Kerry Allen

(Missed Chapter 1? Catch up here.)

She walked home, stripped, and stood under the tepid spray of the shower. The water beaded and coursed down on the stark white tile like tears. She smeared them away with her fist.

Following her last encounter with Nathan Hilliard, she’d jumped on the opportunity to infiltrate the SPH. Sure, recreate my identity. Teach me to carve up bodies without puking. Risk my life. Anything to get away from here. There was a certain poetic justice in his capture.

He hurt her. The SPH took her in.

The SPH took him in. Now she had the opportunity to hurt him.

She tipped her head back and let the water cool her stinging eyes. Regardless of how he’d treated her, he didn’t deserve to be tortured. He didn’t deserve to die.

No one did, but all the others had been beyond help by the time they reached her. She’d never been in a position to save someone before. She’d never had to choose between the life of an individual and the lives of many that could be spared if she had access to details of the SPH’s agenda. The choice should have been obvious.

A sob caught in her throat. Why did the test have to be Nate?

A childhood memory jabbed at her conscience. She’d insisted on tagging along with his gang but couldn’t keep up. The other boys wanted to go on without her. Nate lifted her up on his shoulders. She may be slow and weak and puny, but she’s ours. We don’t leave ours behind.

She knew of only one time he’d turned his back on someone. At the time, she’d wanted him to suffer, but even the most inventive retribution she’d imagined would have been a slap on the wrist compared to what he’d endured in the past week—and they weren’t through with him yet. Could she calmly carry on with her research, knowing he was being tortured down the hall?

If they wanted pieces of him, could she wield the scalpel?

She turned off the water and scrubbed herself with a towel until her skin reddened. She had her orders. The correct course of action would be to microwave some popcorn, park herself on the sofa, and let the television rot her brain until she passed out, then get through tomorrow and the day after in the same fashion.

She stared into the sink rather than confront her reflection in the mirror above it. “Dammit. It may be correct, but it’s not right.”

Leo had always questioned her ability to follow orders. When he finished killing her, he’d be insufferably smug his doubt had been justified.

Minutes later, she eased her car into the flow of traffic while she juggled ideas. Some stayed in the air; others dropped like cannonballs. Six years of daily improvisation had taught her anything could go wrong at any time, making flexibility a necessity. She took stock of the resources at her disposal and let them direct her destination.

At the ATM, she learned her daily withdrawal limit hardly constituted a resource and adjusted her strategy accordingly. Between the largest department store the mall had to offer and a “beautique” hidden on the side of a half-vacant shopping center, she blew almost all her cash.

She didn’t need money at the medical supply company where she stopped last. Her SPH badge did triple duty as ID, company credit card, and all-access pass to the black market inventory. She could walk out with a cooler full of donor organs on the company tab if she so desired. The comparatively mundane items on her requisition form didn’t warrant so much as a raised brow from the clerk on duty.

Back at her apartment, she layered most of her purchases inside a shoulder bag of cavernous proportions. She’d be wearing the rest.

She donned her new outfit and studied her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. Nothing screamed Cheap slut! like a skintight leopard print dress that barely covered her ass and left half her bra exposed. She’d get kicked off the set of a low-budget rap video for not looking classy enough.

Exactly the effect she wanted to achieve.

She tied a scarf around her waist to disguise a visible panty line, slung the bag over her shoulder, and picked up spike-heeled shoes she didn’t dare wear while navigating the stairs.

She stopped at the door and took a final look around the apartment. She saw nothing she couldn’t leave behind. Nothing that held any meaning for her. Not one item that left her mark on the place. If she never returned, the cleaning crew could erase all evidence of her existence by wiping her fingerprints off the fridge.

She should care more about being erased. Her existence might be a lie, but that lie was all she had.

She wouldn’t miss it any more than the cleaning crew would.

She cruised past bars until she located the only Porsche in town, then drove toward the lab, pulling to the shoulder of a little-used dirt road about a mile west of the facility. Anywhere closer would be visible to passersby and raise questions she’d rather not answer.

She called a cab using her cell phone and dropped it into her purse. Leo’s encrypted phone went in the glove compartment. She would need it later and wanted it somewhere safe, in case she had to travel light and ditch the bag.

The cab driver took one look at her and chose to disbelieve her story about car trouble. For the duration of the ten-minute drive to the bar, he lectured her on the dangers of her chosen profession.

“Mister, you don’t know the half of it.” She paid him with the last of her cash and exited the cab.

The heels on her newly purchased shoes gave her a drunken wobble even while standing still. If she didn’t break her neck crossing the parking lot, she could use that to her advantage. She adjusted the cups of her bra until her cleavage rivaled the depth of the Grand Canyon and teetered inside to find her target.

