The Dark Side (32 page)

It was just me and Rhi.

So I needed to keep both of us alive until we were found. I looked down at my wrist. No watch. Damn.

No way of knowing how long I’d been unconscious or how long it had been since they’d taken Rhi. I didn’t even know what the protocol was for a prisoner transfer. How regularly did the drivers check in with their destination? Or, put another way, how long until the army and Grayson would notice the transport had gone AWOL?

“Is Rhianna okay?”

“She’s just sleeping,” the vamp crooned, softly. “She’ll be fine. Now that she’s with me.”

“She needs to be with her family.” Stall, Ashley, stall. Try and figure out what had happened and where we might be headed. They had to have taken Rhianna on an isolated stretch of road. These vamps were organized. They planned. I wasn’t dealing with Tate, though whoever the vamp across from me was, I didn’t think she had a much stronger grip on reality than he’d had. But even if she was nuts, she seemed to be capable of going after what she wanted with great success.

“I am her family now.”

“Like hell you are.”

She snarled, fangs glinting white in the dim light. “Watch yourself. You’re in no position to piss me off.”

Piss me off. Interesting. In my experience, older vamps didn’t tend to use modern slang quite so easily. I slotted the information away. Younger usually meant weaker but she had already demonstrated impressive psychic powers. Then again Jase was strong in that department too. But pinpointing her age would be useful information if I got out of this. It would help identify her, for a start. “Well, I’m still alive so far. You must want me for something.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Wonderful. I settled back against the wall, tried to find a comfortable angle for my head and shut my eyes. I couldn’t do anything in my current position and Rhi didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. Insanity wasn’t catching, after all. Might as well try and conserve energy. I had a feeling I was going to need it when we reached our destination.

“Oh no, puppy. You go to sleep when I say so.”

“Sorry, but I just don’t find egomaniacal vampires all that interesting. Besides, I’ve had kind of a long day.”

Color flared against my eyelids. The vamp had turned on a light. A torch or a lamp, maybe. I squeezed my eyes tighter together and let out a snoring sound.

“I wouldn’t sleep if I were you. After all, I might get hungry.”

Cold spiked through me and my eyes flew open.

The vamp grinned at me nastily. “That woke you up.”

I summoned my best ‘try it and you die’ expression. “Like I told you in the woods, the last vamp who drank from me paid a high price.”

“Tate was an idiot. And weak.”

Well, that was something we agreed on. “I suggest you learn from his mistakes then. Don’t mess with me.”

“I’m not going to mess with you. I’m going to use you and then get rid of you.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen. “Use me for what?”

She shook her head and raised her hand. “You’re boring me. Maybe you should go back to sleep after all.”

I didn’t even try to fight it; just let the pain flaring through my skull carry me into darkness.

* * *

When I forced my eyes open for the second time, I was lying on a mattress shoved in one corner of a small room with bare walls painted an industrial shade of beige. There was no sign of Rhianna or the vampire. A bottle of Gatorade sat on the floor within reach.

The sight of it, combined with the renewed throb of my head made me want to gag. I couldn’t stand the taste of Gatorade since Tate. But my mouth felt like I’d been breathing sand all night and I was starving. I held my nose, chugged the bottle as fast as I dared and then forced myself to my feet. I wanted to change, to see if that might help the headache but weak as I felt, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough energy to change back or just how much weaker I’d be if I did manage it.

The door was shiny silver metal. I pressed a tentative fingertip to the surface then pulled it back as the skin started to sting and burn. Unlikely that the door itself was silver but whatever it was painted with obviously contained at least some silver. If the paint covered wood, it would be worth the effort to cover my hands and try and break it but there was no way I could rip a metal door off its hinges in my present state. The walls had no windows so there was no other way out. I retreated back to the mattress, sitting with my back to the wall and my eyes on the door.

They’d come for me soon enough.

While the minutes ticked by, I sucked absently at my fingertip, trying to ease the sting. Someone had once told me that some weres eventually gained enough control to change just one part of their bodies to heal a wound. I didn’t know if it was even true but right now I wished I knew how.

