Page 49 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Something crashed through a window near the front of the building, and Valentine grabbed Andres, pulling him along. They ran like vampires, speed and agility throwing them forward so fast that Andres’s unfortunate eyes could barely keep up with his body, only Valentine’s grip stopping him from crashing into things. They barged into the private space they’d talked in earlier and through the side door, down a hallway and up two flights of stairs. Andres could hear the pounding of feet behind him, other vampires running as well.
When they reached the top floor, Andres redirected Valentine, leading the way to the back, eastern-most side of the building. He passed one window with a cursory glance, thenanother, and another, until—there, the ledge he’d seen from the alleyway. “Get it open.”
Valentine and another vampire burst forward to oblige, while Andres removed his lace gloves and mask, tucking the latter in the back of his pants when it wouldn’t fit in his pocket. He slid out his contacts after, retrieving his glasses from his jacket. It hurt to trade away the impeccable, elegant façade for the practical frames, but he needed the better vision.
As soon as the window was open, he swung himself out, scaling down the ledge one, two, three steps. It would have been better if they had something to mount into the wall—it would have beenbestwith a rope, technically—but this would have to do. The next building wasn’t more than ten feet away, the roof of one of the lowest of its tiered levels a slight drop from them. Any vampire could make that, with enough courage.
Drawing a breath, he flung himself across the gap. He cleared it by twice what was needed, just to make whoever watched feel like it was possible. When he turned back, Valentine had already helped the first vampire out after him. Andres perched on the edge, extending his arms.
The vampire jumped to him.
Below, the Vitalis-Barron humans continued to crash through the lower levels as, one after the next, the vampires from the club escaped the building, more than half carrying their humans across with them. Andres only had to catch a few, including Valentine, who crashed into him so hard they both nearly stumbled over the ledge. Andres clutched his shoulders, sensing the tremble that worked through him, so like Shane’s particular brand of fear that it made Andres feel protective.
“You good?”
“Yes,” Valentine replied, but his gaze went down to the alley. Not the height, Andres realized, but the people they’d left to bar the way. Their humans.
“You have a person back home, right?” Andres asked.
Valentine replied instantly, “Our spouse, Diego.”
“Go to them,” Andres instructed. He waved a hand toward the group that had broken into their new building but were awkwardly waiting for further instruction. “And take some of these fools with you.”
Valentine managed a nod. He seemed to have to drag himself every step, but he did it.
There were only a few vampires left: three, then two, then—Tara.
Andres had watched her stand beside the window, taking note of every time she stepped back to let someone else jump. And it wasn’t chivalry, he realized. It was terror.
As she pulled herself onto the ledge, she shook her head. Her legs trembled visibly. “I—I’m too weak. Everything Vitalis-Barron did to me—they—” Her words died in her throat as she swayed, glancing back at the window.
Andres could make out motion inside, accompanied by shouts and a scream. He thought back to Tara’s interview, not the horrified recounting of what she’d suffered, but the way she’d spoken about the vampires at the Starlight Club. Her community. His community too.
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered.
He gave himself half a second to judge the sheer stupidity of his decision, but not long enough to rethink it, before taking five steps back and running at the gap between the buildings. Distance wasn’t a problem, but he was jumping from low to high now, and he had to grab for the ledge Tara was standing on as his body slammed into the building’s side. The air left his lungs. His fingers slipped, his long nails scratching against the brick.
A strong hand latched onto his arm. He grabbed back, leveraging himself up to find Maddox, panting, a literal sword in one hand. There was something very much like blood on it.
“We should go,” Maddox insisted. The door inside bulged against its lock.
There was no one else. No Shane.
Don’t think about that, he told himself, not yet. He swept Tara into his arms on one side, and linked his hand with Maddox on the other, and hoped to god or the universe or whatever nonsense had prompted the evolution of vampires that this worked. As the door burst open behind him, he launched them all across the alley.
They tumbled as they hit the rooftop, and Andres let Maddox go, wrapping Tara in his arms. He helped her up immediately, finding Maddox already on his feet, his sword miraculously still present.
“Shane?” Andres asked.
A bullet whizzed by his head, sending a bolt of fear down his spine.
He wrapped an arm around Tara and ran for the building. Each step felt like tearing off a piece of himself. The moment they were behind shelter, he grabbed Maddox by the shoulder, repeating his question with a growl. “Where’s Shane?”
“I think he went out the back.” Maddox pulled his phone free with one hand as he jogged across the room, a limp in his step. Andres was pretty sure the graze bleeding on his bicep was from a bullet. Yet he seemed so calm as he continued, barely pausing for Tara to lick the cut closed. “They captured one of our vampiric employees, and there’s a few injured humans. I’m calling an ambulance. Where’s Valentine?”
“Safe,” Andres replied. “On ahead, with the others.”
“Thank you.” Maddox nodded. He found the stairs, taking them two at a time with Tara on his arm. Andres could hear the roll of loud music from below—one of the bars along the main street, probably. They could slip out the front, blend into the sidewalk traffic; or if not blend in, then at least use it likea shield, the human bystanders offering a certain amount of security against being bagged and dragged off. Vampires might have been easy prey under their country’s loose laws, where people could argue the protections included only those without fangs, but an obvious kidnapping was still generally considered illegal.
