

By

Alexia Purdy

Disarming

The Vampires of Vegas Book #2

Copyright © December 2012 & May 2017 Alexia Purdy

Cover Design by Melancholy Muse Designs

Cover photography via Depositphoto stock

All Rights Reserved

www.alexiapurdybooks.com

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This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

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More books by Alexia Purdy:

The ArcKnight Chronicles:

ArcKnight

Sovereignty

The Vampires of Vegas Series

Resonant

Reign of Blood

Disarming

Elijah (The Miel Chronicles):

A Vampires of Vegas Story

Amplified

A Dark Faerie Tale Series

The Withering Palace (A Dark Faerie Tale #0.1)

Evangeline (A Dark Faerie Tale #0.5)

Ever Shade (A Dark Faerie Tale #1)

Ever Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #2)

Ever Winter (A Dark Faerie Tale #3)

The Cursed (A Dark Faerie Tale #3.5)

Ever Wrath (A Dark Faerie Tale #4)

Without Armor (A Dark Faerie Tale #4.5)

History of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #5)

Ever Dead (A Dark Faerie Tale #6)

Legends of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #7)

Guardians of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #8)

Other Stories

The Fall of Sky

Papercut Doll

Wicked Grove

Poetic Collections

Whispers of Dreams

Five Fathoms

The Dark I Keep

Anthologies

Soul Games

Faery Worlds

Faery Realms

Faery Tales

Lacing Shadows

Destiny's Dark Fantasy

Once Upon a Curse

The Shapeshifter Chronicles

Once Upon a Kiss

A Plague of Dragons

For Amy

Thank you for being you.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Sneak Peek: Amplified

About the Author

Prologue

Resonating

April

The day was fading and I stood staring out the car window. My backpack was strapped to my back, even though it was extremely uncomfortable sitting with it on. The window was cracked just a touch, and I could hear screams echoing over from nearby streets. It made the hair on my neck stand on end and sent a snake of terror through me. Who was letting out those blood curdling screeches? What was happening? I had hitched a ride with my best friend Sarah after a study session for a huge math final the next day. I was as ready as I was going to be, even though I hated math with a passion.

Another screech resonated across the houses, bouncing off the stucco and windows, making it seem as though the entire world was screaming. My eyes widened as I scanned the streets before averting my eyes to my cell phone, flipping through some websites I had wanted to check out to distract myself from the craziness. People were running chaotically, not a lot but a few. It just occurred to me that there had been quite a few people clogging up the streets on the way home.

"What the heck is going on? Some stupid rave we didn't get invited to?" Sarah groaned as she maneuvered around another crowd of people who kept jumping in front of the car and jaywalking across the street. Some had bags of groceries, some with bottles stacked in wheeled wire carts, tugging their load along as they flitted across the street. I glanced up from my phone and shrugged, trying not to think much of it.

"Probably, or some flash flood warning again. It's been storming for a week. The power probably went down again," I muttered.

"Oh, I hope not! I don't want to miss my show tonight! If it goes out again, I can't DVR it for tomorrow! Ugh!" Sarah cursed as another straggler popped in front of the car, making her slam the brakes. "Out of the road, moron!" she hollered out the window. I cringed at the glare from the man who gave the car a tap with his palm as he continued on across the way. Road rage was not uncommon here in Vegas, and Sarah was a poster child for it.

"I'll stick it on my DVR in case your power goes out. One of us is bound to have electricity," I offered.

"Thanks, that'd be great. I'll die if I miss another episode. I already don't know what's going on."

"You and your vampire addiction."

"Oh, shut up, you know you like the show, too." Sarah swatted at me as best she could without tearing her eyes away from the street, making it easy for me to block her hand.

"Hey! I do, but I'm not dependent on them like someone I know. Can you say addicted? The first step to recovery is to admit it!" I swatted her hand out of my way as I laughed at her. She gave me an icy glare before weaving out of the crowd, gaining speed down toward my neighborhood. A thump on my window made me jump, and I frowned at the person. A woman with crazed eyes stared eerily at me as we passed. Was that blood dripping from her mouth?

In a flash she was gone, lost in the chaotic crowd. I shook my head. Studying had fried my brain, because now I was seeing things.

"I'd want to be a vampire if I could. They're all hot, and immortality has benefits," Sarah sighed, thinking of the life she could have in her head.

"Careful what you wish for, you might not like the fanged dental job or the bloody messes you have to get into." Arriving at my house just then, I jumped out of the car before she could swat me again. I slammed the door behind me and waved at her as she stuck her tongue out, rolling her eyes at me as I continued to laugh.

As her semi-new Honda rolled away, the screams caught my attention once more. The sun had just set under the west Summerlin Mountains, casting long, stretching shadows across the valley and streets. The chill it gave along with the elevated humidity coupled with the now cool September breezes made me rub my arms. I wasn't sure if it was so much the wind as the bone-chilling screams in the distance.

"April! Get inside!" My mother's voice brought my focus onto her. Hurrying through the gate that cut off our property from the street, I helped her shut and lock it. She looked as spooked as I was, and I waited until we were inside to ask her what the matter was.

"Something's wrong." Her wild eyes darted about the street before she twirled around and made a beeline for the door.

"You think?" I bit my lip as her icy glare pierced into me. I needed to shut my smart mouth. "Sorry, Mom."

"What's going on?" Jeremy's voice made me turn toward the living room where he sat in front of his Xbox, his game on hold in the middle of an all-out gun battle.

"Nothing squirt, keep playing. You might beat my score one day." I winked at him as he smiled, turning back to his game, newly eager to beat it.

"The news said there have been incidents... attacks."

"What kind of attacks?" I grabbed an apple off the pile in the fruit basket and bit down on the sweet, bitter fruit. Crunching on my snack, I finally noticed the stacks of canned food and water bottles littering the kitchen. My curiosity was getting the better of me when I realized the windows had boards nailed onto them and the sliding glass door had huge planks of plywood fixed across it.

"Um... Mom?"

"I don't know, they're saying people are turning into some sort of zombie-like vampires, pouncing on others, biting and sucking blood out of them." Her voice cracked as she shoved some more food into a cabinet, making a pathway to the hall where our bedrooms were.

"Why didn't you call me? I could have come home to help."

"Randy helped us." She looked up at me, knowing this statement would make me fume. "Besides, the cell phones are cutting in and out."

"Randy? The plumber? Come on, Mom, you know he only wants you for one thing. That's all he wants, he's a no good convicted criminal, how could you...?"

"That's enough of that," she snapped, giving me a stern look. "He has done plenty for us. He's coming back with more wood to bar the rest of the windows and bring more water." She sighed. Her eyes looked tired as the worry made her wrinkles deepen.

"Water? Why? We have the filter, we have water."

"No!" She shoved the cup I had grabbed from the drying rack before I could fill it with the water. I looked at her, shocked and unmoving. The water was running, clear and cool. The smell of chlorine permeated the air, reminding me to turn it off and wait for answers.

"Mom?"

"Don't drink it."

"Why?" her silence made my temper seep into my chest. "Mom, what's going on?"

She stopped shoving paper plates and cups into another area of the open pantry and sighed. The look she gave me showed me oceans of fear. This was bad, really, really bad.

"It could be a virus, or the water could be contaminated. No one knows, April. People are dying from it, too. The hospitals are full of bodies. People are keeling over out of nowhere. Or turning rabid...." She ran her hand through her messy hair, exasperated and looking extremely worn out. Her hands shook as she reached for more supplies. "We have to stay here, inside, for a while. Be safe."

I nodded slowly, letting her words sink in as I glanced back toward Jeremy. I knew she was right. She always was. Mom was as streetwise as a person got. She knew how to survive. She had made the few dollars we'd had during hard times stretch to feed us. She had turned her side internet business into a profitable one, bringing loads of extra income to supplement her puny teacher's salary. We had been able to buy a house with it. She had been self-sufficient ever since Dad had died three years ago.

Still, he had left an empty abyss in his place, nothing could fill it. Nothing ever would. Not even this Randy, who had endearing aspirations of filling the spot. Nothing could ever hope to replace him.

"I'm going to pull the SUV into the garage, get it stocked with supplies in case we have to leave suddenly." She disappeared down the hall, leaving me suspended in disbelief.

I solemnly grabbed a bottle of water to drink, cracking the seal open and gulping down the fresh fluid. The screams I had heard earlier crept back into my mind, making the gooseflesh spring on my skin anew as the comprehension spilled over me. What did this mean? A sudden surge of panic filled me as I remembered that Sarah was heading back to her place. I had to warn her, had to let her know what was going on and to load up her car and come back to my place. It was much safer here, with high walls and wrought iron. My mom had bought it because of the fortress-like feel to it, always so paranoid of intruders. Funny, I thought she had been nuts, but maybe she'd had some sort of sixth sense about it. Her uncanny intuition was scary at times.

Pulling my cell phone out of my jeans pocket, I noticed the "no signal" symbol and moved about the house until I found one or two bars staring back at me. Dialing her number in desperation, I waited as the phone rang and rang.

Come on Sarah, answer me, please....

The familiar beeping sound of her voicemail announcement commenced, and I cursed under my breath, hitting the redial as fast as it let me. I kept calling until the signal died once more, leaving me to wonder about and worry for my friend. I prayed she had made it home safely. I prayed the chaos of the world had not swallowed her up.

Chapter One

Outlined View

April

The world had vacancies. It was a run-down motel flashing its broken neon sign—dusty and forever waiting. It would remain empty and hollow, arid and vast. No one was coming to save us. No one ever would. I had resigned myself to this already, but it was bittersweet when my eyes would wander to the horizon, always waiting, always wanting to see the dust clouds move like a welcoming mat to new arrivals. But the desert was silent. And with its silence came the tumbleweeds, dancing by in their apathetic roll across the valley, knowing almost nothing would or want to stop them.

The wind was my lone companion here, offering its caressing touch and rumpling my long black hair, raking its fingers through it and pulling strands to fly along with it. It was comforting, this careful breeze. It reminded me that summer was approaching and spring was readily here. It reminded me that there is rebirth, and the earth continued on its axis, with or without us humans. It reminded me of so many things I prayed I would never forget.

"I miss Disneyland."

The sound of my brother Jeremy's saddened voice pulled me out of the confines of my head. I turned to glance at his small frame and dark hair, growing and wild as the wind played with it, too. His face had a few freckles from all the sun we had been getting lately. Sitting Indian-style next to him, I threw him a small smile, knowing exactly how he felt. He yawned and sighed, looking a bit bored from lounging on the warm boulders of Red Rock Canyon.

I loved it out there. It was a small vacation from the never-ending rubble of the city and the confines of the cement walls of our mountain bunker. He was fine with outdoor explorations, but preferred to read books, watch old sitcoms on the television—recorded of course—or play the Xbox endlessly.

"What's wrong, squirt?" I reached out to give his hair my habitual rub, but he pulled away before I could get to him, shooting me a glare. This made me laugh, knowing that he was getting older with each day. He didn't want to be treated like the little brat that he was. He was a big man now. Having survived a hive of evil vampires that wanted nothing but to experiment on his blood had made him feel like he could take on anything. I was sad to even try to reason with him that he was still just a seven-year-old, fresh past his birthday.

"I'm bored!" He fingered a smooth pebble on the stone before snapping it up and flinging it out over the edge of the cliff. He watched as it bounced against the rock, ricocheting as it made its way noisily down the incline.

"Nice throw, Jer. I bet you would have been a star player on a baseball team." I leaned back onto my hands and enjoyed the midday sun. It was getting hotter every day, and the sun would be burning my light skin if I had not smothered it with sunscreen. I loved the warmth; it felt like life in a world full of withering death.

"Yeah, but I'll never be on a baseball team now. It sucks!" He stood up and huffed away, hopping across boulders until he found a small overhang. He crawled under it and bunched his legs to his chest, looking perturbed. I sighed. I knew how he felt, but I couldn't do a thing about it. Nothing whatsoever. The world was gone; his school pals were dead. Nothing was left. Nothing but the embers of the life we'd once had. Now we were alone. Alone with vampires and dust.

I stood up and lazily scanned the valley before me. The center was crowded with buildings and casinos. It had been so vibrant once, teaming with people and lights. Now it was as dead as the death it held onto. Houses rimmed The Strip in patched developments in varying states of neglect and decay. The valley was vast, so spread out, it was an eyeful. The view was breathtaking, and for a moment, it quiet and peaceful. But I knew otherwise.

"April, are we leaving soon?" My mother Helen's voice carried softly on the wind from behind me. Turning to face her, I could see the stark circles under her eyes and her pale skin. She was standing in the shade of a wall of orange-red boulders. They blocked the westbound afternoon sun enough to keep her in the shade. Her long black hair lay in tangles around her shoulders, frizzy and unkempt. She refused to let me brush it. She refused to do a lot of things and didn't seem to enjoy the warmth as much as I did anymore. This worried me greatly.

She was not the same person she had once been. My mom had been a strong woman, filled with determination and logical to a tee. After I'd saved her from an enemy hive of hybrid vampires, she had been returned to me, but she was not without wounds—wounds that would never heal. Helen had changed somehow, and I had yet to discover what had been done to make her this way. She was a shell of the woman I had known my entire life. An empty house where the lights were all on, but no one was home. Nothing was the same. She was shattered and fragile.

"Yes, we're leaving. Right now, actually." I replied. I sighed, jumping down from my perch and motioning her to follow. She was no longer the one giving commands or instructions. She had checked out of her duties when an enemy hive of vampires had broken her down. I wanted my mother back, but from this, there was no recovery.

"Come on, let's go before we fry out here." I stuck my tongue out, trying to joke with her as I held out my hand to her. She was steady on her feet but almost fearful of the surrounding area. Agoraphobia was making her come out less and less. Her mental deterioration was continuing, but it had slowed down at least. She slipped her warm fingers into mine and let me lead her down over the smooth sandy rocks until we reached the bottom of the trail where our Jeep sat.

Slipping into the driver's seat, I waited until my brother and mother strapped themselves in before putting the car into gear. I was the only one who drove now. I liked to drive, but the silence in the car could become unbearable at times. We rarely talked anymore, unless Jeremy went off on a rant about whatever it was that he wanted to yap about. Usually it was about an episode of the Andy Griffith Show or the school work I had thrown at him. Helen had stopped teaching him his school lessons. She had been so vigilante to keep us at our studies even though it was the end of the world. So now I was the teacher. Though I had been a good student, long division, fractions and grammar were not my strong suits and I hated it.

It made me resent her a bit. She had abandoned us already, even if she was still here physically. How could she let herself go like this? How could she leave us behind as she withered inside her self-imposed prison? I wanted to slap her at times and shake the old Helen out of her. I held out hope that she was still in there somewhere, just lost in the crevices of the endless fields in her mind.

But how could I find her? What would make her return to this place, so empty, hollow and filled with loneliness. Maybe she had found peace some other way, deep inside the vast nothing inside her. Maybe she didn't want to return at all. Even though I understood her reasons for escape, how could I make her see what this was doing to us?

The thing was, I didn't think I could save her. Maybe no one could.

Chapter Two

Promise Me This

April

"We found more of them." Rye slipped down onto a park bench that sat just at the edge of the property where our bunker-slash-cabin was situated. He looked tired and rubbed his face as his gold-rimmed, grey eyes hovered near my face. He was devastatingly handsome and constantly made me avoid his gaze for fear that I'd get lost in his disarming looks. I didn't want to be in love with anyone. Love was a foolish, pre-epidemic notion. Love was not a necessity; it was a luxury I refused to indulge in.

Rye made it so hard, though. The way his presence sent shivers through me was irresistible and impossible to ignore. Sometimes I wondered if pushing him away would be foolish, especially when he looked at me with those steel-colored eyes of his. How could someone make me feel like an idiot with no words whatsoever? It made my chest arrest for a moment before I'd violently shake it off. No time for that. No time ever.

"More ferals?" I stopped cleaning my weapons as I waited for him to continue. "Were they burned up?"

"Yep. Not so many now, but a lot. They were lining the streets in heaps, like they had been pushed out the windows of some of the hotels." His lips thinned into a firm line, making him appear overly serious. I sighed, turning back to sorting my blades out across the table I had set up outside. There were ten blades, all sizes. Sharpening and cleaning each one took time, but it was an activity I saved for days like this, when too much was tumbling in my head and peace avoided me like a plague. It was soothing and calmed my frayed nerves.

I felt his fingers slip over my shoulders, giving them a tentative squeeze. My skin tingled with his touch, sending tiny sparks down my arms. I closed my eyes, and tried to control my breathing as he slowly kneaded my muscles, melting my tension away.

"What do you think is causing this?" I flung my eyes open, feeling slightly dazed yet relaxed. I continued to wipe down one particular machete, the one that I had chosen to replace my two favorite and now long lost weapons. I had grieved the loss of those blades, lost over the precipice of the Stratosphere Tower. It helped me turn my focus back to the conversation before I became a stuttering idiot from his touch.

"I'm not too sure. It's the weirdest thing." Rye's hands slid away as he propped himself on a chair across from where I sat, his eyes twinkling as though he knew how distracting he was. "Who would go out at night to shove the wildlings out the windows? It's suicidal." He ran his hand through those thick, black locks that never seemed to stay put. "And it's not like the windows are shattered. They look they were either never opened or shut after they did the deed."

"Hmmm," was all I could muster as I thought things over. I wouldn't dare hang out in a hotel after dark. The risk of becoming dinner to hundreds of ferals was way too high. Who would be that crazy? The possibility of there being something else at work was unnerving, Despite the massage I tensed back up as I thought of there being another supernatural mutation out there. I really hoped there wasn't; there was enough stuff already lingering in the shadows, craving flesh and blood. "Nothing else has been discovered out there? Footprints? Blood?"

"No. Whoever is doing this knows what they're doing, and they're damn good at it."

"Have they come after any hybrids?"

He sighed as he shook his head, his frustration painted on his face, making the knots in my shoulders tense up even more. "No, not yet at least."

"Well, that's pretty strange. Not sure how to even go about seeing who is doing it unless...." The idea came to me suddenly as I stopped what I was doing and smiled, excited about the thought. "We could put night vision cameras out there, where there the feral pileups are occurring, and see who shows up!"

"No electricity, remember?"

"Duh! Battery operated of course." I rolled my eyes at the obvious and returned to polishing my weapons. Sometimes he was so stuck in the now that he didn't want to think outside his little box. Rye sat still, and I was pretty sure he wasn't smiling. Guilt suddenly ripped through me for being so insensitive. I wasn't used to apologizing, and I found myself frozen, my mouth uncooperative as I tried to voice an "I'm sorry." Instead, only a squeak leaked out as I watched him stand up.

"You're probably right. I'll run it past Blaze and go from there." Rye readied himself to leave, tucking away the few weapons he had also been cleaning, and brushed off the particles from his clothes. I paused and watched him, knowing my sarcastic remark had rubbed him the wrong way. I longed to tell him not to go, that I wanted him to stay and chat some more. I loved his voice, the little gestures he made while he spoke. But I couldn't. The words just never formed, and I didn't know why.

"Leaving already?" I mustered enough in me to ask him, jumping up and laying my hand on his shoulder. His warmth radiated through the material, enveloping my fingers and making me long to have his arms around me. Rye jerked slightly from my touch, and I pulled my hand back to my side. His face was no longer calm. A burrowed frustration lingered in his eyes.

"Yes, I got loads to do back at the hive." His solemn voice made my insides twist as I nodded, saddened but not wanting to upset him further. He gave me a wave as he said his farewells to my mother and brother. As he turned away and made his way down the drive, I let my eyes linger after him for a few moments. He was my best friend nowadays, but I didn't know how to let him in. Even though he and I had felt an instant connection, I had put my walls back up straight away after the battle at the Stratosphere Tower, not wanting to focus on anything but keeping my family safe again. I didn't know if he understood that. I didn't know if I was doing the right thing either. It felt forced and unnatural to keep him away. Even though my heart was being ripped into pieces, I didn't have enough willpower in me to let myself love him completely. Maybe one day. But right now didn't seem to be the time.

I sat back down, exasperated, but tried to shake it off. I missed him when he was gone, but his presence sent me into a tense state that I didn't want to tolerate for too long. I wasn't sure what to do about it. I wasn't sure I even had the energy to try and figure it out. If he was going to mean more to me, he'd understand. He'd wait for me, surely.

As I twisted my fingers, I wished I could say I was certain of that.

***

"April," Helen's voice shook me from my sleep. I groaned and sat up glaring at her with puffy eyes.

"What's wrong?" I mumbled.

"I need you to come and help me."

I turned to glance at the red numbers on my bedside clock. 2:50 a.m. "It's late, Mom. Can't it wait 'til morning?" I muttered, rubbing the sleep away as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The cool concrete penetrated the warmth of my skin, sobering me up some more as I waited for her to answer. I was exhausted. I had a hard time sleeping as it was, without her interrupting it.

"No. Now." She waved for me to follow her, her face stern and impatient. Her dark brown eyes glistened in the soft glow of the security camera monitors. It sent an eerie color across her pale skin and dulled out the dark coloring of her hair. She was wide awake and had probably not slept a wink all night.

I sighed. When she was determined, there was no telling her "no."

"Alright, one sec." My hoodie was balled up on the chair next to my bed. I grabbed it and pulled it on, zipping it up with a forceful tug as I grumbled under my breath. The nights were still cool, sending a ripple of shivers down my arms. Hugging myself, I stood up and followed her to the back storage room.

It was here that we kept extra food that we foraged: cans, bottles of water, bags of cereal, sugar, dried milk, dried eggs, dried everything. One end had a locked cage. It hadn't had much in it when we'd first come here, just some empty boxes, a sink and a latrine. I wondered often if it was a makeshift prison cell. Who would build that into a shelter? I hadn't thought about it too much at the beginning, but I did now because it now held more than that: a cot, a bottle of water and some stores of food stacked next to the cot. My mom's blankets and pillow were thrown on it, and a box full of her clothes sat under it, making me turn toward her in confusion.

"What's this?" I hissed at her. I was cranky and her strange actions were driving me mad lately. This was going way too far. "Why's your bed in there? What are you doing?" I waited for her to answer as she turned her cool, calm face toward me.

"I need you to lock the door for me during the night." At that she stepped into the cell and shut the door behind her with a click. I stared, mouth agape. I was flabbergasted and stood in my place, confused and shocked. Her eyes gleamed at me, unnaturally shiny in the fluorescent light of the storeroom. I could tell from her expression that she was not kidding. Whatever she thought she was doing, she had to be off her rocker. I really hoped she wasn't doing what I thought she was doing.

"What? No! Why are you doing this? You're not sleeping in the cage, Mom."

She was starting to lose her patience with me now as her face shifted to a darker shade of pink, flushing her cheeks as she stared me down. I didn't move, frowning as she refused to come out of the cage. Her fingers curled around the bars, her face hovered closer to me.

"I have to, April. While you and Jeremy sleep, I can't. I pace all night and the smell...." She bit her lip as she let the bars go and backed away, turning to start her pacing once more.

"What smell?" I asked. Curiosity had cooled my fury, but I was still seething.

Moments passed as she refused to answer. I waited, knowing she would talk sooner or later. Letting out a long drawn out breath, she stopped her pacing and turned back with fear pouring from her eyes.

"Your blood. I can smell it. Yours and Jeremy's. And it smells divine." She curled her fingers around the bars once more, narrowing her eyes at me as she stared. The darkness seemed to swirl in her orbs as my own widened in horror. "I might not be able to resist it anymore. You have to lock me up while you sleep, while your guard is down. I don't trust myself any longer."

Her dark blue eyes blinked. A storm of malice tumbled into them, making my breath stick in my throat and my mouth dry. The small sliver of golden halos peaked from outside the blue irises that reminded me of the expanses of ocean I so dearly missed. No, oh no.

I reached forward and pushed the lock together, heard it click and took the key out of its slot, my hands shaking with every movement. I couldn't breathe, could hardly look up at my mother as I took in the weight of what she had said, what she so plainly had showed me, mostly without even a word. The question now was this: if she's turning, what will she end up as? Feral or hybrid?

"Thank you, April. Don't open it until you're awake and don't ever leave me alone with Jeremy. You hear me? Promise me that." I nodded at her, though I could not bear to look at her. "One more thing," she added. "Promise to end it if it goes bad." She paused, awaiting my answer, desperation written across her worried face. But no answer came. I shook my head, not wanting to hear her words. "Swear it."

I reluctantly nodded, closing my eyes which now burned with salty tears. I didn't want to do what she asked of me. I wanted to turn around and scream at her that she could forget it. Why was this happening? The room spun and felt oddly suffocating. Yet I knew she was right and that I would want the same if the time every came. If the worst ever happened to me, I'd want the same. "I swear."

Helen settled down on the cot, taking a deep breath as she visibly relaxed. I did not, could not. "That's my girl. Now off to bed; you look like you haven't slept in weeks." With that she laid down as though nothing had happened between us and pulled the covers over her slender body before turning away toward the concrete wall that lined the other side of the cell.

I stood there for what may have been only minutes but felt like an eternity to me. I waited until her breath grew slow and even, until the silence became unbearable. My stomach was knotted up into a tight ball, and I doubted sleep would return after all that had happened. Time seemed different now. How it had come to change so much was lost on me. I had been tightly gripping the key to my mother's prison, and it had started to hurt as it dug into the skin of my palm, probably nearly breaking the skin.

How could this happen? Why? I couldn't even think anymore. My brains were mush, and my head ached as I finally slipped away to my bed.

Relaxing was impossible for the continued spill of tears on my face reminded me of the reasons that I tried not to look forward to anything now. She was right to protect us from her changes. The hunger would only grow from this point on. She had fought it long enough already, an internal struggle she had hidden well. I would have to get her some blood to feed on sooner or later, even if she were to turn into a hybrid.

After everything that had happened, in the end I wasn't sure if she would take the blood. Maybe she would choose starvation instead; she was capable of it. She would've never wanted to be this way. Even now, the withered part of her fought to stay. I didn't think she'd try suicide, but things had become so uncertain, I wasn't so sure anymore. I'd lost control over my surroundings so insanely fast, and it was all so unfair. Nothing I did fixed anything. It was a wonder I ever thought it could.

Chapter Three

Full of Wish

April

"You're not using it right!" Miranda's irritation slipped into her voice as it hammered in my head. Another headache had ensued and I wanted to stop our training session straight away before I puked. I shook my head and waved her away.

"I'm not doing this today." I dropped the katana to my side and glared at the beautiful hybrid who was now the closest thing to a BFF I had as of late. Her dark brown hair was pulled tightly away from her face, making her glaring brown eyes stand out brighter against her pale skin. She ventured outside of the hive quite often, but avoided a suntan as much as possible. I didn't blame her, the sun made their skin flush an uncomfortable beet red as it began to cook under the UV rays.

Unlike the other hybrids, the daylight did not scare her away too often. Her slight tan was evidence of that.

"What is wrong with you today?" She snarled. My brooding was grinding on her nerves, leaving me to think she was close to stomping off.

I shrugged, heading to put the katana away. We stood in the driveway of my bunker where the sun didn't shine too much during the day. I didn't want to be too far from home with my mother the way she was. Jeremy watched us closely from the sidelines, sharpening and polishing the set of knives I had acquired for him. "First things first," I'd told him, "learn to take care of your weapons."

"It's my mom," I said to Miranda. "I don't know what's running through her head. She's distant, different. Wanting me to lock her up in a cell at night. She thinks she's turning into a monster."

"She'll be alright." Miranda's voice was soft and comforting. "Turning takes a few weeks, but it will be fine. I brought her some blood," Miranda offered, her stern tone fading as she remembered the reason why I'd be so out of sorts today. I'd hoped she'd understand but my mind was elsewhere. "She's all set when the blood lust hits."

"I know. And thanks. I was going to ask you about that. It's just, I don't know what to think about all this." I slipped down on the bench next to Jeremy, ruffling his hair. He didn't protest this time but gave me a tentative look. "She never wanted this. You saw how she took to the blood transfusions. She damn near lost her mind when she found out it was laced with vampire blood. She'll never drink it, if it comes down to it." I let a breath out, hoping to loosen some of the knotted tension building inside of me.

I was exhausted. Knowing what was happening to my mother locked inside her self-imposed prison was little comfort. I was only hoping that turning into a hybrid would help her mind mend from the torture she had endured at the hands of Christian's hive. It was cold comfort to know he was dead at my hands. My only regret was that it hadn't been long and torturous like he'd deserved for what he had done to her.

Miranda came to sit on the other side of Jeremy. "Look, it's going to be a bit rough in the beginning, but I'm sure she will be just fine in the end. It's not hard to be a hybrid. Just takes getting used to." She winked at Jeremy, who flushed as he averted his lingering stare to study the knives more intently. He had laid his small set out on the table in front of him and had been feverishly polishing the metal.

I nodded, pulling the hairband out of my dark hair, shaking it loose. It was growing longer and kept getting in my face when I trained. The last of the cool spring breezes were curling over my skin. Winter had been brief and mild, signaling that the summer was going to be intense with fiery, burning heat. I dreaded it with every cell of my body. The scorch would bring dry, sweltering air with the feel of sticking one's head into an oven on full blast. The stench of the rotting ferals and their infinite disgustingness would increase with it too. It was unimaginable. Definitely my least favorite season of all.

"I just can't shake the feeling that something really bad is going to happen, something I can't control in any way." I shuddered, but it was more than the breeze chilling me. I liked having a certain amount of control. One thing about the end of the world is that control is never going to happen.

"Nothing's for certain, April. Not even tomorrow. We just have to hope for the best. It's not much, but I guess it's just the lot that's been given to us now. I know it's not comforting, and I wish I had more to add. I just try to see the light in every new day. If I make it through, hey, it's great. If not, I don't think I'll be too upset. I'll be dead." Miranda attempted a half-worn smile, half joking and ignoring how I stared at her like she was nuts. I shot her a twisted glare and shook my head.

"Um, Miranda?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't try to make me feel better, please." I gave her a stern frown, making her laugh out loud.

"Sure thing, April."

"What's it like?"

Miranda gave me a strange look and wrinkled her nose. "What's what like?"

"You know, turning." I picked the grime from my fingernails.

"Well," she stretched like a cat and then slumped back on the chair. "It takes a while. You just feel strange at first, like your skin is tingling. Oh, and the smell."

"What smell?"

"The smell of blood. It's hangs in the air like strong perfume, but it smells delicious." Miranda glanced at Jeremy, who was pretending to clean his daggers. I knew better; he was clinging to every word we said.

"Is it irresistible?" My stomach turned at the thought, though I quite enjoyed the taste of blood myself. That was the scary thing about it.

"Yes. It's like starving for weeks and feeling so incredibly thirsty, because nothing satiates it. Nothing. Nothing but blood."

"How long before you bit someone for blood?"

A silence built as I waited, causing me to look up at my friend.

"Not long." Miranda shifted uncomfortably in her seat, probably searching for words to make it sound better. I knew there were none. "A group of humans wandered into our hive before we had it completely secured. They saw us, thought we were human, too. Luckily it was just me and Blaze near the entrance, but I couldn't control it." Her gaze shot up toward the sky, searching for something to help the stab of regret fade. "They smelled amazing, and I knew what I was right then. Blaze tried to stop me, but his own hunger won out. We snatched them both and drained them until they fell unconscious. After that, the scent of blood drifted to the others, and there was no surviving that." She cleared her throat, aware that Jeremy and I were staring at her.

"So, she's right to lock herself up." I glanced up to the blue atmosphere above us along with her. So much to fear, and now even more right here in our own sanctuary, where we should have been the safest.

