Hollowed (12 page)

From downstairs the first voice yells up.
"
Joel! S
'
all clear
. Y
ou find anything?
"

I have a name to put to a face. Joel. Funny, he doesn
'
t look like a Joel. But the voice makes Joel turn away with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, mut
tering to the empty room.
"
Yeah
. Yell and alert the neighbors...
"
And silently he goes.

I listen for whether he went further down the hall or back downstairs, but I can
'
t tell for sure. Either way, I can
'
t stay in here. I give myself ten seconds to steady my nerves before I slip out of the closet and head for the window. Joel didn
'
t shut the door. If he walks by again, he
'
ll have a perfect view of my retreating back.

The window latch is old and it takes longer than I would like to twist it. Like it or not, the window isn
'
t going to open quietly or quickly. It squeaks the entire way, making me cringe. But I get it open and sling a leg over the window ledge, leaning out, looking down. It
'
s a straight drop to the back porch pavement. Here
'
s hoping my body is sturdy enough to handle it.

I start to haul my other leg over the pane.

Someone grabs me by the hair. Yanks me back sharply into the room
, twisting
me around before I know what
'
s happening.

Joel
'
s face is inches from my own.

My attacker. The one who killed me. The one who turned me.

I
'
m dragged kicking and screaming back into the room. Joel
'
s hand covers my mouth and I sink my teeth into the meat of his palm.
Hard
. Blood hits my tongue, dribbles down my chin. He jerks away with a pained snarl. Too bad he has ahold of my hair, so I don
'
t get far. Any minute now, his friend is going to join him and I
'
ll have zero chance of getting away.

I jab my elbow back into the vampire
'
s stomach. He doubles over for a fraction of a second, long enough for me to twist around
and
slam the heel of my hand into his nose. Superficial damage, not going to last long on someone that heals so quick, but like hell if I
'
ll go down without a fight.

He rears his head, injured hand covering injured face, groaning.
His fingers twist in my hair and he
shoves me
away
with enough force that my feet leave the floor. My back connects with the corner of Mom
'
s desk. The throb shudders straight up my spine, makes me stagger when I straighten, but I have to get out of here. The window
'
s right there, if I can just
—

Joel cracks his nose back into place. The teeth marks on his hand are already knitting together, and I
'
ve succeeded in severely pissing him off. He stalks forward. Two steps, three, just as I
'
m getting my leg over the window sill. He reaches for me, and I know I
'
m not going to make it.

There
'
s a thunder of footsteps tearing down the hall, into the room, and Algonquin is on him. There
'
s a flash of bone-white teeth before they sink into the back of Joel
'
s neck, paws the size of my hands slamming him to the ground. Joel screams, helpless underneath two hundred pounds of solid muscle while Algonquin shakes him back and forth like
a squeaky toy
.

Enter Artie. Judging by the bloody mess he is, it
'
s safe to say Algonquin already got to him. I have both legs over the window sill, ready to jump.

But I can
'
t yet.

Artie wraps his thick arms around the wolf
'
s neck, wrenching him back. Algonquin goes but not without taking a mess of skin and tissue with him. Joel
'
s shriek of pain rises in pitch. My stomach rolls. Algonquin squirms in the other vampire
'
s grasp, teeth gnashing while Artie tries to get a better hold on him. And I know if I leave, they
'
ll kill him.

I swing my legs inside. Algonquin keeps Artie moving, standing on his hind legs, trying to shake him off. On Mom
'
s desk is a solid silver letter opener
and
I snatch it up, jump over Joel who is down for the count, at least for a few minutes. He grabs for my legs, misses; I make it a point to slam my boot down onto his fingers.

Algonquin whines and pants, starting to lose strength as Artie chokes the air out of him. I don
'
t think about what I
'
m doing.
I d
on
'
t think as the letter opener slides into Artie
'
s back halfway to the hilt, just between his shoulder blades. I swear I can feel it grazing off bone. He stiffens,
howls,
as I pull it out and stab him again. And again
,
and again. Until he has no choice but to let Algonquin go and whirl around to deal with me.

He meets my eyes
.
I
'
m frozen. Too scared to move. Taken back to the night by the river where these men took Sherry
'
s life and tried to take mine.

And Sherry, dying, had begged them not to hurt
me
.

It
'
s not as sharp as a knife, but using both hands to drive it into the base of Artie
'
s throat does the trick. He swings for me. Algonquin catches
Artie's
arm between his teeth. I twist the letter opener and watch Artie
'
s eyes widen. Algonquin and I let go and he staggers back, grasping the opener and tearing it out. His blood starts pouring out of the wound so quickly even he looks surprised.

