Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (11 page)

Rend stared down at his hands, now smeared with
red blood.

His fingers trembled, then curled into strong
fists. He stood, turning away from me and wiping his hands on his
jeans.

“You need to rest,” he said. The
tenderness that had been in his voice earlier was replaced by a
stiffness that punctuated every word. “Something so powerful
can take days of recovery until you’re feeling normal again.”

“I should get home,” I said.

“No,” he said. He practically growled
it. I shrank down, away from him. What had caused this sudden shift
in him? Was he angry about the office? “I'll take you home
later, but first you need to rest for a while.”

He picked me up into his arms like I weighed
nothing. I tried to protest, but all the strength and fight had been
sucked from my body.

He lowered me onto the soft leather couch and
pulled a blanket across me. I looked up into his eyes, begging for
some return of that softness he'd shown earlier, but he stood quickly
and backed away, putting distance between us.

“Franki, there's something else—”

A frantic knock on the door interrupted him.

“What is it?” He reached for the back
of the leather chair that still stood upright in the chaos of his
office, gripping it so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Is everything okay in there?” A man’s
voice.

“We're fine.”

“We heard—”

“I said everything was fine.” His
voice was rough and commanding, leaving no room for argument. “Wait
for me in the bar. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay, sorry, boss.”

Rend glared at the door, his jaw rigid and
hard-lined. He released his grip on the chair and when he turned back
to me, I knew whatever moment of closeness we had shared had passed.
Whatever he had decided to say to me was bottled back up inside.

He said he wanted to protect me, but there was
something bothering him. Like, he wished he didn't have to protect
me.

I wanted to tell him I didn't need him and that he
could just leave me alone, but the thought of those men coming after
me in the dark, fangs flashing, had me settling back under the covers
like a good girl.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,”
he said. “I have some things to take care of first, but I’ll
be back to check on you when I can. I’m expecting you to really
rest. If I come back and find that you’ve cleaned up one piece
of this office, you’ll have to answer to me, you understand?”

I swallowed down my normal smart-ass-response
instinct and nodded instead. I was so exhausted, rest wasn't going to
be a problem. There would be plenty of time to be a smart-ass later.

Rend turned off the lights as he left, leaving me
alone in the darkness.

When I woke up, I was back in my own bed in the
dorm apartment I shared with Katy. The room was nearly pitch black.
What time was it?

I sat up, my mind fuzzy, like I had slept for five
days. My mouth tasted of ash and cinnamon. Not a pleasant
combination.

I grabbed my cell phone from the side table and
hit the power button to bring up the time. Fourteen after eleven. I
checked the date just in case, relieved to see that I hadn’t
somehow missed a day.

But how had I gotten home?

I climbed out of bed and padded into the small
living area Katy and I shared. We were seniors and after three years
in crappy small rooms on campus, we had practically won the lottery
with our small dorm apartment in the middle of campus this year. It
had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a separate living and kitchen
area. Katy had her laptop set up on the kitchen table and was
checking email.

“Thank God, you’re awake,” she
said, barely looking up from the screen. “I was starting to
think you’d sleep the rest of the night away. What happened to
you? You were gone when I got up this morning.”

“Were you here when I got home?” I
asked.

She shook her head. “No, I was at the
library studying this afternoon. Why?”

I yanked on the door to the fridge and stood there
for a second trying to decide what my best option was for washing
this taste out of mouth. I grabbed a Pepsi and downed half of it in a
couple of seconds.

I was also stalling. How much should I tell her? I
didn’t want to get a lecture from her, but I guess she needed
to know that I had a new job. I knew she wouldn’t like it,
though. Especially not after how spooked I’d been when we left
the other night.

“Franki?”

I leaned against the bar that separated the living
room and kitchen. “I don’t know how I got home,” I
said simply.

That got her attention.

She turned in her chair, her eyes fixed on me.
“What do you mean? Where were you?”

Apparently she hadn’t noticed my t-shirt
yet. I stood and pointed to the front. Her eyes grew wide.

“You went back there? Why?”

I turned around and pointed to the back of the
shirt. “I sort of work there now.”

“Holy what?” she said, popping up from
her chair and coming to stand across from me. “I knew you
needed a new job, but I thought you were totally creeped out by that
place? You yanked me off the dance-floor so fast last night, I got
whiplash.”

I took another drink of my soda. “I don't
know. I guess it's not so bad,” I said. “That guy? The
hot bartender? Turns out he owns the place. He offered me a job and I
really couldn't afford to turn it down.”

I always believed honesty was the best policy, but
when it came to vampires and indoor tornadoes and magical powers, I
decided Katy was better off not knowing the whole truth. So how was I
supposed to explain my new job?

“You’re acting strange,” she
said. “Last night, you were acting like you never wanted to
step foot in that place again.”

I shrugged, trying to play it casual. “I had
given the bartender my number and he called this morning and told me
they had an opening if I wanted it,” I said. “He said I
could make some killer tips.”

I cringed at my own words. Killer. Yes, I was now
working at a place where people had tried to kill me. And probably
would again.

Rend said he could protect me, but for how long?
And what if one of the vampires from the club figured out where I
lived? It wasn’t like I could expect him to keep me safe when I
was home or walking around campus.

Still, what choice did I have? He assured me that
those guys didn’t mess with his girls, and now, apparently, I
was one of his girls. Whatever that meant.

“Are you sure it’s worth it?”
she asked. “That club was weird, to say the least. And wait a
second, if you were there today, why don’t you remember how you
got home? Did something happen?”

“I passed out,” I said, running a hand
along my head. A sharp pain was forming just behind my left eye.

Katy propped her elbows against the bar. “Franki,
this is insane,” she said. “You kind of look like hell,
to be honest. Are you sick?”