"I'm afraid that, yes, she's right to do so." Miranda's cool hand brushed the wild hair away from my face, but I barely registered it. I felt the twinge of despair bleeding back into my chest. It was getting harder and harder to shake off. I was afraid that one day I wouldn't be able to.

"Come on, I'm starving. Food always makes me feel better." Miranda stood up, still holding her katana in its sheath. I gave her a slow tilt of my head and began to gather up our weapons. I was thankful I had someone to talk to now that my mother was pretty much incapacitated. I missed our chats, but Miranda's company was comforting in her absence. Even if she was a hybrid vampire, it was better than nothing. If I had ever had a sister, I would have wanted her to be like Miranda. Her optimism was contagious, which was exactly what I needed right now.

I watched the horizon as the sun slipped over the trees, sending the sky seeping into colors of purple and blue. I longed for it to stay, but it was a visitor who left every night. Still it was certain to return every morning. Even so, I wanted it to stay overnight, I wanted the sun to shine forever. But like the few certain things in this world, it was like clockwork, going on and on until the night swallowed it up. I hated the nights, hated them with every fiber of my being.

The nights brought death to life. Nothing was ever going to change from that now. I'd never get to leave this bunker, not ever. I'd never sleep in a normal room again, especially with the ferals and other vampiric hybrids out there. Who knows what was lurking out there. I had lived in a bubble of sorts since the outbreak. It had worked to keep us safe. It was the only reason we'd made it this far. All I knew was that it was me and my family against the world. Whatever was now left of it.

Chapter Four

Plague of Ash

April

"Are you sure this will work?" I shifted my weight on my feet, squatting down on the roof of the Aria hotel. The heat of the day was still radiating off the hot concrete, keeping me sweating as I worked and rigged up miles of cords and dozens of cameras. It was a great vantage point; I could see almost all of The Strip. It was a gorgeous evening, but I was not looking forward to spending the night up there in the dark, even with the stunning view, full moon and sparkling stars in the sky. Nope, definitely didn't look forward to being on The Strip at night. Not one bit. "I still don't think this is such a good idea."

I adjusted the night vision camera that I had been working on and peered through the eye piece to be sure that I had every piece of The Strip covered that I was assigned to. Rye was helping to set more up along the other side of the casino's roof. They were all battery operated, and each one would have to be changed out halfway through the night with fresh batteries to keep them going. A few had extended batteries on them, but I had not had time to find enough of the longer lasting batteries and have them all charged before dusk. We had them charging now for when the others ran out of juice, but it was better that we were there to make sure all the cameras worked the entire night so we wouldn't miss anything.

"It will work." Rye grinned over at me, his grey eyes flashing and reflecting the tangerine light of the sunset. It made him look even more handsome, like a photo-shopped cover model on one of the romance novels I had glanced at in the grocery stores when everything was still normal. Now I had a small stack of them at the bunker but had never gotten around to reading them. I wondered if the heroes in them were anything like Rye. He had an amazing build. If they were, I needed to get going on my reading for sure.

"I never agreed to stay up here like a sitting duck all night. I'm not too sure about that!" I groaned, dropping one of the batteries as I tried to clamp the camera into place. Securing it, I swept the roof and searched the ground for the battery. The light was already starting to fade and quickly. Rye found it under one of the pipes running the length of the roof and held it up. I reached over to take it gently, grazing his fingertips as he held onto it for a moment too long, sending jolts of warmth through my stomach. His sly grin told me he knew what he did to me. I felt the heat rise to my face and averted my eyes before I could see him get the satisfaction of watching me flush.

He's such a tease.

I felt the blood flashing across my face as I finally pulled it from his grip and jetted back over to stuff it into place. I was sweating buckets up there; at least the night would cool it down enough to sleep a bit. I had the second shift watch, so I had to get to bed soon.

"It's just one night. I'm sure we'll see something and won't have to come up here again. They've been consistent in dumping feral remains all over this city block all week, mucking up the streets in soot and vampire ash." Rye finished his own set of cameras and shoved the duffle bags that we had used to carry them up to the side. I felt his eyes lingering on me as I continued to work. It made me smile, knowing he was enjoying the view. At least I hoped he was.

"Who's they?" I turned then to meet his gaze. Rye pressed his lips together as I tried his patience once more. I knew he wanted to shake me sometimes; I was not an easy person to hang out with. Things have to be a certain way with me and this deviation from the norm had me worried to no end.

"I don't know yet. That's why we're doing this, remember?" I knew he was getting unnerved by my snappy comments but I had no patience for waiting. It was bad enough having to lug all this crap up dozens of floors through dark stairwells. This casino had been one of the few that had been cleared of ferals and secured around the base to keep them out. It didn't mean that nothing ever got in. There was always that risk. There will never be complete safety in any place anymore. "Besides, I distinctly remember you not protesting when we came up with this plan."

"Yeah, but I distinctly remember never volunteering for this," I muttered, switching on the camera as the last sliver of sunlight slipped over the western mountains. I wanted to say it was probably another hive of vampires stringing up the ferals and tossing them to the sun to wither into dust. Who else could it be? I didn't think there was any way there could be humans out there without anyone noticing them before, but the whole situation seemed so out of the ordinary to me. Anything was possible nowadays.

The world was in a suspended state of in between. The sun bled a tangerine-orange and sent reddish streaks throughout the sky, leaving the windows of the many casinos glowing an unnatural shade in their reflections. The shadows turned dark and blue behind the lit sides of the buildings. It was such a contrast, so stark it made me shiver, especially as I could already see the ferals crawling out of the shadows, free of their prisons to roam and feed.

"Okay, I'm done on this end, need any help?" I shifted over to where Rye was finishing up his set of cameras. His fingers worked with a smooth dexterity over the buttons and cords. He smiled as I approached, making me blush as his eyes told me so many things left unsaid. I knew how he felt about me. He had made it no secret how he wanted to be so much more than just friends. I loved how it felt when he kissed and held me, though I reluctantly pushed the thought out of my head. Pulling away from him had been more from my own insecurities about life than anything else. I didn't know how to be with him the way he wanted. How do you open to someone when there is nothing for certain anymore? Nothing but death?

He suddenly reached out toward me, stroking my cheek and giving me another grin that made me melt inside again. He did it without words and so easily it made my heart skip in my chest and my stomach drop. How did he do that without anything but actions? His skin was the catalyst, and my body knew it. He followed it with a sweeping embrace, pressing me into his body with his sturdy arms. It felt amazing, so comforting and protective of him. It was a moment of safe harbor, calming my ever-flustered heart. Breathing in his skin, I noticed for the hundredth time that he smelled of clean linen mixed with a coppery taint. It didn't matter that he smelled of blood; the scent drew me in, and I was suddenly very aware of his pulsating jugular near my face.

Its soft rhythm made me wonder if the hybrids were really dead. They seemed more alive than some humans I had met in my lifetime. Save for the cooler body temperature and the gold haloed eyes, they appeared very human. Even their fangs retracted when not in use, a feature to make it hard to tell them apart from us. They were wolves in sheep's clothing, hunters of crimson currency. How he could stay so close to me and not crave it was a mystery. This made me suck a breath in and pull away for a moment. I didn't fail to notice the pain flash across his eyes before he turned back to his task. It stung me as well but I couldn't let him in. I didn't know how.

"Going to get some shut-eye." I motioned to the sleeping bag tucked in a corner of stairwell entrance, trying to make an excuse to put some distance between us. Or maybe it was for my behavior. He nodded, but I still felt his eyes follow me as I made my way to the sleeping area near a small storage room along one side of the roof. It was just a shack of a building, made in the shape of an L. The walls were a grey, plain concrete, streaked with dirt from the constant desert haze and scarce rainfall. It provided plenty of shelter on two sides of me. There was a chair nearby which Rye would occupy as the night went on.

I continued to feel his gaze burn into my back, leaving me filled with longing. It sent a ripple along my spine, sending shocks down my skin. I tried to shake it off as I slipped into my sleeping bag, bother me though it may. I suppressed my feelings deep into the dark places inside my mind I dared not think about now. Maybe one day, but for now, it was an impossible desire.

The night sky morphed into its darker twin as the colors faded and the darkness of night woke the city. In the distance, the snarls and moans of the feral vampires filled the air as they descended from their daylight tombs. It sent a different kind of shiver down my spine as I concentrated on breathing deeply, attempting to slow my frantic heartbeat down. It was unnerving, sleeping in the middle of the city, surrounded by fangs and death. I hated this and doubted I would get much sleep tonight, if any. I'd just have to do without.

"Going to be a long night, try to sleep some." Rye's voice was soft, but it did nothing to soothe my nerves. The chair creaked with his weight as he came to sit near me.

"Okay."

***

Rye

Rye watched the soft sway of breathing under the sleeping bag. He knew April was not yet sleeping, or maybe she was in some half-awake and half-asleep state based on the stillness of her sleeping bag. He wondered what she was dreaming about, if anything. Turning toward the darkened Strip, he could see clearly with his vampire eyes. The shadows of ferals running about, rummaging through messes and heading out toward whatever it was they were searching for. They were on their nightly run through the streets, blood-starved and desperate. Their features stood out, stark in the pale moonlight. They snarled with their ruined faces, morphed from what once was beautiful and human.

The night felt crisp, rich in coolness and doused with the scent of ozone. Glancing up at the stars made Rye mildly aware that while some things never changed, others were constantly in a state of flux. He had hoped that with time, April would return his affections like when they had first met. But after saving her family from Christian's hive, she had withdrawn from him in the most devastating way possible. The emptiness that had settled in the place of her love had left him hollow, cold and longing. She needed space, he got that. The post-apocalyptic world was no place to fall in love, or think of any future for that matter. Still, hope was all that was left to hold onto. Hope was all he had.

Straightening, he moved his gaze along the streets, but thoughts of April never left his mind. He longed for her to become his mate and form the absolute bond with him like the other mated couples in his hive. But she was not a vampire hybrid. She was a human mutation of some sort, which left him wondering if there could ever really be anything more between them. He'd never give up on her. If he was patient, she'd know how much she meant to him.

What if there were others like her out there? Maybe even another human hybrid that would be better suited to love her, one who could give her the life she craved, the life that was stolen from her when the epidemic hit. Could that be possible?

And then what? Would she choose a mortal man if she met one like her? What would happen then? He shuddered to think of it but tried to keep his thoughts on the task at hand. If he didn't, he would drive himself mad with worry and unreasonable jealously. It was bad enough he couldn't reach her anymore, but to lose her to someone else, someone who probably didn't even exist, was making him feel foolish.

The streets seemed emptier as midnight came and went. He was still wide awake and contemplated letting April sleep longer. Her rapid heartbeat had slowed as the echoes of the ferals' screams faded into the night. Where they had all gone was beyond him. At least he and April were safe for now in this building, high above the deadly grip of the hunters. But he didn't want to take anything for granted, so he never let his guard waver.

As the morning moved on, a shadow shifted in his periphery. It brought him to a crouch near the ledge to study the Sahara Casino down on the northern end of the street. The old rollercoaster that hung from the front was falling apart, bits of metal and cables dangling from the steel beams. Old billboards that used to cling to the outer walls of the casino's entrance lay shredded across the wall. The coaster led into the building through a gaping hole, but it was high up on the street, and he doubted the ferals would be able to reach it. He squinted his silver-grey eyes and continued to scan the street surrounding the casino. Suddenly a flash of metal reflected the moonlight on the top part of the roller coaster. The building that housed it was smaller than the towering hotel behind it but connected itself nicely to one of the hotel floors. The windows had opened, and what looked like people had emerged, pulling ropes tied to staggering figures behind them.

Feral vampires.

Rye trained some of the cameras on them before flying over to April to give her a slight shake.

"April, get up, I see something."

"Mmm?" She sat up so quickly she almost rammed him with her head. She was instantly awake, which made him smile. It was amazing how fast she was on her feet and ready to pounce on something in a second's notice. "Where?"

"Over there, on the roof of the Sahara." He pointed her in the direction of the strangers, a trail of ferals roped in their midst. They approached the edge of the roof and studied the group below. The snarls echoed down the street as they attempted to snap and bite their captors. April's eyes widened in shock; she'd never expected to see the activity right in front of her.

"What are they doing with the ferals? Are those hybrids?" She narrowed her eyes to see better, hoping to recognize one of the captors.

Rye focused his stare on the wardens. They moved with grace, and there was a total of twelve of them. He studied each one's movements and listened with his enhanced vampire hearing. A male voice could distinctly be heard barking orders at the others as they worked to follow his commands. Several female voices echoed back, though Rye could not confirm how many were men and how many were women. He quietly relayed this information to April as she moved some more cameras to point their lenses in that direction. Rye didn't want to run the risk of the others hearing him either. If they were hybrids, they were a bit too far to hear them conversing quietly, but if he yelled they would definitely hear him.

"Can they see us?" April whispered as she came to crouch next to him, zooming one of the long-distance cameras onto the group, snapping pictures as well as she could with the night vision in place. She looked excited, eager to discover the mystery of what was happening in front of them. Nothing thrilled her more, it seemed.

"I don't think so, but I wouldn't risk us being seen."

"What do you think they're doing?"

"My guess is they are waiting for morning."

"Why?" April turned her confused face toward him, waiting for an answer.

"To fry the ferals they caught to ashes, what else?" He shrugged and glanced back toward the group. He could feel the morning crawling across his skin even though the sun was more than an hour away from showing its face. Rye shifted uncomfortably, knowing he'd have to descend down the steps before the full spectrum of rays spilled across the roof from the sun and began to cook him alive. He'd have to leave April to tend to the cameras after sunrise, hating the thought of leaving her alone. He knew she would be just fine; it was an isolated island here, without any other buildings tall enough to jump from. He just hoped none of the guards down there would spot them before they got away.

With under an hour left until sunrise, the ferals had become restless. The guards had brought several more strung up and lined them up into rows near the edges of the building. They tethered them to a rigged-up pulley system, making it clear that they had put together some sort of machinery for this. Was it only to drop the bunch into the streets below? Rye furrowed his brows as he rationalized their actions. Why bother? Why not line them up on the street instead? He had a creeping suspicion that this was done to make sure none survived the sun. It was to incapacitate them until the UV rays could have their wrath without a chance to escape into the shadows once the sun rose.

It didn't bother him that they were about to kill the ferals, but the mystery of the strangers made him antsy, and he wanted to hop on down there to see who they were. But why were they targeting feral vampires? And what was to stop them from targeting the hybrids next? He gritted his teeth at the thought, nicking his tongue in the process. It was uncomfortable to sit there in the warming air of the dawn, but he had to know what was going on. Glancing at April, who had been mostly silent, he saw that her legs were bouncing just a bit. She was desperate for action, too. A woman like her didn't stay cooped up for too long, not with so much to learn about the world around them. It was one of the things that he loved about her: her wild, antsy streak.

The male leader of the group was scanning the horizon, too, briefly lifting his head toward them. Rye and April quickly ducked down a bit more, watching to see if he had spotted them. His face lingered in their direction for an uncomfortable moment before turning away. Had he seen them? Had he spotted the cameras? Rye twisted his tongue inside his mouth with the suspense of it all, hoping the feeling of dread was just anxiety that was snaking around his abdomen.

April looked like she felt the same way, her body pressed against the concrete wall that lined the edge of the roof. He could hear her heart racing like a hummingbird in her chest, and her eyes were wide in horror. This definitely was no run-of-the-mill scouting mission. This was a whole other enchilada. Rye even felt her anxiety leak into him as he studied the group and hoped he wouldn't regret discovering them.

The downside of discovery was that it could really alter your days in unexpected ways.

Chapter Five

The Fall

April

The sun was snaking over Sunrise Mountain and tumbling its light across the valley. I watched it as the shadows retreated, running toward the west and blinding me to my right. It was much more intense in the morning, bright and overwhelming. The guards had waited patiently, tugging at the wrangled ferals like cattle on the edge of the building and shoving them into place with long spears and poles. I almost felt sorry for the wild things. If I hadn't had the unfortunate experience of almost being a chop-suey dinner for them on more than one occasion, I might've let the sympathy overtake me and run down there to save the day. But I didn't. I was merely left curious to see what would be happening at dawn, when the light judged them all.

Rye had waited as long as he could, but ended up descending to the next floor down, hidden in the shadows when the sun's intensity got to be too much. It was upon us before the group below. Without the protection of other buildings, he had stood there, panting from the pain. He had waited as long as he could, and I knew he would be watching them from the windows below. He had needed shelter; the sun was to burn bright and hot today, a cloudless and windless day. He would have to wait until I could drive him back to the airport in the van with darkened windows that the hive kept for emergencies. Still, I longed for his company, especially as I waited to see the end game these people had planned.

As I waited, I let my thoughts linger on Rye. I wanted to love him without restraint. His embrace still lingered on my skin even though it had happened so many hours ago. I could still smell him on my clothes. So much crap tended to get in the way for us and muck it all up. I still worried for my family, even after they were safe at home. Even so, my mother's fragile condition brought a new set of obstacles. My responsibility to her and Jeremy kept me from acting on my feelings for Rye. Now, with these new 'people' lurking about, I was even more apprehensive to get involved with anyone, even a vampire hybrid who could very well defend himself against many things and take care of himself.

The rays of sun intensified, smothering the air in its suffocating warmth. I watched the tied up ferals, unable to look away as they began to sizzle under the sun's wrath. Smoky wisps leaked from their bodies, smoke tendrils hissing from their skin as they screeched. It was ear piercing. The guards casually stood by the group and together they pulled some levers to release the ferals, tossing them hard against the ground, littering the street with their remains. Ash and embers burst from their bodies like confetti, tumbling to the asphalt into smoldering piles as row after row of them were yanked and sent over the edge. I would have cheered them on if it wasn't so darn appalling. I watched with a growing horror at the ease that the guards disposed of the ferals. I watched them work uniformly to achieve this task until the last of the wild things was sent over the edge, and nothing was left but piles of dust and flittering ash.

The guards quickly disassembled their pulleys and grabbed all the spears, running in through the opened window and making sure to shut it behind them. Just like that, they had achieved their goal of incinerating a batch of feral vampires, all without getting bitten and without a trace of their existence left behind. I was shocked by how quickly it had all happened. Not twenty minutes had passed since sunrise and the silence of the dead was louder than anything else on the horizon.

And what of these captors? They had appeared so human, so real. What were they? hybrids? Human? Or maybe, just maybe, they could be like me. The questions flooded my brain, leaving me exasperated and standing there staring after them for minutes before I realized that Rye would be getting worried if I didn't hurry up and join him. I quickly disassembled the cameras in the growing light and heat of the morning. My clothes were already beginning to stick to me as I worked, tossing all the equipment into duffle bags and hauling them one by one to the stairwell door.

Finally, I rolled up my sleeping bag and folded up the chair Rye had used and set them near the stairwell where they would not be visible. As I reached for the doorknob, Rye pushed it open violently and glared at me as I stood there, my hand still reaching for the door.

"What is taking so long?" he snapped. He began grabbing bag after bag to take down to the second floor, where a make shift sub-headquarters had been set up for the hive before I could answer. No one really stayed here much, so it was deserted most of the time. The windows were reinforced one way mirrors to allow us to see outside, but no one could see in. Lately it had been used a lot to plan and organize initiatives to see who was killing the ferals. Last night had been our watch and we had finally gotten them on camera.

"Nothing! I had to gather all the stuff." I frowned right back at him, shaking my head at his outburst. "What's the matter with you?" I huffed as I pushed past him and down the stairs with leaden steps.

"I saw them leave and I just thought it was taking a bit too long for you to get down here." He scrambled to keep up with me as I hastily burst through the second-floor door, marching the bags over to the computers and dropping them in heaps, not caring to be gentle with the equipment. There was electricity here. It had been rigged with emergency generators in the basement so that the computers would work again. I loved having artificial light to work under instead of flashlights or lanterns. Still, it felt somewhat bare in here, and I hated the unused office feel of it.

"Well, sorry I'm not fast enough for you." I sighed, sitting down at one of the computers and pulling out a camera to fish out the SD card. Stuffing it into the card reader, I worked the rest of the morning downloading the videos and pictures, uploading it all to a portable hard drive to take to the hive. It was tedious work, boring and time consuming, but I welcomed the distraction. It gave me a solid reason to avoid talking to Rye.

Rye gave up on questioning me once he saw my resolve to ignore him and started on his own pile of cameras. Later, he tossed me a wrapped up cold sub sandwich for brunch. I hadn't eaten all night, so I grumpily thanked him before tearing into it. I was relieved that we had food and drinks here while we worked. A makeshift kitchen was set up in one of the rooms which had been some sort of office break room in the past, complete with a fridge, microwave, plenty of nonperishable snacks and a sink with running water, all rigged up by the hive workers.

Being hungry and exhausted while hanging out with Rye was not a good idea. Trying to keep things platonic was wearing on us both. It threw both of us into a bad mood after a while. I wished I could respond to his advances, but I just couldn't deal with a relationship, even with someone as amazing as Rye.

I clicked on one of the files near the time the strangers had started pushing the ferals over the edge. Staring at the different warriors, I studied their eyes. Did they reflect the light like the hybrids' eyes do? I watched and scanned over their faces in the zoomed in view, searching for the telltale reflection. Nothing.

"Oh, my God," I whispered, shock filling me and making my breakfast ball up in my stomach.

"What?" Rye stood up from his chair and raced toward me, glancing at the video playing on the computer screen.

"They're not hybrids."

"How can you tell?"

"The sun hits most of their faces in a few of the shots. None of their eyes reflect the light like yours or any other hybrids' eyes do. Plus, none of them shun the sun like you do." I turned toward Rye, attempting to hide the gleam of excitement in my eyes.

I shifted over in my chair to let him peek over and observe the shots I had paused on the screen. His eyes roamed over the figures, taking in every detail. "Rye, they're human. They have to be." Turning back, I admired their human eyes and noticed how their skin tones were not so pale, like the soft translucent white of the hybrids. "Maybe they're like me. Maybe I'm not alone after all."

Rye frowned and leaned back in his chair, his face scrunching up as his lips turned down. "But you're not alone, April." The chair creaked as if answering for me.

"You know what I mean." I ignored his reaction and beamed at the screen, printing out the pictures of what felt like a discovery of treasure. After our work was done, I would take to the streets alone to clear my mind. Rye would let me knowing how too much time spent together created more of a wedge between us rather than seal the gap. Each time I left on my own, the longing in his eyes was more than apparent. It radiated from his entire being. He wanted to come, wanted to follow me through the streets, I could feel it. But I never invited him.

Maybe it was an old habit I had acquired in my year of solitude or just a means to escape. Either way, it helped me think without any interruptions, without any kind of distraction.

Sometimes being alone was good.

Chapter Six

We're All Monsters

April

It is said that time is unrelated to everything else. It goes on and on, unnoticing of our actions, our falls, our triumphs. Who's to care then, if time does not remember us? It flies by, fleeting, inattentive and disinterested in any occupants of this earth. What are we, then, if time thinks so little of everyone it passes? Time is truly apathetic to the many to whom a little empathy would mean so much.

The time I had spent watching the humans on the computer screens and thinking about them had left room for little else. I wanted to know more about them; where did they live, where were they hiding in this city? Why had I not ever seen them before? I had so many questions flooding my mind that it left me restless and stirred up my thoughts. I had been struck dumb with shock. For the first time, I had been truly baffled, left not knowing what to think. But I was also strangely exhilarated.

I didn't tell Mom too much about what I had seen that day. She seemed disinterested, further retreating into the shell she was constructing around herself as the days went on. The nagging hunger within her pummeled her senses, leaving her lost inside herself, muttering about delusions. Would it be long before she succumbed to it? How long before her delirium overwhelmed the person she had once been? Her moans and constant shifting around in her bed kept me awake through the long nights, making me grateful that Jeremy could sleep through it. He'd miss a hurricane if one ever came through here. I never did sleep soundly. It was a curse of sorts, to always be aware, to always know that monsters did exist in the world.

The click of the doorbell shook me from the semi-consciousness that posed for sleep. I sat up, jerked into awareness in a heartbeat. It didn't stop my heart from arresting in my chest, making me heave in a breath to calm the ache. Half pulling on my shoes and grabbing the machete that always was on my bedside table, I glanced back, relieved that Jeremy was still asleep. The back room where my mother now dwelled was as silent as a tomb. I nearly stumbled to the security monitors to peek at the view of the bunker's entrance.

A familiar outline shifted in the dark green of the night vision camera. Light reflected back from vampire-haloed eyes as Rye stared at me through the screen. He waited as I turned on the mike to speak to him.

"Password?"

"Nevermore."

I could almost feel his eyes rolling on the other side of the metal door. I clicked the lock open, allowing him to slide through quickly. I shut it as quietly and as swiftly as I could, keeping my eyes focused on the darkened blanket of the forest around the house. With the locks back in place, I finally turned toward him, placing the machete down at the surveillance desk. I plopped into one of the chairs, pushing back the wild hair that now shifted around my face.

"Rye, what's going on?" Rubbing my face, I yawned, feeling the fatigue roll through me. "It's really late."

"I have information on the humans we saw the other night." He rolled his shoulders, appearing tired also. "And...I couldn't sleep." His eyes met mine. Longing and sadness swam in them as he continued. "Plus, I wanted to see you."

I perked up slightly, all ears and definitely more awake. I stifled the urge to keep yawning and to let my eyes roll deliriously back into their sockets. Man, I'm so tired! "Oh, okay." I laid my head on the desk, waiting for him to continue, knowing full well I was ignoring half of what he was saying. "So, spit it out already."

Rye laughed, his eyes twinkling with amusement. He knew he could prolong this torment by dragging out the details; he'd do it just to get a rise out of me. Sometimes I thought he could very well have a deeply hidden sadistic side. "Well, it could be just a rumor but...."

"But?" He had my attention now. I sat up, my back straight as I stared wide eyed back at him.

Yep, definitely sadistic.

"But we haven't confirmed it yet."

"Confirmed what?" I wanted to shake him. "What rumor?"

"Blaze heard it some time ago, a rumor that there was an underground city of humans—uninfected humans—under one of the larger casinos. In pre-epidemic times, there was a story that one of the casino owners was some nuclear fallout paranoid guy who supposedly had a city built under his casino capable of sustaining its population for years without contact with the outside world."

I chewed on my lip as I thought it over. It was possible. There were a few bunkers I had discovered since I'd found the one in the mountains. None were as well fortified as our home abode was; some were impossible to enter. Some had been hit already and destroyed. This could very well be a true rumor, for all we knew. But how could we confirm it?

"Do you know what casino it was rumored to be built under?"

"Yes. The Wynn. But there are many possibilities."

"Hmm." I tapped my temple as I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking back on the days I'd traipsed throughout The Strip. I barely remembered the Wynn Hotel & Casino. It was so vague in my mind, I doubted I had walked through it more than once. Maybe twice. Not a good start at all. "Are you very familiar with the Wynn?"

Rye shook his head and sighed; he knew what we were up against. If there were humans down there that could wrangle up dozens of ferals, it would definitely be difficult to infiltrate. Their techniques and coordination were too good to presume that they would be merely ordinary humans. I doubted it. They could be highly-trained black ops soldiers, for all I knew. I was excited and disturbed at the same time. Could it be what I had hoped to find all this time, ever since the epidemic stole my life away? I wished there was more concrete evidence, but I'd take anything, even now, after all this time.

"Me neither." I slumped in the chair, letting my head roll over to where the small, curled-up lump of my brother lay softly snoring under the blankets. Thank God he was a sound sleeper. I would literally have to shake him awake if I ever needed him to evacuate during the dead of night. I wasn't that lucky. I don't think I'd slept through a night in over a year. "So, what's the plan, Rye? Tell me you didn't waltz over here in the middle of the night without one." Eyeing him, I could've sworn I saw that pale, smooth skin of his flush ever so slightly. It was alarmingly pleasurable to see him shift in his seat.

"Well, the thing is, Blaze doesn't really have a plan yet. It's not going well. No one can decide what to do about this group. If we exterminate them...."

"Whoa, wait...exterminate them? No." I straightened up and gave him a death glare. He shifted again, knowing I didn't like this suggestion one bit. "Under no circumstances will that be our first plan." I gritted my teeth, seething but trying to think at the same time. That was their plan? Ridiculous!

"Look, April, it wasn't my plan. It's not really even a plan, actually. It was just brought up in case it was something we might have to do. We don't know what we're up against—a small band of vigilantes, or scores of humans? Who knows? We have to prepare for the possibility that they might not want to be found. They might be aggressive, for all we know."

"If they didn't want to be found, they wouldn't have come to the surface to lynch mob hordes of feral vampires in the first place." I threw up my hands in frustration. I knew Blaze's hive meant well; I understood their objective was to stay alive themselves. But this shouldn't be just their decision. They weren't human. Jeremy and I still were. It should never be left up to them. A human factor should always be involved when dealing with them.

Rye's silence made me glance toward him again. I willed my anger to subside as I took in his calm silhouette. I couldn't stay angry at him. He was right, it wasn't his fault. He was third in command, not the leader of the hive. No matter what kind of allies I had found in them, we were still two very different creatures.

"You know I support whatever it is you want to do with this, April. I came here to warn you, though. Blaze thinks that if they are exterminating ferals, we might be next on their list. It could cause an all-out war. Best we leave them be for now." He paused, but then decided to keep talking. "I didn't want you to hear it at the hive meeting or from Blaze without warning you first. It would not have been pretty to surprise you in that way. That's why I came here tonight. I knew you'd want to know."

He reached over, scooping my small fingers into his strong ones. I felt his semi-warm hands envelope mine. My own looked fragile and delicate. But as I curled the thin fingers inward, I felt their strength—a strength that could wreak havoc on anyone that got in my way. How deceitful it was to look so innocent and yet be so dangerous.

Finding his shiny, steel eyes focused on me, I knew that the same went for him and his kind. Beautiful to a flaw. Super strength and immortality did nothing to hide the monsters within. We all were, one way or the other. Were we all not vampires of one kind or another? Even when their kind of monster was only a thing of fairytales, stories gone awry all over the internet, books galore, paranormal vices to read well into the night until the sun greeted you with another day? Now I could only wish it was not real. Now it was nothing but a continual, nightmarish story that never ended, unrelenting with never any hint of what horrors would come next. Everlasting.

"Thank you," I whispered back to him, enjoying the warmth of his fingers. I traced the lines on the tops of his hands, feeling every bump, every indention on his perfect porcelain skin. "But if we let them exterminate entire hives of ferals, just like that, without provocation, then we are no better than the monsters." I cringed at my words, knowing the kind of hypocrite I sounded like.

Rye nodded, but I could tell he didn't fully agree with me. It disturbed him to hear me talk like that, as though the ferals were real people and the humans, no matter how malicious they may be, were real people too. It was worth it to find them, at least, it was to me. I knew then that I was alone on this. I'd have to seek out the humans on my own. He'd never allow it and neither would Blaze. They might do everything in their power to stop me from ever contacting the others.

In the end, I was alone after all.

Chapter Seven

Secret

Elijah

The view was everything one could hope for. He sat perched at the edge of the rooftop of the Palms Hotel & Casino, letting the soft breeze dance with the overgrown brown locks of his hair. The sun scorched his slightly tanned skin, but his medium-toned coloring kept the sunburns at bay. This was his only getaway, his one reprieve from the claustrophobia of the underground. The horizon was clear of smog, very unlike the skies before, when it was a bustling city. Only shattered rooftops and clouds for company now. He snuck up here whenever he could, which was rare.

