Hide & Seek: Games and Fangs (Ravana Moon #2), page 15
“Shhh, just listen. We’ll get to all of that after the PCI leaves you here.”
“How?”
“I’m going to give you a drug. It’ll make you look dead to the naked eye. Your heart rate will slow, and you won’t be able to move, but you will be fine. Emerick says it’ll wear off. I just have to get the dose right and the timing. Too soon and you’ll come back to life with the agents standing here.”
“Okay, do it.”
“I need to go get it. Which means I have to leave you in here for a while. After they leave, I’m going to ask Ravana to put you back in your apartment. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. We could have prevented this.”
“You love me, I know you do. You wouldn’t do this if I meant nothing to you.”
“No, I just don’t want you to get tortured and die. How I do or do not feel is something I haven’t really figured out.” I got up and left her sitting there, turning my back to her as I left the room. I didn’t lie to her, and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that, even if she did lie to me for months.
I needed to get the paralytic and the calculations. I needed to know exactly how long before the agents arrived to give it to her, and how long we would want her to be down.
I was telling the truth, I didn’t know how I felt. I just knew I couldn’t lose her before I figured it out. Then I would feel responsible for her death. When I pulled the trigger, I’d imagined so many things happening. Her lifeless body lying on the floor of the weapons room came to the front of my mind more than anything. The look on her face as her dead eyes looked up at me from the floor. I couldn’t have her life over my head for the rest of mine. I didn’t think I could survive something like that.
If I were to say what my feelings for her were and then to have her dead for real, it would kill me. It was killing me, just thinking about it.
The lab was finished, and with all the walls up it looked entirely different than what I had envisioned. The lab floor lights were on the minute the elevator door opened, making me have to squint at all the white and silver plating in the room. I stepped through and marveled at the bustle of activity. Men and women in white lab coats moved from station to station and in and out of rooms along the back side of the floor. To the left sat a small office and next to it the cage of the armory. The room itself was small, but that could have been due to the huge security officer taking up space in the middle of the room. I’d heard of the trouble Massimo had with the man and thought silently that he could have taken the human guard without a problem. Why he did not was a mystery…to me at least.
“May I help you?” A tall chubby man who was balding from the forehead to the crown of his head approached. He held a handkerchief in one hand and sneezed into it as I stepped closer, then backed up. “Sorry, it’s just allergy’s. All the new construction.”
“Right. Well, I’m in need of a drug for a prisoner upstairs.”
“Have you got clearance from the boss? I can’t hand anything out without it.”
“She’s the one who told me to fetch it. Succinylcholine. We will need enough to keep the prisoner out for an hour, and I just need to know how long it’ll take to take effect.”
“How much does the prisoner weight?”
“About one fifty.”
“Height?”
“Maybe five-six.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” The man disappeared into a room. The walls were all clear glass except for the one he entered. It was frosted so you couldn’t view what was inside. The notice on the door said, ‘Only laboratory technicians beyond this point.’
I felt uneasy. Like something with this plan could go terribly wrong. What if I was making a horrible mistake? Again, the thought of taking Kelly’s life; her dead body lying on the floor at my feet sprang into my mind.
I shook my head to rid myself of the image and noticed the lab tech coming from the room. He handed me a small vial and syringe and sneezed into his handkerchief once more. “Damn sheetrock dust. Sorry, I’ll just need you to sign it out.” Picking up a clipboard he scribbled something on it and handed it to me with a pen.
Next to the name of the drug was the dosage, date and time the drug was given. I quickly signed and printed my name at the end of the row and the tech initialed next to my signature.
“Give it to her at least fifteen minutes before you need her to be down. Twenty-five to thirty would be better. She will be down between an hour to an hour and a half. I do have to tell you the dosage is not always guaranteed, especially since we are working with estimated height and weight. She could be down longer. She could also have an adverse reaction, and it could kill her or put her in the drug-induced condition permanently.”
I inhaled sharply. Not able to give a reply, I nodded my understanding and turned to head to the elevator while checking my watch. I had about forty-five minutes. In that time, I would need to consider whether or not I could do it. I’d have to give Kelly all the facts and let her decide.
Chapter Twenty - One
Massimo
I woke to the dripping of water. It hit me in the face, splattering a shower of cold over me. I wondered how long I’d been out. I couldn’t judge based on the hunger within me anymore. That primal need for blood was gone. I could feel the emptiness in the pit of my stomach however and surmised it had only been a few hours. By the low growls around me and the sound of light breathing, I guessed I was surrounded by hellhounds. Most of which were fast asleep. I moved away from the onslaught of wetness and opened my eyes. Making sure not to move too much and alert the beasts to my consciousness. Around half a dozen slept, the other half seemed to be pacing the small area, on guard.
