Enemy Within (Vampire Born Trilogy, #2) (43 page)

“You sound all sciencey.” She pushes her chest into me. “It’s kind of hot.”

“Anticoagulant,” I repeat in a slow whisper.

“Oh,” she says and playfully grazes her teeth along my neck.

Bam, bam, bam!

Brooke and I startle.

“You two done in there? I gotta take a leak.”

“Ace, you bastard,” I yell at him through the door.

“Brooke, I thought better of you than to join the mile-high club. Let alone with someone the likes of
him
.”

I squeeze by Brooke and open the door, pushing a laughing Ace back into the ovens of the kitchenette, amused.

“I was feeding her, you punk. If what you suggested was what was happening, I would’ve let you piss your pants.” I chuckle and walk over to the seat Brooke and I shared.

***

When we land, the light cloud cover and bright, early morning sun are deceiving. It’s freezing in Philadelphia. That first chill as Pavao opens the door and lowers the stairs burns my skin and sinks into my bones.

Garwin and Annette are waiting for us on the tarmac in Garwin’s Jaguar, and Vasek is in the Land Rover. Annette gets out to meet me when I’m down the stairs. She’s carrying a garment bag, a duffel bag, and a grocery sack. “I figured we’d get Brooke ready on the plane. If that’s all right with you?” she says as she passes.

“That’s fine.” Pavao’s parking the plane until the meeting is over anyway. I turn back and holler for Ace to come down. The bathroom is probably too small for Brooke to comfortably change in. The cabin would be better, but I’ll be damned if Ace is going to watch.

He passes Annette on the stairs.

Garwin and Vasek wait for me by the cars. “All right,” I say, “as far as we know, Vasek is the only one allowed inside the meeting with Brooke.”

“Not unless Annette finds a way around that,” Garwin says. “She’s going to throw a fit.”

Ace nods as he leans against the Jag. “She is her mother.”

“We can’t count on that at this point,” I say. “Vasek, Brooke, and I will drive together in one car, and Garwin, you, Kaitlynn, Ace, Annette, and Cila will go in the other. Ace, watch Cila closely. Make sure she feels as safe as possible. And keep her hidden until we find a way to bring her in.” Garwin has already asked Florian if Brooke is allowed witnesses, but he said it was doubtful. The Commission wanted to hear from Brooke, so other testimony won’t be allowed. Cila is all we have, though, so we’re going to find a way for her to speak regardless.

I already told him to make sure Kaitlynn doesn’t use her Nestati at all. There are going to be a lot of people there, and I’m not certain how many will have Locirati. It’s best not to chance it if we don’t have to. That’s all we need—someone figuring out a Zao Duh with us has powers.

We climb into the heated Jaguar and wait for the girls to finish up. When Brooke exits the plane, she’s wearing the gown she wore to dinner with the Tomics. Her hair is up, leaving her neck elegantly exposed.

I never would’ve thought it possible, but she’s more stunning now than she was that night. The sun’s rays hit her dress, accentuating her small waist and the curve of her hips. The beaded accents in the bodice glisten as she walks.

I get out to meet Brooke. I lean over and kiss her on the cheek. She smells like lemon drops. “You’re beautiful,” I whisper in her ear.

Vasek stares at us, but I don’t care. He can tell Zladislov whatever he wants after this meeting. Zladislov is going to hear about us one way or another. And Brooke and I will deal with it when we get there.

She looks at me. “Thank you. Kaitlynn wanted to do more with my hair, but I told her to do what she could with bobby pins and get it over with.” She fusses uneasily with her hair.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I promise, grabbing her shoulders. “Let’s go. It’s cold.”

We get into the cars and head to the meeting, which is in an eighteenth-century church renovated into a meeting hall and amphitheater. The Commission rents it out occasionally, but the property has always belonged to them.

The church was an easy explanation for why large amounts of people congregate here regularly. All Commissioner business is handled here as Philadelphia has one of the highest concentrations of Pijawikas in America. There’s even a Croatian consulate here, but they don’t know they’re catering mostly to nonhumans.

We’re cutting it close to the meeting time when we arrive. Ace is bringing Cila in from a back entrance Vasek told us about, so they have to park a little more than a block away to avoid being seen.

Annette wasn’t happy about not coming along with Brooke, but I can’t risk her making a scene. It’s inevitable if she watches her daughter go into the meeting and she can’t go with her.

A few people are still entering as we make our way inside. A stout man stops us and asks for our names. After Vasek mentions Brooke, the man points us to a side door down the curved hall. The majority of the building is the amphitheater, the hall circling around it.

We pass a set of open double doors on the way to Brooke’s entrance. The amphitheater is packed. If things don’t go our way, this could be the biggest upset we’ve had since Zladislov took the Head of the Commission. And all these people know it could turn out this way. They know it’s not simply a meeting for a girl to be punished from killing someone znaked.

