Chapter Forty-Eight
After a few days,Elena was getting used to the compound and the hideous mansion the vampires called home. She spent her second day there exploring the place with Kadence, Simone, and Callie. Elyse spent half the day with them before breaking away to put her daughter, Madison, down for a nap.
She liked the women, and they made her feel welcome in a place she’d never expected to find herself. Not once, in her entire life, had she ever considered the possibility she might one day reside in a place full of vamps and hunters, but here she was, watching them coincide in relative peace.
The only darkness hanging over the place—minus the ugly gargoyles on the mansion—was that Josiah wasn’t getting any better. When she spoke with Juan, he revealed Leonardo and Diego were much the same. They still hadn’t been fed and were losing weight. He had tossed some regular food in there, and they did eat that. It didn’t have any effect on them.
They were in the process of building more secure cells to hold creatures like these even if they weren’t tranquilized. He was concerned about what would happen when they moved Leonardo and Diego into those cells, but he didn’t trust their current prisons to hold them.
For the safety of everyone in the compound, she suspected he was contemplating destroying them instead, and she didn’t blame him. Her father would consider doing the same.
Actually, she believed her father would kill them. He’d do everything in his power to save them first, but if he truly thought they were a threat to the compound, he’d put them down—the lives of the many outweigh those of the few.
She didn’t say that to Juan; her father was gone, and Juan had to forge his path. He was doing a great job of keeping the compound safe under horrendous circumstances.
She talked to her mother every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. Their relationship was growing stronger; she’d discussed joining Logan and becoming a vampire with her. It was an awkward conversation but one she ultimately felt good about. Her mother was nervous but said she would support her decision no matter what.
As more time passed, she and most of the others grew to believe Logan’s theory about what the demons were trying to do with the serum and the hunters. The Alliance carefully monitored all news reports, and there were none about crazy, black-eyed people running through the streets and leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them.
Even if the demons and Savages tried to keep it buried, it would be impossible for them to do so. And, according to Roland, there was no increase in deaths or disappearances at all throughout the city. Juan and the others were also monitoring the news and hadn’t found any differences or stories.
The demons had come up with this poison to destroy hunters and the Alliance, and they were counting on their victims to keep it contained. The only problem was, and everyone agreed, it was only a matter of time before something went wrong and it spilled into the public.
What would happen then, she couldn’t begin to imagine, and she didn’t want to. She tried to stay in the moment because if she imagined all the terrible possibilities that could happen, she’d never leave this place.
And since she had every intention of fighting with the Alliance once Ronan allowed hunting to resume, she wasn’t going to let herself get too caught up in the what-ifs.
On her third day at the compound, she found Logan working on an old Mustang in one of the garages. His head was buried under the hood as he muttered curses and twisted a wrench that cranked with every turn. A light, hooked onto the hood, shone down on him, and she stopped to take him in.
She hadn’t expected to enjoy something like this, but grease covered him up to his elbows, streaked his face, and though he was swearing, the tone of his voice was almost jovial. He was so damn sexy and all alone in the garage.
“What are you doing to it?” she asked as she strolled a little closer.
When he turned his head and smiled at her, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning back at him.
“I think you have more oil on you than there is in the car,” she said.
He smiled at her. “It’s a good possibility.”
“So, what are you doing to it?”
“Hoping to restore it,” he said. “I’ve had it for about five years, and the most work I’ve gotten done on it is today. Not being able to hunt has opened up my days a little more.”
“Not being able to hunt is starting to get to you,” she said.
“Maybe I’m enjoying it.”
“Are you?”
“I’m enjoying the time I get to spend with you,” he said as he set the wrench down. “And this isn’t so bad. Maybe I’ll even get it running again someday.”
When he stepped toward her, Elena danced away and waved her index finger at him. “Nah-uh. You’re filthy.”
“You usually like that about me,” he said with a wink.
“I like you filthy in bed, not when it entails dirt and grease.”
He laughed and picked the wrench back up. “I wouldn’t have taken you as a girly girl, Elena Soto.”