I was not oblivious to the fact that my captor had not bothered with restraints. My guess was he was hoping I’d try to escape. Then he’d sic the whole pack of hounds on me. I saw what one had done to Red. There was no way I was risking that agony. I knew she would come. Ravana would think of nothing else until she found me. She could be a little obsessive like that. In the meantime, I needed to find out as much as possible about our enemy. He hadn’t made himself known before grabbing me, but I’d heard that laugh. The way he chuckled behind a growl. The same growl he’d used when I asked to court his daughter. Rather, when Liam asked him. It was so many years ago when he’d threatened to inflict bodily harm on me if I dared hurt his little girl. Now, three-quarters of a century later and he’d come to enact his revenge. I should have known it’d be him.
“I can tell by the way your breathing, that you're awake. Isn’t it fascinating how we don’t need lights on to see any time of the day?” The lack of lighting in the cave was evident by the soft glow of the sun from the opening. Yet, he was right. I could see him and his pets as if we were walking in the late afternoon sky over Seattle.
He didn’t look any different. Much like myself and Ravana, he looked as if we were all still living a comfortable country life in 1942. His dirty-blonde hair was the same length he’d worn it back then. Long to his shoulders and tucked behind his ears. Though the grey of his eyes turned red. I could tell after all this time, even with Emerick’s DNA in him, he was now more vampire than what we were. Unfortunately, if Emerick changed him, that meant he was probably as hard to kill as we were.
“Hello, Clive. Long time, no see.” I tried not to growl in response, but I couldn’t help it. It was the feral animal in me. I may have changed for the better. I may have gained strength and agility, night vision and speed. I lost the burning need for blood, but the animal was still there. Still tucked inside me, hiding in every dark crevasse it could find.
“Give or so a decade,” he said walking toward me, his hounds moving like the parting sea. “Though it wouldn’t have been at all if I hadn’t tracked you down myself.”
“Times a tricky monster. Much more than us. See, you can be away from someone for so long, you tend to forget all about them. Would I have heard you were still alive, I may have looked you up.” I pushed the water from my brow finally and with it the hair that fell to my forehead.
“I doubt that very much. You see, I know what my daughter does not. I know you're responsible for her fate. I doubt you’d want to risk her finding out what you did, or how you broke her heart into a million pieces.”
“She knows what I did.”
“Does she? Does she really? I mean, it was so much more than an outburst, or a mistake of identity. Wasn’t it?”
“What do you know about any of it? You weren’t there.”
“I was, actually. I saw the whole thing. I listened as she cried when she found out her child died. I watched through the curtain as you stripped her of her memories, and I fought tooth and nail to bring her back once you sent her away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I’m sure you do. See, everyone else can believe you’ve lost some parts of your memory, but I know the truth. I know you retained every memory when you turned. You know how I know that? Because I remember the day, my daughter was born. The day I married and buried my wife. The day my almost son-in-law killed my children, leaving me to bury two of them and hunt for the third. I remember it all as if it were yesterday. Don’t you?”
“I don’t. I didn’t get to keep my memories. I do have some back, but only of the years Annabelle and I were together. Nothing else.”
“You weren’t turned by Emerick after you and my daughter began to court. You were turned much earlier on than that, don’t you remember?”
I shifted on the ground, finding my way to my knees to gain some sort of ground over my captor. He stopped a full three feet in front of me. Each word paused by a step.
“I was turned the morning of our wedding. Emerick grabbed me from my dressing room and took me to his mansion, locking me in a dungeon below ground. I woke up the next morning much like I did here. Except Emerick didn’t feel the need to surround me with hellhounds modified with his DNA. Neat idea you’ve had, Clive. Annabelle will be so proud to find out her father is the one trying to destroy her.”
“Oh, she knows. Just as she knows I’m not after her. No, a bite from my hounds won’t do anything to her. She won’t even feel it. She won’t feel anything anymore. However, if Thrash were to bite into you, there would be pain unlike any other you’ve ever felt. I’ve engineered him just for you.”
“Engineered?”
“Yes, taken almost twelve years to gain those degrees. I wanted to make sure I learned everything. I also needed a way to build a life for myself. Have access to a lab without any questions about what I was working on. Until I had a strain worthy of the word perfection.”
“Really? You created this animal in a lab?”
“Just for you. The almost son-in-law. Thanks to the funding of the better son-in-law.”
“Emerick?”
“See, I knew you were aware of a thing or two.”
“I’m flattered you worked so hard to find me out. What do you want?”
“You, away from my daughter…permanently.”
“How do you know that’s what she wants? You wouldn’t want to be responsible for breaking her heart a second time, would you?”
“A second time? When did I break her heart?”
“The minute you decided saving her life was worth the risk of saving her child. It was your call. He made it your call.”
“Yes, I did that. And because I did, she is still here. Look at all the good she’s done for humankind because of the decision I made. I knew she was meant for this life, to do great things. You can’t say the same for the ones you’ve made, can you, Liam? No, because in the end, you are the one who cost her that child, her life, and her humanity. You, nobody else. You cost her a life of happiness. For that, there is no forgiveness.”
“Says you. Red said she has her memories back. Emerick made sure she would. She still chose me. So, what do you say about that?”
