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ChapterNineteen
Sara raced through the halls of Division, part of her wondering what the hell she was doing, and another part fearing she was going to be too damn late.
“No,” she yelled into the phone at the Security Section desk drone. “Constantine. With a C, dammit, and I’m prosecuting this case with Nikko Leviathan supervising. You engage that security device, and I will have your ass in a sling.”
“A termination request has been input,” the drone said.
“And I’m overriding it, dammit.” She didn’t have a clue whether she had authority to do that, but she damn well intended to make the argument. She hurried onto the elevator and stabbed the button for the detention level. “Just wait for me. Don’t do anything until I get there.”
No answer.
She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Call failed. No signal.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
She jabbed again at the elevator button, as if that would make the thing move faster, but she couldn’t simply stand and do nothing. What if they did it? What if they killed Luke?
And why the hell do you care?
The voice in her head was sharp. Dangerous.
But she did care. Maybe she shouldn’t, but that didn’t change the facts. She cared, and no way in hell was he going to die tonight.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe, remembering the way his voice had sounded when she’d answered the phone in her apartment only minutes earlier, so desperate when he’d called her for help.
She’d already dismissed the Phonoi—claiming a nightmare and a foolish impulse to push the panic button—and she’d been sitting on the floor, her back to the glass, trying to process everything he’d told her. Trying to get even the tiniest bit of a handle on how she felt.
Luke was a vampire. A defendant in a murder trial with exceptionally compelling evidence. A man who’d blindly followed orders and killed her father. A creature who’d changed before her and almost attacked her.
She’d been trying to convince herself that she hated him. That she didn’t trust him. That he could rot in hell for all she cared.
But the words weren’t getting through.
She’d forgiven Serge for killing her father, hadn’t she? That’s what she remembered, anyway. He’d been acting under orders, and though she’d been shocked and heartbroken, she hadn’t ordered him out of her home. On the contrary, she’d thanked him for fighting alongside Luke. For saving her from the horde of vampires who’d burst into the house.
She’d told herself that Luke was nothing more than a hired assassin. He’d essentially admitted to as much. And yet she knew there was so much more to him than that. He cared about justice. He saw the evil in Stemmons just as she did. And he’d cared for and protected his ward for centuries.
She banged on the wall, both to make the elevator go faster, and in frustration with herself. She was like one of those simpering girls in every bad horror movie out there. So into the guy that she did something stupid and wound up dead from a lunatic axe murderer.
She was smarter than that. Wasn’t she?
All of those thoughts and more had been roiling in her head when he’d called. “Sara,” he’d said the moment she answered the phone. “I need help.”
She’d remembered the way his face had hardened, the way he’d bared his fangs, and she’d almost hung up.
“Wait,” he’d demanded, and so help her, she had.
“What is it, Luke? What could possibly make you think you have the right to call me now? That I wouldeverwant to help you?”
“No right,” he’d said. “No expectation. Just hope, Sara.” He needed intervention, he’d said. The fall to her pool deck had injured him, and there was no way he could return to where he’d left his advocate before Security Section activated the stake around his heart.
“I’m going back to Division,” he’d said, “but even that’s no guarantee. I need help, Sara. Will you speak for me?”
She hadn’t answered, her mind too filled with the remnants of both fear and longing, but she’d hung up and was already dialing Division and racing toward work before he had a chance to ask twice.
She told herself that she was stepping in because she wouldn’t see a man condemned without a trial, but she knew it was a lie. He’d touched something within her, and right or wrong, she couldn’t let him die. Not like this.
The elevator doors slid open and she raced through, pounding the redial button even as her eyes scoured the hall for someone with authority. But down here, where Security and Detention were accessed through long concrete halls, there was no one but her. “Is he there?” she demanded the moment the drone answered the call. “Is Dragos there?”
