Part Ten
TORMENTED
“No man knows till he experiences it, what it is like to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the woman he loves.”
“I never thought it’d end this way. Oh my
God! I didn’t. Inside, my heart feels like it’s
being ripped out, just like one of the monster’s victims. The pain is so great I can barely
breathe, and I feel like it hardly even beats
anymore. I don’t know how things are going
to turn out, or if I’ll ever see the ones I love
again, but I will never, ever give up. I know
I’m rough around the edges, I’ve got a sailor
mouth, but when I love, I love, you know? I
took a fucking beating as a kid; I deserve hap-
piness as an adult. I’ve worked hard for it. My
loved ones deserve happiness. I used to want
nothing more than to have my mother back. I
miss her! But she’s in a good place—a place
only angels like her go to. What I want now
are my live loved ones. I want Nyx. I want
Seth. I want Eli. My grandparents. I want
them all. But I’m not sure I’ll get what I want
after all, in the end. You can bet your sweet ass
I’ll die trying, though.”
I’d ignored all calls from all acquaintances. It
didn’t matter what they knew or where they could go. I knew whom
Nyx was with, and he wanted me. I knew that now. I figured Eli and
the others would talk to his parents and they’d all head this way.
I’d told Elise and Gilles exactly where I’d be going, and what
time. For now, though, it was he and I—Monster vs. Bitch. No more
newling puppets.
I prayed I would
win.
I didn’t change
clothes; I didn’t need to. I had eleven silver blades tucked away
beneath my skirt, and if it took every single one to take Valerian
down, I’d do it. For spite, I wanted to plunge one of my silver
blades into each of his eyes, just for making me watch the filth
and horrors of his desires.
The streets were busy
for a Thursday night; the humidity heavy; the brine heavier. As I
pulled into the parking area for Tunnel 9, the scent of stale urine
assaulted me. I choked back a gag, slipped out, and looked around.
Several cars filled the parking lot; heavy metal thumped against
the walls from inside, and I could hear people pissing in the
toilets near the back of the buildings. I’d turned on all my senses
and wasn’t about to go unarmed. My best friend was in there. My
worst enemy held her against her will. He had the ability to rip
her heart out.
I’d rip his out
first.
I filed in behind a
group of people walking in; young twenties, dressed to the hilt,
completely unaware of what sort of monsters really exist. I know
most people don’t believe in monsters; I didn’t for a while. I damn
sure as hell believed now. I believed in a lot of things
now.
Inside, smoke filled
the room; smoking was against the law, but somehow, places still
got away with it. The place, newly opened, reminded me a lot of the
Panic Room. As the crowd jumped and moved to the music, I weaved in
and out, keeping a low pro, and inching my way to a place that
seemed all-too familiar. I was drawn to the back, just like at the
Panic Room.
Riley! Please help me!
I heard Nyx’s voice
and glanced frantically around. “Where are you?” I
shouted.
The couple next to me
glanced at me as if I were nuts.
In the back! Please! I’m so scared!
I wanted to run—I
couldn’t. People were crammed into the club like friggin’ sardines.
I pushed my way to the back, elbowing, squeezing, and just when I
thought I would cut through to the back, I felt a vision creeping
up on me. Oh God! No! Please don’t let it be, please don’t let it
be . . .
Near the back wall, I sank to the floor, shadows filled my
eyes, and I saw nothing. Then, slowly, light filtered in. Dead
silence surrounded me. A familiar scent rose to my nostrils—Downy
fabric softener. I glanced around. I was standing inside my old
apartment, in the foyer, by the front door.
It was the apartment Seth and I had shared with
Mom.
I blinked; in the very next second I slammed the door
behind me. “Mom! Are you even freaking here?” Irritated, I sighed
and moved to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and drank from the
orange juice carton. When I was finished, I put an empty carton
back. “Hey—Mom! Come on, dammit! I need some money!” I waited, my
irritation growing at why in hell she wasn’t answering. Angry now,
I stomped to the back, pausing long enough in the hall to stare at
myself in the mirror. Thick black liner rimmed my eyes and swept
outward, like Cleopatra, and grazed my angel wing tattoo. It looked
fucking wicked if you asked me. Mom hated it, though. “Hey!” I
shouted, angrier. It pulled me away from the mirror, and I stomped
to Mom’s room and looked around. The bed was unmade, clothes strewn
on the floor, the lamp broken on the floor beside the nightstand.
What the hell? “Mom!” I yelled, and noticed the bathroom door ajar.
I hurried to it and flung open the door. I froze as my eyes locked
on to my mother’s. Hers were unseeing, lifeless. She lay in a
half-filled tub of water, naked. My heart leapt to my throat.
