Bring Him Back, Jack

by Holly Day

  How did they wash in the basement? He wanted to strangle Remington Redwood.

  He hadn’t seen many vamps living happy lives, but few were as miserable as those Remi kept.

  The chain rattled against the shower stall wall, and Ivan winced. Perhaps he should have stayed in there. “Everything all right?” He stood right outside the door, not wanting to barge in unless Malik wanted him there.

  “Hot.”

  Ivan grinned. “Turn the temperature down.”

  “I have.”

  “Well, there you go. Enjoy!” He went to inspect Raina’s cleaning cabinet. Last he’d checked, she kept a hammer and some nails there. He didn’t hold much hope to her having something able to cut metal, but you never knew. Raina had a tendency to surprise him.

  When he couldn’t find anything, he pulled out his phone.

  Only one signal rang through. “What?” Her bark made him wince.

  “Erm…is this a bad time?”

  “Crawling with people.”

  Ivan nodded; he’d assumed as much. “Do you own a hacksaw or something?”

  “No, if I need something I always go to Zev on the ground floor.”

  Ivan had no idea who Zev was, and he wasn’t sure it was a good thing to involve someone else. “Who is he?”

  “A super-hot werewolf. I don’t think he’d like you, so better wait until I get there.”

  Yeah, super-hot werewolves were normally bigoted assholes with an alpha male complex—Ivan didn’t do those. “He can’t know what it’s for.”

  “I’ll handle it. A hacksaw?”

  “Something to cut metal.”

  “You’re sawing through the chains? I don’t think that’ll work. Hang on, I’ll call Ibine and ask how she removed them the first time.”

  Ivan nodded. Calling Ibine would be good, but she didn’t remove the chains, she removed the cuffs. “I’m not cutting the chains, it’s for the stake. We’ll need some nuts to screw on and then tape some shit over so he doesn’t catch on anything. It must hurt like hell.”

  “Aww, are you worried about your pet?”

  “Stop it.”

  “I think we should keep him. You’re cute together, and you know what they say about vamps.”

  He didn’t, and he wouldn’t ask. Raina chuckled as if she knew what he was thinking.

  The bathroom door opened, and Malik stepped out buck naked and dripping wet. “I have to go, Raina. Call Ibine and pick up a hacksaw and nuts in different sizes.”

  “I’ll be there soon.” She hung up, but Ivan kept on holding the phone to his ear as he studied Malik.

  “I left a towel out for you.”

  Malik turned and looked into the bathroom, goosebumps covering his skin.

  “Come on.” Ivan put the phone away and walked past him into the steaming bathroom. He must have half-boiled himself. He grabbed the towel and shook it. When Malik raised a hand to grab it, drops fell from his chains and Ivan cursed. “I’ll…” He quickly dried off Malik’s shoulders and arms. When he reached the chain, he ran the towel over it, too. “You can…eh…” He gestured at his middle, not looking despite wanting to.

  For the first time, he noted a spark of amusement in Malik’s eyes and rolled his in return. “Did you do it to embarrass me?”

  “No. But I like you touching me.”

  Ivan froze. “You do?” Heat washed over him and Malik grinned, fangs peeking out from underneath his upper lip.

  “I do.”

  Ivan huffed. “I believe you’re yanking my chain, Mr. Malik.” He changed his hold on the towel, ducked in under Malik’s arm, and reached around him to wrap the towel around his middle. Those strong arms wrapped around him, and for a moment an alarm went off in Ivan’s mind, then he became aware of the hard length pushing against his belly when Malik hugged him.

  “You don’t have any chains to yank.”

  Ivan forgot how to breathe. “Raina will be here soon, and we’ll try to remove the stake. She’ll call Ibine—do you remember Ibine who removed your cuffs? She’ll ask how she did it.”

  “I remember.”

  Ivan nodded.

  “You never remembered me from mission to mission.” Malik looked so soulful Ivan had to laugh.

  “Of course, I did, I picked you every time.”

  “No, you didn’t. You always picked one of the females, then you picked Cassius. Every time.”