It was an outdoor deck, hung high above the city streets and part of an old dance club he used to frequent before the epidemic. It still had an amazing sound system, and he had rigged up a generator to keep the place running. He'd also hooked one to a still-functional elevator. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to walk up and down the stairs to his favorite oasis in the hell that was life now. Nothing compared to the solace he felt up there. Even the few ferals that managed to infiltrate the casino downstairs in his absence didn't bother him. He exterminated them quickly with an array of traps he had strewn across the casino floor and along the way to the elevator shaft.

He'd frequently find them hanging from one foot, dangling and snapping their dripping jaws at him as he entered. Some traps dragged the ferals to the inner courtyard, where the sun shone brightly through the overhead windows, filling it with light and incinerating the intruders when the sun rose. He kept house here; it was a sanctuary he considered the closest thing to a home that he had at this time. The underground city of Vida was suffocating, and he needed to breathe. No one knew of this place, not even Sarah, his second in command. And definitely not the other ten human hybrids on his specialized security team. He liked it that way.

Elijah had spent the day rigging up solar panels and dozens of large batteries on the roof of the casino. Fuel for the generators would not last forever, and he had to come up with a better solution to sustain his home away from home. It'd taken a while to find enough raw materials to create his energy-producing station, but he had gathered enough to get it going.

He occupied one of the rooms next to the club as his own apartment when he wasn't underground, and it had every luxury a person would ever need. The ferals didn't wander this far up, making it an ideal place to live for now, a safe refuge he could run to if he ever needed it.

Jumping up from his perch, he headed over to the bar that sat nestled inside the club. He grabbed a bottle of beer out of the cool refrigerator and popped the top, cursing when he nicked his thumb on the cap's sharp edges. Sucking on the wound, he reached over to turn on the stereo system. The room filled with the thumping hypnotic tempo of the techno, vibrating the chandelier that twinkled above. The mirror ball spun into life, shooting shining stars all across the room. It was a relief that the club could not be seen from below, but he never lit the dance floor at night.

He bobbed his head softly to the beat, losing his thoughts in the memories, and stared through the windows to gaze upon the desolate blue sky outside. Somewhere out there was something better. If he could figure out how to escape his ties to the city of Vida, he might get there, maybe even see the ocean again. For now, it was the only life he knew, the only place there were others like him. He wasn't afraid to leave, it was just never the right time, the right situation. He was waiting for something. What it could be was a mystery even to him.

No one left Vida; it was forbidden. The underground human settlement was anything but home to Elijah. He was allowed to leave and scout for hives of crazed vampires or sites to fortify and keep supplied if they had to move. The "zompires" were what he had dubbed the dead. Their absence of humanity and lust for blood was akin to the creatures in the zombies of movies he had watched many times in his "previous life." Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would be in the middle of a vampire apocalypse. Never had he ever thought it would leave him alive—but changed—after surviving the initial infection. He had not turned into a mindless cannibal, nor had he perished. Though that had not left him certain it was better to have come out alive. It had been nothing but a perpetual curse since then.

He lit a cigarette, sucking in the bitter smoke and letting it seep from his lips and nose, enveloping his face and making his eyes water. He would have to shower once he got back to Vida; the leader Katrina did not allow smoking and would pitch a fit if she knew he spent his days smoking out here. He didn't care. She could get mad if she wanted. He disliked her with every fiber of his being. He didn't really know why, he just did. Her strict leadership was overbearing, and she treated him, along with his eleven soldiers, like freaks of nature. Something was off about her, too, and he'd find out sooner or later what it was.

Flicking the stub of the cigarette over the edge of the platform, he watched it plummet through the air until it was no longer visible. He smirked, laughing out loud and throwing his hands up into a stretch. It was amazing to breathe the fresh air and let the hours pass without a thought. He was free for this one moment, and that would hold him over until the next time.

Elijah chugged down the last gulp of cold beer and dangled the bottle from his fingertips, his languid hand hung over the railing, swaying with the breeze. He studied the Rio Casino across the way−brilliant in its dirty red and purple mirrored windows. It had been a fun place to hang out, too. He'd wanted to clear each casino out from the zompire infestations, but knew he'd never be able to do it alone. Eventually it would all fall to inevitable ruin anyway, no matter what he did to help maintain the buildings. Eventually the earth would swallow up the remnants of humanity, taking back what was hers in the first place.

He let go of the bottle, watching it descend into the oblivion below. Running his hand through his messy locks, he retreated and readied himself to return to his underground version of hell on earth.

***

April

The shattering of glass had sent me running into the shadows, propped with my machete and ready to pounce. My heart sat in my throat, pulsating hard and pounding in my ears as I strained to listen for any further sounds. Stillness surrounded me, and my breathing was my only company. It had come from above, of that I was certain. I studied the small mess of glass that now marked the street. The glittering green glass had sprayed out into a circular explosion, sending its shards in every direction. I moved my gaze up into the sky, but nothing but blue and an occasional cloud filled the expanse.

The windows were all pretty intact in the tall Palms Casino. Months of exposure to the elements had left them dingy and streaked. Nothing betrayed itself in the sea of glass, leaving me baffled on where it had come from. I suspected that whoever had dropped it had not seen me. It had not come near my position at all.

I glanced at my goal on The Strip. I had parked at the Gold Coast Casino, an old haunt of my father's, intent on walking the rest of the way to The Strip down Flamingo. I had jetted across the street since I was going to keep to the southern end of the street this time. It didn't take long before I was walking to the entrance of the Palms. Its sleek doors looked dusty enough to make me think there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but my gut told me otherwise. Someone was in there. I wanted to know who and why.

I shoved at the doors, only to be met with another set of heavy glass doors. Ferals definitely would find it hard to get into this place with the weight it took to push them open. But it wasn't impossible. I continued on, holding my weapon in hand, ready for anything that might come tumbling toward me.

Inside, the air hung still and heavy, making the darkness thick, even with the full daylight pouring in from the doors behind me. The absence of windows made the light diminish after a few steps in, and the dark tint lining the glass didn't help. I grabbed the flashlight off my belt and clicked it on. Sweeping the beam across the premise, I found nothing out of place.

It wasn't until I bumped into a row of slot machines that a stack of plastic buckets, which had been used in the days of coins, came toppling over across my path. A snap of a rope caught my attention as one of the buckets rolled into its lasso and was sent flying as the rope's slack pulled itself taut and hung like a noose just above me.

My heart was in my throat once more as I stared wide-eyed at the booby trap dangling before me. It swayed from the momentum, but hung empty. I didn't dare step further in, suddenly aware of the slurry of traps coming into my view: hidden stakes strapped onto metal poles and endless loops of rope draped across the carpet. It was definitely rigged up, and one false step would send me flying into the air by one leg or get me staked through the heart for sure.

It was brilliant. Why I hadn't thought of that was beyond me. I carefully took stock of the surroundings and discovered a small worn path to the right of the gaming area. It was not the first choice of anyone walking through here, which made it easy to hide and disguise the trap-free route. I snickered, making my way carefully to the path without setting off any more traps.

A gurgling sound drew my attention before I got to it. Turning back the way I had come, I held my blade out as I rounded a corner to find what had created the disturbance. A feral vampire hung by one leg, swinging and thrashing as I got closer. I examined its restraint, making sure it would hold before creeping closer. I watched as it twisted to look at me, its fangs exposed as a low guttural growl formed in its throat. He swung his arms at me, making the rope sway and creak under the movement. I grinned, finding it rather amusing. The trap was quite effective, rendering him harmless as he hung like a slab of cow on a meat hook.

I held my machete up and was about to slice through his neck when another noise startled me. I spun to my right and found a man waiting nearby, arms crossed, an angered frown pasted on his face. I didn't turn back, certain the feral was helpless enough that I could leave him swinging as I sized up the stranger. Surprise was not the world that described what I felt. Shock was more like it.

"Who are you?" I demanded, gripping my machete tightly, wondering if he was a human or a hybrid. Without answering, he stepped closer, into a ray of light that leaked through a skylight high above the card game tables. He wore a rumpled light blue T-shirt with well-worn jeans covering dark black boots. His clothes were worn but clean. Stubble colored his strong jaw and his dark brown hair laid in locks that threatened to cover his ears and fall into his eyes.

The look on his face confirmed that he had not expected to encounter any humans. The very fact that whoever had taken such pain-staking steps to keep the ferals from entering the bottom floor of this place made me think that they had not figured other humans into the equation at all. How this person was so sure there were no others, was beyond me. But I had certainly not expected to meet a hybrid vampire when Miranda had waltzed into my life, for that matter. My guess was that the traps were never meant for humans, but had been laid there for feral vampires.

We studied each other, and I knew then he had stepped into the light on purpose, for me to know exactly what he was. The sun did not bother him, and there were no golden halos surrounding his irises, reflecting the light. He looked pretty human to me, which was intriguing yet shocking. I wondered what he had been up to for over a year in solitude and why I'd never run into him before.

"I'm Elijah." He tilted his head to the side and continued to glare at me. "You're trespassing." He stepped even closer, making me back up, still holding out my sword. I didn't trust him, but I could not bring myself to bolt out of there immediately.

Now standing by the dangling feral, he shifted his eyes to the animal swinging in his trap. With a snap of his arm, he decapitated the snarling creature with a sword I had not noticed on him before. Stepping back to a row of slots beside the fallen creature, he pulled the lever on the nearest slot machine which sent the rope and the body crashing down in a mangled heap. I watched his every move, waiting for an attack. But it did not come.

"You shouldn't be here." He muttered, kneeling down to undo the restraint on the feral's leg. Finding it too tight to undo, he pulled out a hatchet and hacked the foot right off. Blood sprayed the carpet, but the rope was now free—and bloodied—but he nevertheless unraveled it and reset the lasso.

"What are you doing here?" I stuttered as I waited, unsure if I should let my guard down or not. He didn't seem as threatening when his eyes were not bearing down on me. Still, I trusted no one.

"Does it matter? I live here, so go away." Emphasizing the last two words, he refocused on me with the same daggered glare. I shook my head; I wasn't going to go anywhere yet. Not without the answers I sought.

Our stare-down continued as he stood back up and pocketed the hatchet. He wiped the sword clean on the dead feral's dirty clothes before placing it into a sheath attached to his belt. Obviously, he was pretty strong and intelligent to outsmart hordes of feral vampires for so long. I felt a sort of kinship with him, knowing we must have had so much in common.

Especially the human part.

"Very well then." He groaned and turned, heading down the unrigged path to an elevator. He hit the button, which lit up at his touch. My mouth hung open as the doors slid open and the empty car revealed a well-kept ride. "You coming or are you going to stay there with your jaw on the floor?" He smirked, the death glare all but gone. I followed him to the elevator and entered, positioning myself beside him, never letting him out of my vision. He gave me a curt nod and hit the penthouse button.

The lurch made me grab the side rails of the car. The last time I had ridden an elevator was at the Stratosphere Tower. It had ended pretty badly, with me beaten and near death. It was not a pleasant memory whatsoever, and I was pretty sure my apprehension was showing as he focused his eyes on me. It was like he was trying to probe my mind as we shared this tiny space. The end came quickly, with a slight ding as the doors opened onto the highest floor of the building.

If shock could permanently be stamped on my face, right then would have been a good time for it to happen. He led me into the old Ghost Bar, a dance club I had heard about and seen advertisements for on TV. He had it all rigged up with electricity somehow, and the lights on the chandeliers above the bar twinkled. It was pristine, like any minute a gang of partiers could waltz right in. But it was just me and this Elijah. And I still had no clue who he was.

"Not too shabby, right?" He beamed at my shock and headed toward the bar. A door stood right by the end of the counter, he entered a code into the panel beside it and then pushed it open. He motioned for me to follow. I was still awestruck, but I reminded myself to remember where the hell I was.

The bottles of beer lining the shelves of the bar were green, just like the shattered glass on the road.

I entered what was a comfortably-sized apartment behind the bar. It had a simple set up to it and one black accent wall. His bedspread was a striped black and brown, making it clean and crisp. It looked like a hotel room, but the decorative knives and swords lining the walls and sitting in glass displays along with the pictures of smiling people made it more lived in. One picture was of a woman, bright blue eyes and dark brown hair. Her perfectly white smile gleamed at me through the glass. Another had an older couple, white hair peppering their once dark strands and wrinkles cinching on their happy faces. I wondered who they were, what they meant to this man. I was definitely fascinated.

He walked to the mini bar he had set up in the center of the room and pulled out two glasses and a bottle of rum. He even had cans of soda, and my heart leaped at the sound as he cracked open a can and poured it into the liquor. I had not drunk any alcohol since high school, and that had been very little. But this little luxury was too good to pass up.

Elijah held the glass out to me as he took a swig of his own. "Come on, I don't bite." I stepped forward and took the glass, looking down at the little cubes of ice floating in the liquid, hitting the sides with the usual tink. I smiled, eager to taste the fluid. I took a swig, almost coughing as the burn tumbled down my throat and into my belly, setting it on fire. "Whoa there, not so fast." He laughed, handing me a dinner napkin to mop up the dribbles sliding down my chin.

I cleaned it up and set the glass down on the counter, staring at Elijah, wondering what to say. I had imagined this moment for months, but now, finally meeting another human, I had nothing to say.

"You never told me your name." He watched me tentatively, the anger gone from his face as he tossed back his drink. He was built enough he could throw someone out of a club if he wanted, but he didn't feel dangerous to me. I hoped my gut feeling was right.

"April."

"Well, April. It seems you are the first human I have seen in Vegas in a long, long time." He set his glass down and sat on the edge of his bed. He offered me the spot next to him, to which I shook my head. I was starting to feel a tad uncomfortable standing in a bedroom with someone other than Rye.

"Everyone's dead." I managed to squeak out. Sweat was forming on my brow from the liquor, and I was sure I was drenching my maroon shirt with stains. I had hung my machete on my belt in the elevator, leaving me free to wipe my dampened hands on my jeans. He watched my every move, which made me self-conscious, but the need to talk with him overpowered my desire to run.

"Yep, that's pretty much what's happened." Elijah sighed, scratching his head and staring out the window.

"How come you're alive?" I wanted to kick myself for sounding so stupid.

"I could ask you the same thing," he mumbled. His dark brown eyes found me again but crinkled with the large smile widening across his jaw. "Glad to meet you, April. I'm sure we would've been really great friends." Elijah stood up and held his hand out to me, still flashing his pearly whites as he waited for me to take the next step. I accepted, slipping my hand into his to give it a shake.

Instead, he pulled me toward him, spinning me around so that I faced away from him, and pinned my arm behind me. He easily yanked my other hand, which was trying to reach for one of my weapons, back behind me as well. I bucked up and down, trying to hit his face with my skull or stomp his feet, but he was well trained. He dodged my efforts easily, pulling me snug against his chest, his head cradling mine as he waited for me to calm down.

His rough stubble scratched my neck, making me pull away as his hot breath trickled down the side of my face. He smelled of cologne and clean linen. Pleasant. So why was he doing this? Up until that point, I had not felt a threat from him at all.

"The city is not safe. I wouldn't dream of harming you, but I'm warning you now. Go back to where you're hiding and stay there. Don't ever come back, and don't tell a soul about me, or I will kill you." With that, he pushed me forward.

I stumbled to the floor, catching myself on a chair with my arms, which now burned from the restraint he had me locked in not a moment before. I glared at him, wide-eyed and furious. He had his sword out and pointed down toward me, but made no move to use it. "I mean it. Come back and I won't be so merciful." He spat out his words, trying to look threatening. Was that concern I saw flashing in his eyes? In a second, it was gone, leaving only the cold stare.

My gut told me it was a farce, but my mind had me scrambling to get up to run out of the apartment, into the bar and out the doors to the lone working elevator. I shoved at the call button, fumbling with my machete in the other, just in case he came stalking around the corner or changed his mind about leaving me unharmed. The familiar ding came fast and I rushed into the box, turning to see if he was there. He was. He stood nonchalantly watching me as he leaned against the wall of the entrance to the club. His face was blank as he let his eyes glide over me and down to my machete, giving me a slight nod before the doors slid shut.

Chapter Eight

Broken

Rye

Rye walked to his car as the sunrise's unseen tendrils prickled his skin and eyes, making him don his sunglasses. He hopped into the heavily-tinted dark grey Dodge Charger. The shiny exterior of the car was an inky, black pool under the scant moonlight. The air was already heating up, rolling over his skin like a wave of steam. Summer was heading their way, promising long days in the inferno of the solar glare, heating to obscene temperatures that made traversing about the land nearly impossible for him. He hated the summers in Vegas, swearing under his breath that he had to deal with yet another one.

The call of the northern west coast coursed through his veins, making him long for the wet and freezing temperatures of the sea-sprayed air. This place was nothing but dirt and death. Even the land had a way of withering the neglected buildings around him, claiming the structures back for itself. He sped down the mountain road to the even hotter and dismal valley below. How he had come to be anchored in a place like this was beyond his comprehension. He had the urge to keep driving, past The Strip and the disarrayed tangles of garbage, cars and tumbleweeds that littered the streets and highways. Keep on driving until the ocean met him with open arms once more. Only then would he feel safe and sound again.

Oh, how he longed for that day to come already.

Rye wondered if April would join him. He wondered many things about the human girl who had stolen his heart but probably didn't feel the same toward him. He had watched her pull away, watched her cease her loving embraces and holding of hands until the wall she had built up stood so high around her, he couldn't reach her anymore. Left out in the bitter cold. And he didn't even know why.

The hum of the motor made his thoughts drift. He had come to see April and found her lost in her thoughts and quiet. Dinner had been no better. He had tried to coax out of her where she had been all day long. Leaving her brother at the hive while she traipsed around town alone had sent up red flags. She loved to be alone, roam the city and do her thing. But he wanted to join her, to explore with her, spend every living second with her. Yet he didn't want to suffocate her and push her away. It was such a struggle to let her go and be who she was, but he had to. Otherwise he'd risk losing her forever.

His superior night vision left no stone or bundle of debris unseen. Rye dodged them easily, swerving at speeds that would make most lose their lunches. April hated his driving, and he had watched her bite her tongue as she silently prayed she would live through his hellish driving to see another day. This caused him to chuckle; these small things that made him think of her were the reasons why he kept coming around. He loved her, like he had never loved anyone, even Seraphin.

However, nothing made sense about April, not one thing. She's human, a human hybrid of all things. Made to fight vampires and drink their blood to pump her up into a fighting machine, like she was on steroids. He was a vampire, hopelessly in love with her. He wondered if he even meant anything to her because of this. Something was going on within her head and he'd give anything to break down her confines to ease whatever it was that was bothering her. Nothing he did sufficed. Nothing whatsoever.

He pulled into the airport, not spying as many ferals on the way back to the hive as he usually did. They stayed away from the hive for the most part, somehow knowing that the hybrid vampires fed on blood from the ferals, too. He found it odd that they would know this, but he brushed the unfamiliarity of it to the side as he hopped out to open the huge gate that was rigged to an electrical lock. He punched in the code and jumped back into his car, waiting as the gate creaked open. After driving down into an underground parking lot beneath the airport, he watched as the gate closed behind him, making sure no intruders entered before it shut.

Jumping out of the car, he made his way toward the double locked metallic doors that led into the hive. A series of locks squeaked as he punched in the codes, letting him through and shutting behind him with an automatic click. It was a double door entrance, making him wait a mandatory minute before the next door opened. Cameras focused on him as he watched the second set of doors screech open. He wondered whose eyes were watching him from the other side of the lens. Giving a curt nod to them, he walked into the massive hive's main meeting room, a large warehouse-like space made from enclosing the McCarran Airport underground bypass tunnel. Asphalt ran under his feet as he made his way to the other side, where another door led to the sleeping quarters of the three lieutenants of the hive−Blaze, Rye and Miranda.

The others watched him as he marched through, barely acknowledging them. No one challenged him; everyone knew who he was.

Blaze and Miranda were nowhere to be seen, making him wonder if they were already resting. The main meeting area was nearly deserted. With the sun rising outside, he was sure most had already sought the comfort of their rooms to rest. He shut the automated locking door behind him, stepped down the silent corridor and swiftly to his room.

Sliding onto his bed, he leaned back onto his arm and stared at the ceiling. The cold concrete was puckered and imperfect with its small ridges and porous surface. He had studied every crack and crevice over many, many months. He liked it here. It was silent and dark, giving him much-needed relaxation time, which seemed to be consumed by so many things lately. Letting his body lax into sleep had been difficult with so much on his mind, mainly April.

He hoped that this fiasco with the humans would make things clearer for her, make her realize that she wasn't alone or fulfill some endless need she harbored inside. He hoped that at the end of this, she'd come to realize that he needed her and that maybe, just maybe, she needed him too. He was patient, but he hoped it wouldn't be too long of a wait.

***

"Rye?" Miranda's voice echoed in his dreams, making the scene before him shift violently to the dark concrete walls of the hive headquarters. He sat up as the end of his bed shook when she sat down. She looked cautious, probably expecting him to pounce on her for interrupting his sleep. He found himself slick with sweat and his heart thudding in his chest from the plagued dreams. "Are you alright? I heard you yelling at someone, I thought something was going on."

Her golden-haloed brown eyes reflected the dim light of the hall just outside his room and swam with concern. She lived in one of the rooms next to his; a long hallway of dorm-like rooms had replaced the long room of stalls and beds that had been their resting places for a long time. Here, the walls smelled of new paint and wood. The smell was sometimes strong in the stale tunnel air. But overall, it wasn't too unpleasant, except when it started to make him feel suffocated and hunger for fresh air, as he did now.

Rye gave Miranda a shake of his head, reassuring her that he was okay. "No, nothing, just a bad dream. Didn't have any dinner today." He chuckled, wanting to lighten the mood and steer her off him, but she was not so easily fooled. Miranda squinted her shiny eyes toward him, full of suspicion, not likely to let him off easy.

"You sure you're okay? Need anything?"

"I'm fine. Please, go back to bed." He waved her off, watching her as she slipped silently toward the doorway. She treated him like a little brother, much like April treated Jeremy. She gave him a curt not and disappeared like a flash. Her intentions were good, but he did not want her around when he was feeling vulnerable. She was second in command of the hive, set to take over if anything happened to Blaze. It was fine with Rye, but he hated to be seen as weak.

Sitting in the bed, he rested his elbows on his knees as his hands weaved through his hair, brushing back the beads of perspiration. The residual effects of the dream slowly ebbed away as his heart found a calmer rhythm. Closing his eyes brought an image of April floating into his mind. Why did she make him feel this way? Exasperated, desperate and wanting. He felt like she was pushing him away, like a nuisance, a fly buzzing around her head and annoying her to death. He wondered if he should just let her be, let her go.

No. He shook his head at the ridiculous thought and laid back against the cool, sweat-soaked pillow. He would distance himself a bit from her, but to be too far away would be unbearable. The connection he felt to her, the need to protect her in this devastated world, was much too strong to just let go. Maybe he should just tell her outright what she meant to him and find out what made her hesitate to return his affections.

It couldn't be that bad; but even if it was, he had to know. He would tell her the next time they met and make sure that no matter what, she knew that he would be there for her.

Chapter Nine

I'll Provide the Spite

Elijah

Tears of soot and despair disappear in the dusty moonlight. Or so it seems. Elijah wiped away the grimy residue caked on his skin and weapons. It streaked across his face, leaving a trail from his rough fingers. The mirror, unlike the reflection it now harbored, was crisp and clean, like the rest of the bathroom. It stood sterile, pure and white all around him. He leaned against the rim of the sink, letting the black ash trail along the clean porcelain, staining its perfect surface. He liked that. He wanted to smear around what was left of the zombified vampires' remains, which stuck to his clothes and clung to his hair. The burnt barbeque smell permeated his nostrils, making him remember the deed long after it was done.

He hated leading them to their deaths. Though they were no longer human and no longer resembled anything with higher thinking, he still regretted the fact that he was responsible for killing them. It was getting more and more difficult to push the guilt and horror of the world back into the tiny chamber inside his head, which harbored everything that had gone wrong in his life and hid the deterioration of his morality. Turning the faucet on, he let the warm water run and splashed it his face. The fluid churned black as he washed the grime away, soaping up his arms. He had to get a shower as soon as he could, but Katrina would be waiting for him at debriefing. She wouldn't like waiting.

Slamming the water off, he dried himself with a towel, continuing to stare into the smooth mirror before him. His reflection remained constant—slightly tanned skin and gleaming brown eyes glinted back at him. His shaggy brown hair was getting long, hanging over his ears, and needed to be brushed back for him to see without it in his eyes. Short stubble grew along his jawline, making him look like a rugged woodsman. He smiled at the thought. Elijah, the huntsman. Right.

Pulling on a clean black shirt, he smoothed the wrinkles down and jerked the door open, entering the cool, brightly-lit hallway. It's too white here, he thought to himself. Sterile and plain. Whoever had built this fortress had to have been a germ-a-phobe, he just knew it. That, or some mad scientist. The gleam of the clean walls and tile made him cringe. His thoughts wandered to a hospital he had visited before the epidemic. The smells had been nauseating, and the plain color scheme of the halls and waiting rooms just reeked of institutionalization. He wondered why they couldn't have painted it more lively, vibrant and happy. Why make a hospital look like one? The same went for this place. Why so much white? Was there a deal on white paint when it had been built?

That was why he loved his city escape in the penthouse of the Palms Casino. Every time he returned to the underground, he longed to leave again and go back to his sanctuary above the city streets. Thinking of his apartment, his thoughts wandered to the girl, April, whom he had chased off. He had been surprised to see a human alive aboveground. It was something he had not expected to see for almost a year. Supposedly everyone had died or turned. If by chance any had lived, they'd have been eaten by now. No, 'surprised' was not even the right word for what he felt about his discovery. He was stunned.

He couldn't ever tell Katrina about the girl. She would have them hunt her down and drag her against her will into the underground. He prayed she never came looking for him again. If she knew about the underground, it would be a death sentence for her, or at least a definite life imprisonment.

The underground city of Vida was the most boring and ordinary place on earth. It was inhabited by humans and hybrid humans alike. It had been the last place in Las Vegas left unaffected by the viral epidemic, the last stand. This made him smirk and almost laugh out loud. He'd never believed that. He couldn't believe it was the last place on earth that was safe, especially now with April roaming around as proof of life above. He could feel deep inside him that there were others out there, somewhere. This knowledge crept in his mind and surged through his bones like a sixth sense. One day he was going to find them. With or without Katrina's help.

The thoughts of the city's dictator made him groan. The plain, thin woman had claimed leadership of this underground, prison-like facility. She had run the place before the outbreak and God forbid someone else run the place in the wake of the epidemic. She was ruthless, with dozens of loyal followers. She was pretty close to being some sort of cult leader. Waco, Texas had nothing on her. She didn't hesitate to punish those who disobeyed. He'd had a taste of her wrath before, though she could've been harder on him. He believed she was wary of him, and maybe even had a soft spot for him. However, she kept tabs on all twelve of the hybrid humans living among her human followers. She barely tolerated their presence, and they knew this well. She would not let them forget it.

Elijah knew she was scared of them, of him, of their differences and their strengths. She used them as her ultimate soldiers but never forgot to let them know that they were not quite human anymore. She never neglected to remind them of their place beneath her, beneath the others, not once extending much courtesy toward them.

In fact, if Katrina could, he'd bet she would have thrown them all into a prison cell until they rotted. But they had their uses. So, until they became unnecessary, she used them for every little task which needed to be done. Elijah was made the leader of the twelve, mainly because they listened to him. And he did what he was told. Her hold on them was wrapped with the threat of being thrown into the unknown world, a world that was dismal and barren. That or death.

They had chosen to serve as her top security detail. It's not that they couldn't have overthrown her if they had so wanted to. But it would have been bloody. With all her faithful supporters, it would have been an all-out civil war.

It was best to avoid any confrontation with Katrina. Elijah couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something off about her. It made his skin crawl to be near her, and he didn't even know why. She emanated power as though it leaked from her pores. Whatever it was that was different about her, he didn't ask. He didn't really want to know.

He never looked forward to seeing her, and despised her more than anything. For now, he kept it to himself. Just like the existence of April, it was all kept safely in his mind. Katrina would never find out about her, he would make sure of that. For now, the task of annihilating the zompires, as the Vidians had begun to call the wild vampires above, was her obsession. The half-zombie, half-vampire crazies were all that remained of civilization. This was a job he dreaded but he was satisfied that it kept her attention for now. He gritted his teeth the entire way to the debriefing room, wishing to be anywhere but here. As long as there was a "task" for the twelve, Katrina would let them remain in Vida undisturbed.

That was all he wanted, for now.

Chapter Ten

Holding Breath

April

I wondered if Mom would've approved. The old mom, I mean. The Helen I craved to see once more, the mother of my past. I peeked into the storage room just long enough to get a good look at the cage she now dwelt in. She left it occasionally, but only if I was there and awake. Otherwise, it was back into the prison cell she has made ever so comfy for herself.

The old Helen would probably not have approved. I could see her in my mind's eye frowning and shaking her head, disapproving of such an arrangement. She probably would have asked me to shoot her in the head. She would've made me do it already.

I felt defeated, like I was giving up on her as I turned away and flopped back onto my own bed. Night had crept over the horizon, and we had bunkered down for the evening. Rain had been threatening to fall all afternoon, and it now came down in sheets, keeping its ominous promise. It pummeled the walls, hard and unrelenting. I enjoyed the tapping sound; it brought life with it, something we all could use a little more of. When it rained here, it came down in torrential buckets, causing the valley to become flood zones with rapids all over the place.

I avoided the city when that happened. Even with the newly built flood channels, which remained intact, it was still dangerous to find yourself carried away in the swirling, dirty water. Some streets would flood completely and become impassable. Even some of the casinos were not left unscathed, filling up the first floors with muck and mud. If there were still people around, it might not have gotten so bad. But nature has a way of taking back the land, shifting the dirt and water to its own desires.

At least up here in the mountains we had no threat of flash floods, only the threat of mudslides covering the roads. I crossed my fingers that with every rainfall, the road to the city would remain clear. If we were cut off, it would take forever to dig our way out to get off the mountain. Not something I had time for.

I thought about the rumors of the underground city and the man in the Palms Casino—Elijah. I wondered if he was somehow connected to it. I doubted it, but I just didn't know. I felt the rumors must have been based on reality, like most are. Rolling over in the bed, I leaned on my arm, contemplating what it would be like underground. How big of a city was it? How many people were walking around in there without knowing I existed up here? What was it like to live there?

So many questions and I had no answers whatsoever. Not even one hint of how it would be there. It made my heart jump, leaving it anxious and fluttering in my chest. It made me restless, eager to get a move on, eager to find it, even if it was the last thing I did.

It had been a long time since I'd had some sort of goal. This was what I needed. I needed this to focus my thoughts. I was going insane not having anything to concentrate on, not having anything to give me some hope for the future. It was agonizing and tortuous. I wasn't the patient type, and having something to focus my energy on was a relief. It was a purpose, and I was going to find out everything I could about it. I was that driven.

"April?"

"Yeah, Jer."

"Do you think Mom's going to die?"

I turned back over, squinting my eyes as I looked at my baby brother. His face was a mask of concern, filled with features too old for such a young kid. It made my heart break, and I rushed over to give him a tight hug. "No, squirt. She's not gonna die. She might not ever be the same, but she's too tough a gal to die. Get me?" I ruffled his hair as I felt the hot tears leak from his eyes onto my shirt. He buried his face into my stomach and cried silently, never whimpering or calling out to anyone.

