Page 79 of Tested
Apparently my next pause goes on too long, so she prompts me with an, “Or…”
“Jacques.”
“Jacques,” she echoes.
“I need to break his hold over me.” Sheena is my oldest friend, my closest friend. We’d discussed this before, but never with this urgency. “It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.”
She mutters “JFC” under her breath and I give a rueful laugh.
“It’s been done before.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Once.”
“Maybe.”
She flicks an imaginary piece of lint off the leather seat. “The only way you can break away from Jacques is with the help of someone more powerful.”
I give her a palms-up shrug. “Yes. A more powerful vampire.”
She shakes her head. “Which means you’ll owe someone else allegiance.”
“True.” I cross my arms, not sure I should say this out loud, but then I go for it. “But this time he’s gone too far. I don’t have a choice.”
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. “You sure?” Her smile turns sad, but then her attention shifts sharply. “What was that?”
I follow where she’s pointing. It’s the pool, the deck empty and the wind kicking up little ripples in the water.
“What?”
“I saw someone move out there.”
I get up and walk closer to the window. “Let’s go check it out.”
We jog down the stairs to the big slider that opens onto the deck. Sheena’s not wearing black, but her jeans and hoodie are dark enough to blend in with the night. She slides the door open ten inches or so and slips through. I follow and take a position to one side of the door, gathering the shadows around me.
At first the night is quiet, but as I let the stillness fill me, I hear sounds. The distant bark of a dog. Small creatures scuttling through the shrubbery. Sheena moves to the opposite end of the pool and squats down between two palms. She’s not vampire-still, but I have to work to find her.
The air is carrying a scent, strong enough for me to catch it, a masculine mix of citrus and sweat. Someone is here, or they’ve been here recently. I wait, the seconds ticking in time with the slow beat of my heart. I’m about to call Sheena off when I hear a very definite footstep to my right.
I freeze, wondering if Sheena heard it too. She doesn’t move, so it’s possible.
I haven’t yet begun to breathe normally when a second footstep follows the first, a crisp click and then the scratch of leather on cement. A soft chime tests my ability to stay still when something startles me, followed by the soft murmur of a man’s voice.
“You have a visual?” he says, followed by another step. “Let me know.”
Whoever he is, he has friends. Another step and I catch sight of movement. A man stands on the deck near the corner of the house. If it weren’t for the sound and the movement, I’d never be able to pick his silhouette out of the darkness. He must be wearing gloves and a mask in addition to his dark clothing.
Slowly, as if I’ve got nothing but time, I crouch so I can take the pistol out of its holster. Shooting him will be a last resort, if for no other reason than his friends would hear the gun’s report. No, I want him to walk right up to me so I can grab him and knock him out without making any noise.
He seems to be down with that plan, making slow, steady progress in my direction. He gets close enough for me to smell the richness of his blood under the citrus notes I’d noticed earlier. Finally, after what feels like hours, he’s right in front of me. I reach out, one hand over his mouth, the other around his chest. He starts to thrash, and I bite.
I don’t intend to feed. It’s about control, distraction, and, suckling at the wound, I drag him into the house. I turn him so I can look into his eyes and give him a simple command.
“Sleep.”
He does. I find the toybox I keep down here for more entertaining circumstances and use zip ties to cuff his hands and his feet. His phone gives another chime, and a man’s voice says sternly, “Dillon, report in.”
I don’t answer until I can hear the man outside as well as through the phone.