  Ivan chuckled. “Remi would never have given me you if I’d pointed at you first. I knew he’d never give me one of the females. And, Cassius is his name? He’s old, Remi would never let me have him. Then after he’d denied me twice, I pointed at you. Worked almost every time.”

  It had. Remi believed he was in charge of everything, but he was easy to manipulate—for someone who didn’t have a stake attached to their chest.

  * * * *

  Malik jumped as the front door opened. Before realizing what he was doing, he’d pushed Ivan into a corner and was ready to attack whoever was nearing them.

  Raina frowned as she spotted him. “What’s going on? Where’s Ivan?”

  “I’m here.” A hand gently touched Malik’s back, and then Ivan pushed past him. He gave Malik a look with raised eyebrows. “While I appreciate you trying to protect me, I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

  Malik didn’t believe him. Ivan was small, even by human standards. Most people would be able to overpower him.

  Ivan popped his hip. “I don’t like the look I’m seeing, Malik.”

  “You’re small.”

  Ivan huffed and stepped back so his back was against the wall, then he stepped back some more. Malik made a surprised sound as Ivan melted into the wall, disappearing. “Ivan? Ivan!”

  He touched the wall where Ivan had disappeared and yelped as a hand caught his.

  “Are we done playing?” Raina gave them both an unimpressed look while Malik tried to get his heart to slow down. Ivan had disappeared…into a wall.

  “Can you walk in there?” If he could live in the walls, no one would ever be able to find him.

  Ivan walked out of the wall, and, for a second, Malik believed it wouldn’t let him go. It was almost as if it stuck to him.

  “Along it, yes, but I can’t get past corners or doorways, and I can’t go through walls. If I could, the necklace being in a vault wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I have a saw and some nuts, don’t know if they fit. Maybe we can glue them on if they don’t.”

  “Glue?” Ivan waved a hand at her. “We can’t fucking glue his heart together.”

  Raina rolled her eyes. “Not his heart, stupid. I meant if the nuts don’t fit, maybe we can glue them on instead of him having sharp metal things coming out of his chest.”

  Malik suppressed a shudder. He lived in constant fear of triggering the stake by mistake or that Master would do it deliberately. Having someone try to saw the screws off wasn’t anything he was looking forward to.

  Ivan met his gaze. “Ready?”

  He shook his head. “Yes.”

  Ivan’s laugh had heat climbing his cheeks.

  “It’ll be fine.” The wince wasn’t convincing.

  “Have you ever…removed stakes before?” Malik did his best to keep his voice from trembling.

  “Can’t say I have.”

  The chains rattled as Malik raised his hand to his heart. The wall behind Ivan was a soft yellow, and he looked at it for several seconds before nodding. Not having a stake ready to shoot through his chest would make life easier.

  “I think the coffee table is sturdy enough.” Raina looked him up and down. “But perhaps not long enough.”

  Ivan curled a hand around his arm above the cuff. “You can have your feet on the floor.” He turned to Raina. “A towel or a sheet or something so he doesn’t have to lie on the cold surface.”

  She went to the same cabinet where Ivan had gotten him the towel.

  “Did you manage to find him some clothes?”

  “No.” Raina walked int
o the living room and spread a sheet over a low table, looking like a matchbox in dark wood. There were several tiny drawers on the sides. What did people put in so many drawers?

  “I considered asking Zev, but he’s nosy. A hacksaw I could explain, needing a set of his clothes wouldn’t be as easy.”

  Ivan grunted and guided Malik toward the table. “Looks like you’ll be naked.”

  Malik stared at him, his pulse thudding in his ears as Raina held up a saw of some kind.

  “It was a joke.” Ivan tilted his head as he studied Malik.

  “I think he’s more concerned about you putting a saw to his chest than what to wear, to be frank. His sense of fashion isn’t as developed as his survival instinct.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Ivan patted his arm. “Probably.”

  With Ivan’s help, he got down on the table. A voice in his mind screamed at him to get off there, to not let anyone touch the little cage holding the stake in place, but he took deep breaths and stared at the ceiling.

  “Did you talk to Ibine?”

