34. Wren

CHAPTER 34

Wren

“ W ake up. Wake up!”

I shook Caria again, but she just groaned and tried to roll away. Even in the gloom, I couldn’t miss the bruises shadowing her pale skin. Blood had crusted under her nose and worse, on her thighs, but she was alive.

She was alive, and so was I.

Before Laurent went to meet Blane, he’d nodded toward me and ordered Rick to, “Put her with the other one.”

Rick had retorted that, “I’m not your servant,” but when Laurent stormed out, Rick shrugged and followed his instructions anyway. I couldn’t quite work out their relationship. Rick didn’t seem to like Laurent or even respect him, and yet he was staying in the man’s house. Maybe they were bound together by some kind of supernatural bond, the way Blane claimed he and I were?

Whatever the reason for their relationship, I’d found myself in a small room at the back of the house, a space the size of my bathroom at home, lit by a single yellowing bulb. When Rick had shoved me inside, I’d stumbled, tripped, and landed right on top of my best friend.

She’d barely stirred.

“Mmmmf.”

Was Caria drunk? Drugged? Or worse, did she have a head injury? How were we supposed to get out of this house of horrors if she couldn’t even stand? I rattled the door—locked—and looked around desperately for something I could use to break through the wood. But the room was almost empty, cleared out to be used as a makeshift prison. An unopened package of potato chips sat on a tray in the corner beside a full bottle of water, and a coat lay crumpled on the floor. There were more coats hanging on a rail, coats that probably never got worn in Vegas.

I wrenched off the bottle cap and splashed water on Caria’s face, holding her steady when she squeaked and struggled.

“Sit up. You have to sit up, okay?”

She glared with unfocused eyes, and I hauled her upright. Somehow, we needed to escape from this nightmare. Would Rick come back? Or maybe…maybe Blane would save us? After what happened at Club Dead, I was scared of him, but Blane was definitely the lesser of the evils lurking in this luxury hellhole.

I heard footsteps approaching and held my breath. Friend or foe? Should I try yelling? There were guards in the mansion—I’d seen a pair of them striding toward the front of the house as Rick hustled me through the hallways, his hand clamped around the back of my neck.

“Help us!” I cried, but the footsteps kept going. A shadow passed across the sliver of light at the bottom of the door and disappeared. I backed up and then ran at the door, but rather than it flying open, I bounced off the wood with my shoulder throbbing. A sob threatened to burst free as I begged Caria again.

“Please, you need to get up. Because the next time this door opens, I’m really gonna need some help.”

I put my eye to the keyhole and squinted, but the key was still in the lock, so I couldn’t see anything useful at all.

Wait…

The key was still in the lock.

If I could wiggle it out and then work it back under the door…

Quickly, I grabbed one of the wire hangers from the rail and straightened out the hook. A moment later, the key hit the tile, and I prayed it hadn’t bounced out of reach. I slid the hanger under the door and worked it around, hoping… There! I felt it move. I tried again to snag the key, focusing every ounce of concentration on listening for that faint metallic sound, then jumped out of my skin when I heard distant gunfire.

Perhaps that was why I missed the footsteps?

But I didn’t miss the rattle of the key in the lock.

I scrambled back, shielding Caria, hoping for Blane but terrified that Laurent would be back to finish what he started. In that moment, I envied Caria her oblivion. My heart was threatening to give out.

The door creaked open, and I blinked in the light.

It wasn’t Laurent.

It wasn’t Blane either.

It was… “Vee?”

“Hurry, we need to get out of here. Is that Caria?”

“Yes, but she can’t even stand. I don’t know what they’ve done to her.”

In a heartbeat, Vee slung a groaning Caria over her shoulder as if she weighed nothing, and suddenly, having a vampire on my side didn’t seem quite so bad after all. She’d come to help me, and so had…

“Blane,” I choked out. “Where’s Blane? He came to see Laurent, but Laurent…he isn’t normal.”

“We realised that.”

“No, I mean I shot him in the chest, and he didn’t fall. It’s like he’s one of…one of you people.”

“He’s definitely not one of us,” she said, and she sounded annoyed by the mere suggestion.

“I didn’t mean a friend or anything. Just that he won’t freaking die. And there’s this other guy?—”

“Shhh! Do you want to attract the attention of every guard in the place?”

No, of course I didn’t. I wanted all of us to get out of this place without dying, and if Laurent was on the rampage… An unearthly howl sounded from outside, and I hurried to keep up with Vee.

Only to bump into her as she stopped short.

Oh, hell.

Rick was right in front of us, and even though he wasn’t exactly friendly with Laurent, I wasn’t sure he’d let us walk out of there either. But Vee was a badass. And also a vampire. Couldn’t she suck out his blood or something? Yesterday, heck, even a few hours ago, the mere idea of that would have filled me with horror, but that was then and this was now. At this moment, I was cheering for the fangs.

But Vee didn’t leap into action as I expected. No, she backed up and stepped on my foot. A little squeak escaped my lips.

“Well, hello, ma petite épine .”

Wait, they knew each other?

“ Mon Dieu ,” Vee whispered.

Caria fell to the floor as Rick grabbed Vee by the arm and hauled her toward him. Her scream froze my blood. And…and I didn’t understand. Vee was so strong, so confident, and yet this arrogant Frenchman was pulling her around like a rag doll.

“Hey! Let her go!”

Rick finally seemed to notice I was there.

“This doesn’t concern you.”

Anger overrode my last scraps of common sense, and I put my hands on my hips. “Are you freaking kidding me? You kidnapped my friend, you locked me in a closet, and now you’re trying to dislocate my other friend’s shoulder?”

“It’s okay,” Vee tried to reassure me, but I could see from the terror in her eyes that it was anything but.

“Women aren’t possessions. You can’t just order us around.”

“This one belongs to me,” Rick said, jerking Vee’s arm. “Although she seems to have lost her wedding ring.”

Wait, what? Was he saying what I thought he was saying? Vee was his wife ? Married or not, she clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near him, and wasn’t she dating a cop? I grabbed her other arm and pulled, and the last thing I remembered was flying through the air.

Then everything went black.