Page 64 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
VINCENT
Vincent had barely a moment to dwell on how much he absolutely adored Wesley before the darkness fell, the room turning to monochromes in the sliver of incoming hallway light. The humans all stumbled. Myers fumbled at her waist and the lab tech froze in terror as Natalie cursed and tried to slam closed Vincent’s cell door again. Vincent ignored every alarm in his head that told him not to go anywhere near her burning silver stick and forced himself to scramble past her before the sliding glass could descend. He kicked the weapon from her grip, giving it a second boot to roll it across the room.
As the metal clattered farther and farther away, his skin stopped sizzling and his strength returned. His heart in his throat, he dove past each of the other full cells, hitting their door buttons one by one. He staggered to a stop at the end, glancing from where Wes stood in the doorway across the long chamber and back at the vampires. If they were too sick, if he had to carry each of them out, if—
But the cotton-candy haired vampire stumbled from their cell first. The others came close behind. They launched themselves at Myers and the lab technician, fangs sinking into flesh with hisses and grunts. The subtle tang of blood saturated the air in moments.
The cotton-candy haired vampire pushed by them, tackling into Natalie, teeth bared and snapping at the hunter’s throat. Natalie kicked them back and barreled toward the exit so fast that by the time Vincent thought to follow she was already pelting past Wesley as he floundered with his gun like he was trying to figure out how to cock it. Straining against the brightness of the hall, Wes finally managed to shoot Babcock’s gun after her. He cursed as it bucked in his hands. Natalie shrieked and a door slammed down the hall.
The cotton-candy haired vampire crawled onto their hands and knees. Their hungry gaze fixed on Wesley.
“Vinny?” Wes whispered, one hand on the door and staring into the lab like he wasn’t sure if he needed to start running too.
Vincent moved toward the vampire, his palms up, trying to get their attention in the calmest way possible. “He’s a friend. You can’t feed on him.”
But a famished growl sprang from the cotton-candy haired vampire, and two of their starving companions let go of the unconscious lab tech to follow suit. Their focuses fixed on what Vincent knew from experience would be Wesley’s strongly beating heart and the gentle throb of his pulse through his throat as he swallowed, ignoring Vincent’s words as though they were another language entirely.
Instead of backing away, Wes stepped forward, squinting into the room with his hand outstretched. “I won’t leave without you, Vinny.”
Which meant Vincent would have to leave withoutthem, without the victims Vitalis-Barron had tried to turn him into.
The rest of the emaciated vampires lifted their heads from their dying prey and slowly turned on Wes like a pack. A pack of people, good people probably, but starving, tortured people who had been pushed so far from their natural state that all they could see in Wesley was the blood they’d been denied. They weren’t monsters, but right now they would be monstrous, if given the chance.
The cotton-candy haired vampire sprang at Wesley in the same moment that Vincent shot toward him. He shoved the other vamp out of the way, snatching Wesley’s hand in his own. Wrapping his fingers around Wesley’s, Vincent pulled him into the hall.
Together they ran.
They charged down the corridor, losing the still-recovering vampires by the second turn. In fifteen minutes, once the vampires’ bodies had time to process the fresh blood, they might be strong enough to catch Wesley. But in that time, their hunger would abate, letting them return to the rational people they’d once been. Or a version of those people, anyway, traumatized and scared and angry. A version who could, Vincent hoped, still fight their way to freedom.
He hit the elevator button with enough force to sting his palm. It slid open immediately.
“Shouldn’t we be taking the—” Wesley began to ask, but Vincent dragged him forward. He squeezed Wes’s hand like a vice as they ascended, one floor, then another. In a blare of alarm bells, the elevator clunked to a halt.
Vincent groaned.
Wes gave him a crooked smile. “The stairs?”
“The stairs,” Vincent agreed.
Wesley shoved his fingers between the elevator doors and pulled. His face twisted up. “A little help, maybe?”
Vincent pressed the open doors button. They drew apart with a ding, revealing a white tile floor a foot above where it should have been. Wes fell onto it, cursing.
Vincent snorted and stepped over him, leaning back down to offer him a hand up. The mix of frustration and begrudging embarrassment on the man’s face as he accepted the help made Vincent feel almost okay.
“Don’t laugh,” Wes grumbled, shoving into Vincent’s shoulder as he stood.
Vincent shoved him back. “You’re adorable.”
Wes stumbled. His head snapped toward Vincent, his brows tightening and his lips parted.
The look made Vincent’s heart do things it didn’t have any right to, not there, not after all that had happened and all they still needed to work through. There would be time for that later. Now, he pulled his hand out of Wesley’s and gave a shrugging motion toward the hallways that branched off the elevator foyer. “Stairs?”
“Stairs,” Wes repeated, hurrying abruptly onward.
The floor they were stuck on seemed to be some kind of laboratory, white coats all hung up for the night and lights dimmed. Wes moved through it like someone being hunted, and not in the fun kinky sense. He sped from one corridor to the next, wheeling around and checking signs and redirecting without ever quite looking at Vincent. The deliberate avoidance formed a wrench in Vincent’s gut. He tried his best to ignore it as they turned into an open cubical space with a red exit sign over the stairwell on the other end.
Between the darkened computers came the gentle hum of music. A lone scientist at a desk near the walkway jerked out of his seat as he pulled his headphones out. He looked more like a disgruntled English professor than an evil pharmaceutical scientist, his knitted vest crooked and his curling golden hair rumpled, but his eyes narrowed and he moved with purpose. One hand still on the back of his chair, he shifted between them and the stairway.