Even in poor lighting and through a smoky haze, locating him was easy. He had the loudest mouth wherever he went. Using his voice as a beacon, she wove through the crowd until she stood right behind him and tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

“Glad you could make it,” Spencer greeted her breasts, slinging his arm around her and leaning in for a kiss before his eyes settled on her face. His mouth fell open. “Amanda?”

She pushed his chin up with one finger. “Surprise. I’m not a drag twenty-four hours a day.”

He kept his grip on her shoulder to prevent her escape but stepped back enough to give her a thorough once-over. “Glad to hear it.”

She stumbled as if a passing waitress had bumped her. Her breasts smooshed against Spencer’s chest. The contact had an immediate and predictable effect on another part of his anatomy. A conspiratorial smile curved her lips. “Glad enough to help me get away with something that will get us both fired if anyone finds out?”

His hand skimmed from her shoulder to her butt, the tips of his fingers stroking the bare skin just below her hemline. “Depends what’s in it for me.”

She suppressed the knee-jerk reaction that would have lodged his testicles in his throat. She couldn’t fault him for being a sleaze when her entire plan, such as it was, hinged on that character flaw. “You told me once about a certain fantasy you have about you and a girl… and a friend of yours.”

Suspicion pulled his brows together. “The way I remember it, you started squawking about sexual harassment.”

“I was new at the lab, and all I knew about you was that you’re the boss’s son. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you or if it was some kind of trick to get me fired. Now I know you’re not scared to break the rules.” She slid her fingers into his hair and nuzzled his ear. “Nothing turns me on more than breaking the rules.”

Neither the threat of unemployment nor daddy’s wrath could daunt his twenty-year-old libido. In scarcely more time than it took to explain what she wanted, they were being waved through the lab’s security station by the armed guard, who was too preoccupied with Amanda’s chest to even glance at her bag. On the basis of his knowing leer, she guessed he represented the friend variable in the equation.

Spencer swiped his ID badge through the lock on the observation room. The injustice of a glorified test tube washer being granted higher security clearance than hers dispelled the wisp of guilt she’d begun to feel about using him. If her father were a key player in the SPH, this entire charade would be unnecessary.

Then again, if she’d grown up steeped in SPH dogma, she’d probably feel very differently toward the vampire lying motionless on the table.

Spencer poked him in the cheek. “I think it’s dead.”

Nate lunged against his restraints, fangs slicing through Spencer’s sleeve. The bolts fastening the left legs of the table to the floor popped free of their moorings. Spencer squealed, staggering back until the wall prevented further retreat.

Idiot. Even steeped in the dogma, he didn’t know any better than to taunt a wounded vampire. Survival skills must have taken a distant second to hatred on the SPH curriculum. “He seems pretty lively to me. Leave me alone with him.”

Spencer recovered from his scare. “But I thought—”

“It’s my playtime now. No fun for you until after I’m happy.” She slipped her hands into his pockets and fit her body against his from ankle to chest. “Trust me, when I’m happy, I’m loads of fun.”

He succumbed with a full-body shudder. “Hurry.”

“You can’t rush these things, Spence.” She unhanded him and gave him a gentle shove out the door. “You’ll be the very first to know when I’m done.”

She watched him hustle down the hall, then pulled the privacy curtain across the window. By the end of the night, she’d need a bath in bleach before she felt clean again. This wasn’t her most revolting performance during her stint with the SPH, but it definitely placed in the top five.

The first thing unpacked from her bag was a pair of well-worn canvas sneakers. She pried the killer shoes from her feet and dropped them in the wastebasket, not a single regret about their loss. “Listen up, vampire. I’m not carrying enough blood to even take the edge off the kind of hunger you’re suffering. I’ve mixed up a drug cocktail that should help, though.”

His feral growl made the hairs on her arms stand at attention.

If she knew her counterparts out in Nevada, he’d been injected with enough drugs in the past week to last him a lifetime. She couldn’t spare him from these, though. She had no intention of releasing a starving vampire when she was the nearest food source. She’d feel terrible about leaving him here, but not as terrible as she’d feel about getting her throat chewed out in a fit of uncontrolled hunger.

She laid out the remainder of the bag’s contents on the counter. “The ten pints I have will barely hydrate you. You’ll need something to slow the cell destruction until we find more.”

The growl dwindled to a low rumble and shifted to ragged breathing. “It’ll be enough.”

That he was coherent enough to speak was reassuring; that he assumed she’d been born yesterday, merely amusing. “It’ll be enough for you to regain the strength to snap those bindings like they’re made of chewing gum and go for my jugular. I’m not giving you a drop of blood until you take the shot.” She kneaded one pouch, the rhythmic swish of blood between her fingers simulating the flow through a human heart. “I must have carried this one closest to me. It’s still warm.”

He lunged again. The table wobbled on two legs. If he tipped it, the racket would bring Spencer and his buddy with the gun running.