“I don’t know,” I said, which
was the truth. Rend had said using that much magic without practice
could be draining, but damn. I wasn’t expecting that to mean
hours of feeling like crap. “I think I just pushed myself too
hard after being out drinking late last night.”

“Do you think that guy brought you home?”
she asked, a curious smile on her face. “The bartender or owner
or whatever he is?”

“His name is Rend,” I said. “And
I don’t know. Maybe, but how did he know where I live?”

“Did you fill out paperwork and stuff to
work there? He probably just read it on there.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said absently. I didn't
want to tell her what Azure had said. We technically weren’t on
the books. Paid in cash every night. It seemed sketchy.

Besides, the dorm apartment wasn't even my real
address. My driver’s license still had my Mom’s old
address on it and my mailing address here on campus was a P.O. Box.
So how the hell did he figure out where I lived?

It spooked me, for sure. What was I getting myself
into with this new job?

“When do you go back?” she asked. “Do
you have a schedule or anything? I’m going to be sad if you’re
working late nights again, like you did when you worked at Shade last
year. That sucked. We never saw each other except in class, and we
don’t even have any classes together this semester.”

“We didn’t get a chance to go over my
hours or anything,” I said. “But they don’t even
open until, like, eight every night. I can’t imagine he hired
me to work during the day. Besides, I’ve got class every day
except Fridays this semester.”

She groaned. “I still don’t know how
you managed that one,” she said. “I’m so jealous I
could die.”

I laughed. Yeah, I had gotten super lucky with my
course schedule this semester. I had a three day weekend every single
week, and it was awesome. Of course, now I was probably going to be
working late on weekends. The club didn’t close until three in
the morning, so that could mean I wouldn’t be home until nearly
four. Ugh, that was going to suck.

Unless the money really was good. I could
certainly use it. Rend and Azure had both failed to mention money at
all.

I had a small scholarship, but most of my expenses
were being paid out of money I’d earned over the past few
years, working sometimes two jobs to make ends meet. I had no idea
what I was going to do when I graduated in May.

I’d need some starter money, though,
regardless of what I decided to do. A down payment on a new apartment
and new work clothes and stuff like that wouldn’t be cheap.

I envied girls like Katy who had their parents to
fall back on when they needed it. Her entire college education was
paid for. They even gave her money for food and clothes and books and
anything else she needed. She only worked part-time so she could have
money to go out on the weekends. I don’t even think she
realized just how lucky she was to have that kind of support.

I’d been working since I was fourteen,
babysitting and picking up neighborhood jobs just to put food on the
table.

As much as the truth of what Rend had told me
earlier scared the mess out of me, there was a part of me that was
relieved to know I wasn’t the only one out there with these
kinds of powers. I had spent so much of my life thinking I was a
freak, worried about how to hide it so that no one ever found out.

What would it be like to just be myself around
people? What would it be like to meet an entire world of people who
were like me?

Dangerous or not, it was exciting.

And if I could make some good money in the
process, I was all in. At least until graduation. I could make
anything work for the next eight or nine months.

“Well, you know I’ll support you no
matter what you want to do,” she said. “I just hope you
don’t disappear on me.”

“I have to work,” I said. “There’s
no getting around it. But you know I’m always going to make
time for you.”

Katy smiled and before she even opened her mouth,
I knew what she was thinking. We hadn’t been friends for the
past three years without me learning how to read her boy-crazy
smiles.

“Hey, maybe I can come hang out with you at
the club. That guy I was dancing with, Marco? He was gorgeous. I
wouldn’t mind seeing him again.”

I rolled my eyes and downed the last of the Pepsi.
“I doubt I’ll be able to hang out much while I’m at
work,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I
really didn’t want her coming back up to that club. Not if it
was really as dangerous as Rend said.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble or
anything, but maybe once you get settled, I can get some of the other
girls together and come out there sometimes on the weekends.”

“We’ll see,” I said.

She pouted and I could tell I’d hurt her
feelings. She wouldn’t understand why I wanted to keep her
away, if I couldn’t tell her the truth about the place. This
was exactly why I hated not just being honest. Lies and half-truths
complicated everything.

But, there was no way I could tell her the truth
this time. Not without admitting what I was.

And that was something I just wasn’t ready
to do. Not when I still didn’t completely understand it myself.

“Let’s watch a movie,” I said.
“I need to veg out for a while. Your choice.”

Her face lit up. “Deal. You start the
popcorn and I’ll pick the movie. Meet you on the couch.”

By Saturday morning I felt much better, but a
twinge of headache still lingered behind my eye.

I had no idea when they were expecting me back to
work at Venom, but I had voluntarily taken Friday off to sleep and
lounge around the apartment. I considered it a birthday present to
myself.

Besides, I didn’t have Rend’s phone
number and when I tried to look it up, I couldn’t find a
general number for the club either. In fact, I couldn’t find a
single mention of the club on the internet anywhere.

Weird, right? Most clubs had a website, but even
if they didn’t, there should at least be some reviews and
mentions of it somewhere. I couldn’t find as much as a mention
of it on twitter. Not a whisper. It was as if the place didn’t
even exist.

I considered just going about my normal life and
waiting for Rend to call or come by and insist I show up for work. If
he’d wanted me there, he should have left a note or something
when he brought me home.

If he brought me home.

But I knew he wasn’t going to let me off the
hook altogether. He'd said my life was in danger, and after
everything I'd seen, I kind of believed him. Plus, I really did need
a new job, so after hours of telling myself I wasn’t going to
go in, I got dressed and decided to head downtown anyway.

It had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to
see Rend again. Nothing.

Or so I told myself.