Amanda Ashley (22 page)

She felt better when she woke the second time. She took several deep breaths to clear her head, opened her eyes, and wished she hadn't.

She was in a stark white room. White walls. White floor. White sheets on the hard, narrow bed.

She tried to sit up, and realized her arms and legs were strapped to the bed.

“No. No!” She tried to fight the terror that rose up within her as she saw a rack of glass vials on the table near the door.

Vials filled with blood.

Her blood.

Kara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control the fear surging through her. Barrett had found her again. It all came rushing back. She'd been sitting in the car, waiting for Alex, when
two men had appeared at the window. She had locked the doors, but to no avail. One of the men had calmly broken the window of the Porsche and unlocked the door, then held her immobile while the second man held a rag over her nose and mouth. She hadn't even had time to scream.

“Alex will find me. Alex will find me.”

She murmured the words over and over again in an effort to shore up her flagging spirits. He loved her. He would find her.

Her hands clenched into fists as she heard footsteps outside the door, and then Barrett was striding into the room, his face a mask of annoyance as he pulled a syringe from his pocket.

Kara glanced at the numerous vials on the table. “Haven't you already taken enough blood?” she asked caustically.

Barrett glared at her. “What have you done?”

“Done? What do you mean?”

“Your blood's not the same as it was.”

“I don't understand.”

“That makes two of us, I'm afraid.” He jabbed the needle into her arm, frowning irritably. “The last time I injected a little of your blood into a diseased lab rat, it recovered in a matter of minutes. This time there was almost no change.”

“I should think the answer would be obvious,” she retorted with more courage than she was feeling. “Apparently the magic's worn off.” Hope flooded her as she realized what that meant. If her blood had returned to normal, Barrett wouldn't need her anymore.

“Have you been sick? Had a high fever? Anything?”

“No.” She met Barrett's gaze. “Can I go home now?”

“Not until I get some answers.” Barrett withdrew the needle, then stood beside the bed, staring at Kara thoughtfully. “You said you'd given blood before and it was always normal, so whatever induced the aberration must have been caused by the blood you received while you were in the hospital.”

He ran a hand through his hair, then began to pace the narrow confines of the room. “The blood you received in the hospital came from your grandmother and the neighbor woman,” he said, thinking out loud. “I gave you a transfusion of their blood today while you were unconscious, but neither effected any change.”

He stood beside the table, staring at the blood samples. “Did anyone else give you blood while you were in the hospital?”

“No, of course not. How could they?”

“Yes, how could they?” Barrett turned to face her. “You called for someone while you were unconscious,” he remarked thoughtfully, and then he swore. “Alex. Alexander.” He nodded, obviously pleased. “It was Claybourne, wasn't it?”

“Why would he give me blood? I hardly know the man.”

“Your sister said she once thought he was a vampire,” Barrett remarked, thinking aloud. “I wonder why.”

“That's ridiculous.”

Barrett shrugged. “Maybe. And, the lab technician. He said the man who knocked him out had superhuman strength, that he closed the door without touching it.”

“You're a doctor. Surely you don't believe such nonsense.”

“You'd be surprised at what I believe in,” Barrett retorted. “That was Claybourne's car you were in when Kelsey found you, wasn't it?”

“No.” Kara shook her head. “No.”

“He's the key, isn't he? The missing part to the puzzle.”

“No!” She pulled against the thick leather straps. “Please, let me go!”

“I think not.” Barrett grinned at her. “We have ways of making you talk,” he said, and then he laughed. “I've always wanted to say that.”

Going to the door, he hollered for someone named Kelsey. Moments later, the man who had broken the window of the Porsche appeared.

“Prepare an injection of sodium pentobarbital.”

With a nod, Kelsey went to do as bidden.

Kara stared at Barrett, hating him. Fearing him because he would soon have the power to make her betray Alex. She tried to erase his name, his memory, from her mind, but she knew it was impossible.

And then Kelsey was back, handing a needle to Barrett, and Barrett was inserting the needle in her vein, telling her to count backward from a hundred.