  Malik jumped at Ivan’s voice.

  Raina hummed. “She was a bit vague. I got the feeling someone was nearby, and she couldn’t talk. She gave me some pointers.”

  “I don’t think we can get rid of the chains. She removed the cuffs when I went to her.”

  “I know, but I have an idea.”

  Seconds went by, and no one moved or spoke. Had Ivan changed his mind? Then Raina huffed and stepped closer. “Here, let me do it. You’ve never been good with tools.”

  Malik waited for Ivan to protest, but he didn’t. “Just be…I don’t know, maybe this is a bad idea.” He leaned over Malik, so they could look at each other. “The stake won’t kill you, right?”

  “No, it’ll paralyze—” He jerked. Everything stopped. There was no pain, but the impact of the stake piercing his heart made his body react before it went limp. Panic rose in his mind, and he tried to scream, tried to move.

  Ivan’s shout cut through his roaring alarm. “What did you do?”

  “I hardly touched it. Really, I didn’t even try to saw them off.”

  “Is he dead?” Ivan touched him, ran a hand over his cheek, gently shook his shoulder. “Did you kill him?”

  Silence again and Malik tried to speak. He wasn’t dead.

  “Will Remi know it’s been triggered?”

  Ivan removed his hands, and Malik pleaded in his mind for Ivan not to leave him. “Shit, I didn’t think of that. We need to get moving. It won’t take many minutes for him to get here. Those fucking trackers. Pack a bag!”

  He was leaving? Ivan was leaving.

  Panic clawed at Malik and inside his head, he was screaming.

  Chapter 7

  Ivan’s heart was beating so fast, he feared it would explode. What had Raina done? He took a deep breath.

  “Are we gonna open the towel and have a look?”

  “Raina! Go and pack a fucking bag. We’re not molesting anyone.”

  “Just thought you wanted to see.”

  Ivan growled at her. “We’re having a crisis here.”

  “You know I don’t handle stress well.”

  “Pack! Turning into a pervert won’t make our lives easier.”

  She huffed. “I was trying to lighten the mood.”

  Ivan wasn’t sure she had been, but she did have a funny reaction to stress. “Grab the emergency bag, and pack a few sets of extra clothes. You have some of mine, too, right?”

  “How are we gonna run with an unconscious vampire in chains?”

  Unconscious? Right. Paralyzed, he’d said. He leaned over Malik and tried to get eye contact. “I’ll pull it out, okay? I hope you don’t feel pain when you’re like this because it’s gonna be fast. My guess is we have somewhere between six and nine minutes before a squad of angry vamps break through the door.”

  “If he can’t feel anything, it might be a good time to try to remove the cuffs.”

  Ivan turned to look at Raina, who stood in the doorway, a bag in one hand and a pair of black pants—his—in her other.

  “Remove the cuffs. You said the chain, didn’t you?” He’d seen Ibine remove those cuffs once, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “Ibine said it’s the only way. Only the one who put the chains on can remove them. There’s a spell, and she hadn’t been able to break it, so she didn’t think I could since I have less power. She instructed me on how to remove the cuffs, but I thought I could do it better by removing the spikes before opening the cuffs. There is no time to try now.”

  Fuck. Ivan glanced at Malik, then the clock. “How long?”

  She shrugged. “Go put your lens in. If someone sees you like this, we’ll be hunted forever.”

  “We’ll already be hunted forever.”

  “Put the lens in, grab the folder in the kitchen, and pack your clothes in the God damned bag.”

  Ivan gave Malik one last pat on the shoulder, then he rushed into the kitchen. He winced as Raina cursed, but didn’t rush back into the living room. He hurried into the bathroom and put a lens in. Then he grabbed contact solution and a pack of colored lenses he kept there and pushed them into the bag.

  His clothes were on the top shelf in Raina’s closet, and he grabbed one change. The bag was already full, but he did his best to shove the folder Remi had given him in, too.

  “Ivan!” The panicked tone had the blood in his veins freeze, and he stumbled into the living room. There was blood everywhere.