“Go ahead and dump yourself on the floor. That’ll get you a few inches closer to a drink. Of course, you’ll lose about three feet in height. You do the math.”

The table legs banged down to the floor. “Bitch.”

“If you’re going to be nasty, I can pack up my toys and leave you to regret pissing away this opportunity for however long it takes them to kill you.” She tossed the pouch. It landed in the center of his chest, well out of reach of his fangs. He went very still. “Agree to the shot, and I’ll give you the blood.”

Only the intermittent flare of his jutting ribs confirmed he hadn’t expired. After a minute or two, he jerked his head in what she took for a nod.

She picked up the syringe she’d prepared earlier. “The injection contains Procrit and Neupogen to stimulate temporary production of your own red and white cells, with warfarin and epinephrine to extend the blood’s circulation time long enough to infiltrate your entire system and restore at least minimum functionality to your organs. This combination will damage a vampire’s heart, liver, and what little marrow you have and make a serious dent in your life expectancy.”

He briefly strained against his bindings before subsiding once more. “Why tell me?”

“Ethics don’t allow me to poison you without full disclosure.”

She accepted his second nod as informed consent. Rather than trying to force the needle into one of his prominent, ropy veins, she slid it into the tube dangling from the sedative drip and depressed the plunger. After emptying the syringe, she pulled the IV from his neck. The puncture sealed within seconds, a red lump of tissue forming over the mark.

If he were in perfect health, such a tiny wound would have healed without a trace. She ran a fingertip over the disfigurement. Scarred vampires typically had epic war stories to account for their failure to recover fully. Somebody poked me with a needle would require some creative embellishment on his part.

“If you’re going to grope me, move the hand lower. Otherwise, give me the fucking blood.”

She snatched her hand away, face burning at the rude reminder her purpose was to save his life, not comfort him in his hour of need.

She held the first pouch of blood to his lips. When he bit into it, the ruby fluid welled from the punctures, flooding his mouth faster than he could swallow. She looked away. Bag feeding was a messy business she had always found difficult to watch. Still, the sight of blood going into him by any method beat the sight of it pouring out.

When he sucked that pouch dry, she fed him the second course, then the next. As his greedy tissues absorbed the liquid, the hollows between his bones became less pronounced. The gray tinge to his skin faded, its texture recovering some elasticity. Despite the visible improvement, he still looked worse than some of the corpses she’d seen. With the influx of blood, his immune system would kick into overdrive to repair his injuries, but cosmetic flaws took a distant second priority to the internal damage.

When the tenth pint crumpled under suction, he jerked free of the straps binding his hands and groped for the discarded plastic littering his chest. He ripped open the bags and licked them clean, then swiped at the blood on his chin and sucked it from his fingers.

Amanda edged away from the table while the dregs of the meal commanded his attention. Thanks to the injection, he had no immediate physical need for more blood, but instinct might incite him to gorge as restitution for the famine, and she made easy prey.

He tore the straps off his legs and slid from the table to prowl the edge of the room, circling toward her. His gaunt body should have looked frail and vulnerable in its nakedness, but he moved with the regal power of a predator confident of his place at the top of the food chain.

Since there was nowhere to run and any sudden movement might trigger an attack, she held her ground while he stalked her. Her pulse accelerated to an erratic gallop when he stopped inches away. The last time she stood this close to Nathan Hilliard, he broke her heart. How much damage would he do this time?

“Relax. It would be crass to bite the hand that freed me.” He bent his head, his nose hovering over her hair, her neck, catching her scent, learning everything sight couldn’t tell him. “I know you.”

The sense of smell was a vampire’s most acute. If a good whiff of her stirred nothing but vague familiarity, she didn’t qualify as worthy of remembrance. Another woman might take that as an insult, but considering the outcome of their last encounter, his inability to put a face to his rescuer came as a relief. “I used to work for your family. You’ve smelled me around. I brought clothes for you.” She pushed them against his chest in hopes the barrier would combat the urge to fling her arms around him like a long-lost friend.

He fingered the material, identifying the items by touch. “I need something to cover my eyes.”

“They’ll grow back.”

“Unless the toxic waste you pumped into me has issues with them.”

That was a remote possibility she really wished hadn’t occurred to him. “Now who’s being a bitch?”

She pulled the scarf from around her waist and stepped away from him. His muscles tensed at the movement, and she froze, braced for a strike. She couldn’t afford many such careless mistakes. Of course he’d react to every move as a threat unless she explained what he couldn’t see. “I have something for your eyes. Would you rather tie it yourself?”

“No.”

His grudging tone suggested otherwise, but she had no intention of arguing with him.

The sooner she got him home, the easier keeping that promise would be.

She draped the scarf over his eyes and tied it at the back of his head, careful not to catch his hair in the knot. Not smoothing the snarls from the coffee-colored strands in the process required effort. Considering what that had happened between them, their present surroundings, and his wasted condition, petting him seemed in poor taste.

