Enemy Within (Vampire Born Trilogy, #2) (26 page)

The roof has large, metal units housing huge ventilation fans. Crows perch along the top of one at the far end, watching us.

Emerik walks over to the end unit, and the birds scatter. Their wings flutter harshly in the frigid air, magnifying their shrill squawks.

One flaps too close to my head. I shriek and wave my hands at it.

It flies off, but I’m rattled and ready to go back inside. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Emerik leans against the unit the birds vacated. “As I mentioned earlier, there was no getting you out of testifying in front of the Commission.”

Fear flicks up my spine. I don’t know if I was just distracted when he mentioned this earlier, or if the cold seeping into my marrow intensifies his words, but the prospect of actually standing in front of these people petrifies me.

No, it’s the way Emerik’s looking at me. It’s the same way I worry the Commissioners will look at me when I testify. His piercing green gaze instills fear, causing me to shake beyond the cold.

I’m consumed with the thought of running away. “It’s freezing out here. I’m going inside.” I turn around and crunch the gravel as I walk back to the door.

“Why did you stay today?”

I stiffen midstep. The only way he’d know about that is if he was directly involved.

Please don’t let my father be involved. Maybe Emerik’s talking about something else?

I turn at my waist and look over my shoulder at him. “What?”

His smile transforms from trying to be sweet to the evil man who already lured me in with candy.

I wasn’t mistaken. He meant, why didn’t I run after they killed David.

I turn and book it to the door.

Before I reach it, Emerik is there and he’s sneering at me.

I walk backward away from him and put my hands up. “Emerik, don’t do this.”

He closes the distance, taking large strides toward me. “You leave me no choice.”

He reaches out for me, but I dodge and move to the side, hitting into one of the vents. I have nowhere to go but over it, so I clamber on top and crawl along the bird-dung-stained top.

I focus on flexing away.

Emerik grabs my ankle, a vise crushing bone, and tugs me so hard toward him, I fling off the edge of the vent and land on the gravel, face first.

I didn’t flex away—for some reason I couldn’t—and his grip around my ankle does little to blunt the blow.

The flesh above my eye splits open. I shriek when fire travels across my forehead.

I roll off my face onto my shoulder. The pain over and under my skull is so intense, it clouds my mind and takes the wind out of me.

The blood seeping out of the gash is distinctly warm against my chilled temple.

Emerik lands on me, pinning one of my arms against the sharp gravel. I knee him in his side.

It doesn’t deflect him. He wraps frigid fingers around my throat.

I claw at him with my free hand, focusing as hard as I can through the haze to tap into Nestati and beyond it.

It’s not working.

He lifts me to him and bites me where my neck meets my shoulder.

The pain in my face pales in comparison.

I scream.

Air comes out of my mouth—I can see my breath in the cold—but no sound follows.

I push harder into the scream, but it doesn’t help.

The silence is deafening. I panic.

I claw at him with the hand he doesn’t have pinned to my side.

I can’t flex.

I can’t even scream.

Emerik’s sucking so hard on my artery, I’m weaker with every tug. 

My clawing and swatting becomes scratches and flopping. I reach the underside of his arm with my free hand and pinch the sensitive area with everything I have left.

Emerik bites down harder and sucks deeper.

My vision fades further as hysteria sets in.

Everything goes black.

CHAPTER TWEN
TY-TWO

Mirko

Now that Kaitlynn is nourished and starting to settle, at least as far as her transition goes, I’m back to worrying about our bigger threats.

Something went wrong with Kaitlynn
’s turn. She received power during the turn that is impossible to transfer during the process, and she’d woken earlier than I’d ever seen. The only thing I can think of to explain it is that we used Brooke’s blood for the change.

Brooke is already a target for being different, but if the Commission finds out she’d created a Zao Duh unlike any ever seen before, she’ll be targeted even further.

It’s bad enough Pijawikas can build their own army by creating Zao Duhs, but I can’t even imagine the type of army someone could orchestrate using Brooke’s blood.

They’ll use her purely as a blood bank. And that’s only those who wish to use her.

Others will see the potential danger in what her blood can do and they’ll kill her without thinking twice. No Commissioner testimony. No clearing it with Zladislov or anybody. They’ll just wipe her out.

Same with Kaitlynn. We’ve saved her from meningitis but put a bigger target on her back in the process.

I shouldn’t have let Brooke get David’s hat.

I clench my jaw. I’ll never be okay letting her out of my sight again.

Cindy gives Kaitlynn a bag with the clothes she arrived to the hospital in, and Kaitlynn goes to the storeroom to change.