“She’s still a girl. Full of emotions and nearsightedness. She has no clue what will make her happy. Especially, when it comes to you, Liam. You were always her Achilles heel.”
“That’s because she loves me. Deep down she knows it, and so do you. Emerick has been trying to worm his way back into her heart, but he’s never going to succeed.”
“How would you know that?”
I looked to the opening of the cave to see a hue of long red hair surrounding her perfect face. Her hands fisted to her hips like they always did when she was in an obstinate mood. She started to walk closer and her features cleared. She was really there, just as I’d known she would be, but for some reason, I wasn’t feeling like my odds were getting better.
“Father, how lovely to see you again.”
“Red, thank goodness you’ve come.”
“Really? Because I’m not feeling all that charitable at the moment, and that’s exactly what you look like you need…charity.”
“Ravana, what’s wrong with you?”
She stepped to her father’s side, and her features were more pronounced. Her eyes had a red ring around them, not solid like Clive’s but like they were working on getting there.
“There is nothing wrong with me, Massimo. I’ve just had my eyes opened to the truth is all.”
She turned, and that was when I saw Emerick behind her. She tugged on a chain she clasped in her hands, and our sire lurched forward. He was bound in silver, and while it didn’t kill him, I could see the red ring around his wrists even in the dim light of the dark cave.
“Em?”
“Oh, don’t concern yourself with him. He’s just here to watch. He really didn’t want to come, but I kind of made him,” she said hanging his chain on a hook in the cave wall. The hounds circled him like he was next on the menu.
“Annabelle, what is the meaning of this?” Clive yelled at his daughter. “No, boys. He is not food.”
“Oh Daddy, never mind your pets. They won’t hurt Emerick.” She looked around her with an evil glare. “Hounds out!” she told the animals around us, and they moved to the exterior of the cave. Those that were sleeping rose with a yawn and followed suit, looking as if they didn’t entirely know why they had to move. “I’m going to need a little room for his interrogation.”
“What of your husband? Why is he bound?”
“In due time, Father. All in due time.”
She sauntered over to me. A pointedly shaped nail polished in red pricked the side of my neck. “I know why you didn’t want to feed on me. Thank you,” Red whispered in my ear. “I wouldn’t want to be going through whatever withdrawals you are. It doesn’t sound like a comfortable experience. However, what I’m about to do to you won’t be comfortable either.”
“Red, I’m so sorry.”
“For what, love? For not telling me the truth? For lying your way into my bed? For making me think my husband was the worse of the two evils? You have no idea the things you should be sorry for, but you will.”
She pushed my head down to the ground and held it still between her ankles. A position I would have loved to have tried in better circumstances. I had no doubt this was an elaborate hoax from her and Emerick to get me free of Clive and his hounds, until the first cut.
I screamed in terror at the pain I felt. A blade cut my flesh from my waist to the nape of my neck. I heard more than felt the skin rip apart as Ravana inserted her hands into the wound and spread me apart from my spine to my sides. When the pain was so unbearable I had to buck my body back at her, another pair of hands held me down, my forehead pressed to the ground.
“I want you to know what it feels like to have your insides ripped from your body. I want you to know how it felt for me to lose everything I loved, and everything that was going to be my eternal happiness.”
Another blade, maybe bigger started hacking at the bone in my back. My ribcage came loose on one side, freed of my spine and pulled away from me. My body convulsed, pain-wracked through me. Every nerve in my system was screaming, though my voice was mute. Tears fell freely from my face, my vision all but gone, whether due to the pain or not I had no clue. All I could focus on was the fact that the woman I loved was destroying my body, breaking me from the inside out until I was in so much pain I was delirious with it.
When both of my ribcages were detached from my spine and hanging open from my back, I felt the pull of the blade against the muscle inside my chest. The dagger or sword she used must have dulled because the metal ripped more than cut my lungs from my chest wall. They too were spread eagle outside of my back. Finally, I found my voice enough to howl. The pain so severe it began to resemble burning, a searing of sorts that made me wish for my end. Once she was done, the hands holding my head to the rock floor released me. Red took a step back, and I let my head hang. Blood dripped from my body, weakening me. I could feel the muscles begin to pull themselves together.
“Oh, no. Not yet.” I felt a tingle and then smelled the burning before I felt the additional pain. “That’s a little silver dust. You’re not going to heal quite so quickly.”
“Wh…why?” I shuddered. I wanted to ask so much more than that. I had to know what happened. The red rim of her eyes. The temper in her voice. This was not my Red. No, something was wrong, and I couldn’t bring myself together to point it out.
A side glance toward Emerick in his cuffs told me I was right. He was working something out in his head. He diverted his eyes every time he got close to looking at me. What was he thinking and how did he manage to get chained up?
Chapter Twenty - Two
Delia
Kelly was out for five minutes before the elevator opened. She knew what would happen if the dosage was wrong, but she said anything was better than what the PCI would have in store for her.