What I really needed was my panic button. Whether I was anywhere within range of Dan’s monitors was anyone’s guess. I could be still in Seattle or half a country away.

But he had to be looking for me. I’d smelled blood in my house. More than just Andy’s. I was guessing they’d taken out the second detail before Andy and I had even arrived. As soon as they missed a check-in call, Dan would have raised the alarm. But still, I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious or whether I’d been in any other sort of transport before the truck.

The only one who was likely to get me out of this mess was me. Unless Jase could hear me. I spent a few minutes concentrating on him and yelling ‘
come get me
’ in my head before my headache worsened to the extent that I had to stop.

I was just about to curl back up and try to go back to sleep when the door swung inward. The fact I hadn’t heard any footsteps outside told me something else unwelcome. My cell was probably soundproofed.

I expected my favorite nutty vampire again.

Instead it was Smith.

I scrambled to my feet, backing into the wall.

“You’re awake. Good.” He looked at me coolly. “That makes things easier.”

I didn’t really see how. My heart was jackhammering like someone had just dropped a sack full of rattlesnakes into the room. But Smith was human. He couldn’t hear how scared I was. So I didn’t intend to show him. “Did you miss me?” I asked, proud of myself when my voice didn’t shake.

He looked at me with icy blue eyes. Cold. That’s what I remembered about him. From the silver rims of his glasses to the snow white lab coat to the gray hair and emotionless voice, the man was ice. “Still a smartass then? You must be a slow learner.”

“I guess we’re both slow learners,” I quipped. “You keep trying the same old shit even though it gets you into hot water every time.”

He smiled slowly, and somehow that was worse than his default ‘you are a bug and I will study you’ expression. “I’m doing just fine. You’re the one back in chains.”

I pressed harder against the wall as my knees went a little weak. I would not show fear. “You’re the one about to have the full force of the law back on your ass.”

“They’ll be scrambling around trying to work out what happened. By the time I have what I need from you, they’ll still be looking in the wrong place.”

“What is it that you need from me?”

“Information.”

“Trust me, doc. Anything I know, I’m not telling you. I don’t talk to people who play with insane vampires. Where do you find them, by the way?”

He regarded me for a long moment and something almost like an emotion swam in his eyes. Then it disappeared. “Oh, I think you will.” He turned and gestured behind him. Four vamps stepped into the room. “Now, Ms. Keenan. This can be painless or painful. It’s entirely your choice.”

I looked at the vampires. Four of them. Not good odds. Though it was tempting to start a fight just to piss off Smith, I wasn’t the only one I had to worry about. Rhi was probably somewhere nearby. I wasn’t leaving her to Smith and his gal pal. In some ways, Smith was scarier than Tate had ever been. Tate, at least, had insanity as an excuse. Smith was completely sane. And completely amoral from what I could tell. “I’ll behave.”

“Very sensible of you.” He nodded at the vamps and two of them came over and grabbed an arm each.

They hustled me out of the cell and down a corridor, past several other doors. It seemed to be some sort of office building rather than a house but I didn’t have time to form much more of an impression than that before we arrived at our destination.

Smith opened the door and the vamps hauled me inside and strapped me down to something that my brain insisted on labeling a dentist’s chair, though it wasn’t quite the same.

“What are you doing?” I said to Smith. “Your anti-vaccine won’t work on me now, I’m a werewolf.” God, I hoped I was right. The last thing anyone needed was Smith coming up with something that could create some sort of weird were-vampire hybrid. That would really have the humans up in arms.

“Relax, I’m not trying to turn you.”

“Forgive me if I don’t find being tied down relaxing,” I snapped, tugging my arm against one of the ties, fear churning in my belly. This was all too familiar, and panic was starting to eat into my control.

“I thought you said you wanted to do this painlessly?” Smith said. “Do let me know if you’ve changed your mind.”

The lack of emotion in his voice chilled me and I stopped moving. “What do you want with me then?”