I wear a frantic path through the morgue, walking back and forth, waiting for Brooke and Hawk to return. Every minute they’re gone I regret my decision to let Brooke go to Kaitlynn’s room.

Relief washes over me when not ten minutes after Brooke’s departure, the elevator pulleys whine with the sound of the car coming back to the morgue.

I go over to the elevator and wait for the doors to open. I know I’m being overprotective. It’s not like Brooke was leaving the building, but I need to see her, to touch her when the doors open.

The clanking of the cables against the pulleys stops and the doors open. My gaze lands on Hawk.

And he’s alone.

My Adam’s apple stretches tight with the force of my dry swallow. “Where’s Brooke?”

Hawk steps out of the elevator with David’s hat rolled in his hand. “She’ll be down shortly. Emerik stopped us and needed to speak with her alone.”

“Was Zladislov with him?”

“No, why?”

I move around Hawk into the elevator. I slap the button for the third floor and notice he left the key in the lock.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Watch her!” I point to Kaitlynn.

The doors slide close.

Dammit! If Emerik hurts Brooke, I’ll kill him.

That son of a bitch!

I pound on the button for the third floor. Can’t this old thing go any faster?

I grind my teeth as the car crawls to the third floor.

As soon as light seeps through the doors, I force them apart and step out. I move with unnatural speed down the hall to Kaitlynn’s room.

The door’s closed when I get there.

I’m so frantic, I twist the handle with more force than I intended and the mechanism snaps.

Doesn’t matter. I’m in.

I push the door open to an empty room. I turn around and run down the hall.

I passed the main elevators on my way to the room and I didn’t see either of them.

Where the hell would he have taken her?

Probably outside.

The elevator proves to be too slow, so I make my way to the stairs.

I jump over the railing to the lower set and then jump the next floor’s railing down to the next set of stairs. I bend my knees with the impact and then jump to the main floor’s landing.

I throw the door open and run down the hall toward the front entrance.

An elderly couple is on their way in, so the doors are already opening. I maneuver around them and make my way out to the drop off area.

I scan the lot. “Brooke!”

No answer.

Shit.

I run farther out into the lot, searching low and wide for her bright blue sneakers.

Nothing but a lady carrying a car seat out of an adjacent building.

I turn back and look at the hospital, not sure where to go or what to do next.

A cluster of crows rises from the roof and takes off in a flurry.

There.

My legs burn with the effort to get back inside. I stop long enough for the damn automatic doors to open for me to slip through, and then I’m in the stairwell again. I take the stairs three at a time and jump over the railing to clear a few more. The route up is so much slower than it was coming down.

I can’t move quickly enough.

My lungs burn and my heart is shriveling with fear that something’s happened to Brooke.

I jump over the second floor railing and remind myself that Brooke can flex if she’s in trouble. Thank God I made her drink from me before Kaitlynn woke.

I finally reach the third floor when a shriek ricochets into the drafty stairwell.

Somehow I find it in me to go faster and I push the door aside with my shoulder, not stopping until I’m on top of Emerik.

We roll along the jagged gravel. He’s strong and throws me under him, but I maneuver my way out and back onto my feet.

I catch a glimpse of Brooke lying alongside a vent, bleeding and still.

Protectiveness rears up inside me. I need to help to her.

Emerik comes at me, and I manage to clock him in the jaw before he tweaks my arm behind my back and twists. I spin with the momentum to avoid him breaking my arm.

He slams his other arm down in an attempt to break it anyway, but I catch it with my other hand and bend his fingers back.

He sidesteps out of the angle and sweeps me off my feet. He’s moving so fast I can barely avoid or counter him.

I land hard on the razored gravel, slicing open my elbow.

Emerik throws his heel down, but I roll over to avoid the impact into my gut.

I swing at my hips and wrap my legs around his, knocking him on his ass.

I scramble to get on top of him, but he’s already crouched on his heels.

He throws an upper cut as I’m standing and smashes me under my chin.

The impact rattles through my skull sending white spots marching across my vision.

I teeter back into a vent.

Emerik comes at me with his hand at my throat.

I cough and gasp to catch my breath.

He lands a punch into my ribs, and I drop my elbow tight to my side.

He swings for the other side, but I knee him in his inner thigh. He steps back enough for me to widen my stance and then comes back at me with a clawed swing to the side of my head.

I arch to the side and back.

He’s too damn fast and catches the upper part of my ear. 

The skin and cartilage at the very edge fillets.

I swing at my waist and bring a roundhouse kick up to strike him in his temple. Blood sputters from the slash in my ear onto the gravel in almost a graceful arch as I swing.