Chapter 51

Trinity

I looked up at Mark and his eyes turned cold.

“What’s changed?” Mark asked. “The last time we spoke… the time before that. You were completely different.”

“I want to call Lucian,” I said again. “Where’s my phone?”

“You’re not calling him.”

“You can’t keep me from calling who I want.”

Mark scoffed. “I’m the police. I actually can, especially if you want to call a vampire.”

I set my jaw. “I want to leave.”

“She’s not the smartest, is she?” Someone else asked, a woman walking past the car. She looked down at me with a sneer. “What part of vampire did you miss? Whatever he’s told you is all bullshit.”

I looked at her. “What would you know about it?”

She tilted her head. “Well, cupcake, let’s say I know more than you think.”

She looked at Mark. “I told you we should have purged her the first time you had a suspicion.”

“She’s clean,” Mark said.

“Bullshit,” she said. “She’s not. Make her drink and see.”

Mark eyed me and he took my hand and pulled me out of the car. “I’m not doing that unless I absolutely have to.”

“Your call until she’s a danger,” she said.

I looked back at her as she blew a bubble with her chewing gun. Mark pulled me along into a section of the building. I sat on one of the benches as he rifled through the lockers. Then, he gave me some clothes.

“Put these on for now.”

“Why can’t I call Lucian?” I asked.

“He’s a vampire.”

“I know that.”

Mark shook his head. “The people who just killed your dad are also vampires. I didn’t think I had—”

“He’s my boyfriend, and I’m scared! Why can’t I call him?”

Mark said nothing for a minute. “You understand that you’d grow old and he wouldn’t change a bit, right? At any moment he loses control, he’ll kill you or turn you.”

I set my jaw. “None of that is an answer.”

“How did you meet, Lucian?” Mark asked.

“He saved me.”

“Anything else happen?” Mark asked.

I set my jaw and glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Any strange dreams you can’t explain? Besides what you’re starting to remember?”

I thought back to that night in the hotel after Lucian had saved me.

“Your expression says yes. Lucian, as you call him, is a very old and powerful vampire. We think he’s some sort of noble, maybe even a royal,” he said softly. “Based on what we can figure out about him, we can figure out how he’s been slipping in and out of the human world, but we know it’s been a while. We’ve been trying to shut down the vampire operations across the world for centuries.”

“We…?” I asked slowly.

“The church,” Mark said as he sat beside me. “I’ll explain more. Get dressed.”

I looked down at his hand. “Your rings… are different.”

He smiled. “I’ve been promoted.”

“Congratulations…”

“Thanks.”

He stood and left me alone. I wanted to get dressed, but I couldn’t find it in me to move. I heard someone whispering to me, calling me. I swear it was Lucian’s voice.

Where are you?

I wish I could answer. I just didn’t know what to say. A police station? A church? My eyes burned with tears as I thought about the look on my father’s face, just as he was vanishing into flame and nothingness.

I couldn’t breathe the more I thought about it. Fear built in me. I saw endless darkness, broken up only a bit with streams of red light. Vicious eyes were staring at me. I couldn’t breathe as the darkness seemed to close in on me.

I heard myself running, screaming, trying to escape, yet no matter how hard I ran, I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

“Won’t you find me?”

The door behind me slammed open. I jumped and turned to look at the person. It was the woman again. She tilted her head.

“Who?” She asked.

I clutched the clothes tighter. “Leave me alone.”

“At this point, that’s not an option. Get dressed, or I’m dragging you out by your hair.”

“Why are you being so mean to me?”

“You’ve been fucking a vampire for weeks, if not longer, and known it,” she said. “I have no reason to trust you. You’re the type that would probably stab me in the back.”

“Haven’t you ever been in love?” My jaw trembled. “And I’m not that kind of person.”

“Sure, you are. What would you call what you’ve done?” She asked. “It was one thing when you didn’t know. Something else when you know that every time he’s hungry, he’s killing someone. And you can’t tell me you didn’t know.”

I set my jaw. “Lucian only drank my blood.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a donor, you idiot. He might have kept your blood to himself, but rest assured he hasn’t just been drinking your blood. A vampire old enough to do the kinds of things we think he’s capable of would die if he was just drinking from one donor.”

My gut turned with guilt.

She smirked. “And you knew it. So, hurry up.”

I got dressed, and she hustled me up the stairs, where I could hear Mark and several others talking. They were arguing. When the door opened, I heard Mark.

“I’m not doing it!”

“You’re outnumbered,” one of them said. “At this point, your little crush is going to get us all killed.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You think I’d let a vampire kill me so easily?”

The woman shoved me forward. “She’s talking to herself. Asked if someone would find her.”

Mark turned and looked at me. His eyes were wide. “Trinity… what is she talking about?”

“I…” I swallowed. “It’s not important. I didn’t say anything—”

“Should I pull the tapes?” The woman asked. “She’s compromised. Whether he’s on the way or someone else is doesn’t matter at the moment. They’re coming.”

Mark clenched his jaw. “I checked her.”

“It’s probably deeper than you can reach,” another person said. “He’s older than any vampire we’ve ever dealt with.”

Mark clenched his jaw, and he shook his head. He looked down at his hand. “Get the defenses ready. I’ll do a deeper check.”

The room went quiet. I looked around at the others in the room. The woman whistled.

“So that’s why you were promoted, hm?” she chuckled. “I’ll start with the main perimeter.”

Mark turned to me. He took my hand and pulled me toward the table.

“I need you to lie down,” he said gravely. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m going to check your mind for interference,” Mark said. “I can’t say that I can break it… but if I can find it, it will at least give us a direction to go in.”

My heart lurched, and I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”

Mark grabbed my face. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

I tried to push him off, but he didn’t release me. Someone else grabbed my legs and pinned me down. Then, I saw the glint of silver. It flashed and darkened, and for a moment, I was somewhere else. I could see Mark’s eyes staring into mine through the dark stone.

He cursed. “Should have done this ages ago.”

I tried to get out of the memory, but then, pain stabbed through me. I felt the mark of something painful across my back. The glinting stone turned to damp stone and metal. The scent of stale water. I felt sick. I wanted him to stop, but I kept getting dragged through scene after scene until I was in a grand hall. I tasted the metallic taste of blood. I felt something burning through me.

“Fuck!” Mark yelled.

I drew in a deep breath. I hadn’t realized that I was holding my breath until I started panting.

“Get ready to move, now!” Mark yelled.

Then, the building shuddered, and alarms began to screech. Mark grabbed me, yanking me off the table.

“Move it! Tell her to forget it. We’ll go out the side passage.”

“Too late!” The woman cried, coming down the stairs, loading a gun. The door behind her started to rattle.

“Move it!” Another one said. Mark dragged me out the door as they rushed towards the back door. We got to the parking lot, and I heard the metal screeching.

The woman stood nearby and lit a cigarette as she climbed into the back of a truck and aimed at the door. Mark shoved me into another car and kept shouting orders.

When the door behind us flew open, the woman blew a big gust of smoke into the air, and another alarm started. The sprinklers came on. Vampires poured out of the door and started to screech and burn. The drivers got into the cars and cranked them up.

The car lurched forward and back towards the ramp. Instead of going straight up, the car turned left. I heard hissing and running footsteps.

She kept blowing smoke, setting off more and more sprinklers as we went.