“Information, puppy.” The vamp from the woods appeared in the doorway. Smith smiled at her. I reconsidered trying to snap the bonds. She was wearing another long flowing dress like the ones Leah favored. I wondered whether there was a crazy vampire boutique somewhere. Leah usually wore dark colors though. Mystery vamp’s was a soft silky fabric in a gentle peachy shade. Against the dead white of her skin, it looked horrible.

She strolled into the room and hooked an arm through Smith’s. The look she gave me wasn’t friendly. “Is the puppy behaving herself?”

Smith patted her hand and disengaged his arm smoothly. I wondered whether she creeped him out too or whether he was just eager to get down to business. He took a syringe off the tray beside the chair. “Cilla, I thought we agreed you’d let me do this?”

Cilla? So much for Alpha and Omega. But knowing her name didn’t make her any less creepy. She had that same nothing-home-behind-the-eyes look as Tate.

“I changed my mind.” She bared her fangs. “I want to watch.”

He shrugged and busied himself filling the syringe from a glass bottle that looked all too familiar. “It’s not going to be very interesting. I’m just going to ask a lot of questions.”

“Questions about what?” I couldn’t help interrupting. I didn’t trust Smith in the slightest and the anti-vaccine he’d pumped me full of at Tate’s had come in exactly that sort of little bottle.

“We want what’s in your head, puppy.”

“In my head?” Now I was truly confused. “About the investigation?”

“No,” Smith said. He picked up a scalpel and sliced open my sleeve, baring the crook of my elbow. “About your father.”

I clenched my teeth, biting back a hiss of pain as he slid the needle under my skin none too gently. “What’s my father got to do with it? He’s dead.” Panic surged again. I didn’t know anything about my father’s work. I’d been sixteen when he died. What happened when they asked questions I couldn’t answer?

“True. But he left something behind before he died.”

“He hid it,” Cilla said, moving closer.

I blinked at her, feeling tiny prickles of heat breaking out across my skin as I sucked in a breath. My vision blurred slightly. “Hid?” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “What did you give me?”

“Just something to make you cooperative,” Smith said. He picked up my wrist, pressed his fingers over my pulse. “A little fast but nothing to worry about.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one feeling as though the room had decided to turn into a carousel. A carousel in overdrive. I closed my eyes as the walls blurred and shimmied and whirled. I tasted bile in the back of my throat and swallowed, hard. “I don’t know anything about my dad that you would be interested in,” I managed.

“You might know more than you think,” Smith said.

“Your father was working on an important project,” Cilla’s voice was too close to my ear. Hair brushed my face and I jerked my head. “Maybe he told you over a nice family dinner. He was always boring us with stories of your family dinners.”

“You knew my father?” I forced my eyes open, swallowing against the nausea again.

“We worked together for a while.”

Fuck. It wasn’t Smith we should have been looking for. It was Cilla. I tried to remember a name like Cilla or Priscilla from the long lists of Synotech employees I’d read over and over. But everything was foggy, sliding away from me like the remnants of a dream. My heart pounded. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Just relax,” Smith said. “Tell me about your father. What did you know about his work?”

Despite myself, I started talking. About how my daddy was an immunologist. About the vaccines he’d researched. About how he was helping people whose systems attacked them. How he smelled. How he came to watch me play basketball and to my dance recitals. A stream of memories came flooding out of my mouth. Unfortunately none of them seemed to be what Smith and Cilla wanted.

Cilla’s hand grabbed my jaw, her fingernails biting into my face. “Stop babbling.”

“Can’t.” I started to laugh, then to cough. I couldn’t catch my breath.

Smith grabbed my wrist again, his fingers curling to take my pulse. “Too fast. I’m going to bring her out of this.”

“Why bother?” Cilla said. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“We don’t know that. We were barely getting started. And we have other things still to try.”

Another needle bit into me and an icy sensation flooded my veins. Better than feeling like someone was choking me. Just.

Smith watched me for a few moments, and then nodded. “Looks like we’re going to have to do this the painful way after all.”

* * *

I didn’t like the sound of that and braced myself when the four vamps came back into the room. But they just dragged me back to my cell and dumped me there, next to yet more Gatorade and a tray of sandwiches. I choked it all down because I had to keep my strength up. Whatever was coming next wasn’t going to be fun.