Page 21 of Cuddling Sucks in Coffins
Chapter Six
When I stepped outof my vampires’ house, I’d noticed that the night had felt like it was bound by a rubber band. Silent. Still. Waiting for just the right moment to snap.
Later that night, while I lay inside a jail cell covered in my own pee, it did.
I jolted upright, hardly daring to breathe as I listened for what had awakened me, for how I knew that something had changed. The walls, floor, and ceiling of my cell were painted black, and I searched each crack and corner for answers. In between my bouts of unconsciousness, I’d thought I’d seen flecks of golden light rising off of my skin and disappearing into the ceiling. A dream, surely. But I remembered it had filled me with panic, though I had no idea why.
“Hello?” I called, but my cell seemed to swallow my voice. I tried again. “Hello?” Not much better.
Exhaustion clung to my limbs, my head felt like my brain had been plugged into an electrical outlet, and it was the weirdest sensation, but a part of me felt like I’d dropped something important. Not my cell phone. Not my Pebbles stake. Something...else.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Someone was coming.
Taking a deep breath, I hauled myself to my feet and then swayed.
Drugs. They’d drugged me. Detective Appelt or that strange officer or someone. No wonder I felt off. That was grounds for a lawsuit right there. And a very strongly worded letter of complaint.
The footsteps thudded closer. I glanced down at myself, my gaze catching on the large wet spot on my jeans and the puddle on the floor. Whoever was coming had likely seen worse. Smelled worse, too. I positively reeked.
The shadow of the approaching figure slanted across the gray-tiled floor in front of my cell. Unease flickered inside my gut. The shadow was as black as melted tar, a shapeless mass oozing closer. It triggered an itch at the base of my skull, like a memory about to surface—a nightmare sight in a graveyard filled with nightmare static sounds. Except I couldn’t hear a thing over thethud, thudof approaching footsteps.
I ticked my gaze up just as the figure stepped into view, and then I reeled back. The officer’s—the same one from before—body was warped and twisted, his bulging eyes unblinking as they melted down his face. Long, horrific fangs stretched to his chin, where muscles and veins pulsed without the cover of skin.
A tremor stormed up my back. It was just like in the graveyard, except instead of statues melting toward me, it was humans, which was ten times worse.
But how was this happening?Whatwas happening?
He reached through the bars of the cell, almost snagging my shirt. His flesh sloughed to the floor with wet splats.
This wasn’t real. This was Paul fucking with me.
Focus on my slayer sense. I could almost hear Sawyer’s voice in my head telling me this. My slayer sense would tell me what was real and what wasn’t. I closed my eyes, waited several heartbeats while I concentrated hard, and then opened them again.
Nothing had changed. My stomach dived toward the puddle on the floor.
The officer grabbed a baton from his belt and swung it at my head. I dodged out of the way, just barely, my reflexes feeling like I’d drowned them in pudding.
Maybe it was this cell dampening my slayer powers. The drugs. Who the hell knew? I wasn’t going to waste any more time living here in a waking nightmare.
The guard swung the baton again. I brought my arm up to block my temple, and the baton cracked against my elbow. Pain flared. I focused on it instead of my revulsion as I surged forward and reached for his collar, my knuckles skidding over the raw tendons in his neck. Some of the flesh clinging to one of the eyeballs sliding down his face touched the back of my hand. No time to vomit. With every bit of strength I had, I jerked him forward into the bars as hard as I could. He slammed into them head-first and then dropped like a board.
Wasting no time, I sank to my knees and reached through the bars for his keys on his belt. Almost there. I adjusted my angle, and with the side of my face pressed against the metal bars, the static noise blared outside my cell. It sank chills into my skin and throttled every bone and muscle in my body.
Paul. Paul washere.
I needed out of this cell. Then I could replace everything with reality by my slayer sense. Inside this cell, that sense didn’t seem to want to work.
A little farther, and then my fingertips brushed the keys. I swiped them, and with my hands trembling, my knees knocking, I stood and fit the key in the lock. The cell swung open, and I stepped out. Static roared, crowding everything else in existence out.
Focus.Focus. FOCUS.
Nothing. No slayer power.