Mom was already gone as far as I was concerned. But how was it for Jeremy? What was he thinking about? My soul went out to the broken little boy still hiding deep inside the hard shell he had painstakingly built in the wake of being kidnapped. I wished there was something I could say to comfort him more, but the words were lodged in my throat and only silence remained.

Sucking in a breath, I licked my lips and attempted it one more time.

"Hey, it's going to be alright. You hear me, Jer? I won't let anything happen to you. I'll never leave you, and I'll always be here. Don't forget that, okay?" His head nodded softly in agreement as he tried to rub away the trails his tears had left behind on his face. He sniffled as I handed him a tissue. I was sure he didn't want Mom to hear him. He would just bury his head into the pillow if she happened to walk in.

It hadn't always been this way. Before they were taken by Christian's hive, he was stuck to my mother like glue, her little sidekick. Now, a part of him had been ripped away prematurely, amputated, leaving him ragged and torn, orphaned. I understood it, knew what it felt like, but I wasn't a little kid anymore. I'd been older when everything changed, and it had made a world of difference.

After he had settled back to sleep, I laid there awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm my mind with its erratic thoughts and endless chatter. I prayed for silence, even though only the hum of the machines filled the air. I felt more alone than ever, and I was desperate to find others like us. Not just for me, but mainly for Jeremy. He would need more than just me very soon, he would need things I could never provide. A family. Stability. If I could give him that, the one thing I actually could do, then I would do anything to do so.

***

Morning came and I had not slept at all. I had been busy formulating my plan to infiltrate the building by myself. First, I would raid the government center near the downtown area for a map of the interior of the Wynn. That way I would be prepared and ready to go into the casino without being too lost. Maybe I could even find a way down to the underground city. There had to be some sort of connection to it from the building, most likely in the basement. If I could make it that far, past any hives of ferals, I might just find the entrance to this rumored human city.

I was excited, exhilarated even. This was my purpose now, my focus. I was up at the first light of dawn, desperate to get going. Breakfast was readied in minutes for the three of us. This purpose had me humming to myself as I tossed the meal of powered eggs and ham steaks together from the storage freezer, adding some concentrated orange juice to drink. I settled down happily at the table, a sense of renewed purpose filling up my soul like food in my stomach. I even got weird looks from Jeremy, who was too sleepy to inquire about my elevated mood. My mother didn't even notice. She barely picked at her food as she sat there, lost in her own head.

I pushed her to eat, and she forced down a bite or two into her fragile, thin mouth. She was skinnier now, thinner than I'd ever seen her. Her lips were a light pale pink and slimmer. I gulped my breakfast down, my focus wavering as I watched her move her food around the plate, making it seem like she had eaten more than she had. "Mom, eat some more."

"I'm full."

"No, you're not. Eat some more, you're too thin." I urged her on.

"So, what?" She hissed, dropping her fork and letting it clatter to the floor. "What's it to you?" Helen snapped−her eyes wide and wild. Was that a snarl slipping from her throat? "I'm. Not. Hungry!"

I held my hands up as if to tell her that it was okay. "Alright, just saying." I stood up slowly, backing away until I reached the sink to wash my dishes, turning to hide the tears forming in my eyes. Jeremy's face was frozen in surprise, shocked to see his mother react the way she had. His food was half gone, but he stared hard at his plate, as though he wanted to split it into pieces. My pain shifted to anger as I gripped the sponge to wash my dishes.

This was Helen now. Mom. A woman who had always been calm and confident. Helen, who never yelled but spoken firmly, like you'd expect from a mother. This wasn't her. I didn't know who this was anymore. I wasn't sure I wanted to know her anymore, not like this.

I gulped back my sorrow and watched the water swirl down the drain, taking the small soap suds with it. The huge lump forming in my throat made it hard to swallow, knowing my mother wouldn't care anymore if I did cry. But I wouldn't cry. I didn't want to see her apathy toward me anymore. The water spiraled around the sink, and I wanted to join it, down the drain, away from this place, away from it all forever.

"I'm going into town today, Jer. Do you want to come with me and hang out with Rye's people? Or...." I carefully formed each word, afraid my voice would crack if I didn't. I didn't want to offer the alternative. At least if he came with me, Helen could roam around the bunker freely, without fear of harming someone.

"Yeah, that's fine. It'd be nice to see Rye and Miranda again," he muttered, obviously having already lost his appetite as he shoved the food around on his plate, too. "Maybe Rye will be up for a rematch on Halo." He pushed away from the table and brought his dishes to the sink. I nodded to him and let him finish cleaning up. We knew our chores and did them without any protesting.

"Okay, well, it should be fun. Do you need anything, Mom?" I spoke softly, afraid to bring her wrath out again. She shook her head without looking at me, still lost in a distant thought, staring across the room and humming softly to herself. "Alright, just make sure you take a shower and put some clean clothes on. And your sheets need washing, wash day remember?" Biting my lip, I realized just how much I sounded like her, which made me cringe. Like the old her.

I saw the slightest of nods from her and I accepted that it was all I was going to get. Heading over to grab my gear, I loaded up my weapons and a bag of snacks and water. Never knew when one might need some back up food. Shoving some small LED flashlights into the pack, I turned to wait for Jeremy to finish dressing. He hooked his knife sheath to his belt and stuffed a metal zippo into his pocket. He had his own little emergency supply bag that he belted onto his hips before joining me to leave. Walking out the door, I called out a goodbye to Mom, who was still sitting at the table silently.

"Love you," I called out to her. I didn't hear the words returned before I closed and locked the bunker door.

"When do you think she'll be fully turned?" Jeremy inquired softly. I jerked my eyes toward him, studying his face as we walked over to our car. The rain had all but disappeared. The sun shone brightly behind the trees this early in the morning. Still slightly cool from the moisture in the air, the higher the sun hung in the sky, the faster it would all dry up. That's how it was here: pouring, grey and gloomy one day, then bright sunny blue sky the next, like nothing had happened.

"She won't turn."

"Yes, she will, and you know that better than I do." His beady little eyes glared at me as I hopped into the driver's seat. I sighed heavily, letting my breath ease out slowly, giving me time to contemplate what I would say. I was still shaking from Mom's outburst.

"I don't know that, but it seems that it could happen soon if it does. It might not though, so don't hold your breath, Jer." I turned the engine, letting its welcomed hum break up the air between us. I was done speculating. If it happened, it would happen. If it didn't, then there was a God.

"That's why you don't leave me alone with her anymore, isn't it?" A small quiver lined his words. "It's not 'if' it will happen, it's 'when.'" He turned his gaze to stare at the passing scenery, now done with his complaints. I wished so badly that I could comfort him. But I wasn't the comforting kind, not all the time at least. I hoped that when the time came, I could be comforting enough. Seeing him this way broke my heart into a billion little pieces.

"Well, don't be so negative. We do what we must. For today, you hang out with Rye. I have to get a map of the Wynn, just for future reference, and it could be in a couple different places. Let him win a few rounds, K?" I heard him chuckle at the last statement, making the tense knot in my shoulders relax just a bit. "Oh, and Jer? Don't tell Rye what I'm doing. You know how antsy he gets."

He nodded. His anticipation of playing against with a real person had won over any suspicions he might have had about what I was going to do. I knew with that, he was hooked and eager to go. Who could turn down a video game challenge? Definitely not Jeremy.

Chapter Eleven

Last One

April

"Why do you always have to do things alone?" Rye's eyes narrowed as he took in the words I had just spoken. Leaving him behind to babysit Jeremy was not his idea of fun. He didn't mind hanging out with him, it was just that knowing I wanted to go searching for some hunting gear at my usual haunts sounded suspicious to him, especially the part where I wanted to go alone, even though that wasn't unusual for me.

I couldn't tell him the truth, if he knew I was going to search through the dark buildings of the government offices for blueprints of the Wynn Casino, it would make him furious. He would want to come then, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Instead I had told him I needed some alone time to breath and think about stuff. He accepted this reason, though quite reluctantly. I could tell.

"Don't be a nag. I know the risks as much as you do. I do this alone, like I always have. I don't need you or anyone to babysit me. Unlike Jeremy, I'm already an adult." My own teeth were gritting, holding back words I might regret. I wasn't used to working with another person or even answering to someone other than my mother. Though Rye was easy going and a comfort at times, I hunted alone. Period. Even with my mother, she had learned quickly that it was better to leave me to my own devices. He had to learn this soon or be tormented by my quirks.

"I'm not a nag," he sighed, rubbing his face and looking somewhat tired. "It's not safe. You know that. Why do you always leave me out of things? Is it because I told you Blaze doesn't want us to search for the human city, if there even is one?"

"I leave you out?" I huffed, almost laughing at the irony of it all. "I'm not the one making plans to exterminate feral hives and inadvertently joining the human genocide that is already happening. I'm not the one making plans to infiltrate an underground human facility without consulting a human!" I turned, already marching down the hall before I lost my temper. I could tell my words stung like salt to a wound, but I couldn't help lashing out.

"I need to get away from everything for a bit. If you have a problem with that, so be it," I hollered back to him. My patience was gone, and it wasn't even late morning yet. I was running out of daylight though, with every minute that ticked by, and I didn't want to spend it arguing with Rye.

Surprisingly, he didn't follow me. Maybe he knew me better than to continue to probe at the issue. He must have been getting to know me pretty well if he gave up so soon. Satisfied, I jumped into my car, gripping the steering wheel as I made sure Rye had returned to the hive's underground residence and had not followed me out. I was going to head back down to the other side of The Strip, toward downtown Fremont Street to get the blueprints of the Wynn Hotel & Casino. I had yet to find the right place where they kept the blueprint hardcopies. It was grating on my nerves not to have found it yet.

It sucked up my time so much, I had lost track of the days since I had seen Elijah. The Palms stared at me from every angle of The Strip, even from here, at the airport. He must have known I was searching for something. He had probably seen me once or twice sneaking around the Las Vegas Strip. His vantage point was pretty good from his penthouse. But if he knew what I was looking for, maybe he would understand. Of all people, he just might join me.

However, I had avoided his apartment since he had threatened me. He had made it pretty clear that he did not want me to return. Maybe when I found the underground city, I could approach him again. Maybe with evidence of others, he would be more forthcoming and less likely to stab me in the heart. Not that I didn't want to snap his neck myself for telling me to leave the way he had. It's just that I didn't think killing another human would be worth the trouble.

"Wait up!" Miranda's voice bounced into the car as she pulled open the door to the car and jumped onto the seat.

"Oh no, not you too!" I groaned, giving her a scowl.

"Hey, I'm so in when it comes to exploring. I need out of the hive sometimes, too. Too much testosterone, if you know what I mean." She winked, her dark eyes twinkling in the blinding light of the day. She threw on the shades she had hoisted on top of her head and wore a long-sleeved hoodie despite the growing heat, to cover her sensitive vampire skin. She fastened her seatbelt and waited for me to get going. An immortal that cared about safety. It was sort of ironic in a way, and it made me chuckle as I gave in and started the car, too grumpy to try to talk her out of coming along.

"Okay, just do me a favor: don't tell Rye what I'm—I mean, we're—doing, alright?"

"Oky doky." Miranda smiled at me then turned to look out the window without questioning me further. Sometimes I liked her no-nonsense style.

I loved Downtown. It used to be bustling with life before the outbreak. Small souvenir shops, island retail kiosks, zip line riders above our heads while the lightshow danced with multicolored LED lights, creating a unique experience. I'd never been anywhere else besides Las Vegas, but it was enough to escape the everyday mundane routine, escape to The Strip, escape to Downtown. A perfect place to blend in and disappear in the crowds. Loads of candy shops, ice cream and arcades to keep any teen busy. I knew because it had been a favorite hangout of mine and my best friend, Sarah.

But that was then. The memory faded from my eyes, and I no longer saw the twinkling lights or heard the dinging of slot machines as I approached the neglected city blocks. It was devastated. Some of the old shack-like houses looked even worse for wear, having been vandalized and wrecked during the initial outbreak. Longstanding motels sat with their windows smashed and the dirt caking them until you could no long glance inside. Celebrated wedding chapels stood with doors ripped from their hinges, and old arches were strewn across the yards where white picket fences were no long standing.

Weeds grew everywhere, the one thriving life form after the death of so many. They grew out of cracks and snaked through the edges of brown, dead lawns, stretching their fingers across the concrete, cracking it with snarling roots and littering the city with its dead cousins. Abandoned, neglected. Without order, the wild things ran rampant.

Reaching the government center off Main Street and past the casinos, I parked in the asphalt lot, unusually empty of cars. It must have been one of the first places to shut down during the outbreak. Most had sent people to emergency centers or shooed them away to their homes. Or maybe they had all left on their own accord, worried for their families, desperate to make it out of the city.

But none made it out. No one had made it. Or maybe they had. Maybe they all had gone to the underground sanctuary I was so desperately seeking. I crossed my fingers, praying the maps were inside.

Entering the building was easy. The glass that lined the roof still let in plenty of light, letting rays of sunshine stream down into the dusty corridor where the two floors stood dark and gaping down at me. I could see desks and shelves of books and paperwork lining this semicircular room. It was a shame there were so many windows; this would have been ideal for a hive of feral vampires. It was cool inside with thick rock and concrete walls. I shivered from the cool air. Miranda and I found the stairs behind the elevators. The stairwell was a bit dark, so we flashed our beams of light and sprinted up the steps three at a time until we reached the dimly-lit second floor. Only two floors to this place and no ferals in sight, my lucky day!

Finding the blueprints was the harder part. After telling Miranda what to look for, I checked each row of files on one side of the room and Miranda took the other. The place was nothing but file cabinets, rows and rows of them. I finally found the right area, but it was still tedious work, balancing a flashlight in my hand as I ran my fingers through each stack. Over and over I flipped through papers until my fingers were growing dried and sore with tiny paper cuts from the thousands of dusty files. I was thankful to not have to worry about any ferals jumping out at me; the place was abandoned. The short rays of sunshine were a welcome break in the wavering darkness.

Dropping the flashlight when I finally found the right file, I almost squealed with joy. "I found it Mir.!" I grabbed the thick rolls of blueprint after blueprint, glad they had them available and not lost on some microfiche film or scanned to a computer, which were almost impossible to view now. I guess it paid to keep paperwork. Things had reverted to the old ways, especially now that technology had failed us in more ways than one.

Miranda approached, grabbing one thick roll of blueprints from my arms. "Way to go, April. I'm glad you did."

After loading the blueprints into a large duffle bag Miranda had retrieved from my car, I dropped them into the back seat and studied the red and orange building that stared solemnly back at us. It was pretty enough, but now it stood like a lonesome soul, neglected and left to the forces of nature. No one would ever work here again. No one would sift through the cabinets full of files and knowledge, all about Las Vegas. It would stand for a while, maybe longer than some other buildings. I had made sure to lock it up tight. I didn't know when it would be needed again. If anything, at least there was one person left who even cared.

Maybe I was the only person left to care. Any which way, I was about to find out.

Chapter Twelve

Urban Decay

Elijah

The worst was over now. The debriefing had been, thankfully, brief. Nothing new. Just business as usual aboveground. Katrina had listened quietly as Elijah told her about wrangling up the zompires and torching them with daylight. Her bright blue orbs stabbing into each of the Twelve as whatever ran through her head passed behind her eyes. No big deal, right? She never said a word all through it until she nonchalantly dismissed them with a languid wave of her hand, as though shooing away an annoying child. Not even a pat on the back for a job well done or anything. Nothing but her emotionless, cold shoulder. Her face was as blank as a slate. That was all one could ask for from that crazy old bat, Katrina. Anything more would not be desirable.

Settling in for the evening, Elijah was relieved to discover that they wouldn't be sent out again for another round of exterminations. He relaxed, happy that she had not seen through him and discovered his secret about April. Katrina would never know about her. It would endanger them all. April was his secret to keep for now, and it gave him a feeling of power to know this.

Elijah sighed, frustrated to find out why Katrina wanted all the zompires killed. They only came out at night and lived in shadows during the long, hot days. They never came down far enough to breach Vida's city boundaries in the underground. Hardly a threat, really. He avoided them easily above ground, so what was she getting at? What was her ulterior motive to this particular mission?

He scratched at the growing stubble along his jaw. Katrina's motives were never quite clear. Most times he didn't care, but this had malice written all over it. His fingers smoothed down his beard; he needed to shave but had not made it a priority. More importantly, he needed to sleep for a good solid night. He was exhausted and tired of the drama that she usually pulled on him and his group. The searing stares, studying them like organisms and drawing their blood in endless rounds of testing got old fast. He didn't know what she was looking for or why. For all he knew, they were guinea pigs in a sick experiment ran by her.

So what if the twelve of them had superhuman strength and speed? They weren't vampires. They did not crave blood like the zompires. But they weren't human either, that much was obvious. What they were was something in the middle, the limbo of the aftereffects of the epidemic. Whatever it was, he regretted nothing. He rather liked being superhuman. It made him special in a way that he'd never been before it had all gone down the crap hole.

What did that make April? It was curious that the young teenager had fought with him easily. He wondered briefly about her abnormal strength. Could she be one of them, too? He shook his head; he doubted it. She was just hyped up on adrenaline when he had twisted her arms behind her back. Still, she had been pretty fierce and determined to break free. It would definitely be better if she wasn't like them. Yet there was something different, but he couldn't figure it out, so he pushed it from his thoughts.

Maybe that bat shit crazy woman Katrina will exterminate us next, when all the zompires are gone.

It definitely had crossed his mind many a time. He wouldn't put it beyond her. She was capable of ordering a lynch mob to shoot the twelve to death at any moment. But Elijah was going to be ready, watching and waiting to make sure it didn't happen. The closer they got to exterminating all of the dead from the city, the closer he'd be to getting rid of her suffocating presence. He looked forward to sticking a knife in her throat.

"Hey, Elijah, checking out for the night? We're going to play some pool for a while in the rec side of the room. Want to join?" A redheaded Sarah sat down next to him, flipping her long luscious mane in a flirtatious fashion as she waited for his response. She pointed toward some of the other twelve warriors busy playing the game. They waved back to her from across the room, which she returned with a prize-winning smile. Her black cargo pants fitted snugly over her slender curves, and her black tank top did the same for her torso. Elijah noticed it, but shifted his eyes away to his plate. She was a couple of years younger than him, but he felt worlds apart from her lively demeanor. He tore off a piece of the dried-out pizza he'd chosen for dinner as he gave her a shake of his head.

"Nope, not tonight, Scarlet." He winked at her as he said the playful nickname he had for his second in command. The twelve had their own system of ranks that Katrina was not privy to. It gave him some satisfaction that she didn't know everything that happened under their roof. What she didn't know gave them strength.

"Oh, come on, you never join us anymore," Sarah pouted, picking on one of her pink polished nails while intermittently glancing at him. She was pretty girly and attempted to keep her fashion sense in every little detail. From her polished, smooth hair to her multicolored toenails and milky soft skin, she kept up her beauty regimen even after the apocalypse. She was barely eighteen and had been a model in her past life, just a year and a half ago. He knew she felt robbed of the famed career that could have been hers. What her life had been like before was definitely not comparable to what it was now. Life was pretty screwed up that way. Now, she got to gunk up her pretty manicured hands with soot, blood, and zompire decay.

"Sorry, I got to catch some zzz's. Haven't had much lately." He winked at her and polished off his meal. It should have bothered him that he didn't know much about her, besides the fact that her father had dragged her to the Wynn, knowing there was a shelter under it. He had been one of the lead security officers there and had brought his only daughter with him for safety before the doors closed to Vida. He had died not long after, a victim of the fatal version of the virus, leaving her all alone, transformed into the superhuman that she was now. But it didn't bother Elijah, if fact, the less he knew about everyone around him, the easier it would be to let them go.

Even so, Sarah had become his right-hand woman. She was strong headed, stubborn and driven. He still felt a twinge of sympathy for her. We're all orphans here, he thought. But she was tough and he knew she'd be fine, with or without his empathy. Instead of bedding her and taking her for his own, he'd let her run the group as she wanted and never engaged in anything other than a platonic relationship with her. It wasn't what she wanted, and he knew that.

It was all rather depressing, the past, the future. It was all so bleak. He didn't want to think too long about it, so he hopped up and gave her a wave before depositing his garbage in the receptacles. Did he feel guilty knowing her eyes would be on him until he was out of sight as he exited the room? Did he even care that their less than perfect relationship was completely one-sided? No, he didn't care. He didn't have any feelings whatsoever for Sarah. It was like staring at a relative, a sister. Nothing made him feel anything anymore. All he felt was numb, empty and dead inside. He didn't know if he'd ever be capable of any kind of feelings for anyone else again. That's what concerned him the most.

Shuffling down past the stark, white halls to his quarters, he pondered on that. Since losing his entire family to the epidemic and putting them down, he had felt nothing. No feelings except maybe resentment. To fall in love would be impossible—or so he thought. He suspected that it had something to do with his superhuman powers. Maybe it had robbed him of the ability to love. He had seen a few of his twelve pair up as couples, but it wasn't for him. He hadn't seen any of the others in a different light. Not even Sarah, who was one of the only ones also not paired off. Sarah wanted more though, which he had noticed. He could see it in her gaze, in the way her hips swayed as she walked away from him. He wasn't blind, and he did like her. He just wasn't interested right now.

Heading through the door to his quarters, he slumped onto his bed and sighed, feeling the aches and pains of the day's work gnawing at him. He wasn't sleeping well, not since he had seen the April in his apartment at the Palms Hotel. Who was she? Where was she now? Wasn't everyone dead aboveground? If so, why was there a perfectly non-dead girl constantly lurking around the Palms, hoping to get a glimpse of him again? It didn't make sense.

He wanted to find her again, ask her questions and see if she really might be like him, a superhuman. But he had blown it. In his panic, he had threatened her with her life if she ever disturbed him again. He wanted to smack himself for being so shortsighted. If it was remotely possible she was a hybrid human like him and the other eleven here, she would need them sooner or later. Surviving in the outside world alone was not a life for anyone. But neither was imprisonment in the underground city of Vida.

He rolled over in bed, still baffled by April. How had she survived the nightly rampages of crazed, zombified vampires? No, there had to be some reasonable explanation for her survival. Maybe there was another human habitat nearby. Maybe. Regardless of the reason, he was going to find out. He would rest first, then seek out the girl in the dead city above to ask her those very questions.

Elijah relaxed in the room's silence. Nothing but the hum of the air conditioner filled the emptiness that hovered over him so many nights. He couldn't think about the thousands of pounds of dirt above his head. He tried not to think about the hungry, crazed mouths that snapped their jaws at him every time he ascended into the city. Their deteriorating and rotting faces were emblazoned in his mind for all of eternity, never to be forgotten. How could he forget? The epidemic had taken everything with it. All his family, all his friends, all gone in no time at all. He'd put many of them down himself and had waited impatiently for the virus to come and consume him, too. When that didn't happen and the change did not come, he'd been left confused, riddled with despair and regret.

The only reason he was even here and alive in this underground prison sanctuary was because he had been working as an usher for a show at the Wynn. He had passed by the casino in the middle of the chaos in the hopes of grabbing any familiar faces before fleeing the city forever. Instead, he had found his former boss waving him down and begging him to follow. The executives had a safe place for those who were uninfected.

Curious, he had filed in behind everyone else, walking down long corridors and halls with endless twists and turns. He had been in awe that the electricity still worked down there, where the air was so cold and the smell of paint and cement clung to the walls and pipes. All the way down through specially built tunnels, stairs and reinforced door after door, he had finally found himself in the underground city of Vida. It was breathtaking how big it was. Stores and stores of food and necessities in warehouse-like room after room, each filled to the ceiling. Large greenhouses with artificial lights surrounded the main eating area, making it seem as though they were just a stone's throw away from the natural greenery of the outside world.

Yet it was a desert and death outside, and the artificial emerald green of the vegetation being raised and cared for here looked false and out of place to him. He was used to the sand, dirt, rocks and desert shrubs surrounding Las Vegas.

It wasn't until the doors were locked behind them—once everyone was processed, pictures taken, names recorded and blood tests taken to ensure that no one was infected—that he had realize he was trapped. No one could leave. No one else was let in. The infected were taken elsewhere, where they were probably exterminated right before they turned. It was something he had never dug into too deeply.

This sanctuary was vast, but not vast enough to keep him from feeling the suffocating panic that had settled into his chest and made him make a mad dash back the way he had come, only to find the doors sealed and guarded with armed men dressed in black uniforms and machine guns aimed at his heart. He had backed away, knowing he was weaponless himself and in no position to take down the armed men. Memorizing every exit, hallway and tunnel in the place, he knew he'd escape one day, somehow. He had to. This was no way to live. It was a tomb, a fortified suspension of life.

When the time had come to do Katrina's bidding outside the underground, he had earned her trust and had made his worth obvious as a leader, a warrior, a fighter. It had been a blessing in its own right. The time spent down below, trapped in the unrelenting underground, had taken its toll on him. Agoraphobia seemed to have taken hold of everyone and no one dared wander too far from the boundaries of Vida. Not even Elijah. The furthest he had made it was the Palms Casino, where he had taken up residence when he could. He had the chance to run now, but had never taken the first step to do so. What had kept him there, so frozen, so afraid?

Chapter Thirteen

Down the Rabbit Hole

April

Now, to sneak away to the underground. But how to accomplish such a feat? That's what I wanted to know. Rye wasn't making it easy. He appeared suspicious every time I headed near the door or attempted to leave the vampire hive without him or Miranda. Was he on to me already? Probably so, since I had hastily dropped Jeremy off with him and had left without inviting him out whenever I went map hunting with Miranda and a few times before and after that. I suspected that he had interrogated her about our activities that day, but she was true to her word and had said nothing.

I hated leaving him in the dark about it all, but I couldn't let him ruin my plans to check out the underground city before I even got there. No. I would put up with him as long as I had to and get down there. I would get to the bottom of this rumor. But I had to do it without him holding me back. So he remained in the dark about it.

For now, I waited. I waited as the days went by painstakingly slow, waiting for the right moment. I dropped by the hive almost every day, and every day Rye was there, waiting for me and making sure he knew everywhere I went. I had to find a way to sneak away. I hated leaving Jeremy at home with my mother, who remained locked up in the storage room. But it was looking like I was going to have to do that to get enough time to investigate the casino.

So that's what I did. I invited Miranda to come stay with Jeremy for me while Helen remained locked up. For once I felt hope, the promise of something more in the heart of the city of Las Vegas.

***

I watched Jeremy wave to me from the entrance of the bunker before he ducked back inside with Miranda and locked the door. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I sat for a moment, twisting my hands around the rippled plastic, feeling the sweat building up on my palms. I could do this, right? I rarely felt so much doubt. I had to do this. I needed to. It felt like a compulsion so deep within to follow the road to the underground city to find the other humans.

Yet here I was, frozen in the driver's seat of my Jeep, waiting for a push from some outside force to make me go. A push that would never come. I was still surprised that Miranda had not offered to go with me. She had given me a knowing look when I had left, telling her I needed to blow off steam and go for a nice scavenging through the city by myself. She never probed further, letting me go without even a word of warning. It was easy with her. She knew I didn't want to elaborate and left it at that.

I let out my breath slowly, giving myself a pep talk and willing my foot to press on the gas. The car moved out slowly, as if it knew what to do by itself. I accelerated down the road and onto the highway, relieved that I was moving. The first step is the hardest, I thought as the asphalt sped by faster and faster. I was determined, and I knew that it was not going to be easy.

There were miles, literally miles of tunnels under the Wynn, under Las Vegas, actually. I couldn't tell exactly where they all ended up, but I suspected that at the end of one of them was a door that led farther and deeper into the ground. I was hoping there were not going to be too many feral vampires lurking about, especially since I was calculating that the human clan had probably already cleared them out of that particular casino. Still, every night was an invitation to the ferals to come inside and have a look around. New real estate. Maybe even the scent of human blood lured them in, who knew?

I gulped, hoping the humans were not aggressive. What if they were? They could kill me on site if they really wanted to. Then my brother and mother would be none the wiser of my fate, would they? Whatever happened to April? Who knows? For once I was more afraid of the unknown than the feral vampires themselves.

I shook the morbid thoughts from my head. It was grinding on my nerves, which I definitely didn't need, especially at this moment, when my doubt was at its greatest. My drive to the Wynn had gone quickly. I was almost dreading reaching the doors. I pulled into the garage where there was an entrance near the underground labyrinth that would soon be my mission to explore. It was relatively deserted, except for some stray cars and litter scattered into the corners of the concrete walls, propelled there by the rough winds of springtime. If any city should be called windy city, it should have been Vegas. It was never-ending here. Always kicking up dust and debris all over the place, flaring up my allergies. It was relentless. It was one reason I had wanted to leave this God-forsaken town after I turned eighteen.

It sure didn't look like I was ever going to be able to leave now. Where would I even go? Would it be any different from this ghost-town of a wasteland? It was highly doubtful.

Parking the car, I glanced around, watching for movement from the garage and the building itself. The windows of the hotel were one-way mirrors, reflecting back the multitude of floors of the garage. I strapped on the loose weapons I had brought on the passenger side of my car. Flashlights strewn across my chest along with a bandoleer of knives, which sat snug across my shirt. I chose two short katanas, easy to carry for they joined together into a short staff. I was hoping it would be enough to deal with ferals and humans alike. It was small enough to carry, but long enough to cause some serious damage further than an arm's reach. I secured them and then slipped on a flashlight headband to light my way and keep my hands free, smoothing back my hair under it. My long, black tresses were in a tight, low ponytail today. I thought I looked like a Christmas tree. But it was all in the name of vision.

I hoped I wasn't as noticeable to the humans with the lights. At least I had a quick shut off button in case I heard anyone. Slipping a loop of thin rope onto a clasp on my belt, I closed the door and stared at the double doors down a cement bridge that connected the garage to the building. I hoped the building was not rigged with traps. That would majorly suck.

It's now or never, I thought.

I puffed out my breath, rounding my cheeks like a chipmunk as I tried to control it. Who knew what was in there? Whatever it was, I was about to find out. I headed to the doors and peeked at their exterior. They looked undisturbed, and I prayed they were unlocked. A slow shove on the thick, tinted glass responded with a slight whoosh as the doors swung open and my intrusion sucked the air in like a vacuum. It was air tight and smelled of mustiness and old things. I took one last breath of the fresh breeze outside and slipped into the dusty darkness.

It was slow going, even though I had memorized the map. It had been difficult to read, being that it included all sorts of information on pipes and walls that looked all so unfamiliar to me. I was not an architect, and it had cost me. I had resorted to hand drawing myself a map of the labyrinth below after familiarizing myself with the ground-floor layout of the casino. I reached the stairs rather quickly and descended down into the main floor, keeping my ears on alert for any noise.

Dust floated across my beams of light, clogging up the rays and making the visibility short. I cursed as I made my way along the walls, dodging upturned chairs and garbage littering the dirty carpet. It looked like some flood waters had made it into this area; the floor felt gritty and was caked with drying mud. For the most part, it had dried in scattered puddles, leaving the floor incredibly messy but undisturbed. That meant no ferals had treaded on this mud at all. I took it as a good sign but did not let up my guard.

It didn't take too long before I made it past two dealer pits and dozens of slot machines and began to notice the familiar raunchy odor that had permeated my nostrils many times. I readied my katanas, hoping to find the lurking ferals before they found me. I snorted, knowing full well I was lit up like the apple in Times Square, a perfect shining beacon to pinpoint my spot.