He traced the scarf’s beaded pattern with his fingers. “Ready to face the firing squad in style.”

She hoped those words didn’t prove prophetic. “Get dressed. I’ll have you home in no time.”

She lifted the edge of the privacy curtain. She expected to see Spencer’s face flattened against the glass, drool cutting a swath through his breath fog, but the hall outside the observation room remained empty.

She jumped when Nate’s voice rasped an inch from her ear. “Let me chew on your date.”

He still moved like a ghost, as light on his feet as she was clunky. He’d dressed in complete silence. She’d thoughtlessly grabbed the size he used to wear, and the clothing hung on him like hand-me-downs he’d need to grow into. At least the shoes would fit properly. “Since we’re walking out of here, there’s no time to stop for a snack.”

His lips twisted. “What kind of half-ass rescue mission doesn’t include a getaway car?”

“The spur-of-the-moment kind.”

Since her low-clearance ID wouldn’t open the door from the inside, either, she’d asked Spencer not to lock her in. After she assured him her “play” depended on leaving the vampire doped up and strapped down, he’d agreed. Despite his promise, she held her breath as she pulled on the handle.

No alarm sounded. She checked the hall again. “I don’t think my date is going to let me borrow his Porsche once he figures out I’m not going to reward him with a threesome for breaking into daddy’s lab so I can satisfy my vampire fetish. Now be quiet.”

She tiptoed down the corridor, the vampire on her heels. Her first day at the lab, Spencer showed her how to override the alarm on the fire exit so she could sneak out for a smoke or “whatever.” Courtesy of his training, the exterior door opened for her with only a soft squeak of seldom-used hinges.

Amanda detected no movement in the darkness, not even a breath of air stirring a leaf. “Give me your hand.”

“No.”

“It’s at least a mile through the woods. You need me to guide you.”

He crowded her against the doorjamb, his lean body as unyielding as the steel frame. “I lost my eyes. I’m keeping my hand. Not negotiable.” He shifted slightly, pinning but no longer crushing her. “Now, if you’d care to revisit the subject of your hands…”

Her breath hissed between her teeth. Give a male—human or vampire—one spare drop of blood, and it was a given he wouldn’t direct it to his brain. “You seem real attached to the two you have. Mine wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

She squirmed away from him and struck out for the tree line at a brisk pace. Her sneakers lost their stealth factor when crunching through the dry leaves littering the ground, but Nate didn’t make a sound. Superstitious dread gathered on the back of her neck, compelling her to look over her shoulder to shake it off.

He wasn’t behind her.

She strained to pick up any movement, any sound, any indication where he’d gotten lost. Little moonlight penetrated the trees, leaving her nearly blind, and she heard nothing over her own increasingly frantic breathing. She started retracing her steps, only to stop after a few feet. Was this really the way she’d come? A few degrees off course, and she’d be walking in circles all night.

“Nate?”

No answer, but she hadn’t dared raise her voice above a stage whisper for fear of who else might be listening. He couldn’t have been captured. She would have heard something.

Her eyes narrowed as another possibility occurred to her. “If you’re screwing with me, Hilliard, I swear to god I’ll—”

A firm hand covered her mouth. “Shh. You’re taking all the sport out of hunting you.”

She twisted her head to the side to get free so she could tell him exactly what she thought of playing cat-and-mouse when she was trying to save his miserable life.

His fingers tightened against her cheeks—not hurting, but making it clear he was no longer the helpless prisoner. “Pipe down. You’re only practice. For now.” He released her. “You really should have put an appetite suppressant in that cocktail, though.”

She scrubbed the back of her hand over her lips to rid them of the lingering warmth of his touch. “If you must be an ass, could you at least make some noise so I know you haven’t gotten lost?”

“You’re making enough noise for both of us. It would be impossible to lose you.”

One more snide remark from him and she’d put that theory to the test. She set off once more.

“Hey, Magellan.” His hands fell on her shoulders and steered her to the right. “You were headed that way before.”

Because she knew she’d gotten turned around—for which he was entirely to blame—and because she knew him to have a superior sense of direction, she took his word for it. In about fifty years, she might chuckle over the blind leading the discombobulated. At the moment, however, she was far too conscious of time slipping away before their escape could be considered a success to find any humor in the situation.

They emerged from the woods near the intersection of the dirt road and the highway. She must have driven further off the beaten path than she remembered, since her car was nowhere in sight. She walked another hundred yards. With a leaden feeling in her gut, she looked back toward the road. A clump of trees blocked her view.

She knew damn well she’d parked within sight of asphalt.

“What’s wrong?”

Her hyperventilation must have tipped Nate off to her distress. “My car’s been towed.”

Continue with Chapter 3.