“He’s the vampire equivalent of Mother Teresa,” Jack muttered. “What do you think is going on here?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not good.”
“Oh, it’s not? I assumed they were coming to take us to Disneyland,” Jack quipped.
Mike glared at him but held his tongue. He knew his friend well enough to know that when Jack was stressed, he became more sarcastic. Under normal conditions, Jack could be as friendly as a yellowjacket, but when he was tense, Jack was as friendly as a hornet’s nest someone bashed with a baseball bat.
“I hope Mickey eats you,” Mike muttered.
“We have no idea what’s coming through those doors, so he might,” Jack replied.
“I’ve got the key,” Doug said, drawing Mike and Jack’s attention to him.
The lock clicked seconds before the door swung open. A flash lit the night beyond the door before Doug started jerking like he’d stepped on a live wire. LeNae reached for him but pulled her hands back.
“Doug!” Mike yelled as a familiar clatter sounded seconds before smoke started filling the kitchen.
With their hope of getting away dwindling, the remaining patrons panicked. Two of them turned and fled toward the swinging doors while another raced toward the steel door Doug had opened while Doug continued his odd dance. LeNae remained frozen with her hand over her mouth, but the woman running toward the door darted past Doug and plunged outside. Her scream pierced the air before abruptly cutting off.
Adrenaline flooded Mike’s system; his fangs elongated as he searched for an enemy he could fight, but he saw no one through the smoke and confusion. When Doug groaned, Mike spun away from the doors and ran for his friend. He was only feet away when two, simultaneous blows pounded his back and chest.
Pain raced through him as sharp points pierced his skin and lodged inside him. His body made the same awkward, jerking motion as Doug’s when electricity flooded it. The scent of burnt hair and flesh filled his nostrils, and he realized it was coming from him. A hand curled around the edge of the door Doug had opened; against the steel, the long red fingernails, honed into lethal points, were a vibrant splash of color before they retreated.
The color of death.
The next spasm caused him to chomp on his tongue, and blood flooded his mouth. Mike couldn’t see Jack anymore as his vision dwindled to a pinpoint on Doug. He tried to take another step toward Doug when his friend hit his knees. Mike fought against going down, but his knees wobbled with his next step.
Jack shouted behind him, but the blackness creeping in around the edges of his vision made it impossible to see more than a foot or two in front of him anymore. When his chin drooped against his chest, blackness swelled and took him under.
Chapter Three
Mollie shifted uncomfortablyin the steel cage she’d called home since yesterday. She eyed the bars in front of her with hatred. The dim light of the moon crept through the cracks in the boards of the barn, but Mollie couldn’t see much beyond the bars surrounding her. If she ever got out of this mess, she’d killeverysinglepersoninvolved in whatever this was.
Never before had she contemplated murder, but she gleefully did so now. Because if she didn’t contemplate murder, then the terror would sink back in, and the last time the terror sank in, she’d become a raving lunatic who yanked uselessly on her bars and screamed her throat raw. She’d uttered the most animalistic sounds she’d ever heard—sounds sheneverexpected to hear coming fromher.
But that was because her captors had come inside, opened Aida’s cage, and taken a struggling Aida away. Mollie tried not to look at where her sister had been locked in her cage only hours ago, but her gaze was irresistibly drawn back to it.
Where had they taken her little sister? What were theydoingto her?
Images of sex trafficking, forced prostitution, rape, and every other appalling thing she’d ever heard happening to kidnapped people flooded her mind. Closing her eyes, she rubbed at her eyelids as she resisted another meltdown.
Not Aida, please not Aida.
Mollie would give anything to be the one they’d taken from here instead of her beautiful, vibrant, eighteen-year-old sister. Aida had endured so much bad over the years, to have her experiencing whatever she was now…
When madness started creeping around the edges of her mind, Mollie shut down the possibilities. As tempting as it was to give in to the screaming again, she’d never get out of this mess if she went bonkers.
Deep breaths, relax, in and out.Her years of yoga and counseling were not helping, not when facing so many unknown possibilities. She didn’t care what became of her, but she wanted her sister back,now.
Shifting, she tried to find a more comfortable position to sit, but the five-by-five steel cage wasn’t built to accommodate someone of her five-ten height and the bars under her dug into her ass. After being in it for at least a day, her legs and back were screaming in protest.
She’d explored the cell for hours and examined every bar for weakness after first waking. She’d tried picking the lock with two of the bobby pins tucked into her hair, but working from behind the lock in the dark had rendered her attempts useless. Afterward, she tucked the ruined bobby pins into her bra.
Escape seemed impossible, but she wouldn’t give up on getting out of here.
She glanced at the small, silver pan tucked into the corner of her cage and almost kicked it against the bars. The only problem was, she’d broken down a few hours ago and used it to relieve herself. If she kicked it, she’d only wind up covered in her urine. She could pour it outside her bars and onto the dirt floor of the cavernous barn, but she was hoping her jailers would come back to remove it and she would have a chance to attack them.
The chances of that happening were probably slim, considering they hadn’t opened her cage since she was tossed into it, but she’d bet on slim over nothing any day. They kept her cage locked the one time they bothered to bring her food, and her captors hadn’t opened it the two times they slid a small cup of water through the bars.