Before long, I could hear it coming. One scrawny straggler, inching its way toward me like a tiger focused on prey. I must have looked incredibly savory, for it ignored the beaming lights blinding its searing red eyes and headed right toward me. For a half-starved beast, it was incredibly fast, its body looking bony and malnourished. A growl snarled through its withered lips, exposing rotting teeth and fangs. I took a quick step back before arching my sword right across its neck, sending its head tumbling and spraying ink-black blood across the cracked, muddy floor. Its body was left to twitch its last moments away near my feet. I dodged the puddle it had created near me and crept farther down the walls of the silent casino.

One down, how many more to go?

Another rounded the corner and stumbled toward me. This one was also withered but not as badly as the first one. Its wild red eyes glared hungrily, wanting nothing more than to rip into me. Its lips curled back, fangs glinting in the light of my flashlights. I let it scurry toward me before swiping one of the katanas across its body, watching as it sliced through easily, sending a spray of blood straight up and out, smacking into the roof and leaving a dripping splatter above me. It tumbled to the floor but continued to creep along the floor with its legs and one good arm. It reached out to me, fingers desperately curling in and out to grasp my clothes. I chopped the arm off and swung my sword one more time to decapitate the creature. I dodged the drips and was already past the body as it finally stopped writhing on the filthy carpet.

That was easy enough.

The trek through the darkness wasn't as nerve-wracking as I would've thought. I'd done this too many times to feel the fear penetrate any longer. It was still there though, checked into a hidden crevice in my mind and ready to pounce out if needed. But it was no longer my master, and I was no longer a slave to it. It wasn't the vampires that scared me; there were much more frightening things lurking in the darkness. Like humans. I hoped I could get in and out as fast as possible, only observing what I would find. If they were friendly, so be it. If not, well, I would deal with that as it came.

My patience was running low as I crept further into the building. It was slow going with debris and overturned furniture in my way. The stale air felt thick and made my throat itchy. Breathing in the toxic fumes of mold was going to take a toll on my allergies. I was glad I kept my prior regimen of taking my daily preventative meds going. The bottles were available in the old warehouse stores by the hundreds. I doubted I'd run out before they all expired. I never thought about what I would do when the effects no longer worked and the medications dried up from time. Any which way, the future would come. No matter what happened—or didn't happen—it was there, looming over my head.

It's not that I didn't look forward to the future. Who knows? Maybe it won't be as bleak as it seems it will be. I didn't know any of this would happen. I didn't know the world would die so fast outside my windows, withering in screams and blood. I could only hold out to find a future somewhere that resembled anything normal. Maybe that was the main reason I was down here. I was left wanting the normal, craving it like an insatiable disease eating at my insides. A normal where Jeremy could be a child, not some jaded kid raised on killing and scavenging like an animal. Most of all, I wanted him to have a life where he would have others besides me, especially when I am gone. Others to keep him safe and sound.

So, I kept on, keeping my steps light on the ground. It was a relief to arrive at the double doors that led to the underground corridors. The great metal doors creaked in the silence, filling it with a pitch that made my hair stand on end. I cringed, hoping it would not attract any unwanted attention. I leaned on the door, letting my weight hold it as it slowly came to a close. The affirmative click made me sigh in relief. It was another barrier to attack from the ferals. I didn't really expect many down in these hallways—only those who had lingered in the dark from the beginning would be found here—but I highly doubted anyone would have wanted to remain here during the outbreak. I would be surprised to find anyone here.

Stepping on the smooth concrete slabs under my feet, I kept a constant vigil back and forth, ahead and behind me. My shoes left pressed imprints in the untouched dust that stuck to everything. Cobwebs dangled above and moved delicately like moth-eaten curtains as I passed. Certainly no wind had touched them since the breakdown of civilization. I hoped my disturbance was not tragic to the tiny critters left to stare at me as I passed. I welcomed them in this darkness; their tiny, unseen eyes were surely fixed on me. I shuddered for a moment before I assured myself that only humans had been affected by the virus. Thank goodness. Who knows what it could have done to animals. So far, none were infected that I had seen.

A distant shuffling echoed down across the walls, making me stiffen. I listened to it as it faded. I prayed I had just heard myself brush against a wall, but there it was again. Something dragged, like a broken foot pulled along as the other limped on as best it could. I immediately knew it wasn't human and gripped the hilts of my swords. I was ready for it, almost eager.

I turned the corner to find just what I wanted to find: a feral, its withered body barely able to move in the darkness. It paused, a single shiny red eye finding the illumination of my flashlights too bright, making it wince. Where the other eye should have been hung an empty socket. Pus and fluid dripped down its cheek and its flesh was rotting to the point of falling off its bones. Too hungry or too weak to care, it continued to shuffle toward me, a low guttural moan barely registering in its throat. It was so weak, I almost kept walking past it, but a quick swing of my sword and it was down forever, dark, inky blood oozing from its severed neck, spilling into an impenetrable black stain on the grey floor.

I stepped over its bag of bones body. It had been weakened and slow for so long, cobwebs had taken up residence on its shredded clothes. I felt narrowly disappointed. Where was the fight? I could feel my blood burning inside my veins for more than this. It was pitiful. I was used to the vicious feral fights with snapping jaws and scratching nails trying as they must to rip my flesh away. Not this. Not this lack of strength and an odd feral vampire or two to get in my way. Where were they all?

I sighed, remembering that this place had probably been cleaned out long ago by the humans. Not only that, their nightly cattle calls with the ferals were taking their toll on the population of the wild vampires. It was definitely noticeable now, especially here on The Strip. I wondered if the humans really wanted to hide anymore. This kind of extermination would not go unnoticed by others. Didn't they know that? Their genocide was going to attract a lot more than just feral vampires.

At this I gave a short haughty laugh. Yep, attract other unsavory beings—like me. Was I not here now, lurking in shadows and eager to infiltrate their solace? I was definitely going to find them, no matter what. I wondered if anyone else ever had similar ideas. If so, they hadn't come this way from the look of the dust and mess around me. I wondered if Elijah would have done the same as I was doing if he had discovered them too. Maybe.

How many entrances were there to the underground? It hadn't occurred to me before that there could be many of them. I gulped, hoping that I was the only one sneaking in at this very moment.

Finding the door which led even further into this labyrinth, I shoved through it to find a set of stairs leading down and down. Peeking around, I saw that it only led the one way. There was no staircase up. It had to be a private entrance of some sort. I shut the door behind me and crept slowly in to glance over the rails. The stairs spiraled down on and on, disappearing into darkness−I couldn't see the bottom. There had been no electricity so far, making me think that the underground city was sealed and self-contained in every way somehow. I hoped to find some utility lines to lead me in.

I took to the steps as stealthily as I could, wincing at every creak or shift in the metal. Most of the steps were concrete, but the inlaid metal was the noise maker. I sweated all the way down, the air becoming more and more stifling. It was like smoking a cigarette of dust, and I suppressed the need to cough as well as I could. My eyes burned and watered, streaming tears down my face as I descended farther into the dark. This place was like a tomb, and I hoped it would not be my last resting place.

Chapter Fourteen

Catch Me If You Can

Elijah

Sleep evaded him, always, like chasing feathers in the breeze, it was endlessly unattainable. Elijah sat on the untouched mattress, not wanting to stare for long hours at the unchanging roof tiles. He hated nights when there were no tasks to complete and he was left to dwell in his thoughts throughout the silent hours. It made him restless to linger with the ghosts of the past, the things that were never going to be the way they were supposed to be, no matter what he would have wanted.

Running his fingers through his messed-up locks, he let out a breath. He had wanted to do so many things in his life, and it was all gone now. Sailing the Pacific, traveling to every major city of the world, becoming a successful director−those things were no longer possible. They would never happen now. No matter how much he tried to devise a way he could still accomplish some of his hopes and aspirations, it all had ended with the outbreak, filling the world with demise and death. Would there be anything left of the other side of the world to see if he was even able to get there? He doubted it. He was pretty sure devastation like the kind that had occurred in Las Vegas was worldwide. Nothing would have held it in one place. It'd been an extinction sort of event.

Elijah slipped his shoes on and pulled on a plain black shirt. He had left his jeans on when he'd laid down, so he was pretty much dressed. Wandering the hallways at night was a solace. Even with the dimmed lights, the white of the walls greyed out enough to seem more comforting than stark. He padded down the corridors, touching the smooth, painted cement blocks that composed most of the walls down here. It was pretty tough, but cold and unwelcoming. Still, he guessed warm and comforting was not in the building's blueprint plans when they had built this place.

He ducked into the control room where her highness Katrina usually sat during the daytime. Right now, without her suppressive presence, it was a sanctuary of sorts. All the cameras were doing their timed-out dance, flashing different scenes of the city across their screens. Some workers were still busy shuffling about their chores and running machines that required 24/7 operation. The wall of monitors had a sedative effect on him. He could breathe and watch the world pass him by. It made the compound feel bigger than it was.

Elijah gave a curt nod to one of the security techs who sat tweaking some camera angles. They knew his routine and left him to his own devices. He hovered over the switches, clicking them, looking for anything interesting or out of the ordinary. Usually there was nothing. Usually the monotony of flipping through each quadrant would wear him out enough to the point where he'd be able get some rest back in his room. He didn't expect anything out of the ordinary tonight.

He shouldn't have been so easily settled into his routine. He almost didn't notice when one screen flashed something unusual: a woman crept by, not quite noticing the camera until a second too late, just before she returned to the shadows. If Elijah had not been so intent on scanning the different scenes, he would have missed the flash of her presence, a presence that sent his heart jumping. It was her, the girl April, who had followed him into his sanctuary at the Palms and stalked around his apartment. It was the one who had haunted his thoughts since that fateful day.

Her dark straight hair was tied back against the nape of her neck. She had flashlights, small and square strapped across her chest and one on her head with a band holding it in place. She had already shut them off and was making her way by the bit of light filtering into the outer hallways of the compound. She had reached a side entrance that was rarely used. He wondered if she would figure out how easily she could slip in, just hot wire the door and she'd be home free.

He grinned, watching her furrow her brows at the simple contraption. They had figured zompires would not be able to get it together enough to figure out a simple door lock. He almost laughed, thinking about how Katrina had never put into the equation that there would be other humans out there who would want to sneak in. She had written off all of humanity just like that. Her error had been a big one, one he'd hope would secure her downfall soon enough.

The woman, or girl—he wasn't quite sure for he hadn't asked her what her age was, though it seemed pretty certain that she was in her late teens, maybe early twenties—made her way in easily. She slipped quietly into the rear of one of the main greenhouses. It was lit up in there like twilight all night long with the full spectrum of light slowly growing as daybreak came. It was sufficient to see a lot of the floor, though the foliage and abundance of greenery would be sufficient to hide her for a while. Elijah knew she had figured this out and was now weaving her way through jagged rows of saplings, fruit and eucalyptus trees. Her black clothing hid her enough that no one noticed the svelte woman dodging people, sticking to the shadows and snapping quick, concise pictures of everything she saw.

She's studying us.

Elijah shook his head, amused by this revelation. Of all things, this human was studying other humans! Ha! But what for? What did she want to do with those pictures? Why didn't she just waltz right up to the door and introduce herself? She was definitely human and might have been welcomed.

Or maybe not. He frowned. Katrina was volatile and could decide she was a threat to the city instead. And what if she was a hybrid human? Could she be?

He craned his neck. Trying to keep up with her on the cameras was becoming difficult. She moved stealthily, quick and silent. Few humans had these qualities. She was an expert in her movements for being so young, well versed and definitely fit. Yet her route was not concise or straight, as though she didn't know exactly where she was going. Maybe she didn't, maybe she was just exploring. Either way, if Katrina saw that he was watching her instead of arresting her, he might be in heap of trouble. He wished he could go out there, grab her and disappear, and talk with her for just a bit. If only he hadn't run her off so quickly−he'd been too worried that she would find out about Vida. She had anyway, so chasing her off had been useless on his part.

Maybe she could tell him more about the world outside, how she had survived and if she was alone out there or not. Something told him that she had been out there all this time, surviving and living off of the shattered land. It was wondrous. He longed to know her, to hear her voice tell him stories of what she'd seen, of what had happened in her life so late into the nights when the dead roamed the streets and searched for her life blood. The way she moved like a stealthy cat, quietly and smoothly, made him want to stop her in her tracks and ask her a thousand questions, if not kiss her.

"What are you doing?" Katrina's abrasive voice behind him made Elijah stiffen. He turned slowly, inconspicuously clicking the monitor to another camera, far from the woman.

"Why, hello, Katrina. Can't sleep either, huh? I was just doing some late-night work to sharpen my mind."

"Oh, cut the crap. What are you doing in here?" Her face looked puffy, as though she had rolled out of bed, run a brush through her loose, wavy hair and come straight to the control room. Could it be she was seeking him out? He wanted to snicker and say such out loud, but he pressed his lips tight before he could say a torrent of things he'd regret. She was irritated as it was, maybe from not finding him in his room.

"I can't sleep. Like I said. What's your excuse?" He turned back to the monitors, and flicked his eyes across them all, crossing his fingers and hoping April didn't appear on another camera while Katrina was here. It would not be good, not good at all.

"Hmm. I didn't think you liked camera duty that much." She came to lean on the console facing him as she crossed her arms. She looked different with her dark hair lying softly over her shoulders. Without makeup smeared across her face, she looked younger, fresher, he thought. He wasn't sure, but his aversion to her remained. Maybe it was his heightened hybrid human senses, but this woman was not right in the head. She sent a chill down his spine with just a look. He wondered how much sanity remained intact inside that skull of hers and what exactly made his skin crawl about her.

"Not much, but it's boring enough at night to help lull me to sleep." Elijah gave her a genuine smile, hoping she would just leave. Instead she sighed, turning to face the monitors and narrowing her beady eyes toward them.

Great.

"I feel the same way. Nothing like boring chores to entice the sleep to come." She reached out and clicked through cameras, viewing the different sections of Vida as though she was looking for something.

Come on...get on with it. Leave, he silently urged her.

Not finding anything of interest, she frowned, the lines around her lips betraying her age. Katrina was not that old, but her unsavory habit of smoking had done a number to add some wrinkles to her otherwise flawless face, making her look like she was in her late thirties, not thirty-three. She was older than Elijah by twelve years, but he often wondered if she had a thing for him. She made it no secret that she favored him out of the twelve, though for what reason other than his looks, he had no idea. He gave her no cause for thinking otherwise. He'd rather die than go there.

"Very well, I'll leave you to it, then. I think I'll have some warm milk and head to bed. Don't be up too late, tomorrow is a busy day." She gave him a warm smile, but he just averted his gaze. Finding this unsatisfactory, she was about to turn and walk away when she froze in her steps, her eyes widening in shock as she stared at the camera monitors.

"Did you see that?"

He sat up and did his best to act dumbfounded. "See what, Katrina?"

She rushed to the console, clicking the buttons rapidly until the screen flashed to the end of the secondary greenhouses that led to the main market of the city. Darkened and dim, it was abandoned at this time of night, but a sole silhouette of shadow gracefully walked across the camera, sending his blood running cold.

There she was, April, sneaking through the makeshift streets of their market. Elijah paled at Katrina's discovery, knowing he would be meeting this girl again in a whole different way than he'd planned.

"Notify security, get down there and detain her. She's not one of us," she hissed, pointing him out the door before he could even protest. He grabbed a radio and bolted out of there before she suspected anything, calling out to the security that roamed the halls at all hours to meet him in the market.

Damn!

Elijah broke out into a run to get to April before anyone else could. He sprinted down the staircase leading down the side of the large warehouse area that housed the greenhouses, taking them three at a time. His heart burned in his chest, making him determined to find her first. He knew the others were nowhere near that area, so it bought him a few minutes before they would come running. He wanted to be the first to lay eyes on her. He had to reach her before anyone else did, it was vital.

Pummeling through the last set of double doors, he slowed down, knowing that she was armed and probably ready to slice his head off if need be. He readied himself. He'd forgotten to get any weapons since he was off duty, but he was sure he could overtake her. Yet, he wasn't completely positive. It had just occurred to him that she might be highly trained. Maybe she would find him first and finish him off before he had any time to think. He hoped not. But she had seemed pretty strong back at the apartment. He wanted to ask her so many things.

He stopped as he neared the rear of the market, the rhythm of his frantic heartbeat booming in his ears, making it difficult to hear. No alarm had been raised besides via the radios that the security guards carried, to make sure she didn't sprint off and get away. She was, in essence, trapped. With few exits from the market to the outside world, she would not get away that easily. In a way, Elijah wanted to catch her and interrogate her. But he knew Katrina would not allow him to do that. She would throw her into quarantine up in the prison cells before even speaking to her. He shook the thought away as he came up behind where she was last seen, knowing she should still be in this area, somewhere close.

She was silent, this one.

He craned his neck to capture any slip she might make, straining to hear movements in the dark. His eyesight was pretty good at night, but not nearly as perfect as it was in the daytime. He hated how they dimmed the place to simulate nighttime. It was more for the comfort of the people than for anything else. It seemed useless since the sleeping quarters could be dimmed by each individual anyway. What was the point in that? He had no idea, but who was he to second guess Katrina's motivations?

There it was: a brief sigh, like a breeze in the still air of the city. Elijah catapulted from his position to where she was, just around the corner from him. Reaching the end of the storefront of one of the many small shops lining the makeshift street market, he paused once more, knowing she would be waiting for him around the corner. He hoped he had made it there unheard. If not, he was about to find out.

Slipping around the corner, he felt a sharp prick on his collarbone, causing him to freeze and suck a breath in. He hadn't been stealthy enough, obviously. April had been a lot quicker than he had given her credit for.

"You." She hissed, a knowing glare staring back at him. "Why are you following me?" Her voice was liquid, smooth and soft as it echoed in the alley between the stores. She stood brazen, tall but not reaching his height, with ink black hair tied in a ponytail. Her shiny blue eyes captured what little light emanated from the street lamps. He held his hands up, radio still grasped in his palm, hoping to get her to stand down. Her jawline was well defined but feminine, along with the rest of her. In all black, she looked a lot thinner, but he would not call her a skeleton. This close to her, she didn't look a day older than seventeen.

"I live here. They're coming for you, and I suggest you do what they say," Elijah whispered back. If he could be the one to subdue her, she might stand a chance of not getting killed. His eyes scanned the length of the short katana she was using to pin him down. Another was gripped tightly in her other hand. He felt pretty sure she could use them proficiently and could very well hack him up into tiny pieces if she so desired. Her fierceness was intriguing, but he had to get control of her now, before all hell broke loose. "Put the weapons down. I'm not going to hurt you."

She huffed, pushing the razor edge of the sword harder into his skin. A warm fluid seeped from where it made contact, soaking his shirt, but his gaze did not waver from hers. He was hoping his reluctance would make her nervous, and as the moments ticked by, he could see it working as her hand began to quiver. He guessed that she would run when the others arrived. He hoped not. Instead, catching the slight hesitation in her stance, he reached up, pulling her arm along with the sword forward and caught her other arm before she could stab him.

He didn't expect a fight, but she had other plans.

Stars splayed across his vision as she cracked her skull against his, sending him stumbling back and forcing him to let her go. She helped him along with a good shove from her foot. He caught himself on the edge of a windowsill and hurtled his weight forward as she turned to run. He grabbed at her legs, and they landed hard on the floor, her grip on the dual swords loosening, sending them flying across the smooth cement.

Her attempts to kick him off were useless but annoying. Her boots scraped at his chest as she tugged and pulled, jerking her knees up and down. Her skin was smooth under his grip; only streaks of dirt and dust marred it and her clothes. She must have been bathing in the dust up above to look this filthy. He pulled himself up, locked her legs under his and grabbed her forearms to pin them down. He was definitely grunting from the effort to hold this wild one down. She was no sedentary thing. She worked out and it showed. Sweat gleamed on both their faces as he glared down at her.

"Enough!" he hissed, hoping the tone of his voice would make her stop. Instead, she flashed him a narrow, evil glare before continuing to buck her hips, hoping to dislodge his grip. It was exhausting for both of them, but more so for her than him. Eventually, his weight wore her out and her chest heaved to catch her breath.

"That's better." Elijah attempted to ease up on her arms but she squirmed immediately, bringing him right back to pinning her down. He shook his head but grinned down at her, grateful for the challenge. Not much kept his attention down here, but this woman was feisty and definitely worth his attention.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked, studying her luminous eyes, watching her hate toward him deepen. This was not the feeling he had wanted to induce, but he hoped to atone for it later. "How did you find out about this place?"

"Get off me, Elijah," she hissed. A low growl flickered into her words, which made him smile even wider. At least she remembered his name. He was getting a kick out of it until he caught scent of her blood, now seeping from her cherry red lips. Tilting his head, he watched it drip down her chin, mesmerized as it dropped into a perfect circle on the concrete. It wasn't so much the color or the consistency of it, but the smell that made his eyes widen in surprise. Her entire scent was off. She smelled too familiar, like the others—like him. Not quite human.

"What are you?" he whispered urgently as he heard footsteps approaching, echoing off the walls. He had smelled this scent before, and there were only a dozen people who claimed the same affliction. "You—you're not all human, are you?" The stricken look on her face made her anger fade and the fight temporarily subside. They were both shocked, even as the other security guards grabbed her by her arms and pulled her up. He let her go, a knowing knot forming in him chest. There was only one explanation: she was also a hybrid human, just like him.

Watching as the other guards relieved her of her weapons, Elijah stood frozen in his steps, ignoring the continued drip of crimson blood staining his shirt from where she had nicked him. Another hybrid? Living above ground? How they could have missed this was beyond him. He knew of the hybrid vampires, who pretty much left them to their own devices. Katrina didn't seem worried about them at all. But another human hybrid? How did she survive up above where the zompires craved nothing but flesh and blood? How had she avoided them all this time by herself?

"Great work, Elijah." Katrina's irritating voice came up from behind him. He turned toward her, morphing his face into a blank slate of calm. She walked up to him and handed him a handkerchief. "You're bleeding all over yourself."

"Where are you taking her?"

"To the prison, of course." She glanced at him curiously, as if she could see right through to his soul. Elijah, however, knew better. The only power she had over him was the reason they, the twelve, had a place to live. If she had the chance, she would be rid of him and the other hybrids without a seconds' notice if she could. He knew she would. "Anything wrong, Elijah?"

The way she said his name made him cringe.

"No, of course not. I'll take her there myself."

She laughed, giving him a mocking smile. "I don't think that will be necessary. Besides, you're pouring blood. Go clean yourself up. We don't want to excite our other guest, now do we?" Katrina smirked, seemingly eager to throw someone else in with the other guest.

Disappointed and seething, Elijah held his tongue and gave her a nod, watching them drag April out of the market and down the corridor to the city's prison cells. It was an isolated area, quarantined for the people's safety. He might be able to sneak in there later, but it would not be without difficulty. He gritted his teeth as Katrina waved to him nonchalantly and left with the guards. He had missed his chance to talk with the girl.

But he had made a decision: he was going to enjoy killing Katrina, if it was the last thing he ever did.

Chapter Fifteen

Cheshire Smile

April

Pulled unceremoniously along, I let the guards hold my weight, not helping them one bit. They cursed at me, tugging and digging their nails into my flesh as I dropped my body slack, giving them the brunt of my dead weight to contend with. Struggling was useless and would just wear me out further. I wondered where they were taking me. Wherever it was, I was not going to go into any prison cell lightly. Especially not with some other guest they had mentioned.

Waiting for the most opportune time to escape was my only option. It wasn't going to be easy. The woman who accompanied the guards had her hawk eyes on me. Her very essence reeked of something unnatural, which made me shudder under my clothes. Whatever she was, she wasn't human either, but I doubted she was a hybrid human or vampire. I wondered how many were affected by the viral outbreak down here in their, supposedly, safe abode. If the virus had made it down here, was everyone immune? And what the heck was Elijah doing down here? He seemed pretty comfortable with the surroundings and I wondered what exactly he was hiding. I had more questions than I'd had before arriving. I had to get out of there before we arrived at the prison where it would be impossible to escape. I had to get out now or never.

I shifted my feet, picking up the pace to be even with the guards. Immediately using their surprise at me finally helping with my own weight, I stomped on one of the guard's foot, pulling the other one on the side of me into him, where they collided into each other. I didn't count on the guard behind me to slice my back with his Rambo knife as I stumbled over the two trying to run forward. The pain in my back was agonizing and I stifled a scream as I fell, sprawling across the floor. As I pushed myself off the ground, I felt a sharp prick on my thigh. I kicked at the woman who held the now empty syringe in her hand, making her drop it before getting my footing and running ahead of the collapsed guards.

I had run around the corner and farther down the hall when my vision began to blur and my legs turned to jelly. Drips of blood spotted the ground behind me, and I felt myself melting to the ground before I finally let my body fall. I struggled to turn around and stare up at the fading ceiling, unable to move but hearing everything around me, including the chaos of the guards stumbling to catch up. The perfectly crisp, white tiles lining the floor were smeared with crimson fluid. It stood out stark against the pale, pristine color. My voice gurgled in my mouth as my jaw slackened.

The woman came to hover over me, giving me a most sinister grin as she mouthed to the guards to take me to infirmary first, then to the cell. She wanted me alive when I met my new cell mate.

I don't like the sound of that, I thought. Then my vision darkened and the world was silent.

***

Someone was dragging me once more, grunting and cursing at having to lug my dead weight along. My eyes were heavy and felt like lead had been melted into them. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't open them. The same for my entire body; it hung languidly with my legs occasionally bumping into my captor's bulky thighs. I was slung over their shoulder, jerking with every step they took. A stinging ache ran along my back where I assumed they had stitched me up. The slight itch emanating from my healing skin assured me that I was healing well, but I had lost a significant amount of blood, making me feel weak and dizzy.

From the rough, bulging muscles under my stomach, I could tell my holder was a male, strong and burly. I wondered if it was Elijah. He seemed to know more about what I was than I did, which concerned me. If he knew about hybrid humans, could there be more out there that he had already run into? No wonder he had not taken any chances when it came to subduing me. He was also pretty strong—too strong actually. For a human male, his strength was abnormal, a lot like mine. Maybe he wasn't quite human either. I'd have to see if that was true, but at the moment, I didn't see how I was going to accomplish that.

Being taken prisoner hadn't exactly been in my plans.

I heard other footsteps behind us, lighter and shorter, making me think of a woman's movements. Maybe it was that witch of a woman who'd had me stitched up to throw me into some cage with the other thing she had mentioned. What the point of that was evaded me. I wasn't looking forward to meeting "it." I had to get my body working soon if that's where we were heading. I didn't want to be eaten alive.

I tried turning my head slightly, but my neck barely cooperated. My hair was loose and thankfully hung over my face like a curtain. I managed to finally open my eyelids and peek around through a parted sliver in the strands. I saw high heels, dark maroon, confirming my suspicion that I was being escorted by the woman. The man holding me wore a dark brown shirt and black cargo pants. He didn't seem to have the right build to be Elijah. That was too bad, I would have liked to do some damage to him.

Testing out my fingers, I slowly curled them into my palms, making sure it wasn't obvious enough for Miss Dictator to notice. If I could gain control of my body before getting thrown into the cell, maybe I'd have a chance against whatever was lurking in there. The sedative was strong, and its lingering effects made me question what sort of heaping dose they had given me. I hoped I would get a separate cell from the "thing" and discover they had been joking all along.

Come on body, wake up!

"No, not that one! Put her in the cell with him," the woman's voice hissed. She sounded upset, but I was pretty sure it wasn't because of me. "I brought you a little snack."

This definitely was not going to be pleasant.

I wiggled my toes in my boots, happily finding them functioning well. Maybe I'd be recovered enough to survive whatever abomination sat in there waiting to devour me.

"Come near the bars and I electrocute you." The hard edge to her voice made my hair stand on end. There was an authority to her that I couldn't pinpoint exactly, but it made her dominant over the guard. I quickly concluded that yes, she must be some sort of supernatural, too. What she was, I'd yet to find out.

I was unceremoniously dumped onto a thin, stained mattress lining one side of the cell, but my captor miscalculated and I slipped off the edge, landing hard on the abrasive, concrete floor with a thud. No one seemed concerned about it since next came the slam of bars as they shut the door and the locks clicked. My wardens shuffled away without another word as I pushed myself up with my shaky arms to sit and glance around at my new home, searching frantically for whatever shared its space with me now. Seeing nothing, I studied the bars and cell. A prison cell. Oh, yaay. Complete with a sink and a commode with no privacy. Great.

I scampered up and leaned against the frigid bars. The hallway ran to the left of the room. More cells stared back at me from across the way and one cell stood darkened next to me on the left. There were only four cells, mine being the biggest and the darkest. Not really a prison so to speak, but more of a sort of holding cell. I wondered why I was here, what good it would do to hold me prisoner. Why they would put away another human was beyond me. Especially as food for some demented creature.

"Elijah! Let me out of here!"

"Cozy, isn't it?"

The bars twanged as I launched myself back, ready to pummel the person behind me, but instead I just exacerbated the pain in my back. It surged through my skin, making me suck in my breath to keep from passing out. I flicked my eyes about to spot my cellmate, but he wasn't there. I saw nothing but shadows in the dim light of the holding cell. Squinting into the darkness, I watched as a figure emerged from it, stepping forward with eyes twinkling. One was a bright opulent green and the other the calm dark brown of dampened earth. Long, red-mahogany strands framed his face, reminding me of how it had whipped about in the howling wind, high above the city at the edge of the Stratosphere Tower.

I gasped, sucking air into my seized-up lungs. My eyes widened in horror as the man of my nightmares sat solemnly watching me. There was no way he could be alive. No way in hell. I must've been hallucinating and I wondered if the medication they had used to knock me out was giving me delusions now. Or maybe my injury was way more severe than I had initially thought.

The man who stood before me was a ghost, a fragment of all things that had haunted the nights in my dreams. I was horrified and frozen in place as he casually leaned against the bars, flashing me a smile full of fangs. Amusement twinkled in his dual colored eyes, gleaming like marbles back at me. The golden halos around his irises reflected the dim lights of the cell back toward me, a hunter trapped in bars with the prey handed to him.

"Hello love, miss me?" he snickered, letting his hands dangle out of the bars as his head rested against them.

Christian.

He didn't look like the extremely sick and dying man I had last seen. He looked pretty sturdy, maybe a bit pale and thin, but not too bad if you asked me. As a matter a fact, my shock slowly bled away as my anger toward him resurfaced, claiming back control of my body and making my heart jumpstart into a tumbling rage.

"You!" Poison for words spilled from my lips and I clumsily shifted my weight on my legs. They were working again, but I was still not as surefooted as I would've liked to be. Narrowing my eyes as they adjusted to the muted lights, I wanted to run over and clock him one across the face, and make him feel all the pain he had caused my mother. Make him feel the pain he had caused me, make him hurt for all of the life he had drained from her very soul.

He backed away a few steps as I approached, readying to pull his arms out of his sockets. He didn't look afraid but was merely curiously looking back at me. This enraged me even more as I curled my fingers into my palms, digging in my nails as I dared him with my eyes to come closer. I would show him a thing or two about vengeance if I could just manage to grab him without falling over.

Christian seemed to know what I was up to and did not stand within range. He produced a slight grin and kept it pasted across his face as a low, haughty laugh rumbled from his throat. I waited, squeezing my fists so tight I could feel the skin almost breaking from the bite of my nails.

