Page 23 of Cuddling Sucks in Coffins
I waited and waited, my muscles screaming at holding still for so long. Finally, moving with the speed of a turtle so I wouldn’t make a sound, I peered out from behind the wall. And couldn’t see shit. It was too damn dark with the swarming shadows. But I did see the exit sign shining like my last hope.
With my breath held, my ears perked for any sound over the static and my Gumby shirt wedged inside them, I flashed out onto the pathway again.
A blast lit the police station with a burst of white light. Something tugged at my back from behind. Hard. Sharp. Almost powerful enough to lift me off my feet and drop me to my knees. Somewhere in my mind, pain registered, but I wasn’t about to stop and think about it.
Thirty feet. Twenty-five. I didn’t stop. Even as the pain stormed through the side of my back, I didn’t stop. Most blasts ricocheted around me, but I kept my head low as I zigzagged between cubicles.
Fifteen feet.
Then I was hurtling toward the exit sign above a heavy-looking door. Good thing that door wasn’t made of glass. I’d have to jam it shut as soon as I closed it. My gaze snagged on the hinge attached to the top of the door as I erupted through. Bingo.
Gunfire blasted behind me, raking against the door and spraying wood shards over my arm.
Ignoring the sting, I unlatched the belt on the officer’s pants I wore, whipped it off, coiled it around the hinge, and buckled it tightly as the door snicked closed behind me.
Loud bangs echoed from the other side, and the door jumped inward, but it held. For now.
I whirled toward the final exit across a small waiting room.
Underneath another sign that marked it as such, the double glass doors of the police station slammed inward. A pair of red eyes pulled me up short. I skidded to a stop. Not just one pair of red eyes, but three, all of them raging and murderous. Their faces and bodies were warped, ugly nightmares, completely unlike my vamps.
Myvamps, here to kill me. Here because I’d called for them.
The air drove from my lungs as if I’d been sucker-punched by Paul.
Their fangs glistened, even in the darkness.
Eddie stepped forward and licked what was left of his lips. “Fancy meeting you here, Sunshine.”
Chapter Seven
The exit sign blurredinto nothingness as my eyes filled with tears. My legs buckled, but I propped myself up against the wall behind me.
I wasn’t dead yet. I seemed to have lost my slayer powers, I was about 68 percent sure I’d been shot in the back through the officer’s vest, and Paul really, really wanted me dead. Levelling my three vamps with a glare, I fished out one of the pencils I’d stolen and snapped it in half.
“Seriously?” Jacek grinned, the effect splitting his entire face open. “A pencil, Slayer?”
