Aden, Julian said, ignoring him. Check out that entrance, my man. Please. I want a peek at those papers. If they’re there. Just, I don’t know, stay out of the hospital, okay?
“Why?”
“Why what?” Victoria asked.
He pointed to his head with an apologetic half smile, and she nodded in understanding. True understanding.
Maybe they’ll remind me of who I was.
“No, I mean, why stay out? If we avoid the morgue—”
Don’t want to risk it. Besides, I’m creeped out, remember?
“But not by the secret room, or whatever it is.” A room that, if it really did exist, could very well be a lab for testing bodily fluids by now. His luck, he’d walk in, someone in a lab coat would be holding a vial of something black and smelly, and he’d have to beat feet, cries of “You ruined everything” ringing in his ears.
Right.
“You mentioned records. What kind?”
I…don’t know. Just seems really important.
Important like stuff about the night the souls died? A long shot, but worth a peek. If there was a chance—and there was—he had to risk his neck to take it.
“Victoria, stay here with Shannon and Ryder. Seth, come with me. There’s something I want to check out.” The boy would make a good—and probably the only one who’d be eager—lookout.
“Sweet.” Seth was standing outside the car and rubbing his hands together in less than point-six seconds.
“Wait. You’re leaving me behind?” Sharp, bitter air blustered inside, causing Victoria to shiver.
To his knowledge, she’d never shivered before.
“I need you to guard the humans.” Just in case Tucker was out there. And he probably was.
Even though Tucker was Vlad’s ambassador, Vlad would not order anyone to slay his daughter. Beat her, yes, Aden thought with a tide of anger. Kill her? No.
“But I…I…oh, very well.” She nodded reluctantly, shadows in her eyes. “I’ll stay behind like a good little girl.”
One day, he would find a way to wipe those shadows clean. She was meant for happiness. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked her. “Seriously.” He cupped her cheeks and thrilled at her softness. “You can tell me.”
“I’m fine. We’ll all be fine.”
“Yes, you will be.” Right, Elijah?
Silence.
Aden sighed. He’d have to apologize to the psychic, but not here. Groveling might be involved, so private time was a definite necessity. He kissed Victoria, soft and lingering, uncaring about their audience. “I’ll be back. Do you have your phone?”
She nodded.
“Text me when the wolves return. Or if you need anything. Or if you get scared. Or if you—”
“I will.” She laughed now, and the sweet sound lessened the tension between them. “Go.”
After another kiss—he couldn’t stop himself, had to have it—he led Seth toward the east side of the building.
“What are we checking out?” Seth asked.
They reached a padlocked door, and dread overtook him. “I guess we’ll find out together.”
TWENTY-ONE
TO A VAMPIRE OR A SHIFTER, a human guarding two other humans was kind of like having a toddler guard other toddlers. Useless. But Victoria had never been more certain of her status. She was absolutely, utterly human.
Earlier she’d cut her wrist to pour her blood into a cup so that Aden would finally eat without revealing her secret, or having to bite and addict her—or himself. There’d been no je la nune on the metal, yet the blade had sliced right through her flesh without any hindrance. The wound had yet to heal. And Chompers, well, he’d stopped roaring, even stopped mewling.
“You and Aden dating?” Ryder asked her, relaxing for the first time since he’d watched Nathan shift.
Leaning her temple against the driver’s headrest, she peered back at him. “Yes.” I think. Since waking up in her bed, he’d been kind, tender, sweet and affectionate. More like his old self. She constantly battled the urge to throw herself into his arms and spill everything. Her fears, her frailties…her love. Fear of rejection formed a clamp around her mouth.
“You don’t care that he’s crazy?”
Maybe it was a good thing her beast was quiet. The question pushed all the wrong buttons, and she—or Chompers—might have dove over the seat and ripped out Ryder’s tongue. “He’s not crazy.”
“He talks to himself. Or to the souls, as he calls them. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s the textbook definition of crazy.”
Twisting, she threw her glare at him. How like Draven he was. Clueless to the violence he stirred. “I drink blood.” Or I used to. “And my closest friends turn into wolves. Are we crazy?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. He should have appeared amused, but he just looked sad. “Probably.”
“Sh-shut up,” Shannon told him. “N-now.”
“What?” Ryder thumped a fist into the roof. “This whole thing is fucked up, yet everyone is acting like it’s normal.”
“Then why are you here?” she demanded. “Why did you come with us?”
“I was bored.” Flippant tone, challenging expression.
Shannon peered at him with growing horror. Why the horror? She glanced at the clock on the dash, the numbers glowing a soft red. Nathan and Maxwell had been gone for twenty-three minutes, and Aden for nineteen. When would they return?
“‘I—I was bored’ says the b-boy who always t-talks his way out of everything? No. I know y-you. Wh-what did you d-do?” Shannon asked Ryder. “Why did y-you want to leave Crossroads?”
“I did nothing.” Ryder shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “And I didn’t want to leave. Aden asked us to come.”
Shannon wasn’t giving up. “Wh-what the hell did y-you do? J-just say it. S-say it b-because I already kn-know. Didn’t w-want to believe, but you were g-gone last night, after w-we…just after. You reeked of g-gasoline. I believed you when you s-said you’d been working on th-the truck. B-believed you, but you…you… S-say it!”
Cringing, seemingly in pain, Ryder rubbed the spot just above his heart. The two boys glared at each other for a long while. The pain must have been building, must have pushed from him. A moan escaped him, followed by a spew of poisonous yelling.
“You want to hear the truth? Fine. I started the fire. Okay? All right? There was a voice in my head, and he told me what to do. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t. You know what else? He told me to kill you, to kill all of you, and I stood over your bed. I was going to do it, just like he told me, but I started shaking, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, so I dragged you out instead.”
Victoria listened, her own sense of horror growing.
“You…you…” Shannon let his head flop into his upraised hands.
“The voice told me to go with Aden, wherever he went. He told me—” Ryder’s entire body shook, as if he were having a seizure. His eyes rolled back in his head, until only the whites could be seen through the slits in his lashes.
“R-Ryder!” Darting into action, Shannon pushed his friend to his side, and shoved his own hand into the boy’s mouth, trying to prevent him from swallowing his tongue. Then the shaking stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
The passenger door slid open, frosty air once again shoving inside the car to battle with what little warmth remained. No one had opened the door that Victoria could see, yet it had opened—and was now closing on its own. Victoria’s horror morphed into alarm, the reason popping into place.
Tucker.
In a snap, he materialized in the seat. His clothes were ragged and bloodstained, his sandy hair plastered to his head and sporting matching streaks of crimson. His eyes held a corrosive sadness that would eat through the rest of him if he wasn’t careful.
“Hello, Victoria,” he said. “You got my text, I see.”
She would not be cowed. She might be human, but Riley had trained her in self-defense. Weak as she was, she wasn’t completely helpless. “Yes, I did.” And having taken a page from the Aden Stone School of Ass Kicking, she’d stored daggers under the sleeves of her robe.