"Now, now, April. Don't go and hurt yourself. I'd prefer not to smell the tantalizing scent of your tasty blood, if you don't mind." He sighed as his smile faded. He stepped back towards the rear stone wall of his cell and slid down, letting one of his legs extend in front of him and the other bend to let his arm rest upon it. He ran one hand through the dark red and brown strands that lay in long, thick locks covering his shoulders and back. He sighed, looking somewhat tired and pensive, as if he'd forgotten I was there. "Do yourself a favor and relax. You won't be going anywhere tonight."

Christian's eyes closed as though exhaustion had suddenly hit him. I was left unsatisfied and standing ready for a fight. My jaw ached from the tension I had let take me over, and I let my hands fall to my sides, unsatisfied. Watching him for any clue as to what was going on, I suddenly remembered that he was also a prisoner here. How had he ended up here when I had been so sure he had not survived our attack on his hive? How was it that he was very much alive?

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" I stated more than asked, not wanting to settle down and sit quite yet. I wanted answers first, and I couldn't rest, or let him rest for that matter, until I had some. "How did you get here?"

"Doesn't matter how I got here. It only matters how the hell I'm getting out of this place." His multicolored eyes glowed in the darkness like cat eyes, making me look away. His grim face was unsettling.

"I thought you died. How did you make it out alive?" I tilted my gaze back toward him as I continued, "I thought I killed you."

He chuckled, rubbing his neck as he groaned. His eyes wandered back to me, serious and cold. "You damn near did."

He didn't move from his spot or let up his stare, making me feel somewhat exposed. Scanning the room, I realized he was right. He could've killed me if he'd wanted to. I wasn't going anywhere. I sat on the hard, makeshift cot that was to be my bed for the night. I was trapped.

"But how...?"

"How what? How did I survive your disembowelment of me?" Christian sneered, knowing he had me. I needed to ask him so much now that destiny had landed us together again. I needed to ask him about what had been done to my mother. But I desired revenge. I wanted it for her, at least. The only thing he could do before I ended him for good was own up to what he had done. "One of my friends found me. Gave me some blood and an injection that remedied the sickness. He'd been sent to deliver it to me and arrived just after your group had left me for dead. If he had not come when he did, I wouldn't be talking to you now."

"Well, aren't you the lucky one." I muttered.

His lips pressed into a frown, staring at the metal bars around us. He slowly got up and stepped toward his own cot. The light above it had been busted, leaving his side of the cell in darkness. Lying down, he left his back exposed to me as his voice came out firm but sincere. "I know I don't deserve your sympathy or even your empathy in any way. But you don't know anything about me, April. I wouldn't judge anyone so quickly. Especially...." Christian swiftly shifted in the cot, turning to face me once more. "Especially since you left me pretty messed up, I was already delusional with sickness." He lifted his shirt to show me the pale scar that ran along his stomach. It was pearly white, well healed but still a scar.

The translucent flesh entranced me, its unnatural appearance had me shivering. He was so pale, like he could use a few pints. "April, I know you have a million questions to ask me."

He'd caught me off guard with such simple words. I was disarmed in a jolt and I hated him for it. I bit at my lip, turning away to sit on my own disgustingly dingy cot. Closing my eyes, I wondered if I even wanted to know what he could tell me. What if he didn't know the answers, and there was no redemption for my mother? She was lost and broken. Nothing he had to say would make a difference, would it? The damage was still irrevocable, and there was no comfort in that.

And yet, a small part of me still wanted to know if he could fix her and still wanted to make him pay, make him feel the pain and wreckage he had left for me to clean up. To make him squirm under my grip for what he had done to her would be nothing less than satisfying.

"What did you do to my mother to make her lose her grip on reality? Why did you do that to her?" A quiver ran through my voice as I choked back a sob. Tears stung my eyes and I quickly closed them, trying my best to shunt the pain away. I had to have answers. Funny how things had turned out. He'd been dropped right in front of me once more, the source of my questions himself, of all people. Only he could tell me how to cure my mother.

"I didn't do anything to her."

"Liar!" I glared at him, sending knives at his back with my eyes. "I don't believe you."

Christian shifted again, coming to face me. Leaning on one arm, he let his eyes linger on mine until I wanted to squirm from the intensity. They were peaceful and sorrowful. Something told me he wasn't lying at all, so I relented to his stare and waited for his answer, feeling my anger dissipate into a prickling disappointment.

"I'm sorry it's not what you want to hear, April. But I didn't. She was in the care of my laboratory overseer, Rick Fortunato. Unfortunately, I was unaware of any methods he used on his 'experiments,' as he referred to his subjects, until right before Blaze's hive attacked mine."

Christian's face fell into a melancholy that made him look just a bit older than his years. His answer left me at a loss for words and all I could think about how much I wanted to know how old he was. He couldn't have been more than twenty when the virus had hit. Now he was stuck at that age forever, or so was the common belief that one became immortal when the change turned a person into a hybrid vampire. No one really knew yet if it was true or not. Not enough time had passed to see if hybrid vampires were truly immortal, frozen in time, or just aging really gracefully.

"I didn't know, I swear," he continued on. "I never knew he would try to change her into one of us. He told me the effects of a vampire transformation didn't take, but that was after he'd saved me. He said he'd had to mutate the virus to force any change on her, since she was human, but highly immune. That might've turned her mad, I don't really know. He never got a chance to verify the results before you guys burst in and took her." His frown made it apparent that he had not approved of the things this Rick Fortunato had done in his lab. "Is she alright? What happened after you were reunited?"

"What happened? She lost her damn mind, that's what happened! Before I got caught in this god forsaken underground tomb, she was locking herself in our supply room cage because she was afraid she was turning into a feral vampire." I sat up and put my head in my hands, seething at my thoughts. "She's afraid of hurting me and Jeremy. Now I can't even help her or protect him because I'm here, stuck with you, of all people." My head dropped back, bumping on the hard, unforgiving metal. Tears burned at my eyes, making me groan, frustrated at everything.

"I'm sorry." His face saddened, remorse swimming across it.

I groaned loudly, hitting my fists against the warped mattress, wishing so much that I could change things. "This is nuts!" I ran my fingers through the tangles in my hair, pulling and taking some strands with them. "But you, you look fine! She's not anywhere near fine. I can't fucking believe you're still alive." Shaking my head, I managed to open my eyes and wipe the spilling tears as fast as they came. "No offense, but you're an ass."

Christian huffed and smiled, making him look even less threatening. His sallow color was disturbing. It made me feel like I was looking at a corpse. He was not emaciated yet, but he looked like he had missed quite a few meals.

As the moments ticked by, the anger fizzled away, leaving me confused, lost and uncertain of my fate. Of any of our fates.

"Hey, how long have you been down here anyway?"

"Long enough."

"They're starving you." I stated. It was obvious. "Aren't they?" I cocked my head and scrunched my eyes as I studied the lines of his pale face. I hadn't bothered to do this before, back at that fateful battle up in the tower, when he had readily wanted to harvest me for blood before I nearly killed him by slicing him open. He had looked worse back then, sallow and green, filled with some mutating, vampiric withering sickness. But now his fair skin was translucent and smooth. His long maroon hair framed his face like a blood-fire halo.

Christian was not as repulsive as I'd thought he'd be; his eyes were definitely intriguing with their clash of colors. I was sure he had not been born that way, but the sickness and subsequent cure must've left him scarred in the most unusual ways. I wondered briefly who he had been before the outbreak, what had happened to make him who he was today, the leader of a vampire clan.

"Yeah, it's the new and improved slim-fast diet." He chuckled, but I could see the pain etched across his face. He was definitely suffering. It wouldn't be too long before he was weakened enough to incapacitate him or probably kill him. Could vampires even die? Did it mean they were not in any way immortal? I had always thought that they were. Maybe not. Who knows? Things certainly had surprised me as of late. Anything could happen in this crazy world. Anything goes, I thought.

Being stuck in an underground prison cell with Christian was no exception.

Chapter Sixteen

Never You

April

"So, how long?"

"How long what?" Christian's irritation flooded his voice as my curiosity peaked. His face was pinched with pain periodically, making me wonder if starvation was that painful, or if my questions were driving him mad. Since we were stuck here together, with no way out, I figured I'd get to know him. Know thy enemy, right?

"How long before, you know, you kick the bucket?" I chewed on my lip, wondering if he was going to act all broody and uncooperative. It was going to be a hell of a long night if he didn't want to chat. I was wide awake, and I had no intention on letting him rest while so many questions dwelled in my mind.

Christian snorted and turned his gaze in my direction. Something told me he was doing the same thing I was: trying to peel away the layers that I had so carefully wrapped around me. It was my own armored wall that I had stacked so high not even I could get out. I was certain there was no way in, which was perfect for this moment.

"What? Gonna miss me?" he snickered. "I don't know. I've never starved to death before. I'll let you know when I find out." He shifted on the cot, sliding to the ground and crawling toward me. "Why do you care? You offering?"

"What? Oh, hell no!" I shuddered and stood up, meandering to the bars and glancing down the hall. The place was as silent as a morgue. Concrete and the choke-inducing, stale air made me feel suffocated. I hated it. It was worse than Blaze's hive, mostly due to the bars that held me entombed in this place.

Christian leaned on the bars on one side of his cot and let one arm hang outside the bars, watching me pace as he relaxed. The halos of his eyes reflected what little light seeped over his side, making him wince from the brightness. I had the urge to slap him, like an annoying fly that kept hovering about my head. But he wasn't a fly. He was a full-fledged hybrid blood-sucker, now immune to the deadly vampire sickness that had caused havoc throughout his and Blaze's hives. I could see his hunger in every twitch of his lips and every flash of fang as he gazed hungrily at me.

"Oh, come on, why not?" Christian closed his eyelids, sweat gleaming across his forehead as time ticked by. I definitely wanted to swat him across the face for his request. I couldn't believe he would ask me for blood. What the hell? I seethed in silence as I dug my heels into the ground. "Tell you what," he continued, "how 'bout we do this the right way, April." Nothing but calm radiated from him as he waited for me to let the fire inside me die down. I didn't want to listen to him. I already knew what he was going to say. "My name is Christian Hall. What's your name, beautiful lady?" The slight twang in his voice reminded me of a Texan cowboy. It was subtle, as though he had not spent the entirety of his life in the southern states but had moved there when he was quite young. I had to admit that I was curious about him too.

"We start over, a clean slate for both of us." He held out his pale hand.

An offer to start over? I really didn't know what to make of it. What was he playing at? Collapsing onto the cot, I leaned on my legs as I glared back at him. I sighed, feeling defeated.

"April. April Tate. And the pleasure is not mine," I hissed.

The smile Christian cracked made my anger fade a bit more as his hand returned to his side. He was amused by my little fit. His tongue ran along the sharp tips of his fangs, licking his lips but looking quite nonchalant about it all, like it was just a subconscious habit. His indifference made me feel pathetic, like I was over-reacting.

I stood up and approached him, staring him down, hoping to get a rise out of him. But would I? He was weak and hungry, craving nothing but to sink his fangs into my jugular. Still, I inched closer until I met the edge of his cot. Sinking down to my knees until our faces were nearly even with one another, I narrowed my eyes at him.

His hand reached over and carefully stroked my cheek. I wanted to flinch away, but I couldn't move my limbs at all. His eyes were hypnotizing and swirled into deep wells until I couldn't see anything but the endless emerald and brown abyss of their colors. My breath arrested and my eyes refused to close or pull away from his unrelenting stare. Everything inside me twisted as I suddenly felt a wave of nausea fill me. Breathing faster and faster, I wanted to pull away and find the air that my lungs screamed for. It was then that Christian reached out and grabbed my shoulders to give me a sharp shake, breaking the trance.

"Wake up!" A flash in my vision knocked me to the floor, leaving me gasping. All the while, my throat burned and my eyes felt like they were on fire. I choked down gulps of air into my searing chest, catching my breath. Finally, the silence engulfed me and calmer, slower breaths finally filled the void. My heart was pounding in my ears, but it eventually slowed its frantic pace.

What in the world?

What had happened was beyond me. I had never felt anything like it. It had been a rush, and the flash had been my sudden disconnection from him, from his touch.

As I regained my senses, still lying on the floor, I rolled my head toward Christian, anger burning in my eyes. "What did you do to me?" I demanded. The look on his face immediately told me that he seemed to know what he had done but was definitely as shocked as I was. His surprise made me feel a prick of fear as his voice slowly invaded my weakened consciousness.

"I–I don't know. That's never happened before..."

"Don't bullshit me!"

"I'm not." He kneeled beside me, slipping his arm behind my head and pulling me up to a sitting position. I frowned at him but let him help me back up. "I swear. I don't know what that was."

I groaned. Still dizzy from the shock which had incapacitated me. I scooted back to lean against the bars. I watched him suspiciously, wondering again why he hadn't already just bitten me. I was so close to him and now, kind of helpless. He could have drained me if he'd wanted to. Why hadn't he done so?

As though he could hear my thoughts, he answered back. "Not without your permission. I'm not that person anymore." His soft voice felt like a feather being dragged across my skin, making me shudder. He was so close he could have kissed my cheek. It was an invasion I didn't want, but I could not bring myself to shove him away. I sucked in a breath as I slid my eyes to meet his again. Would he try to control me again? How was he reading my thoughts?

"What do you mean, not without my permission?" I inquired, watching his face turn sullen as he avoided my gaze. It darkened, and I was left even more confused. I didn't yet want to crawl back to my cot. I did want to get the hell out of there and run from whatever it was that he had done to me, but in a way, I didn't want to run at all. Conflicted, I felt eerily scared. These were things I've found seductive in ways that were inexplicable.

"I will never taste your blood without your permission first. Not without your permission, ever." His promise rippled along my skin, making me shudder again. "I apologize for the way I was before. I was deranged, crazed from the sickness, not myself. It's not like that anymore."

I didn't know what this was or why it was happening now that I was sitting so close to him, stuck in a prison cell. Was he sincere? My thoughts drifted to Rye, and I missed him more than anything right then. It was Rye who made my skin shiver and his voice that sent ripples of want through me. What was this, then? It had to be some sort of trick. Maybe if I moved away from Christian, it would go away. Maybe his hold on me would wane if I inched back just a bit. If this was some sort of persuasive influence, I wanted nothing to do with it. I called on every bit of my will power and crept back, slowly sliding away.

"Don't go, please, April..." He begged as he reached out for me. "I do need blood, but I don't need much. I won't hurt you, I swear." He sounded desperate, but I managed to make it back to the cot and pull myself into it. Why did I want to give him what he wanted? Why did I want to run back and let him sever my veins and suck my crimson life into him, just like that? My body ached to let him. I groaned as I turned away from him, hoping the ridiculous urge would eventually pass.

"What's happening? Why do I feel so strange?" I moaned, curling up into a ball. "What did you do to me?"

"I−I don't know, but..." A quiver shook in his voice as he continued. "I swear I didn't do anything to you. This only happens if...but...I'm not sure. Look, I know you won't like what I have to tell you, if it is what I think it is." He paused, waiting to hear from me and searching for words.

"Spit it out already!"

"We connected now, matched. Simple as that. I−I never thought that I would match with anyone, let alone you." I could feel his gaze on my back, probably secretly enjoying my shock.

"What?" I shook my head, not believing what I was hearing. Shifting on the mattress to face him, I scanned his face for trickery. It had to be there, right? "How do you know?"

"Well," he said, rubbing his head as he sat up and slowly breathing out as he thought of what to say. "This connection... you'll feel my pain, my suffering as if it's your own. It will be the same for me too, it goes both ways. That's how this vampire connection thing goes. We're now one. We can share each other's powers too. But," he let a long breath out, looking more and more tired, "this shouldn't be happening. You're a human, not a vampire."

"No!" I sat up and gritted my teeth. "You're lying!" He watched me calmly, complete despair spilling from him. "Why didn't we connect the last time we met? I don't believe you."

"Maybe the sickness blocked it somehow. I don't know, April, I swear I don't know. We're all new to this; it's not like I planned it," he sighed letting his head drop back against the concrete wall.

I felt my stomach drop as a creepy feeling of dread seeped into my stomach. "We can't be mates, that's impossible." I shook my head, unbelieving. "I love Rye, not you!" I dropped back onto the pillow, tears streaming down my cheeks, soaking into my hair and onto the cot.

What if it was true? Could it be his way of manipulating me to get what he wanted? Nothing made sense; nothing turned this chaos in my head into a calmer ocean.

"Not you." My sobs filled the air now, and a strong overwhelming exhaustion filled me. "Never you..."

Chapter Seventeen

Never is a Promise

April

The fluorescent light seeped through my eyelids, making me groan and turn away from its assault. I didn't know what time it was, but I knew I had slept for quite a while and still felt like utter crap.

"Sleep well?" A voice jarred my memory, and it brought a loathing along with it as the events from the previous night echoed in the silence of the cell. I scanned around me and frowned, half hoping to awaken anywhere else but here in this hellish cell or some horrid, forsaken nightmare.

Christian's face came into focus and I pressed my already tense lips tighter together. He looked the same, if not a bit paler. The color did not suit him. His skin tone looked like it had once had a slight tan to it. But now it was transparent under the grey tones from the starvation. I sighed and sat up. He was on the floor and looked as though he had not slept at all in weeks, shaking uncontrollably.

"You talk in your sleep."

"What? No I don't," I muttered, throwing my legs down off the cot. My muscles ached, and my back was killing me from the stitches, not to mention the insanely uncomfortable cot. Running my fingers through my messed-up hair, I was sure I looked frightful. But why would I care? I wasn't there to impress anyone.

"You look fine." Christian waved his hand at me as he leaned against the bars.

"Oh, so now you're psychic."

He shrugged and played with the shredded end of his shirt. He must have been wearing it for some time now; dirt and filth streaked the edges, leaving it threadbare and ripped. A slight wave of nausea rushed over me, making me clutch my stomach as it surged through me. I didn't fail to notice Christian flinch along with it. Had he felt it, too?

"Uuagrh..." I moaned as it receded, like a drowning ocean tide pulling away. "What's happening to me?" I gasped, my voice croaking in a strangled whisper. Hanging my head down in my lap, I took deeper breaths as the pain finally faded, leaving me clammy and slightly lightheaded.

Christian shifted, standing up to pace back and forth on his side of the cell. He was definitely agitated by something. Maybe he had felt the pain and nausea, but he'd recovered faster than I had. I wondered how long he had been feeling that way, since he seemed so used to it now.

"Make it stop," I begged as another wave tumbled through me, sending me crashing to the floor, writhing in its tumult. My hands turned clammy as I gripped my legs tighter to me.

"Hey, April." I felt his cool hand on my shoulder as he reached out and pulled me toward him. I sat up as the agony pulled away a bit. My breathing was rapid and shallow and I prayed I would just pass out. My vision threatened to fade to black as it shrunk into a tunnel while the room spun, reminding me of the seasickness of riding in a boat. I had ridden in a few in my childhood, and it had never gotten easier for me to endure. Just like then, all my senses were off, leaving me out of balance in every way.

"Don't fight it; it's better to just breathe through it." He had me sitting up, partly against the bars and partly embracing my torso to keep me from slipping to the floor. I sucked in ragged breaths as the sweat beaded off of me.

"I can't."

"You must."

"Please, make it stop!"

"I can make it stop," he whispered as I writhed in agony. "But you wouldn't want me to do it." His warm breath tickled my face, and I turned toward him. His words came softly and momentarily soothed the pain. I wanted to sleep and forget about this and him. His arms tightened as I swayed, slipping slightly against the cold smooth bars.

"What do you need to do?"

Christian leaned his head to mine, his dark brown eye gleaming in the dark right into my own blue one. The glowing gold halo surrounding his iris was the only difference between human and supernatural. "Give me some of your blood, just a tiny bit. Then you have to drink from me. It will heal us both."

"No."

"It's the only way, April."

"It can't be the only way," I whispered. My tears tumbled down my cheeks from the tension inside me. I didn't want to hurt anymore, it was excruciating.

"It seals a bond between us, but it will take the pain with it. Once I'm not starving anymore, this torture will go away. You're feeling my torturous starvation. It will make us both whole again, and we'll be strong enough to leave this place, this tomb." Christian's voice was a melody in my head as the room continued to sway. Why he had not bitten and drained me yet was beyond me. I was slipping with every moment.

"But if I let you, we'll be bound to each other, won't we?"

He nodded, his eyes betraying his concern.

"But that's no good. What about Rye? What will this do to us?"

Christian shook his head slowly and I understood the severity of this "cure". His sincerity made me want to scream. "I can't do that to him, he'll never understand."

"No, he probably won't. But you, as well as I, will die here otherwise." He tilted his head, watching me closer. "Do you want to die here?" I shook my head. "He never told you just how a vampiric bond between mates is truly formed, did he?"

I shook my head once more, wishing I had probed Rye more about it. "How fast will it work?"

"Not as fast as you'd like, but it won't be a long wait."

"I have to think about it."

"Of course." He continued to hold onto my weakened body, making sure I didn't slip farther down. I was definitely confused and uncertain of what to do. What could I do? I hadn't expected this, almost dying from pain that wasn't even mine because I'd somehow become matched with an enemy vampire. Just my luck. I wanted to laugh out loud at the irony of it all.

"I've never let anyone drink from me before."

"Always a first time for everything." His voice was sad and did nothing to reassure me.

Keep your enemies closer they say. I was pretty sure they hadn't meant it like this. How much longer could I endure these bouts of unbearable suffering? I was pretty tough, and I had a high pain tolerance, but even the strongest can be flattened by the smallest of things. The viral epidemic had taught me that.

Why had that wretched woman left me here with him? To watch me die? Since they had yet to return, I wondered if they even thought I was still alive. Probably not. She hadn't been very interested in me as she had been with Christian's reaction to me.

The room spun, forcing me to close my eyes and grind my teeth together. I fought unconsciousness as I curled into a ball. Regardless, the light darkened as I slipped into a sweet, soothing sleep. It was funny how sleep paralyzed the pain, until it breaks through with its ensnarling fingers to stir one from the oblivion of dreams. I wanted the pain to leave me forever and let me wander away in my memories and thoughts. Alone, pain-free and lost to the world.

***

The house's stucco was chipping off, leaving bits of grey under the red, earth-colored paint. I remember picking at it, watching the flakes fall into a pile of debris, like dead leaves off a tree. I'd pick the paint right off, until the gaping hole left the house's paint job looking like Swiss cheese. My mother would yell at me for being so destructive. Not my father; he would sigh and give me a tired smile as he retrieved one of the gallons of paint he had stocked for such occasions. I'd help him smooth it out and reapply the color to the wounds, like bandages to scars, drying to heal but remaining marred forever.

Most times, I would refrain from telling my mother about this, knowing her impatience with my small rebellions would probably drive her to madness one day. My father would just wink and tell me to go clean up before dinner, assuming the task of repairing the damage in secret. I'd return his smile and run inside, relieved I wouldn't have to face my mother's wrath. I loved her, but had always gotten along better with my father, more so than I did with her. We were always at odds. I wondered why that was. Maybe she had been right; I would always be more of my father's daughter than hers. Either way, we had been happy, but nothing ever lasts forever.

The night my mom had received the call that he had suddenly died was a blur of slow motion and flashes. I remember going with her to the hospital, sitting in the wretched waiting room full of plastic chairs that were hard and uncomfortable but easily cleaned. I'm sure they had to be that way in an emergency room, so much blood and vomit and tears had to grace these chairs pretty often. The smell of bleach and latex permeated the air, making me want to run outside just to be able to breath.

I hadn't cried yet. I was frozen inside. Shock had a way of making it seem like it was happening to someone else, surreal. The waiting room had blurred out in my vision and remained suspended in a slurry of noise and flashing lights. I barely noticed the endless influx of ambulance stretchers with patients rushing through the bay entrance and the dual door to the back. People crying, some complaining about the wait. Others arguing with the nurses in the triage area. It was chaos and static noise to me.

He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. He hadn't been old enough to have a heart attack. He was young, in good shape and robust. Any minute he'd walk through the double doors of the nurses' station where the rows of curtains separated the beds of each sick person. Any minute I'd hear his voice as he called my name to come give him a hug because it had all been a mistake and he felt a whole lot better. Any minute now....

But the minute never came. I had sat there for what had felt like an eternity until my mother had emerged, puffy-eyed and exhausted, her hair disheveled and her nose flaming red from crying. One look at me as I stood up to hear any news of Dad had her stuttering as she mumbled about him being gone and how he'd had some hidden heart defect. Nobody could've known. There had been nothing anyone could've done, it was over so fast, but he didn't suffer at all.

I didn't remember much after that. Just a succession of images and voices. Me running out the ambulance bay doors and down the street, hearing her call my name into the wind and the rain coming down in sheets until it swallowed up her yells. The sting of raindrops, the burn of salt of my tears in my eyes. My hair whipping my face as it tangled up from the sopping mess it had turned into. My father was gone, and I was running like I could catch him before his soul left this earth forever. I wanted to catch him. I wanted to pull him back to earth and anchor him to the land permanently. We needed him. Come back Dad, don't go....

***

I shifted in my sleep, not realizing I was on the floor using Christian's chest as a pillow. He had managed to grab a blanket and pull it around me as best he could. He probably didn't feel the cold and his arm probably didn't cramp up under the weight of my head, but he didn't much sleep either. He was lost in thoughts that slipped into his own mind as the pain subsided for the night.

Or was it day? I couldn't really be certain. The only certainty I felt was the intense peace I felt lying next to him. I wouldn't know for a while, but he had felt happy and scared at the same time, wondering what it was that had happened to us that day. Between the worlds that divided us, we were still there alive and breathing, though barely. He whispered a soft promise that I didn't quite hear as he ran his fingers through my long black hair and let me slip in and out of delirium. As hard as I tried to listen and decipher his words, I faded into my dreams again before the jumbled whispers made any sense. It would take a long time before he eventually told me what those words had been.

Chapter Eighteen

Break

April

How many days had passed while I was in my semi-conscious state? I would occasionally surface into lucidity but it would not last long, for the pain would return quickly and clutch me to its chest with an iron grasp. I wanted to die. I barely registered Christian there, urging me to eat as the guards shoved plates of sparse food and a cup of drink through the bars for me. From the looks on their shocked faces, they were surprised I was still there, still untouched and not drained of my precious blood. I'd get a few spoonful's down and tiny sips of water before the pain would sear through me again, tossing me into the black oblivion once more.

I wondered if I'd ever see Jeremy again and how he was faring. I prayed that Miranda would not leave him alone in the bunker with my mother. Helen was capable of anything now, even harming her own son. I should've been there, but my selfishness had brought me to this, trapped and near death.

I moaned in my sleep, my clothes were sticky and filthy from fever and days of missing a nice cleaning. At moments I'd find myself awakened, embarrassed to find Christian next to me. I was pretty ripe, and the constant soaking with dripping sweat did not help matters. I wanted it to be done already, but found no solutions for my predicament.

Rye.

Where was Rye? Was he looking for me? Did he know where to look? Had Blaze forbidden him to come searching down here for me in fear that a civil war might break out between his hive and these humans? I didn't blame Blaze one bit. I had underestimated these people, belittling their ability to keep me away, never taking into the account that I might not make it back out.

And the question of what they wanted with me was the biggest one of all.

"Eat some more, April. You're going to starve before I do." Christian's voice hummed in my head as I tried to keep my heavy eyelids open.

"I can't eat any more." I pulled my face away from the spoon he held out for me. To have him feed me like a baby was mortifying. I had to get out of here, at any cost. "I can't stay here anymore; I need to get out of here."

Christian dropped the spoon in the can that had been opened for my meal. Pork and beans for days now. It was like tasting metal now, and I couldn't stomach it for much longer.

"April, I can't break the bars. I'm too weak. I need blood, but...." He sighed, leaning against the wall. He sat at the end of my cot, his blanket permanently on me now as I curled up on the other end. I watched him curiously, baffled that he hadn't just taken my blood already. How does he control it? It must be torturous.

"But I don't want to be your 'bonded mate,'" I muttered. "No offense, but this isn't possible."

"I know that."

"So, can I fight it? Is it possible to break a bond once it's formed?" My question hung over us like bricks. I doubted he even knew the answer.

"I don't know, April. I wish I did, really."

I gave him a tiny nod, knowing what he asked of me. If I didn't give him my blood, we would die here. I would never see Jeremy again. On the other hand, if I did give him a drink of my blood, I might have a new unwanted boyfriend, even though I didn't want it to come to that at all. I sighed; we were at an impasse.

I can fight it, fight the connection, I told myself. I'm strong-willed and stubborn; if anyone can do it, it's me. I'll just have to stay far, very far, away from Christian.

"So, if I let you take my blood and you break us out of here, what guarantee do I have that you won't leave me behind? I can't even stand up." I was afraid to look up, afraid to see the wrong thing behind his eyes. But I couldn't stop myself and glanced up.

As his two-toned orbs flickered over to me, a twinkle of hope flashed in them. "Once I have blood, I'll feed you some back. I swear it. You'll be like new then, and stronger. Then we both make a break for it, leave this place. I won't leave you behind, I promise." He looked serious, and I wanted to believe him more than anything.

"Will you promise me something else?" I whispered as the tendrils of pain began to snake back in.

"Yes, of course." The words felt like waves of softness rustling over my skin, almost soothing. I shook it off, my body already twitching from the impending agony. "If I can't control our connection, if I start to think you really have become my mate, would you please leave me alone and stay far, far away from me? Please?" I wondered if he understood what I asked. I hoped he would. I needed him to.

Christian's face fell, and a look of doom painted itself across it, leaving his features solemn and dark. The sadness he emitted made me want to cry, and it made me doubt he could even do what I asked. Would he say no?

An eternal moment later, he whispered back. "I'll do what you ask. But I have to help your mother first. I have to atone for the things I've done before I leave. Okay?"

Another bout of pain seized my chest, and a sick wheeze seeped from my throat as I tried to breathe through it. Every cell in my body was on fire. Every inch and hair follicle protested and seized. I barely noticed that Christian was also having a hard time with this episode of torturous agony as he sat writhing at my feet. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe. I didn't want to endure it much longer. I knew whatever it was he needed to do, I was going to let him, for it was the only way out of this mess.

The pain receded, like a calming tide washing away. It left us both heaving from the intensity of it. As my breath slowed, I waited for him to continue, though he looked incredibly pale from this last assault. If we waited any longer, it was going to be too late.

"I have to take your mother to Rick, figure out what went wrong." He gasped for air and let himself fall into bed next to me. His breathing came ragged and harsh. "I think the end is near, April." His whisper reached my ears, sending me into a panic. Closing his eyes, he became very still. With what little energy I had, I slid down next to him.

"Christian?" He didn't respond, his eyes fluttering in and out of consciousness.

Crap! I hoped I wasn't too late. If he died, I knew that I would too. I had to do something.

I brought my wrist to his mouth. His lips seared like fire from the feverish heat that consumed him now. It gave him a slight blush on his pale, porcelain skin. He looked peaceful with his eyes closed, lost in some other place. I had to wake him, let him drink from me before it was all over.

"Christian! Wake up! Here, drink." I shook him, willing him to awaken. This can't be happening. "Please..."

Just then, his eyes fluttered open and rolled around until they focused on me. I offered my arm once more, waiting to see if he had enough strength to feed. "Come on, you need blood now."

He looked like he nodded ever so slightly as he reached up, his hands shaking ferociously as he fought to curl his fingers around my thin wrist. Bringing my skin back to the warmth of his lips, I braced for the agonizing bite. His fangs flashed as his lips parted. Then, faster than I could imagine, he sunk them into my wrist. I gasped, the brief pain replaced immediately by a calm, soothing euphoria. What dirty a trick to make the hunters soothe their prey with the bite that ended their lives. I felt the warmth of my blood gush into his mouth, his tongue swirling over the fluid hungrily as he sucked harder and harder.