  “I didn’t think he’d bleed when the heart isn’t beating.” She was pale, her hands covered in blood as was her shirt, but the cuffs were on the floor on the side of the table.

  “You did it!”

  She looked ready to cry. “He’s bleeding. A lot. How can he bleed this much when his heart isn’t beating?”

  Ivan shrugged.

  “Why isn’t he healing?”

  Ivan didn’t know, but it had taken him time to heal the last time they’d removed the cuffs, too. He hadn’t bled this much though. “Did you nick the vein?”

  She shrugged. “I opened them and pulled out the spike between the arm bones. I don’t know where the vein is.”

  It didn’t matter. They needed to get the stake out and run. Ivan grabbed the hacksaw and kneeled in the puddle of blood forming on the hardwood floor. “Hold his hands on his belly, maybe it’ll prevent some of the blood from leaking out.”

  “This will leave him weak.”

  Ivan didn’t respond, but he assumed she was right. There was no time to think about it though. They needed to run.

  He put the blade to the screw, about one third of an inch above where the metal pierced the skin. The blade slid on the first try and Ivan pictured the stake moving in Malik’s chest, tearing his heart up.

  “Fuck! Can you hold the device so it doesn’t move?”

  “Don’t saw me.”

  Ivan was too focused to answer. As her fingers held onto the top of the metal cage holding the stake in place, he pushed the blade against one of the screws. The jagged teeth of the saw bit into the metal. It only took a few pushes before he was through.

  “This is messy.” Raina changed her grip. There was blood seeping out of the wound around the stake.

  “The stake must be buried in his chest at all times.” Ivan frowned as he worked on the next screw.

  “That’s sick.”

  He hummed as he worked through the metal.

  “Can you go faster?”

  “I don’t want to hurt him.” He tried to go faster. The third screw followed without problem, and he started on the last. The sight made him nauseous. There was blood and metal, not to mention the plastic pin right in the middle of Malik’s heart.

  “They’ll be here any second. I think he’d rather risk a little wear and tear than Remington finding him spread out on a table like a virgin sacrifice. What do you think he’ll do to him?”

  Kill him. Ivan didn’t have a single doubt about it. If Remi saw Malik like this, he’d kill him.r />
  “There!” The blade slid through the last screw.

  “Great. Pull out the stake.”

  Ivan stared at her. What if something went wrong?

  “We don’t have time to wait around, Ivan.”

  She was right. He grabbed the plastic chopstick and pulled. In one swift motion, he ripped it out.

  Blood dripped on Malik’s chest, but he didn’t move. Ivan held his breath. “Why isn’t he moving?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go!” She rushed over to where he’d put the bag and grabbed it.

  “We can’t leave him.”

  “They’ll be here any second, Ivan!” She gave him a pleading look right as they both heard the door of the apartment building shut.

  “Fuck!” Ivan dove for Malik. “Malik!” He shook his arm. “Come on, Malik. Wake up.”

  Eyes turned his way, but his body remained limp.

  “I need you to get up. Now!”

  He closed his eyes, then his chest moved and a sound as if he was being staked rose from his mouth. He ended the sound with a hiss.

  “Sorry, but we need to run. Can you move?”

  He made a clumsy attempt to get up but fell back down again.

  “Why aren’t you healing? Last time, I saw you heal.”

  “No…blood.” He grimaced, his fangs denting his lower lip. Ivan stared. He was always careful to hide them, but not now.

  “No blood as in you weren’t bleeding as much last time?” Ivan didn’t think he had. “Or as in you need to drink blood?”

  “Drink.”

  Without hesitation, Ivan pushed his arm against Malik’s mouth. “Drink, but we only have seconds.”

  Malik recoiled. “Not…you.”

  Stupid vamp! “Raina.”

  She clutched the bag and shook her head. Steps were echoing in the stairway, several pairs of feet.

  Ivan grabbed Malik’s arm and pulled. “We need to move.” He turned to Raina. “Is the door bolted?”

  She nodded. “It won’t take them long though. If it’s Remi coming, he has vampires with him.”

  Ivan nodded. It didn’t matter how many locks they had; a vampire could kick down a door in seconds.