“Mom!” I hollered, in a totally different tone now. My heart
slammed inside me; fear choked me. “Mom, Mom!” I continued to
shout. I grabbed her by her shoulders and tried to drag her out of
the tub. Her body was cold; wet, and a little stiff. Her body
slipped, and she sank back into the water. “No!” I cried, and
grabbed her again, this time more tightly, under the arms. I
pulled, sank all of my weight onto my heels, and heaved until her
body slid, over the rim of the tub, and fully onto me. We both fell
back onto the tile floor.
It was then I noticed the blood.
The blood, and the rip in her chest where her heart should
have been.
I shook her then, hard. “Mom!” I yelled into her ear.
“Mom!”
Nothing. My mother was dead, already starting to stiffen,
cold.
Sobs wracked my body, and I held her tightly, crying her
name, over and over and over. I don’t know how long I lay there,
soaked, my mother’s dead body on top of mine, cradled in my arms.
It must have been a long time, because my teeth chattered, and my
insides shook continuously and uncontrollably until the
black-as-night man—my mother’s employer—pulled me away from her. My
fingers wrapped around her now-dried skin and refused to let
go.
“She’s in shock,” I heard a slightly accented voice say.
“If she’s lucky, she won’t remember any of this,
Preacher.”
“I hope she don remember, dat’s right,” the black man
said. “Dat poor baby girl.”
“Riley! Get
up!”
I heard a faint
laugh, somewhere deep, somewhere far, far away. It was Valerian’s
laugh.
I turned. My eyes
widened in shock at the person whose tight grip on my forearms was
pulling me off the floor.
Victorian.
He pulled me close,
his hands on my elbows; he brought his mouth to my ear. “He is
here, love,” he said, his breath brushing my skin. “Please, come
with me. I swear to you I’ll get your friend to
safety.”
I pulled back and
sought Victorian’s eyes.
“You will come with
me, Riley. Now,” he said, his voice alluring, pulling at my mind,
into some unfamiliar zone. “Hurry.”
My mind was a ball of
tangled barbed wire. I’d just had a vision of the day when I’d
found my mother’s body, and here before me stood a vampire whom I’d
known mostly in my dreams. In my heart, I didn’t want to go with
him. Somehow, though, he made me—against my will. My actions were
no longer mine. I couldn’t help it; I reached out and grazed his
jaw with my fingertips, just to see if he was real. He was real,
and this was real—not a dream; not a vision. Confusion made my
brain ache. “Nyx.”
“I know,” Victorian
urged. “Please. There’s not much time.”
“What do you mean?” I
asked.
“There’s no time,” he
insisted.
Everyone started
screaming at once.
Several newlings
swung from the lights, bounded off the counters, the bar, the
stools, and descended upon the clubbers in a rabid feast. I moved
away from Victorian. My confusion erased, I shook my head of the
intoxicating fog and I kicked into action. I knew what needed to be
done, and I wouldn’t leave here without my friend; with all these
mortals helplessly falling victim to their bloodsucking prey. I
blinked, my hand going beneath my skirt before my brain really
registered what was happening.
“Please, Riley,”
Victorian begged, moving closer. “Come with me. I promise to get
your friend to safety.”
“Fine!” I yelled,
“but you’d better get her now!” I ducked and flipped a blade from
my thigh. Just as a newling lunged at me, I plunged it into his
heart. He began to jerk. “Get her now, Victorian!” I yelled. “In
the back!”
Victorian
disappeared.
No sooner had he
vanished into the melee than Eli, Luc, Phin, Josie, Seth, Zetty,
Noah and his guys, stormed through the door.
A second full-scale
melee ensued.
Eli made his way
toward me, his face livid, etched with terror and fury. He grabbed
me by the arm and shook me. Anger and confusion mapped lines into
his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” I
shouted.
He didn’t glare at me
long. He took off. He trusted me.
He shouldn’t
have.
I took as many out as
I could. Every once in a while I saw Seth. He was alive and kicking
ass. Relief washed over me as he stayed, back-to-back, with
Noah.
Just as I flung
another blade, hitting my mark and turning another vamp newling to
dust, my arm was grabbed again. This time when I turned, it was
Nyx. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Riley!” she yelled, and
squeezed me hard. “I was so scared!”
Relief flooded me at
the sight of Nyx unharmed. I didn’t have time to revel in it. “Go
to Luc!” I said, dragged her by the arm, and gave her a push in his
direction. “Luc!” I yelled in my mind.
He turned, faced me, saw Nyx, and ran directly toward her. Once his
hands were on her, I knew she’d be safe.
I had one undead left
to kill. I pushed my way to the back of the melee. I was shoved,
pushed, grabbed.
I was abruptly
stopped by Victorian, his hands vices on my shoulders.
His gaze bore into
mine. “You promised.”
I yanked against him.
“I’m not leaving with you! There’s one more that needs to die
first,” I yelled. “My life is here! I love Eli, my brother, my
family. You know me, Victorian! I can’t let your brother live! He’s
a monster!”
