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The vision that had vibrated just under the veil of her consciousness broke through into proper awareness, and she saw L.W.’s autocratic face just as it was now, with one side in shadow and the other bathed in a dark-blue illumination. And then—yes, exactly like he was doing now—he looked at whoever was peering out.
“You have a secret,” she heard herself say softly.
L.W.’s head whipped back to her. “What.”
“Something you cannot share… and it’s come home tonight.” She narrowed her eyes as her words came faster and faster. “You need to be careful, L.W. Your anger is your downfall, and that which you were cheated of was stolen by a thief who doesn’t care about its ill-gotten gains. Unless you can forgive fate, you are going to destroy… all of us—”
“L.W.” Mharta leaned out of the door she’d opened. “What are you doing out here.”
He ignored the female. “What did you say.”
Bitty shook her head and took a step back, mostly to get herself free of the trance-like state that had come over her. “I’m sorry. Nothing. It was—I don’t know, I was just rambling. Forget it.”
Mharta nodded and waved a pointed see-ya. “Yeah, goodnight. Great to have you—L.W., let’s go back inside. It’s freezing out here.”
Forcing herself to calm down, Bitty closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed—prayed—that she could focus well enough to get herself away from the alley. Unfortunately, concentration was required, and she couldn’t decide what freaked her out more.
What she’d just said to L.W.
Or the fact that he’d wanted her to hug him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the basement of the abandoned office building, Evan woke up facedown in a warm puddle. He was making awful sounds, all wet and bubbly… just like the noises that had come out of Mickey right after his throat had been cut. But at least Evan could breathe, even if he couldn’t think, and he pushed at the hard surface he was on, feeling a viscous liquid drip off his nose and his chin, and drool from his mouth—
One of his palms slipped out from under him and he slammed back down. Turning his head so he could get some air into his lungs, he shifted his stiff legs and moaned. His joints felt like they had nails driven into them, and his skull was throbbing as if his brain had swollen three times its size…
The stench was inside him. Under his skin, inside his bones, clogging up his chest and his guts. Hewasthe smell—
That wasn’t so bad, was it.
The trainer’s mocking voice echoed in his consciousness, as it had echoed in the barren basement, and with it came images, terrible images, that filtered through his logy confusion. The memories werehorrific, his blood being taken by that man who was no normal man, what was in Evan’s jugular swallowed like something extracted from the earth, claimed by the one who had bitten him, taken until he was on the verge of death. And then the black oil that smelled so bad, that was in all those buckets and on the floor, had been forced down his throat, his mouth cranked open, a wrist pressed and held against his lips until his front teeth were going to snap off, the flow like a hose, pumping and plumping him up, a tire about to burst.
He had cried the whole time, his tears hot on his cheeks.
He did not cry now. He was too spent.
Pushing at the concrete floor again, he flopped over onto his back and stared at the flat panels of LED lights mounted on the basement ceiling. His eyes were soupy and he rubbed them, making the blurriness worse—
The elevator.
He needed to get in the elevator and leave. He wasn’t safe here. What if that horror came back for him?
What if that… monster… returned.
Lifting his twelve-hundred-pound skull, Evan located the elevator’s closed doors and orientated himself. It was so far away and he told himself he just needed a minute.
As he let the pressure off his neck, he looked down his naked torso. He had a vague memory of being laid out on the floor and his parka, fleece, and t-shirt getting cut off. He didn’t know where they’d gone and he was too scared to care: Something had been done to his chest. In the center, at his sternum, there was bruising, the skin bright red, a dull ache thumping to the beat of his heart.
After the oil had been geysered down his throat, the trainer had… what had happened next?
Evan tried to remember. All he got was the image of Lash’s palm hovering over his heart and somehow creating a pressure that threatened to split him in half. And then—
The trainer’s head had snapped up to the ceiling, as if his name had been called.
He’d cursed and punched Evan in the pecs in frustration.
Then he’d disappeared. Like an apparition.