Would he kill me? Would he bleed me dry?

As if to answer me, he let go at that very moment. I groaned at the receding block of pain, feeling the sore ache of the wound hit me as his fingers dropped from my skin. I watched in suspended surprise as his sallow, pale skin morphed into perfect, smoothed out flesh, a blush of color growing on his cheeks. Even his hair shined as though revived with life. I didn't feel better yet and let my head drop to the mattress in a tangled mess of black, stringy hair.

"April?" Christian's voice echoed in my head, too far away to respond to. I wanted to let him know that I was going to nap, to let my dreams take me away into some warm, quiet place where there was no pain, where my father waited for me.

"April! No, you're not, stay with me hun," I heard him grunt as he bit into his arm, letting the red, silky fluid drip from the bite and splatter onto my dried, cracked lips. "Drink, April, it's your turn to get better." He pressed his wrist to my parched mouth. The spill of wetness swirled over my tongue as the echo of euphoria returned. It was sweet and slightly sticky but tasted amazing, like the perfect food.

April....

I didn't know who it was that whispered to me as Christian's life blood flooded and swirled inside, fusing my own with this elixir. All I knew was that it was exquisite; its warmth penetrated my cold limbs and sent an electrifying surge through me. My strength was returning, and my fingers curled around his skin to pull him closer. I drank his blood desperately, wanting more and more.

"April... April, that's about enough." Christian jerked away, leaving me wanting. I fought the urge to pounce on him once more and finish my drink. It took all my willpower to clear my head of the strange fogginess that surrounded my thoughts. I was feeling more like myself once he pulled away, especially with the fatigue, pain and fever receding into oblivion.

"Wow!" I wiped the drips from my chin and studied Christian. He was smiling widely, his long hair hanging down over his face as he looked down on me. "I feel so much better! I never thought...." I stopped, wondering why his lips looked so enticing right now. The pull to get closer was overwhelming, yanking me like a leash strapped to my neck.

Leaning into him, I slipped my hands around his neck and pulled him toward me. I wanted to kiss his lips, hard and desperately, let the warmth of my skin penetrate his. The taste of metallic blood mixed in our mouths, left over from our drinks. Desire flooded through my body, demanding payment and wanting to feel his hands on me. His lips were equally hungry and insatiable. We kissed and ran our hands over each other, tugging and pulling our bodies even tighter together, as though we could fuse into one being, as though this was everything we needed.

No, stop!

A thought screamed in the back of my head and made me pull away from the trance with a jolt, back into the present. I snapped my eyes open, finding Christian still so close, kissing my neck and nipping my earlobe. I shoved at him, giving him a swift push which sent him tumbling onto the cement floor. He recovered quickly, his vampire reflexes already returning in full force. Looking at me, a surprised confusion replaced the wild eyes and desire spilled off of him in waves.

We sat there in silence for what seemed like hours. I was horrified by these feelings running so unchecked and turbulent inside me. I wanted him... badly. I wanted him like I had never wanted anything before. I shook the thoughts away and tried to focus back on the task at hand. We had to get out of there before we consumed each other to death.

"We have to go. Now," I demanded, hoping he could focus enough to remember his promises. He gave me a nod, slowed his rapid breaths and stood up. He walked to the bars, took hold of two of them and pushed and pulled at them until the metal screeched in response and bent away. He was certainly powerful, probably more so than Rye. I wondered if the withering sickness had left him different, even more changed than he had been before. It left me apprehensive of what I had gotten myself into. What would his changed blood do to me?

He motioned me to follow and I jumped to my feet. The blood coursed through me, making my movements fluid once more, warming my insides as I felt it continue to strengthen me. I slid through the warped opening easily and hurried behind him, down the hall and out the unlocked prison ward doors.

Chapter Nineteen

Intentional Things

Rye

The last of the shattering glass settled around his boots. Miranda sat unmoving, her face tight but not one bit surprised. He had shoved their glasses off of the table, enraged and frustrated. "I can't believe you let her go alone." Rye's rage was cracking his voice, and his face changed shades of purple so fast he looked as though he was going to implode.

"I didn't let her go alone, she went on her own accord alone. I'm not her keeper." Miranda tilted her head, narrowing her eyes down to her now ruined breakfast. "And neither are you, for that matter."

"That's not the point!" Rye's rage surged, and it took everything he had to keep it wrangled. He slid down onto the bench across from her, not registering the stares and whispers from the other vampires eating in the cafeteria. He didn't care. They could stare all they wanted. All he wanted was to know what had happened to April. No word, no appearance for days from her, had him on the edge. Her mother and brother were also hysterical. April could take care of herself, but it was not like her to disappear without a trace for so long. "Do you know what the maps were for?"

Miranda gave him a shake of her head and sighed, looking tired but upset. "No, they were blueprints, not really maps. I know I should've asked, but you know how she is. She didn't want anyone to know. I figured she had told you, so I didn't ask. How was I supposed to know she was up to no good?" At that she stood and marched over to the broom and dustpan in the corner of the room. Returning to sweep up the mess, she avoided his burning glare.

Rye slumped. He knew she was right. April was an adult, and she had the right to privacy and her own doings. Still, something was not right. He knew it. Where are you? His thoughts held her in his mind's eye, making him feel as though the roof was falling onto him. Maybe he had suffocated her with his constant badgering and she had pushed him away for that very reason. Maybe she would have told him if he had not been so relentless to have her become his mate or be by her side all the time. He groaned at these thoughts and watched Miranda dump some of the mess into the nearest garbage can, feeling suddenly guilty that she was cleaning up the mess he had made.

"Give me that, it's my fault." He motioned for her to give him the broom. She studied his face briefly before handing it over. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

She nodded and smiled, her old self returning to her face. "It's alright. I'm worried, too. I should have been more inquisitive. It might have helped her now if she's in trouble." Her grin faded at that statement, her eyes shining with unshed tears. He gave her a nod and finished cleaning. After breakfast, he would search again for any signs of April. He had avoided looking at the Wynn, since Blaze had told them to leave it be. But now, five days after she had gone missing, he was at his wits end. He'd go against Blaze's command and check out the Wynn for himself. There was no other place she could be. At least he hoped that would be the place. Even if the underground city was not under the Wynn, she had to be near there, he could feel it in his bones.

Finishing up, he headed to his quarters to grab his gear, hoping to not run into Blaze along the way. He would surely stop Rye from leaving if he discovered his plans. If he didn't find April soon, it could mean only one thing.

He couldn't think that. Not ever.

Rye grabbed his duffle bag and began arming himself, strapping on the gear that he rarely used. The feral threat was still there, but not so much now with the humans exterminating them on The Strip. However, if April had been caught by the humans and couldn't escape, he might as well be prepared to take them on. He opened his case of guns, knowing the humans would most likely be armed, too. There was no telling what he'd be up against. He grabbed his handgun and stuffed a few magazines onto his belt compartments cargo pockets, and into a zippered vest he wore to hold more ammunition.

Pausing briefly, he wondered if the humans had any idea about his kind, the hybrid vampires. If they didn't, they'd think of him as another human. If they did, they'd be sure to be on their guard. It grated his nerves a bit, not knowing what he was up against, but he didn't allow it to hamper his determination to find April. She needed him, he could feel that in the pit of his stomach. Maybe, just maybe, with this, he could prove to her that she needed him too, in more ways than one.

Leaving the hive was easy enough; no one questioned him and his suited-up-for-war threads. Being third in command had its perks, namely that no one asked him what he was up to for the most part. Only Miranda and Blaze had any authority to do so, of course. Speaking of Miranda, he spied her waiting near the hive entrance, also fully armed.

Rye stopped, frowning at her. She knew he was going to hunt for April and had probably assumed it would be in the underground. How did she do that? Where the hell was Blaze to busy her with some mundane task? He shook his head without a word. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a knowing look.

"Oh, fine," he grunted, stepping past her and into the exit hallway. It would be pointless to tell her not to follow him. Like April, she did what she wanted. She could always pull rank on him, too. Irritated, he continued out the entrance and tossed his duffle bag into the back of the van. She did the same, slamming the door shut and jumping into the passenger side. She looked giddy, happy to be out of the confines of the hive. He couldn't blame her. He had also felt suffocated in the there−waiting and worrying.

The day was cloudy, the air thick with moisture from the recent rainfall. It was flashflood season, leaving most of the sun blocked by obnoxious clouds that threatened to dump their water all day long but failed to do so most days. That is, until they were so loaded they dumped it all at once, on one spot and flooded the area. So far, they hadn't dumped their cargo onto the dried earth, but the humidity didn't make the growing heat bearable.

"I want you to know that I am totally against you coming with me."

"I know."

Rye sighed. It was no use to keep Miranda out of it, and at least he would have someone to back him up when Blaze told him off for disobeying. Always better when trouble had company.

"Headed to the Wynn?" Miranda's sing-song voice broke the silence. Rye nodded, still lost in thought and concentrating on the ravaged road. Why the hive hadn't just cleared the most frequently used roads was beyond him. He'd have to bring it up to Blaze next time he saw him, if he wasn't raging mad.

"We'll find her, Rye. She's resourceful. I'm sure if she's in a mess she'll find a way out of it."

"I know, it's just that, I don't understand why she doesn't trust me enough to help her."

Miranda shrugged and glanced out the window, the looming buildings of The Strip growing bigger as they neared the center of the city. "Maybe she just isn't used to having help. She's been alone a lot longer than we ever were. Just give her a break. Let the bird fly. She'll come back."

Rye shot her a worried look. He wanted to believe that, with every fiber of his body. What if she didn't come back? What if she was meant to be free forever? He shuddered in his seat, trying not to think bad thoughts. April would come back; he had to believe that. She was just curious about the humans.

He reluctantly realized that he was, too. What was down there? Were there a few of them or many? What would they think of him, a hybrid vampire? Were there others like April down there? His heart ran cold thinking that there might just be. Others like her meant that she would no longer be alone. She might find comrades among them. Would he, then, be the outsider if she no longer needed him for anything?

Driving up to the Wynn, he scanned the parking lot for her car. Not spotting it, his eyes ran over the parking structure, a tall multi-leveled thing that screamed of horrors inside. Maybe not, but the clouds in the sky would let the feral vampires roam a bit more freely and earlier out into the streets, just like he was doing. He'd have to proceed with caution and make sure they wouldn't get overwhelmed before they even got that far. He hoped that April had that much sense when she had entered here. The darkness holds many things. Some things were dangerous, with sharp teeth and insatiable hungers.

Entering the garage was easy enough; no ferals in sight. As they approached the third floor, he spotted the walkway to the casino and April's car at the same time that Miranda shouted, "There's her car!"

He pulled up next to it, taking care to strap on his weapons first. He glanced around the car before jumping out. To his surprise, a lone feral wandered down the way between two abandoned cars, heading in their direction. It was moving slowly but would be sure to speed up once they left the car and their scent drifted toward it. Rye pulled out his sword, gleaming and shined to perfection. He felt disappointed that he had to muck it up already, but that was the way things went.

Heading toward it, he swung the sword with a snap, sending the feral's head flying into a red truck. Its body dropped immediately, spraying out dark black-red blood. He headed back to April's car where Miranda was inspecting the inside of it.

"She was here alright. She left willingly from her car." Miranda paused, staring at the double doors that led to the casino. "Well, at least we know where she went. I...." she stopped and turned back toward the rear of the garage, her eyes flashing in horror. "Rye, there's more!" She pulled her own sword out, not wanting to use her guns until absolutely necessary.

Rye spun around, ready to pummel another straggler but was shocked to find a herd of them, coming around the corner from the upper levels. There must have been twenty of them or more. He hoped April had not run into such an ambush, making him realize that there had been no bodies left around her car. She had not run into any, so why was there a bunch here now?

It dawned on him that this was no coincidence. Confirming it as the first of the ferals jumped toward him, snapping its jaws and stretching to reach him with languid fingers. They hung broken, like he'd been clawing at something for a long time. He went down easily but another replaced him just as quickly. Miranda was already piling a bunch up as she took on one after the other, slicing them up and letting their bodies thump on top of each other as they came.

Rye kicked the next one, sending it to its knees before decapitating it, its fingers still curling up toward him in one last attempt of scraping up a meal. They were also broken, the skin rubbed away to the bone. He'd only seen this on ferals that had been trapped, stuck in rooms or buildings where there was no way out.

As more poured out from around the bend, he quickly realized that most of them had the same affliction: broken fingers and torn skin all down their arms. Someone had trapped them, pinning them up somewhere to await a time to use them. Somehow, they had been grouped together and let loose when Rye and Miranda had arrived. It was a trap, just for them.

Great.

"There's so many of them!" Miranda's voice was laced with doubt. Doubt that they could make it out of here. Rye glanced behind them. The doors to the Wynn Casino sat looming like a cathedral entrance. There was no way to go but inside. He'd have to bar the door the moment they got inside. He was sure there would be latches on the inside to lock the doors. The only problem would be if they were already locked.

"Mir, we have to go inside, there's no way we can take all of these." He grunted as one bit into his forearm. He pummeled a fist into the side of the feral's head and sent him flying into a few others. Rye swung his sword again, slicing through three ferals before pulling out his second sword. The dual sword fighting helped keep them at bay as he backed up toward the entrance. Miranda took the lead and ran to the doors, slamming into them. They swung inward, enveloping her with a billow of dust. Rye followed right behind, pulling the doors shut as Miranda pushed on them as hard as possible, waiting for the horde to slam into them.

Rye's hands flew up to the locks, one on the top and one at the bottom of the doors, sliding the last one into place right before the thunder of bodies slammed into the them. One after the other they pounded the metal, over and over. He prayed the locks would hold. He helped Miranda off the floor as they turned their eyes into the swallowing darkness.

"Someone put them there. They were expecting us," Miranda's voice quivered. She produced a flashlight and sent the beam over the hall in front of them. It was quiet, deserted and still. Footprints stood out in the dust, stark against the dingy carpet. Only one set, which meant that whoever had penned up the ferals had not gone through the casino. Perhaps there was another entrance, another way in. For now, they had only to follow April's footsteps, the only clue as to where she had gone.

They proceeded on, taking the path of the smudged footprints and scanning the blackness of this cement tomb over and over again. Coming upon a fallen feral, Rye's heart surged. A clean cut to the neck signified that April had her swords with her and had made it this far at least. She must not have triggered any traps when she'd come this way before them. That trap had been laid out for further intruders, as if expecting someone to follow her down. He gritted his teeth, thinking about what that meant. If they expected more to come, or even just thought it remotely possible, then April had been captured, or they knew of her presence. He hoped it was the latter, because down this rabbit hole, there was no telling what would surface.

Chapter Twenty

Blood and Tears

April

I don't know how he does it, but Christian knew his way through the city as though he had once lived there. We constantly dodged people, swept through doors and locks like nothing. I knew my face was a constant mask of flabbergast as I watched him work his magic. After a while, I suspected he was hiding more than he let on, and my curiosity was getting the best of me. Only the need to be silent kept my mouth shut until we had more privacy. If the size of this place was any indication, I wouldn't have answers for a while.

Finally ascending along hidden staircases and back hallways, we made it to what looked like a massive boiler room. Large generators hummed loudly and the place was in constant vibration as they worked. I prayed it was well ventilated; I didn't want to die from carbon monoxide poisoning and gas fumes down there. Christian motioned for me to follow him, occasionally putting his finger to his lips, hushing me to be even quieter. This irritated me, but I complied, knowing it was our only way out. At least any fumes would mask the hideous odor from my clothes. I felt sticky and nasty. Hygiene had not been a concern while in unbearable pain.

As we scurried through the rows of machinery and metal, it was a wonder he could hear anyone at all. He pulled me to one side, pressed his chest against me and lodged us into a crevice between machines. As one of the workers passed by, we held our breaths. I was surprised Christian didn't repulse me as I thought he would as his body melded into mine. Now that I was fully awake and feeling much better with his blood coursing through me, I felt amazing, almost invincible. If it had been up to me, I would have done away with anyone that got in our way. But Christian was more resolved and in control, keeping me in check and both of us in the shadows.

My body was betraying me. Feeling him so close was sending tingles all across my skin. My breath came in short gasps at his proximity. I shook my head, clearing it as he stepped away, pulling me along. I frowned. Discovering that our bond was so amplified when we touched, I yanked my hand from his, afraid to touch him, afraid of these feeling whirling inside. I didn't love him, but my blood screamed to be near him. It was intoxicating, and I hadn't been prepared for it. I resented him with every morsel of my being. It was never supposed to be like this.

If only Rye or even Elijah had been able to get me out, this would not have happened. That damn witch woman had ruined my life in more ways than one, sticking me with Christian, of all beings on this earth.

But did I hate him? Did I loathe Christian for doing this to me? It had been all in the name of survival. That much I understood perfectly. Now would be the final test. Would this be worth it? Would living through this be even worse than death would've been? Chewing on my lip, I tried to distract my mind with other things, like getting the hell out of there. The engine room was so long I thought it would never end.

Finally, Christian came upon a door on the left side of the massive room, tucked in a darkened area with some junk piled before it. Obviously, it was not used at all, but this was where he was headed, so the pile was definitely problematic. He started shoving the stacks of plywood, metal sheets and a metal cart to the side. It wasn't exactly quiet work, and I cringed at every scrape of metal and every tap of sound we made. When the pile had been moved enough to crack open the door, we slipped through, miraculously unnoticed.

We found ourselves in a tunnel, like the huge wash channels outside in the city, but lined above and along the sides with large pipes running the length of it. Intermittent lights joined the pipework, but some were busted or burnt out. No one had come here in a long time, and I wondered where under the hotel we had ended up. If this was an abandoned entrance to the city, it was pretty much neglected. I hoped that meant that there wasn't much to fear. I doubted they would leave it so unguarded if there was cause for any concern.

Still, my insides twisted as we moved on. The air was musty and damp. One pipe leaked down the side of the tunnel, leaving an orange-colored rust stain mingled with green slimy muck snaking down the bricks. It pooled at the bottom and ran as a small stream under our feet, where the packed dirt squished, turned into patches of mud from the leak. I wondered where this led or if we were even headed the right direction. Again, my suspicions about Christian's knowledge of this place made me wonder if he did know where we were going. I couldn't wait any longer; the need for answers pushed at me, unrelenting.

"Christian?"

"Yeah?" he whispered, glancing around as though we might have been heard. Relaxing when he heard nothing, he kept walking.

"How do you know where to get out? How do you know so much about this place?" I watched him stiffen as he came to a stop, confirming my thoughts. He did know more about this place than he had ever mentioned.

He sighed, finally turning his head partially toward me. "I used to work here. I helped build it." Resuming our walk, he said nothing further. I, however, had a thousand more questions.

"What do you mean? You helped in its construction? Did that lady know that? Does she remember you?" I bit my lip, attempting to be patient as the questions leaked from my lips.

"No, I never saw her while I worked on it. My job was to build the lab, get stuff ordered and in place. I worked the design of it and did some counter installs, supply stocking and machinery calibrations. I never actually got to work there, though. They used to lead us through this tunnel to access it, never through the main entrance so we didn't know exactly what it was buried under. We had our assumptions, but no one was allowed in with cell phones or any way to know the exact coordinates. This leads to a garage bay where they kept tinted passenger vans to transport us in and out. They were windowless. We couldn't see out at all. Top secret."

He was obviously uncomfortable talking about it, as though he had kept a little secret that he would now be killed for telling. I wanted to laugh, to tell him that it didn't matter anymore. Those kinds of promises didn't count in a vampire apocalypse. I doubted it would be of any difference to him, though. It was cold comfort to me. Either way, it didn't matter what his reason was to have kept this from me. Just that he hadn't volunteered this information had me seething. Someone had taken great pains to keep this city a secret.

"How far is the garage with the vans?"

"Not far." He mumbled something else, but I couldn't understand him. I shrugged and briefly glanced behind us to make sure we were not being followed. I was sure they would realize we had escaped fairly soon, if they hadn't already. I turned back and ran right into Christian's back. He reached his arm back to steady me, but his face was focused ahead of us. I peeked tentatively around his shoulder to see what he was now staring at.

Elijah.

Not just Elijah, either. Eleven other people stood their ground, blocking our way, weapons drawn and ready. I sucked in my breath before I stepped beside Christian, hoping Elijah was still on my side.

"Elijah?"

He narrowed his eyes at me, but his face grew hard as he glared at Christian. I took it the vampire was a bigger threat than I was. I took the moment to flick my eyes to the others standing beside him, fanned out into a V shape.

I wondered who they all were. I studied every face, but one kept me glued onto hers a lot more than the others. The lines of her face were sharp, her thin nose petite and perfect. Long red hair draped her shoulders on both sides in thick, tight braids. It wasn't the fact that she had a gun pointed in our general direction, but her eyes, blue like sapphires that gleamed in the obnoxious fluorescent glow above our heads that drew me to her.

I knew those eyes. I had laughed, cried and hugged the girl behind those eyes many times, over many years. I knew every freckle on her face, every line that crinkled between her brows. I had heard her laugh many times and braided that very shade of red hair too many times to ever forget it. I knew her face as well as I knew my own features.

Sarah.

"Sarah?" My voice sounded dry and scraped from my throat like sandpaper. Could it be her, or was my mind playing dirty little tricks on me after my near-death experience? "It's you, isn't it?" I watched her flinch when her name spilled from my tongue, her eyes glowing brighter as they filled with unshed tears. I took a step forward, unaware of the uncertainty flaring up in not only Elijah's eyes, but the rest of the group, too.

"Stop where you are!" Her voice echoed in the tunnel, bouncing off the walls and vibrating in my chest. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot."

I froze. I felt Christian touch my hand and pull me back a step. A knot formed in my throat, and I wasn't sure what was going on. Flashes of her smile and laughter rang through my head, making me dizzy and making me search her face for any sign of recognition.

"Elijah?" I asked, my voice squeaking. "Are you going to kill us?"

He did not move or answer for what felt like an eternity. Slowly, he shook his head, his messy hair falling slightly over one eye. I prayed to see the spark of his smile once more, the genuine friendship I thought he had offered me but had so unexpectantly rescinded. I wanted his friendship more than anything right now.

"No." Elijah motioned the others to stand down, and they obeyed without any questions, without any hesitation. I watched as they lowered their weapons and tucked them away. Relieved, I glanced at Christian. Confusion swam across his face as it did on mine, too. I waited for Elijah to make the next move. I wasn't going to push it, not with twelve warriors staring me down.

Feral vampires had nothing on these twelve humans. I would have rather faced a hive of snarling, snapping jaws than ever get into a showdown with these twelve. I waited, apprehensive to make any moves, afraid it would break the fragile, still atmosphere. I even held my breath, afraid it would be enough to disturb the moment.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait long.

Elijah huffed out a breath, and the eleven bodies behind him relaxed even more. Even Sarah, who had been ready to pounce, walked on over to peer at me, staring at my face as though she wanted to memorize it. I wanted to reach out and pull her close, squeeze the air right out of her. The joy I felt at finding her again was unbearable, and my arms ached to hug her. But I waited. Was it fear or apprehension? I didn't know. But I was relieved beyond words when she reached out and pulled me close, giving me the tightest hug I could ever imagine.

I prayed this wasn't a dream.

"April!" She stepped back, holding me out with her arms. "I never thought I'd ever see you again!" Another firm embrace. I let her tears fall and soak into my shoulder as she quietly wept.

"Me neither!" I laughed, and we both let our chuckles evaporate the last of the tension. "Wait," I said, studying her curiously. She smelled different, and the power radiating off her skin felt akin to my own. "You're a hybrid, aren't you? You're different, like me−I can't believe it!" I was so ecstatic, letting the surge of excitement fill me with such happiness.

"Yeah, and look at you! Wow! You sure are pretty bad ass yourself." She finally let go and stepped away, still smiling widely. "I heard you gave Elijah a nice run for his money." She winked. I glanced toward Elijah, who waited beside her. Surprised he wasn't upset, I gave him a tentative smile. This felt like home. Like the family I was missing all along.

"Are you going to let us go?" I asked him.

He shook his head. My face fell at the gesture.

What?

"No, I'm not going to just let you go." He sighed deeply, like he was letting a weight off his own shoulders, too. "We're going to join you and leave this inferno."

I smiled, stepping forward to give him a hug. I couldn't believe it. It was more than I ever could have imagined that I would find down here. "Really?" My tears were streaming down my face now, but I hardly felt them. "Are you sure?"

He laughed, and the others joined in behind him. "Am I sure? Surer than anything! We're tired of this tomb, it's time to go."

I nodded, wiping my face with my hand, not caring if I smeared it with dirt. I wanted to go home, the faster the better.

"Let's get out of here," he said, beaming. But his smile faded as another voice disturbed the air around us.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Fourteen heads whipped around in the direction we had come, gaping in horror at who was approaching. Sure enough, the leader of the city of Vida stood smirking at us, as though we were nothing but fools.

"It's over, Katrina. We're leaving. We're done with your rules." Elijah weaved his way forward to stand in front of us as the group drew weapons once more. His glare narrowed at her, but she didn't even flinch at his daggered look. I stood weaponless, feeling naked without anything but my fists. But I was emboldened. We could take out this skinny bitch, no problem.

"Oh, Elijah. I had such high hopes for you. You can still change your mind, you know. Come back, lead the city with me. Be the ultimate leader." Her eyes flashed an angry red, like metal and car lights. I blinked to make sure I hadn't seen this illusion, but it remained. Her eyes were glowing crimson, like a feral's, but brighter.

What's this?

"No. I'd never join you, Katrina. You know that. You've always known that." He shifted, his gun still at his side as he watched her for any sudden movements. Apparently, her appearance had been disturbing to him too.

She snarled, laughing as she stepped a little closer. A ripping, rubbery sound emanated from behind her as large, black leathery wings unraveled, ripping her shirt until it lay dangling on her thin shoulders. Her skin morphed into an inky black sheen and her fingernails grew into sharp, thick talons. "You don't know what you're doing, Elijah," she snickered. Her words dripped with sarcasm as her mouth twisted open, showing a set of perfectly sharpened black teeth.

Oh crap.

I stepped back, knowing that what I was seeing was more than I'd ever thought possible. She was a frightful sight, her long hair so utterly human but her red eyes, fangs and wings made her unreal, like a thing of nightmares, a demon in the flesh. What was she? Some sort of shape shifting horror?

"What the hell is that?" I yelled, taking another step back, right into Sarah. She gave me a knowing glance, slipping a gun into my hands as she turned back to the abomination before us. The shock in her eyes told me a thousand things. The twelve warriors had never laid eyes on Katrina like this. She had lain in their midst hundreds of nights and they had been none the wiser.

"I am the queen of all vampires, my dear." Her glowing eyes flashed again, giving the room a slight strobe light appearance. I held up my gun, steadying my aim between her eyes. "You can't kill me child. I am not as fragile as you are, human." Katrina hissed, snarling as her rows of razor sharp teeth grinned back at me.

It made me cringe and my blood run a thousand degrees of cold. I glanced at Christian, who was now armed with a sword, given to him by one of the warriors. At this moment, I was glad to have him, Elijah, Sarah and the others at my back. If I was going to die it would be with dignity alongside such amazing people. I gripped my gun, my knuckles turning white as I stared down the wicked witch of the western underground.

"Some things change." I let off a shot but watched in horror as she jumped so fast that she disappeared for a moment and then swooped down, disarming me and smacking Elijah, sending him flying into the brick wall of the tunnel. Sarah lunged, shooting off her own gun as she attempted to evade Katrina's talons. She almost did, but the sound of her shriek as the mutated woman slashed her shoulder with her long, pointy fingers made my blood run even colder.

"Sarah!" What the hell was that thing? How could we stop her?

I emptied my gun in her direction, though she kept dodging and flitting across the room, flying and dipping, turning and changing her course until my chamber clicked empty. Her cackling laugh echoed on the cement all around us as she picked us off one by one, knocking others to the floor and slashing at some. She was strong, but I watched her movements, memorizing them for any weakness.

There had to be one. There always was, right?

I ran over to Sarah and, she shoved her sword at me, attempting to slow the bleeding from her shoulder. A bright red gash interrupted her perfect skin, soaking her clothes with the bloody mess. "Take it! I can't wield it now." She gritted her teeth as she flung it toward me.

I mouthed her a "thanks," hoping to keep the demon witch from returning to her and finishing the job. The others were scattered all around, some fighting, some on the ground and a couple unmoving. I squeezed the hilt of Sarah's sword, attuning myself to its balance and shifting my legs to counter it. I needed to get close enough to do some damage but not too close. She was razor sharp on all edges, and avoiding them would be best.

Come a little closer, just a bit. Come on, you freak!

My mind was focused, though the fatigue and the wear of the past few days were already crawling back into my bones. I didn't need much, just one strike to incapacitate this bat. Just one, come on, take the bait darling....

Chapter Twenty-One

Breathe Again

Rye

Miranda tugged at his sleeve, the echoing screams making her eyes grow wider. He had heard it too, his walk turning into a fast run toward the commotion ahead. They had finally found where April had headed. Sneaking into the hive had not been too difficult, even though subduing the human guards had been easy, too easy. Something was not right. Why put a trap like a horde of feral vampires to keep them out if they were not going to protect their entrance very well? Maybe their guards were distracted. Maybe something had happened. It could mean only one thing.

April.

She must have gotten out somehow, if she had been trapped down there all this time. Only she could cause such a ruckus to make all the guards disappear. It made Rye smile at the thought. She was amazing in so many ways. If anyone could escape this underground fortress, it would be her.

Once again, slipping through the underground city had been fairly easy. It was nightfall outside, and the ferals were probably swarming all over the place now. But here, it was a silent tomb. Everyone was most likely sleeping, if they kept in time with the hours above, it looked to Rye like they did. He and Miranda barely saw any humans during the whole trek through the underground warehouses. It was astonishing how much was down here. It literally was an underground city, with every need that could ever surface, met. The greenhouses were vast and beautiful with bunches of trees and plants. The large indoor pool made it seem as though the entire hotel above had been transplanted below. Room after room of stockpiles from canned food to endless rows and boxes of clothes filled the storage areas to the brim. It was breathtaking.

How this could have been built without the knowledge of the entire world was beyond him.

Luckily, he had spotted April, but she had been so far down the catwalk, following a man, she had not heard him call out to her. By the looks of it, they were trying to seem inconspicuous, walking softly and sticking to the darkened corners. Try as they might, Rye had almost lost sight of them in the enormous boiler/engine room. The noise there was deafening, and the lack of security made it easy to weave through the forest of machinery. Staying in the shadows, he tried to predict which way April and her companion had gone. He'd closed his eyes and thought of her. If he were April, where would he hide?

Luckily, the misshapen pile of debris which partially covered a door caught his attention. It looked somewhat out of place, like someone had shoved the pile to one side to get to the door. Rye glanced at Miranda, who gave him nod. They agreed it was the most logical place to go.

Through the metal door they went, still mystified at the lack of resistance they had met. Upon entering and making their way down the tunnel, echoes of screams had vibrated against the brick walls and metal ceiling. The haunting shrieks coming from the far end of the tunnel made the skin on his arms prickle with gooseflesh. He couldn't even make out where they were coming from yet. The dimness of the neglected lighting here made it impossible. Even the darkness seemed to swallow them up as the tunnel progressed. The only thing leading them in the right direction was the yelling and screaming echoes which slowly got louder.