Knowing it was useless to resist, she did as she was told, and all the while, she prayed that Alex would understand and forgive her.

Mind reeling from what he'd heard, Dale Barrett leaned back against the wall, his arms dangling at his sides, as he stared at Kara Crawford.

Alexander Claybourne was from outer space.

It was incredible, preposterous, totally impossible.

And yet it had to be the truth. He had questioned Kara for over an hour, and always her answers had been the same. Claybourne was an alien. He had given Kara his blood, and it had wrought some sort of mysterious change that had, temporarily at least, endowed her blood with miraculous curative powers. She had claimed that he was sensitive to sunlight, that he drew strength from the moon.

It was inconceivable, and yet he knew it was true. It was the only answer that made sense.

Barrett wiped the perspiration from his brow, his mind whirling with unanswered questions.

Would the alien's blood effect the same change when mixed with other human blood types, or did the blood have to be A positive, like Crawford's, or did it have to be mixed with Crawford's specifically?

Was it necessary to mix human blood with the alien blood to achieve the desired result, or did the alien blood alone possess the same healing power?

And what about longevity? Crawford had said the alien was over two hundred years old. Would a transfusion of alien blood increase a mortal life span, as well?

Questions, so many questions, and the alien held all the answers.

Barrett smiled as he pushed away from the wall. Finding Claybourne shouldn't be too hard, not when he had the perfect bait for the trap.

He had always dreamed of saving lives, but this . . .

He closed his eyes, his mind reeling with possibilities. And every one of them was wreathed in dollar signs.

Alexander prowled the city, searching for Kara. He looked up Barrett's home address and went there, but the house was dark, and he sensed no human presence inside.

He went to the hospital in Grenvale, but they had no record of her there, and he had no sense of her presence in the building.

Where was she?

Knowing it was dangerous, he drove up and down the city streets, his eyes burning from the light of the rising sun until, with a cry of rage and frustration, he headed for home.

He was trembling with pain and an overpowering sense of weakness by the time he reached the shelter of the house.

Locking the door behind him, he staggered into the den and sank down on the floor. Eyes closed,
he took several deep breaths, wondering if he would ever overcome the ill effects of the earth's sun, if he would ever be able to walk in the light of day without experiencing pain and weakness.

Gradually, the pain lost its intensity and he opened his eyes, staring at the painting over the fireplace. He had often imagined that he was the man in the painting, that, just once, he could stand atop a mountain and bask in the warmth of the rising sun.

With an effort, he gained his feet, then climbed the stairs to the bedroom. He needed sleep, needed to replenish his energy, his strength, before nightfall.

Stretching out on the bed, he opened his mind, searching for Kara.
Call me,
he begged.
Whisper my name, tell me where you are, and I'll come for you.

But no answer came to him.

Feeling helpless and alone, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, knowing that, for the moment, there was nothing else he could do.

Barrett stood at Kara's bedside, his hands fisted on his hips. “I want you to call him. Now.”

“I can't. He doesn't have a phone.”

Barrett laughed humorlessly. “Call him with your mind!”

Kara shook her head. “I can't.”

“You can, and we both know it. Don't make me angry, Kara. You won't like what happens if you do.”

“Threaten me all you want. I won't call him.”

Barrett swore under his breath. The girl had been defying him for two days. At his wit's end, he had gone back to her house, intent on bringing her sister
back to the lab with him, certain Crawford would relent if he threatened her sister's life, only to find the man he left to watch three seemingly helpless females locked in a closet and the girl, her grandmother, and the nosy neighbor all gone without a trace.

He shook his head. He should have known better than to leave Mitch Hamblin behind. The kid was eager and willing, but he was young. Fortunately, youth was something he'd outgrow, if he lived long enough.

Barrett grinned humorlessly. Hamblin had looked as sheepish as hell when he emerged from that closet. When asked for an explanation, Hamblin had replied that the girl had asked him to get something off the shelf in the closet and then had slammed the door and locked him in.

