldn’t fade anytime in the near future. It sucked—but again: she was alive. Scarred, yes—but alive.
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Seriously.”
“Then let’s both agree to stop apologizing,” she replied. “I don’t blame you for anything that happened. Okay?”
“Okay.”
And she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. We stayed that way until we pulled up in front of her house, which was first on the drop off list. She waved from her front porch as we set off back down the street.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, the two people in the back seat hardly knew me. I hardly knew them.
But now there was something that tied us all together, in a way that nothing could have before.
Lockwood pulled up beside the sidewalk and unlocked the doors to let us out.
“I am very glad that I was able to return you all to your homes this morning,” he said as he lowered his window and peered out at us, still smiling. Sunlight danced across his face. Not a vampire, I guess.
“Yeah, us too,” Gregory said. “Thanks for everything, Lockwood.” They shook hands through the car window.
“Y
es, thank you,” Laura added.
He turned his bright green eyes on me. “Until we meet again, Miss Cassandra.”
He tipped his hat to us, rolled up the window, and slowly made his way back down the street.
We all looked at each other, and then smiled, laughing quietly. It was weird, a heady kind of feeling, now that the danger had passed. There wasn’t anything funny about standing on the sidewalk first thing in the morning, but … we were laughing anyway.
There were these unseen threads of gratitude between all of us now. We all had jumped in, all had done something to make that night end the way it had.
“Thank you, Cassie,” Laura said quietly. “Really. No one else would have done what you did for me.”
Gregory lowered his ice pack and nodded. “She’s right,” he said, a little ashamed. “I’m sorry that I didn’t stand with you last time this all went down. Now that I know what you were up against …”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You more than redeemed yourself tonight. Err … this morning, technically.”
He smiled weakly. “If you ever need help in the future …”
“I won’t call you first, if that makes you feel better,” I said.
Gregory’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank God. Because fighting that vampire … that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I just don’t think I’m cut out for this. I don’t think I’m brave. Like, not even in the neighborhood of brave. I am not brave adjacent.” He swallowed hard. “Yikes.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Any of it.”
“I thought you were really brave,” Laura added.
Gregory’s face flushed.
“I should let you guys get home. Get some rest,” I said, watching Laura try and stifle a yawn.
We said goodbye, and I watched as they slowly made their way down the sidewalk to their houses. Gregory said something to Laura, who nodded, before they parted ways at his driveway.
I smiled.
I didn’t think there was a single spot on my body that didn’t ache as I dragged myself toward my house. How was it that a few hundred feet felt like a marathon?
Someone Should Save Her Page 18