Page 41 of Bullets and Blood
Nix pulled the knife out of his side and slit Scott’s throat.For several seconds, he didn’t move, just watched the blood spill on the linoleum floor.The gnawing hunger in his belly became a growl.
“Fuck it.”He tore into Scott’s neck, feeding on the rich blood, gulping it down, gathering the strength he needed so he could heal and run.As he drank, his body healed.
He sat back and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
Scott stared sightlessly up at the stained ceiling.
The Orlans knew where he was, and like cockroaches, where there was one there’d be more.
A cough shook Nix’s body and sent a ribbon of fire through his side.He leaned over as the cough took over, his lung trying to rid itself of the blood.He hacked up the fist sized clot and breathed a little easier.That wasn’t the first time he’d sacrificed a lung.The first time, he’d thought he would die.
He got off Scott and wiped his unsteady hands on a tea towel, then he went through the vampire’s pockets.He pulled out the phone and used Scott’s thumbprint to unlock it.Then he changed the password with shaking hands, so he’d have access to the phone and its records.
The room looked like a crime scene.The spilled blood was dark in the ambient light.He had scars that were still forming and blood drying on his lips.
He needed a cleanup crew.
The number that he’d memorized the day after he’d been blooded was the first in his mind, but there was no Hadley cleanup crew anymore.
He swore.Then he grabbed his own phone and called his Reid contact.They didn’t want to help him, but they wouldn’t want humans to realize vampires were real either.
“Hello.”The man on the end of the line sounded cranky and tired.
“I need a cleanup.”He gave the address of the place he was renting.
“Who is this?”
“Hadley.There’s a dead Orlan on my floor.”
The man gasped.
“I didn’t break any rules.I’ve killed no humans, and he attacked me.When will you get here?”He didn’t want to wait around for back-up to arrive.
How long had Scott been watching him?Or had Lance called in reinforcements?He dropped the phone, and it landed in the tacky blood before he could catch it.His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.He needed to get out of there.
“This is your mess, Hadley.”
“No, you don’t understand.The humans will see this as murder.”
“And the agreement was no help, no hinder.”The man hung up.
“But it’s a cleanup,” he said to the dead line, fear biting him hard and making it impossible to think.
For a few hours, the Orlans would believe he was dead.But they’d realize it was Scott who was dead when they tried to call him.Nix had time to clean up and put some distance between here and him, though.While he’d never been on clean up, he’d been taught the basics.
If put out for the dawn, Scott would burn up in the sun.If he could get sunlight on the bloodied floor, that blood would turn to ash too.Scott’s clothes wouldn’t.He’d always taken for granted the work that went into clean up.He placed a call, and it happened.
Now it was his problem.
And he couldn’t move.
Another Orlan would come.How many others were waiting close by?Worry flickered.How many had seen Lance and him together?How closely was Lance being monitored?
If Lance was in trouble, there was nothing Nix could do about it.If he was caught sitting there, covered in blood with a body at his feet, he was going down for murder, or at the very least, manslaughter.He glanced at the teeth marks in Scott’s neck.If he ranted about vampires, he’d be deemed unfit to face trial and popped into a comfy white room with plenty of meds until a friendly orderly who worked for the Orlan’s knocked him off.
There were worse ways to go, but he didn’t like knowing that everything would be out of his hands and beyond his control.It was his goddamn life, and he wasn’t ready to surrender it to anyone.
He forced himself up, feeling far older than twenty-seven.None of his brothers had lived past thirty-three, so he wasn’t doing too badly.The old anger that the peace talks had been deliberately ended burned in his gut.Killing Scott hadn’t changed the past and fixed his future.
