23. Bexley

23

BEXLEY

The sound of my back slamming against the wall had nothing on the sound that fell from my mouth when I dropped to the hard floor beneath my feet. Darkness surrounded me as something yanked me up by my neck. I gasped for breath and clawed at the gooey substance, but every time my nails raked through it, the slime seemed to mold around me. As if it could anticipate my every move.

And as the slime wrapping around my neck and wrists dragged me back toward the wall that caught my initial fall, I heard her giggle in the distance.

“My, my, what a fighter,” Delilah’s voice said, echoing all around me.

My body shivered as the wall seemed to come alive, holding me against it with its gooey little tendrils. The more I fought, the more it tightened around me. My eyes scanned the room, clocking the darkness that seemed to sparkle and undulate. There was no light. No glimmer. No flickering sconce anywhere. Just me, my feet planted against a tiled surface, and this fucking wall.

Holding me hostage like a fucking prisoner.

“And so, we meet again,” Delilah said, emerging from the darkness.

Her red heels clicked across the shimmering black floor. The shadows finally released her, vomiting her in my general direction as her wispy blonde hair came into view. Those icy eyes of hers, glowing red like her dress, pinned me with a smile that didn’t quite reach them, and it took everything inside of me not to spit in her face.

She clasped her hands behind her back like the little prim and proper woman she thought she was.

God, what I wouldn’t have given to snap her neck with my bare hands.

“What do you want?” I hissed.

Delilah’s grin was positively devious. “You.”

I shook my head. That was, until the tendril that seemed to be born from the undulating wall behind me tightened.

“You may want to stand still,” Delilah said as she tilted her head. Her pale, almost translucent skin popped against the black background of where the fuck she had me. “They tighten when someone moves.”

I gasped for air. “I feel that.”

Delilah giggled with glee. “So, how do you want to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Your transformation. You get to choose how it happens.”

“I would rather die.”

She tisked softly. “Come now, don’t be a spoiled sport. I have a few surprises up my sleeve, if you cooperate.”

I snarled at her. “I would rather eat fucking lead.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Do you think Jacob would have preferred that option?”

I roared at her as I tugged the restraints, feeling them tighten around my wrists and ankles. “Don’t you dare say his name!”

My voice echoed all around us, but Delilah kept a cool head. “Whose? Jacob?”

“Stop it!”

“Your former partner, Jacob?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growled.

“The one we had to leave?—”

“Shut up!” I shrieked.

I yanked and tugged and struggled against the gooey substance that had me trapped. Little by little, it tightened until my body stopped fighting it altogether. I wheezed with every breath. My hands went numb. My feet felt like they no longer existed. And as I swallowed, I realized that I had to spit in order to get the saliva out of my mouth.

So, I spat to the floor as Delilah watched me.

“Finished?” she asked coolly.

I had to close my eyes and will myself to stop fighting. “I know how this works, and it’ll never work on me.”

“Oh?”

I slowly opened my eyes. “A human has to be willing to turn into a vampire, otherwise your poison simply kills them.”

“True,” she said plainly.

My nostrils flared. “I’ll never be willing.”

The smile melted from Delilah’s face, and I closed my eyes. I braced myself for whatever was coming. A punch. A slap. Torture, in all its forms. I worked with Delilah long enough to know exactly how she did things. I watched her run people through the ringer as if the rules didn’t apply to her one fucking bit. I recalled the very first time I ever walked in on her slapping someone around. I whipped that interrogation room door open only months into her being my boss, and I watched her crack a poor 19-year-old kid across the fucking face. Why? Well, for not ratting out his little drug-selling buddies, that’s why.

I drew in the deepest breath that I could and braced myself for whatever tortures she had coming.

But instead, I felt Delilah’s cold, disgusting breath on my face when she finally spoke up. “You know, there’s someone who’s been waiting to see you.”

I slowly peeked an eye open. “What?”

Delilah smiled when my eye opened. “Hello, there.”

I opened my other eye. “What do you mean, someone’s been waiting to see me?”

“I’m going to have to keep you up there, though,” she said as she reached her knobby little finger up to me.

I tried flinching away when she caressed my cheek with it, but the hold that the gooey slime from the wall had on me was much too strong. The cold touch of her finger sent a shiver down my spine, and goosebumps prickled everywhere. And not the good kind, either.

“Now, close your eyes,” she said as she took a step back.

I blinked. “I just had them closed.”

“Oh, come come, now. Don’t be a control freak. You know, since we all know you struggle with not being in control.”

I scoffed. “Says the woman who legitimately believes the rules don’t apply to her.”

“Close. Your eyes,” she said.

What choice did I have?

I allowed my eyes to close once more, and a rush of air whizzed past me. I felt the bindings holding me hostage against the wall slowly loosen. Not enough for me to get away, but enough for the blood to rush back to my feet and hands. The prickling sensation made me groan and grunt. It felt like my appendages were being stabbed over and over as blood rushed back to the areas.

It felt good to take a deep breath, though.

“Now, open,” Delilah’s echoing voice said.

I knew what she was doing. She was trying to assert her dominance. She was trying to get me to understand that she wielded all of the control, and that I had none. Whatever. If that was the kind of game she wanted to play, then two could play it. And besides, now that I had my wits about me a little bit, I realized that Delilah made a fatal error; wherever she brought me was personal for her. It was clear she had the place all ‘magic-fied’ out and shit like that. Was I in a personal space of hers? Maybe a home base?

I could do a lot of shit from the inside if I was at a home base for her of some sort.

“Well,” an all-too-familiar voice said, “aren’t you gonna open your eyes, Bex?”

At first, I thought I was hallucinating. That is, until he spoke again.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said softly.

And as my eyes slowly opened, there he stood. The man I never thought I’d see again. With his tall, valiant stature and his kind brown eyes. His jet-black hair contrasted with the paper-thin pale-ass skin he now sported. His brown eyes had a sort of reddish hue around them, sort of like Delilah’s, only not as strong.

“Jacob?” I asked breathlessly.

That’s when those fishy little lips of his peeled back into a smile I’d come to regard as a beacon of peace.

“Jacob,” I whispered as tears crested my eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Bex,” he said as he took another small step toward me.

My eyes blinked rapidly as I tried to keep my tears at bay. “The hell are you apologizing for?”

He swallowed hard. “I wanted to approach you so many times over the last couple of years. You know, just to say hi. Or… sit down and have dinner with you.”

I couldn’t help the tears that fell down my face. Jacob. My brother. My best friend. My partner. My confidant. He was… alive. I mean, not technically. But, he was walking. Alert. Talking.

Holy fuck, Delilah changed him into a vampire.

“And when I saw you at the funeral?” Jacob asked as he lowered his voice. “Bex, I damn near came out of the shadows just to hug you.”

My eyes grew wild. “You were at your own funeral?”

His snicker was weak, but the shadow of his grin was there. “Call it hubris.”

I scoffed. “More like crazy.”

He chuckled, which caused me to giggle. But, then his smile slowly faded.

“You were practically catatonic after the funeral,” he said with hesitancy in his voice. Almost as if he were afraid of how I’d react to his words.

But, all I did was shrug. “Can you blame me?”

“No.”

I studied him from head to toe, taking it all in. My voice lowered to nothing but a whisper. As if speaking the question out loud might somehow ruin whatever hellish dreamscape I found myself in.

“You’re alive,” I whispered.

He wrung his hands in front of his body and smiled. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

Dear fucking God.

My partner was alive.