“I know, but you
must!” he yelled back, and dragged me effortlessly through the
horrified mortals. He turned when we were in a thinner crowd. I
fought him, pulled, yanked, beat him in the back with my fists.
“No,” he pleaded, ducking further swings from my fists. “You
cannot, Riley. Please.” He grabbed my hands in his, stilling me.
His drugging dark gaze pinned mine. “You will come with me. Now.
Away from this.”
My actions were once
more no longer under my control. My adrenaline pumped, and my
inhuman-like heart slammed slowly, methodically. I didn’t want to
go. Victorian left me no choice.
“Come now, Riley,”
Victorian said slowly; it became the only sound inside my head.
“It’s the only way any of this can be resolved.”
I couldn’t leave.
Valerian had to die.
“He can’t die, love,”
he said, close to my face. “He cannot.”
I didn’t exactly
understand it, but somehow I knew Victorian spoke the
truth.
“I’ll tell you on the
way,” he said. “I promise—this is the only way to stop him. To stop
all of this.”
“This way,” he said,
and pulled me effortlessly through the crowd. My mind and body were
powerless to stop him; to resist him. We’d muddled through a lot of
people, and at the last second, perhaps because Victorian had eased
up on his mind power over me, I yanked free and ran.
“Riley!” he yelled
after me.
I ignored him and
sought Eli. I had to tell him; I had to explain. I ran up behind
him, just as he shoved a mortal to safety, yanked him by the arm,
and spun him around.
Eli glared at me with
opaque eyes and pinpoint red pupils. “Get out of here, Riley,” he
threatened. “Go now!”
With that, he shoved
me, and with so much force I flew back—far.
I landed at
Victorian’s feet. Without another word, he lifted me. “You’ll come
now.” Once again I was powerless. He helped me to the back and out
the door into Savannah’s sultry, dark night. I knew Eli hadn’t
shoved me for any other reason other than he wanted me safe. I knew
that in my heart. He was angry because I was in danger, plain and
simple. Yet the thought of leaving him, like this, burned a hole in
me, made my chest hurt, and made it ache. I didn’t want to
go!
Near the back
entrance was a stone silver convertible Jag. Victorian opened the
driver’s side door. “Get in, Riley.”
Almost as if stuck in
the weird, crawlin’-bird-acrossthe-branch dream, I did as the
powerful strigoi vampire commanded, and I crawled my ass straight
over to the passenger’s side.
He followed me in and
jammed the keys into the ignition; the engine roared, and the dual
exhaust rumbled. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he threw the
car into gear and slammed on the gas.
As we peeled out of
the parking lot, I felt a heavy presence behind me. It was so
thick, it nearly choked me. I turned my head, pushed the fuchsia
bangs from my eyes, and peered through the wind and
darkness.
Two figures stood,
side by side.
Eli’s gaze bore
straight into me, staring hard after me as I drove away with an
enemy vampire. Seemingly, to them, I went willingly. They didn’t
know Victorian had me under some sort of mind control.
Noah Miles stood next
to him, his mercury gaze glowing. He said nothing. He didn’t have
to. Neither of them did.
Eli, though, didn’t
hold back.
“Ri-ley!” he yelled,
his voice hurt, in deep pain, reverberating inside my chest, inside
my bones.
I looked until I saw
him no more. We turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, then
Interstate 16. We were headed north. Where to, I had no idea. I
couldn’t think; my mind was a myriad of emotions.
“All will be well
soon,” Victorian said, and put his hand on my knee. He wiped a
smudge of . . . something off me, then grasped my chin and forced
my stare to meet his. “I promise, Riley Poe. I vow it. I will make
this right. You’ll suffer no more, love.”
As we headed out into
the night, the ever-familiar brine of Savannah’s salt encased me. I
wasn’t in my own body; I was in another’s—or so it felt similar. I
laid my head back on the headrest, the hum of Victorian’s Jag and
the ever-pressing sadness of leaving my loved ones, making my lids
grow heavy. I closed my eyes, only for a second. In that fraction
of time, Eli’s voice filled my mind, so much that I reached out,
just to see if he was there beside me. It was desperate; it was
tormented, filled with so much agony, it hurt for me to hear it.
Yet I craved it, as I craved air to breathe, to fill my lungs, to
live.
As vampires
irrevocably craved human blood.
Neither vampires nor
humans could help their cravings. I know that now. Both needed a
vital something to remain alive. For vampire’s, that something was
more gruesome, and at the cost of human life, but still—it was
their sustenance, and they could help it no more than I could help
drawing in a lungful of air. I know that now. I understand it a
little more.
Eli’s voice sounded
in my head. He spoke to me, and only to me.
I’ll cherish the
sound, pained as it was, forever.
I will come for you, Riley. I love you, and I know you
love me. I’ll find you. Until I do, be strong. Do what you have to
to survive. You’re mine. You always have been and you always will
be. I will come for you. . . .