I also notice the light fixtures in the ceiling. A walkway leads from a door to allow maintenance to get to the equipment. If I can find it, I can watch the meeting from up there.

Emerik and his father approach the doors as we pass, Emerik glaring at us.

Brooke stops and waits for him to come out into the hall. She steps closer to him and whispers, “We’re not so different, are we? But if you hate me, does that mean you hate yourself?” She’s taunting him.

This could be dangerous, and I consider pulling her away, but I want to see what she has planned.

Emerik’s glare deepens and he pulls his upper lip into a sneer.

I intervene then, edging closer to her and stepping sideways between them.

Emerik leans around me and growls at her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, little girl. I will destroy you and your father.”

I can’t believe she’s doing this.

Brooke grins boldly. “There’s no need for anyone to be destroyed. Just make sure your dad keeps his vote voided, and we’re all good.”

“I will not be ordered to do anything,” Orell says.

Brooke turns her attention to Orell for the first time. “I’m not ordering anything. It’s blackmail. Big difference.” She turns away from them and struts down the curved hallway toward her doors.

I turn to follow.

When we reach the closed doors, Brooke faces me. She’s shaken. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

I grasp her shoulders. “Yes, you should’ve. We need Orell to void his vote, and you may have gotten us that.”

I tuck her close to my chest and rub her back, trying to soothe her. She has so many things to be afraid of. I wish I could protect her from all of them.

“We’ll wait here until they call for her,” Vasek says. “When they do, I’ll go in with her.”

I nod at him, thankful. I can’t go in with her, but at least she won’t be going in alone. “I love you,” I whisper in Brooke’s ear. “I
will
be in there. Remember, I always keep my word.”

She looks at me, doubt mixing with hope.

She didn’t see the lights hanging in the rafters, then.

But I did.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Brooke

Vasek is next to me as I walk down a long, dark corridor. When we emerge into the light, I’m walking to the center of a dropped stage with seats rising all around me. The people sitting in them are dressed as if they expected a grand ball rather than an inquisition.

Bright lights shine down from the ceiling, so I shield my eyes. I get a better look around and find Abdul-Hakeem, Sandor, and Chen sitting in thronelike chairs on a raised platform with four other men.

The Commission.

I search the room for my dad as Vasek guides me to a stool in the center of the circular floor. It’s like I’m a gladiator walking out to my final battle, the crowd is ready to cheer on my demise, and the kings are staring me down, making my skin crawl with each step I take toward my final doom.

It’s not a comfortable feeling.

I wish Mirko were walking beside me.

The floor creaks with my final steps and then again as I put my weight on the stool. The amphitheater smells old. Aged wood and Victorian fabrics. Dust twirls in the hot lights.

“Are you all right?” Vasek asks.

“Not really, but I can’t turn back now, can I?”

He frowns. “No, you cannot.” He squeezes my shoulder and then exits the way we came in.

My heart races.

He’s leaving me.

I’m alone.

They’re going to release the lions and then I’m dead.

I take a deep breath. They are
not
sending in lions. Pijawikas maybe, but not lions.

That’s not soothing in the least.

I shield my eyes again and look up to the Commissioners. My dad is behind them, but he’s not sitting in a throne-chair. He’s sitting in a weird metal chair, some contraption around his neck, chains extending from it connected to the chair.

He’s chained to the chair by a
collar
.

What the
hell
is going on?

A new fear trickles up my spine like a cold draft wafting through. Neither one of us is getting out of here alive.

My stomach turns.

I peer over to the door I came in through, but all I see is a black hole. I don’t care, though. There’s an exit there, and I’m tempted to make a run for it, tempted to run into oblivion to get out of here.

I’ve almost convinced myself to run when a man speaks. The loud boom echoes down from the arched ceiling. “State your name.”

“My …” I clear my throat. “My name is Brooke Keller.”

“And tell us why you think you’re here.”

I squint to see who’s speaking.

Pinstripes.

It’s Ivan. His eyebrows are dark and match his black hair, which is long on top and short on the sides. He’s tailored, down to the clean sideburns that travel the length of his ears.

Do they want to know what I suspect I’m here for, or what the paper calling me here said? I go with the safer one. “Jelena kidnapped me, we fought, and I killed her to protect myself.”

“Did you know at the time that Jelena was znaked and safe from threats of death?”

I look at my dad. How much is too much?

He nods slightly.

“Yes, but at the time, I was only thinking about staying alive.”

“So you killed her knowing you shouldn’t?”

“Yes, but—”

“That is all I asked for.” Ivan’s a jerk.

“But there’s more to it,” I argue. If I don’t say everything I can, I may never get another chance.

Ivan raises his hand as if to silence me.

My dad shakes his head.

I clamp my mouth closed.

Should I apologize?

Does arguing make me look like a threat?