Barrett turned away from the bed and stared at the vials of blood on the metal table beside the door. He had performed every test he could devise, but to no avail. Whatever healing properties the girl's blood had once possessed had disappeared completely.

His only hope was to find the alien.

“I can make her do whatever you want.”

Barrett grimaced at Handeland's quiet words. Joe Handeland was a brute of a man. Barrett had no doubt he could do exactly what he said.

Barrett sighed heavily. He didn't approve of violence, but the girl was stubborn, and he was desperate. “All right,” he said, “just don't kill her.”

Handeland nodded. “Maybe you'd better leave the room.”

Fear turned Kara's blood to ice as the man called
Handeland loomed over her. She cried Barrett's name, her voice shrill.

“What do you want?”

“You can't mean to leave me alone with this . . . this man.”

“That's up to you,” Barrett replied. He stood on the other side of the bed, staring down at her. “Will you call Claybourne?”

“I can't,” Kara sobbed. “You know I can't.”

Barrett shrugged. “Remember what I said, Handeland. No permanent damage.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the big man muttered impatiently. “Go on, get out of here.”

Kara stared at Handeland. Strapped to the bed, she was as helpless as a butterfly pinned to a board. Her blood thundered in her ears as she watched Handeland roll up his shirt sleeves. He had arms as big as tree trunks and the biggest hands she had ever seen. She remembered those hands grabbing her, holding a rag over her nose and mouth.

“Last chance, girl,” he said.

Kara stared up at him. For all his bulk, he was a soft-spoken man, with mild gray eyes and wheat-colored hair.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please don't hurt me.”

“That's up to you. You do what the doc wants, and I'll leave you be.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

Handeland picked up a scalpel. It looked no bigger than a toothpick in his hand. “Guess.”

Kara watched in morbid fascination as he turned the surgical instrument this way and that. Lamplight reflected off the shiny metal blade. She cried out as he dragged the flat part of the knife over her cheek, down her throat, over her breast.

“I spent a year studying to be a doctor,” Handeland mused. “I always wanted to perform an operation. Ever had your appendix removed?”

Kara shook her head. In spite of her resolve to suffer in silence, a scream rose in her throat as Handeland lifted her hospital gown and made a small incision over the site of her appendix, just deep enough to draw blood.

Plucking a white towel from the table, Handeland wiped up the blood. “A little deeper, I think.”

“Stop, please!”

“Sure thing. All you've got to do is call him.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“The oldest reason of all,” Handeland replied. “Money. Barrett promised to make me a rich man.” He ran the edge of the blade over Kara's cheek.

The metal felt like ice as it cut her skin. She gasped as a thin trickle of blood slid down the side of her face.

“I could peel your skin off an inch at a time.”

“Do it then!” she screamed. “Do it!”

With an oath, Handeland placed the knife under her left breast. With deliberate slowness, he pressed the point of the blade against her skin.

“Call him,” Handeland said, “or he won't want what's left.”

Kara's scream rang in Alex's mind. Anguish and fear clawed at him, as real as if he were experiencing them himself. And then, into his mind flashed an image of Kara writhing in pain, her body streaked with blood.

Crying her name, he sprang out of bed, his mind opening, expanding, searching for her.

“Kara!” Her name was a sob on his lips. “Kara, where are you?”

Alexander . . .

His own name resounded in his mind, followed by a low moan, and then there was nothing.

But it was enough.

Moments later, he was in his car, Kara's anguished cries burning like a beacon in his heart and soul, leading him out of the city.

He drove steadily through the darkness, his every thought focused on Kara. He knew he was probably walking into a trap, but it couldn't be helped. He couldn't risk going to the police, didn't want Kara to be subjected to their questions. Even if they believed Barrett had kidnapped her, they would want to know why. If Barrett revealed what he knew about Kara's blood, there would be other doctors eager to take up where Barrett had left off. He couldn't subject her to that, couldn't take a chance that his own identity might be discovered. And yet, what if he couldn't save her? What if going to the police was the only way to save her?