Algonquin circles around, shoving his head against my side
and
pushing me for the door. I tear my eyes away and take the hint, and we both thunder down the stairs. I barely think to grab the duffel
bag
I abandoned earlier before we tear out the kitchen door.

We head across the backyard and through the gate to the empty alley behind. Running until Algonquin can
'
t run anymore, and my legs are trembling from the exertion. I guess even vampires have limits. Only then do we both slump down in the shade of a gated apartment complex to catch our breaths.

We made it. Somehow. And I
'
ve proven that
—
vampire or no
—the men
who hurt me and Sherry aren
'
t invincible. They
'
re as much flesh and blood as me, which means they can be killed.

And I
'
m going to do it. I
'
m going to show them what it felt like, being help
less at the mercy of monsters. I'll s
how them what Sherry felt as she died.

Algonquin
'
s warm tongue licks some of the blood from my face. He whines. I loop my arms around his neck, press my face into his fur and breathe in deep.

"
You saved me. Thank you.
"

His tail thumps tiredly against the pavement. We
'
re both bloody messes. God, Mom threw a fit if we got a kool-aid stain on the floor. Wait until she sees the house.

I think of my parents coming home to that, seeing my old room a disaster. Them trying to piece together what happened like a game of Clue: Briar Greyson, in the bedroom, with the letter opener.

I can
'
t help it. The thought makes me laugh.

We clean ourselves up in a
gas station
restroom. Even being in the place leaves me feeling grimier than before, but
it's
better than walking around covered in dried blood for the rest of the day. Algonquin changes back into his familiar kitten-self. Easier to sneak him onto the bus to get back downtown. The transformation process is pretty neat to watch, like those commercials of one person
'
s face morphing into another and another. So quick and subtle that if you blink, you miss it.

Downtown inevitably means passing by the bar. Complete accident, of course. Like I would have any reason to come back here. I stop across the street, watching people coming and going
,
and I put serious thought into going inside, seeing how my coworkers are.

Oh, right.
Ex-
coworkers.

Paul would not be super happy to see me. Not
when
the cops are still looking for me as a suspect in Sherry
'
s disappearance.

I tell all this to Algonquin, who listens with that silent intensity cats have when they
'
re interested in something. Ears pivoting, gaze locked on my face. I look down at his head peeking out of my zipped-up jacket.

"
Maybe we should go back,
"
I say.
"
If Cole and Oliver wanted to stop me, they could have. I
'
m still pissed at them, but they didn
'
t mean to upset me. Did they?
"
Algonquin blinks his wide eyes slowly. I take that as a sign I should head back to the hotel.

I
'
m about to, anyway, when I sense someone. Well, of course I do
—
there are people in buildings all around me. But this is different. Familiar. Oliver.

He steps outside of my bar across the road, shoulders squared, mouth drawn, that permanent crease between his brows. He spots me and some of the tension eases out of his stance. Hands buried in his pockets, he crosses the street to me. Us. Algonquin starts purring up a storm. As he approaches, Oliver has the
grace
to lower his eyes to the concrete guiltily.

"
Were you looking for me?
"
I ask.

"
We were worried.
"
He glances around in that paranoid way of his.
"
You
'
re all right?
"

Sure. I am
now,
now that I
'
m away from my stalkers. I shrug easily.
"
I
'
m fine.
"

He squints, seeing right through me, but he doesn
'
t push the issue.
"
I got this for you.
"
The first thing I see on the newspaper clipping he offers out is a picture of Sherry.

"
What is it?
"
But even as I take it, I have a pretty good idea. Her obituary. Her pretty face, date of birth and death, the names of the family members she left behind. No mention of
how she died
. Does this mean they found her body?

Cold prickles under my skin and I shove the clipping into my pocket, looking away.
"
Her memorial service is tomorrow.
"

He nods slowly.
"
Will you go?
"

"
Not very smart, is it? They all think I had something to do with it.
"
I don
'
t like being held accountable for shit I didn
'
t do, either. Especially not this. The idea that they think I ever could have hurt someone I loved as much as Sherry kills me.

"
Hasn
'
t stopped you thus far,
"
Oliver points out.
"
It's a memorial service, not a funeral.
She
'
s a murder victim, so I doubt the coroner has released her body yet. It might not be the goodbye you
'
re wanting anyway.
"

What would he know about what I want? I shrug it off and turn away, forcing back the anger and the resentment and everything else bubbling up insi
de. Saying goodbye to Sherry...
I can
'
t do it. Not until I make Joel and Artie pay for what they did.