In full sprint, Rye didn't wait to see if Miranda was still following behind him. His gut told him April was there, maybe the one screaming, for all he knew. Whatever was attacking her and her companion was hurting them badly. He had to get there now, if not minutes ago. Pulling out his swords while running was not easy, but he did it, ready to pummel whatever came into view.

Slowing down as he approached, he wasn't prepared for what hovered above a group of warriors, all swinging swords and shooting their guns upward, toward a darkened blur that shot across the roof of the tunnel. It had black wings and snarled with a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. Otherwise humanoid and female, it was vicious-looking. Its red eyes flashed brightly and its talons dripped with crimson blood. Roaring, its screech bounced on the walls, making his ears ring and surge with pain. What the hell was that?

Rye ripped his eyes away from the creature to locate April. She was perched over another woman with long red hair who was bleeding buckets. He watched as she accepted the sword from her fallen comrade and crouched away, ready to jump and strike at the flying abomination. If she failed, it would slice her into a thousand strips of blood and gore. He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let her sacrifice herself like that.

He sprinted forward, his swords swinging with the momentum. He wouldn't make it on time, and that realization hit him like a thousand darts in his chest. He could see the flying woman diving down, snarling and smirking at April, ready to take her talons to April's soft skin. His legs were on fire, burning with the effort of his full-on dash to get to her.

In what felt like slow motion, he watched as April jerked her sword down, faking her path of destruction as she rolled to her right, tucking her body into a ball as the creature fell for the false move. Jumping up and now behind the winged horror, April brought her sword down, effectively slicing through one of the creature's wings.

An unnatural scream filled the air, making most of the soldiers collapse to their knees, holding their ears from the agony. The woman took to her feet, swinging her arm to backhand April so hard it sent her flying backward into the mud, the sword slipping out of her grip. Disarmed, she would not stand a chance against that thing one second longer. Without wasting another moment, Rye dropped one sword, gripped the other with both hands and pushed off the ground behind the monster. He pulled his arm back and arched his sword upward and toward her neck.

It met its mark, sending her head plummeting to the floor and the headless body, writhing behind it, sprayed a fountain of dark, reddish green blood. It jerked and spasmed across the mud as its lone wing thrashed and twitched. Finally, it fell in a heap, right on top of April. Rye hurried to toss the creature off her.

The demon's body was surprisingly light, but he could feel its ferocious muscles under the humanoid skin withering away as its blood drained into the mud, making it black and sticky. It stuck to his boots and soaked his pants as he reached over to April and cradled her to his chest. She had been knocked out by the hit she had received, leaving her unconscious with a bloody claw mark where the woman's talons had sliced into her cheek. It stood out across her perfect skin, bleeding and bubbling with a green ooze that seemed to be festering before his eyes.

He shook her, called her name and willed her to open her eyes, but she didn't. He slid his fingers below her jaw to feel for a faint beat under her warm skin. He found it, but it was weak and thready, almost fading. He had to save her, but the only way he knew was with blood.

He bit into his wrist and dripped the warm, viscous liquid down into her mouth. It stained her teeth and slid down past her tongue. Hope surged through him as he saw a faint swallow, hoping it would work. But she didn't wake up, and her heartbeat became slower and slower.

"April!" He yelled at her, hoping to startle her awake. "Come on baby, open your eyes. A hand slid over his shoulder, making him jerk his head around to find Miranda. She was squatting next to him, having just checked the redhead who was also unconscious from the festering wound on her shoulder.

"It's poison. Her talons had some sort of venom excreting from them. I think it's lethal." She pointed over to one of the downed warriors, the first to be scratched. His skin was pale with a shade of green tint to it, his chest still and unmoving. "It's like the vampire withering sickness that turns us green, but works even faster." Her eyes searched his face, a doomed look slipping into her gaze.

"No, she's not going to die."

"The human woman is near death, too. It won't be long until...."

"No!" He glared at his commanding officer, unwilling to hear her out any longer.

Christian came stumbling over to them. His chest had been slashed by the creature, but it was already healing, weaving itself together. "Move."

"Don't touch her," Rye hissed at the hybrid vampire who obviously was the last person he had expected to see.

"If I don't give her blood, she dies." Christian met his stare with equal intensity, trying not to shove Rye away, though he wanted to with every cell of his body. The way he held April was too intimate, too close. He swallowed down the jealous feelings and waited impatiently for Rye to relent.

"I already gave her blood. It's not working."

"That's because you are not immune to the withering." He ripped away the rest of his shirt, showing blood smeared across his perfect chest. Where the creature's claws had slashed him, only healed skin lay under the telltale streak. "I am. So, move."

Rye's mouth gaped in disbelief as Christian moved to cradle April in his lap. He wanted to shove him back, get him away from April. So, this was the man accompanying her out of the underground. How would she have ever agreed to let him help her? She hated Christian with every fiber of her being. She blamed his hive for hurting Helen and breaking her. There must have been a good reason; April wouldn't trust anyone lightly.

Nicking his wrist, Christian let his blood drip into April's mouth. Her skin was paler and was taking on a green tint as the wound on her face swelled and bubbled madly. But the moment his blood touched her tongue, it seemed to halt the festering, bringing it into a full reverse as the wound began to heal and weave itself together until only smears of red and green fluid dirtied her skin. Christian handed her back to Rye and ran over to the fallen redhead to give her his blood, too. Within minutes, April and the others wounded by the creature were awake, glancing around and confused about what had happened. Only the one already dead had not responded, his body already cooling in the dampness of the underground mud.

Rye sat confounded. He let his surprise morph into happiness as April reached up to push a strand of his hair away. Her weak smile made him want to jump up and dance. His heart surged as her eyes flickered toward him.

"Rye," she croaked, her mouth sticky with red splatters of blood.

"Hey. Missed you." He slid his fingers down the side of her face where the wounds were mere pink lines slowly fading on her cheek. He wiped the leftover blood from it and smiled, pulling her closer and never wanting to let go.

"Missed you, too." She closed her eyes, looking tired and worn out. He was sure that her time down there had not been pleasant. He realized that he had forgotten about the human guards who were now circling around them. He stiffened, wondering what they were going to do. One of them, a man with brown wavy hair, stepped forward and knelt down to check on April. His grin looked friendly, and he appeared relieved to see her breathing.

"She's okay?" he asked. Rye nodded, still unsure of the man's intentions. "Good. She's a tough cookie." He stood and walked over to the redhead, who was now sitting up with a couple of the other human soldiers checking her out. He did the same with her before returning to Rye. His dark eyes scanned the tunnel behind them.

"We should go. I don't think she brought anyone with her, but I don't want to find out." He looked down, wary of the hybrid vampire. "I'm Elijah by the way. April's my friend, and we have chosen to leave the city of Vida and join forces with her." He cocked his head, an amused twinkle swimming in his brown orbs. "I guess that means we're allies, too." He held out his hand for Rye, waiting to help him up.

Rye nodded. He took the hand and stood up above April. If she trusted this man, it must be alright. The secrets she had been keeping lately were piling up, leaving a searing pain in his head. Helping her up, he was relieved to find that she could stand, but the sudden isolation he felt choked him and sat heavily on his shoulders. She had a ton of explaining to do. But for now, they just had to get out of there.

"Who's going to take care of the city?" Sarah's voice interrupted them, her uncertainty written on her face. "We can't just leave them down there. They have no leader now."

Elijah nodded. He turned toward the others and looked over them. "Anyone want to volunteer to take over?" Four of them stepped forward at his request, leaving him relieved that he wouldn't have to force anyone to do the deed. "Take her body back there, show them what she really was. It will convince her followers to reject the idea of revolting against us. Get things together, radio me and let me know what's going on and we will keep contact with you from above." They gave him a nod and started to retrieve Katrina's remains.

Miranda gave Rye a reassuring pat on the back. He knew the concern in her eyes was the same reason he was feeling awkward. He watched as Christian talked to Elijah, making motions with his hands in the direction they had all been headed before they were attacked. He didn't know what these two meant to April, and his eyes followed her as she eased herself over to listen in on the discussion.

The way her eyes hovered over Christian was disheartening. It was almost as if she had some sort of connection to him. He continued to watch them, keeping the flame of jealousy contained within. Something was off. He could feel it in his bones and in the air around him. He'd seen that look on others, other hybrids who had chosen mates.

Seraphin's face briefly flashed in his mind. He thought about how they had chosen their new names of Rhystrom and Seraphin once they had changed. The way she had loved him so intensely and then the way she had tried to avoid Alan's stare when he had joined their hive. She had flushed bright red whenever he had been near. Rye remembered the fear in her eyes when she had told him what had happened and explained away her affections for Alan, unable to fight the connection that called her to him. She couldn't have helped it. He was her mate and she had to join him, leaving Rye alone. There was no resisting the match. The hybrids were cursed with this phenomenon.

But what of the ones who never found their mates? What of the ones without any connection to another hybrid? Rye turned back to April, his heart sinking. Even if a person chose another, there was always the fear that a new vampire would become matched with a chosen partner, taking them away forever.

That couldn't be the case here, though. April was human. She was not a hybrid vampire, but a hybrid in another way. How this could happen was beyond him, and he silently prayed that it wasn't what it looked like.

They followed Christian and Elijah to the end of the tunnel, where a door to a darkened hangar full of windowless vans stood, dusty and undisturbed. Cranking the engines with the vampires stowed in the back, where the rising sun would not disturb them, they drove out of the hangar and into an underground tunnel, disguised as a floodwater drainage channel.

Surprised by how they had hidden the underground city's back entrance so cleverly and in plain sight, Rye let his head drop back against the metal of the van's interior, trying to relax despite it all. Miranda had suggested that they all head back to the hive where he was sure Blaze would not be happy to see them with new people. Closing his eyes, he sighed, happy that April had quietly slid in next to him in the van while Christian rode in another. She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyelids, weary from her ordeal as the van lurched and rolled over debris strewn across the waterway, heading home.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Raining Fire

April

The road home seemed longer now, with the knowledge of all I had seen in the past few days hanging over my head. After cleaning up in the hive airport headquarters and getting a good lecture from Blaze, I was finally heading home. Jeremy had been ecstatic to see me once more, squeezing me so tight I had to peel him off. He was staying at the hive now, my mother free to roam at our bunker in the mountains.

I smiled at the memory of his face. My kid brother had told me that he'd known all along that I would be back. Nothing would ever hold me back from him. "That's for sure, Jer," I had agreed as I took in his face, happy to see it outside of a memory while squeezing the bejesus out of him in a tight hug.

Now the road home to my bunker in the mountains called to me. I was desperate to see my mother, Helen. The news that Christian would help her was the best thing I'd heard all year. He would take her to the notorious Rick and have him fix what had gone wrong with her. She would be saved. That was all I could ever ask for.

I glanced into the side mirror, smiling slightly to myself at the black SUV following close behind ours. Sitting back in the chair, I caught Rye watching me in my periphery and flushed under his stare. I didn't dare meet his gaze dead on. I felt bad enough that my feelings for Christian were distorting everything I had thought was for certain. At least this unwanted connection had made me accept the fact that I did love Rye. Fighting the bond between me and Christian was tedious but necessary. We had avoided each other as much as possible, hoping the distance would keep us stable. But would it be enough in the end?

Putting the vehicle into park, I studied the outside of the cabin that stood above our bunker. It looked so peaceful, untouched by the ordeal we had gone through. I jumped out of the cab and slammed the door behind me. I was relieved to finally be home. It may not be the most comfortable place in the world, but for now, it was enough.

"April?"

I turned back to find Rye's warm smile, a smile that made me want to run back into the comfort of his embrace and breathe the calm of his scent. I could see that he felt the same, and it was okay with me. It didn't make me want to run. In fact, it felt like home to me. I wondered briefly why I had fought it so much before. The despair of it yanked at my heart, making my regret sting just that much more. I should have let him in sooner. But every day was a new day, and the past was the past. This tiny hope that blossomed in me as I grinned back at him made my heart happy. I knew he would take care of it, even when I didn't.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I think I'm going to be just fine." A strange calm wrapped itself around me like a cocoon. This moment was the best it could be, and for that I was thankful. I stepped forward, turning on my foot as I continued toward the bunker.

No sooner had I taken a step, an assault of air slammed into me like a brick wall, sending me flying back from the blast. Bits of the cabin flew over my head, landing in crumbled pieces, some on fire across the landscape. I collided with the jeep, the crunch of metal and glass hitting me as I kept on, rolling over the hood and onto the rocky dirt. It had knocked out the breath from my chest, leaving me dazed with the world spinning.

What the...?

A moment or two passed before the searing burn of air finally seeped back into my lungs. Secondary explosions sounded off from the bunker, shaking the ground all around me. Stunned, I could hear nothing but ringing in my ears, throwing my balance off as I struggled to push myself off the ground and back onto my feet.

Rye...

My eyes darted around, relieved to find him moving on the ground near me. I brought the view of the bunker into my line of vision, a knot of doom formed tightly in my belly.

Oh, my God...Mom!

The sudden surge of panic enveloped me as I pulled myself up, awkward and unsteady, gripping the door handle to heave myself up. My skin burned like needles prickling the surface. I checked my arms and my shoulders, finding shards of glass and wood embedded in the flesh. The right side of my face was swelling rapidly from slamming into the jeep. Everything wavered as I stood up and peeked over the jeep to the inferno of what had been my home for over a year.

No....

"Mom!" My voice was a harsh whisper with my breath still struggling to filter through the shock of the impact, my throat stinging. "Rye?"

"I'm here." His pained voice made it clear he had not been spared the wrath of the explosion. He stood near me, his side scraped by rock and debris. Blood spots littered his shirt where shrapnel had hit him. If I had stopped to think about it, I was pretty sure I looked the same. Instead, reassured that Rye was okay, I stumbled toward the inferno that crackled before us, consuming the cabin and bunker in its unforgiving wake.

"Mom!" My voice was louder now, the ringing fading as I limped toward the heat of the flames. It seared my skin, an inferno that sizzled and hummed, stopping me from getting any closer. The fire roared from the inside of the bunker, a column of flame and smoke pouring out of the door, incinerating everything in sight. Nothing would be left after it was done enjoying the propane fuel and gasoline that fed it. Shattered wood and concrete littered the yard, some still smoldering from the explosion. The house was destroyed, leaving nothing recognizable. No one could have survived it. Not even my mother, who was, more than likely, still inside.

The scorching heat did not let me step any closer, leaving me feeling helpless, desperate to get to her. I couldn't even get near enough to peer inside at the remnants of the building without the heat of the fire threatening to sear my skin off. What had caused this? Who had done this? I didn't even notice the tears streaming down my now dirty face as my legs gave in and I slid to the ground, onto my knees.

Rye's hand slid over me as he knelt and pulled me into a fierce hug, letting me bury my tear-streaked face in his shredded shirt. It wasn't until then that I realized I was sobbing, my face drenched with dirty tears, streaking my face. I couldn't save her, I never could. The likelihood that she had caused this herself was so high that I wanted to bury this information into the crevices of my brain where things were shoved for the purpose of forgetting. I didn't want to know anything anymore. I didn't know if I could handle it much longer.

"Rye? Helen...."

"I know, shhh," he whispered into my hair as I let the pain escape, shaking my body as I cried for everything I had lost. I was glad Jeremy wasn't there. He had stayed behind at the hive, enjoying the new people to challenge him on his video games. He would have run inside immediately the moment we had arrived. But he was safe, and that was the one thing that helped me as the pain ripped through me. She had done it while we were both still gone. But had I rushed in like I had wanted to when we'd arrived, I might not have been so lucky. Why had she waited until I returned to do this? Maybe seeing us pull up solidified her resolve to end it. I wish I knew. But now, I will never know.

Oh mom, why this? How did it come to this?

So, I cried. I let the despair take me in its embrace, swallowing all of my senses and drowning my resolve. I felt it tear through my insides, pulverizing anything good I had ever felt, filling my world with pain, so much of it I wondered if I would ever know what it was like to feel no pain. Could I even remember such things? No, there was never no pain, there was always the hurt and disappointment waiting in the wings to take over when anything good ever came along, only to exit stage left just as fast. We must accept this, especially when that is all that is handed to us.

But I'd never see Helen again. I had been too late to save her. She had been doomed for so long, and in the end, nothing I could have done would have helped her. I knew that now. She had made this decision, probably ages ago. But it had been so sudden, so final. It had left me numb, unable to process it when it came.

Christian had pulled up right after the blast and jumped from the car after barely putting it in park. Running over, his eyes were wild and shocked as he looked at the blood seeping from my shirt, glancing over to the house and then back again. I could tell he immediately understood what had happened. He had come to help me, to help my mother. But now that purpose was lost forever in the all-consuming fire that had claimed her life.

There would be no atonement for him. There would be no absolution for any of us.

Kneeling next to me, he waited patiently as Rye continued to hold onto me. I knew the ache that Christian must have felt, waiting there, unable to hold me, unable to take the pain away like he had done so before. It would be agonizing to him, like a different kind of starvation. I felt the ache in my own body as well with him so near. A strange subconscious longing betrayed my heart. It was easy to ignore these problems amid devastation. It was easy to fall into Rye's arms when I wanted to feel nothing but numb.

I'd regret these thoughts later, when the smoke had died out and the embers were doused. I'd beat myself up for such things, for causing pain without ever meaning to hurt anyone. But I took what I needed, when I wanted it. I had left my mother to fend for herself in a fragile state. How selfish was that? I had done it without a second's thought, without concern for the consequences. I had to live with that now, no matter how much I didn't want to.

Epilogue

April

I ran and ran...

I ran as fast and as far as I could, letting the asphalt race under my shoes with endless yellow and white lines passing me by. I wanted to run forever, to the ends of the earth until it ran out or the ocean came to greet me and swallow me up. It wouldn't be far enough or vast enough to kill the pain inside or numb the ache. Nothing would be able to do that. There was nowhere I could go to escape the breaking of my heart. Only time could heal me, and even that would never heal the scars that were left behind.

When my legs and chest burned from the effort, and I felt like my muscles would spasm from the exertion, I searched the cars littering the highway until I found one with keys still hanging inside. Cranking the ignition, I prayed the engine would turn over. A soft, hesitant hum greeted me and I slammed the lever into drive. I let the soothing sway of the vehicle numb me as I dodged the endless hunks of metal and debris in my way, taking to the outskirts of the city opposite of my home in the mountains.

I didn't care if the sun was close to the horizon or that the light would be gone soon, bringing the stuff of nightmares out to roam alongside me on the streets. I didn't even notice the miles as I let the car continue through the hills at the edge of the valley. Over the mountain, to the edge of my world I went, down a road I once knew, one my father had taken me on over and over. I had every turn memorized, every building and sign emblazoned into my mind. I remembered because that was all I had left. Memories. I hated them, loathed them, wanted to erase all of them and obliterate them from my head and yet, they were my only treasures.

Maybe it would be more merciful to be a feral vampire, to be oblivious of the way things used to be and were now, to be unable to register the devastation of the world. I envied them in a way. Envied the deterioration of their conscious minds. They didn't have to experience the pain of life and loss. Memory was a curse. It was a long and devastating torture that never leaves and never stops its endless rant inside our skulls. Try as I might, I couldn't make it go away.

I came to and found myself with my feet dangling over the edge of the Hoover Dam. I spied the murky water below, far beneath the pale waterline where it once stood. With no one to man the monstrous structure, it would inevitably fall into disrepair. Would it crumble to pieces? Would it shatter slowly, gently returning the flow to the Colorado River? Eventually it would, eventually the cement walls would buckle under the weight and the wear of time, giving in to the forces of nature and earth. I wondered if I would be alive to see it. I wondered if I wanted to be alive to see it.

I had never considered the fate my mother had chosen. I never would. It wasn't something I could ever want. Sitting here, contemplating her reasons, and trying to understand the complexity of everything. I let the tears slip out of my eyes and stream down my cheeks, dripping down into the still water below. I watched as the fish flipped over each other under the surface, breaking it with their sharp fins and slippery bodies. They squirmed as they grouped together, involved in some dance of their own. I wondered what it was like down there, with them. Dark and murky with filth and mud. Not that much different from up here.

I had not heard the slam of a car door or the tentative footsteps that closed in on me. I already knew who it was. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. It was like static dancing over my skin and tingling in my fingertips. I pretended I hadn't felt it. The day had brought me nothing that I wanted. It had twisted my future and blurred the present so much, I wasn't sure my warped senses would ever recover. Especially not with Christian lingering around.

"Leave me alone," I muttered, hoping he'd get the message and leave me to dwell in my misery. Instead, he swung his black boots over the side and joined me on the ledge of the dam. I shifted to avoid touching his skin. He was too close. "How'd you find me?"

"I can always find you now."

I turned and glared at him. If I had known the dire consequences of binding myself to him, would I have preferred death over this? Studying his unusually colored eyes as they reflected my face, I felt utterly lost. I couldn't answer my own questions. It bothered me because I wasn't used to such confusion. I blamed myself for my mother's death, and I didn't loathe Christian's company like I thought I should.

The light darkened across the cloudy sky, and the sunset continued to fade. Knowing the wrath of night was upon us, we didn't get up, we didn't move. Eventually wiping the tears from my face, I retreated from the ledge. Without further words, I followed him to the car and let him take me back to my new home—the hive. Back to Jeremy. Back to Rye and Miranda.

Nothing was the way it ought to have been. Would it ever be? It would probably all eventually come crashing down anyway, but no one had given up on me yet. I had to let that be enough. I had to let it fill the emptiness inside that my mother had left behind and pull myself out of its grip before I let the despair win.

Another night had arrived, like many more to come and many behind us. The darkness poured its inky black veil over the city while I let Rye's arms hold me close, listening to the silence of the concrete walls and the soft thumping of our hearts. For now, sleeping in his warm embrace was solace enough, even if it was only a temporary peace.

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Sneak Peek

Amplified (The Vampires of Vegas Book III)

Chapter One

Feel Human

Twang!

The sword vibrated through my fingers as it hit the hard metal shielding of the door. I was almost ready to install it into the frame where a door had fallen off its hinges. It'd been temporarily fixed until a metal one could be found and welded into place, but the rusty hinges had finally given in under the pressure of one feral mob, crumbled under their weight. Elijah had woken up to find his little sanctuary in utter chaos. I'm sure he hadn't expected to get ready for the day only to find a mini-hive waiting for him on the first floor of The Palms Hotel & Casino. Imagine the rude awakening of finding him in full battle, already covered in dirty Zompire blood and mad as hell.

I'd offered to pick him up that day from The Palms. His penthouse was perched at the top of the massive high-rise, hence the reason I'd been able to witness the full-blown mess. At the appointed time, I'd made my way into the bottom floor of the place, already getting a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when I found the rusted metal doors knocked to the side and bent out of shape. It just so happened he was getting off the elevator to meet me and ran right into the lingering horde of bloodsuckers. It was lucky for both of us that the other had gotten there at the same time, or one of us alone might've been feral chow for the small but overwhelmingly hungry numbers in this little hive.

They were vicious, almost too violent for my taste. They moved faster than most did at this stage, so I knew they had recently fed on something alive. I'd usually find a small pocket of ferals in a starved, slow and harrowed state. Not this one. I slammed my sword against the metal, feeling its vibration in my grip after decapitating one of the zompires. I couldn't help but feel bad for this sudden invasion into Elijah's abode.

It'd been my fault. I'd haphazardly tapped the pins back into the hinges the day prior, not even taking the rust and erosion of the metal brackets into consideration. That's what Elijah got for dragging me into his home improvement projects. I was a warrior, not a Home Depot junkie. That'll teach him.

Unfortunately, if we didn't make it through this assault, I wouldn't get the chance to chew him out for making me screw up like that.

I ducked as one of the ferals jumped at me, sending him flying through the air and right into one of the columns. His body hit with a dull thud, disorientating him but for a moment as I rolled and pushed myself off the floor, gained my footing and ran toward the atrium. I hoped the damn bastard would follow me. This one had at least two feet and almost two hundred pounds on me.

Where the hell was Elijah?

I didn't mind clearing out the crud and taking out the trapped ferals in the Casinos we'd set traps for. But this, this was ridiculous. It felt like an entire cluster of them had taken residence during the night, stuffing themselves in the tiny corners and hidden nooks of the place. Where the heck had they come from and what had they chowed down on to be so strong? It made me shudder to think that someone was now dead because of this group. Obviously, they weren't stupid. Something about them was off in how smart they were. Why had they gathered here? Had they noticed how well taken care of it was and ventured in here to find a tasty human or two?

Whatever had led them here, they were a pain in my ass now. I turned to see if the feral with the huge biceps and dirty blonde hair that hadn't seen a shampooing in a decade, neither had his entire body seen a bar of soap in ages for that matter, come to a stop at the edge of the light. He snarled and looked up. The sun beamed down hard into the main casino atrium where an old fountain stood empty and some greenery Elijah had managed to convince to grow. It was the only thing keeping me alive as I took the moment to catch my breath, bent over my knees and huffing. The air vibrated with snarls.

Damn!

I'd have to figure out how to outsmart this particular creature. His red eyes widened, flashing fangs dripping with gore from his recent messy feeding. Eww. That was attractive.

I straightened and held my machetes up. "Come on! Not such a big bad wolf now, huh? Afraid of a little bit of sunshine?" I reached down to grab a chunk of cement debris which littered the casino floor. I flung it straight at him, hoping it would anger him enough to come sailing into the light after me. It hit him hard on the chest before bouncing off and ricocheting against a slot machine next to him, shattering the plastic face above the wheels and knocking it to the ground. The creature snarled even louder, exposing more of his disgusting teeth. He roared with a vengeance, thrashing at the chairs around him before picking one up and flinging it at me.

What the hell?

I jumped to the side, landing hard on a mess of gravel and rocks, feeling my skin painfully scrape right off. When I came to a stop, I made sure he was still far enough away from me before squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my lips tight. The pain was delayed, but it came rushing across my skin and down my synapses like an atom bomb exploding across them. I gasped, and tears squeezed from between my eyelids.

I huffed out a breath and opened my eyes, glaring at the beast with distain. "Okay, then. Don't want to play nice, huh?"

"Quit toying and kill it already!" Elijah hollered. I looked up to see him decapitate another feral right before a second one slammed into him, jamming him against the wall. "Oomf!" he huffed, the breath knocked out of him.

Crap!

I stepped toward him, but the feral crazy waiting for me scrambled to stand between us. Great. Just wonderful.

"Do you mind? You're in the way." I held up my machete, readying to bum rush the bastard and swing at his neck once I was closer.

The thing didn't flinch at my warning gestures.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," I yelled. I took off toward him, holding my blade to the side and ready to slice him up. He bent his knees, looking more excited the closer I came. He was overly confident that I'd be running into his arms and letting him rip my throat out. More reason to shudder. I let the sun caress my head, loving the warmth it gave me in the cold interior of the neglected building. Winter was over, but spring hadn't exactly jumped in to take over the show. Anything hidden from the sun was still radiating a frosty chill.

Thwack!

I swung the blade, hoping the momentum would get at least a good way through his thick, burly neck. It hit right where I'd wanted it to, but the damned creature grabbed the blade, which wouldn't come back out of his neck easily. I didn't let go as it loosened the blade, ignoring the blood and gashes in his own hands as he pushed on the metal. I pulled away, but my blade wouldn't budge. Not wanting to find his meaty fingers back on me with just one blade left, I hacked against his neck with the other machete, over and over, but his neck was tough, and I'd managed to just make hacking marks across it without much momentum. He rotated with me as I arched back, holding onto the blade near the hilt to swing me faster. If I let go, I'd go flying into a wall myself. If I stayed gripped onto the hilt, I'd be just within his reach in about five seconds.

Decisions, Decisions.

"A little help here!" I grunted, hoping Elijah wasn't as busy as I was. If he didn't get to me, I'd have to let go and fly into whatever object wanted to meet me. It didn't sound fun, but it was my only option left. I braced for impact, trying to get a glimpse behind me and hoping for a safe landing. As the burly zompire dropped one hand off the blade and reached for me, I took the motion and let my body sway into it, letting go of the hilt of my stuck machete while my legs desperately tried to find footing.

I scurried backward, turning to see where I was headed. My second machete went flying from my fingers as I lost my balance. My feet flew out from under me, and I was pretty sure I was going to land hard.

A flash of white skin made me glance up as I fell forward, still stumbling to gain traction. My mother, Helen, was standing in her loose jeans and a flowing blouse that seemed to ruffle in a soft breeze. I was headed right for her, into her awaiting outstretched arms.

"Mom?" I gasped as my body turned, heading for the impact.

Instead, Elijah's arms encircled me. His strong, warm muscles and broad chest met my face instead of my mother's arms, instead of hard concrete and pain.

"Gotcha." He grinned and propped me back on my feet before turning to face burly Zompire.

"Elijah?" I stared at him, confused and swinging my eyes around to find my mother again. "But Mom was just there, she was just standing right there...." I found the spot I'd seen her standing and gulped. I was losing my mind.

"What?" Elijah only half paid attention as he smirked at the Zompire, just within reach of the light that shielded us now. "Come on, tough guy, it's more fun picking on someone your own size!" He let out a grunt as he started sprinting toward the beast, hunting knife in hand.

That was something, watching Elijah grab the man like he was a rag doll and saw the hunting knife through the tangle of arteries, jugular, tendons and bone. It almost made me sick from the bloody messy he was making, and looking like he was enjoying it with a mad gleam in his dark eyes and a wicked grin on his face.

Mom?

I looked away, still unconvinced that I had been seeing things. My breath returned to me as I found nothing and was able to turn back to Elijah, standing at the edge of the light, drenched in blood, gore and chunks of flesh, huffing air in and out. The smile was still on his face as he continued to stare down at the burly zompire's body. It lay in an unmoving heap, mangled beyond recognition.

"You all right?"

I could barely nod, but I did. "Yeah. How about you?"

"I think I need another shower."

My nervous chuckle came out choked, like the sound from a squashed duck.

"You don't look so hot." He wiped his blade on one of the downed ferals.

"Thanks." I leaned against one of the pillars, still scanning the surroundings for her. "I thought I saw my mother."

"Mind playing tricks on you?"

"Yeah, probably."

I found my blade and gripped it. Looking around for any more ferals, I saw that they were all dead. A bloody machete skittered across the floor, landing at my feet.

"Found your other blade." Elijah winked and walked back toward the elevator, where I knew he was headed to clean up and change, as if nothing had happened. I was left in the desolate silence of the casino atrium, letting the heat of the sun bring me back to life.

If that had been my mother, why had she flashed before my eyes and disappeared without saying anything? Why was she even there?

I pressed the tears out of my eyes and felt the warm liquid as it slid down my cheeks. I ignored them and grabbed another downed Zompire, dragging it into the sunny atrium and letting go before the flames burst across its skin and consumed the last of its rotting flesh. Even the burly one, who'd almost slammed me into wall art, was no match for the UV rays as I finally managed to drag his heavy mass into the light.

I worked like that for a half hour, cursing at Elijah for leaving me the mess. Maybe he needed his own space, too, but this was calming to me, piling up the bodies and watching the flames consume the last of them.

My mother had also been consumed by the flames. The fire had taken the last of her light, and with it, some of my own as well.

Want more?

Amplified: The Vegas Vampires Book III

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to our Lord above for your gifts and love.

I want to say thanks to some friends I have met throughout this crazy adventure as a writer. Always to my writing family: Madison Daniel, Jenna Kay, Linna Drehmel and Kyani Swanigan. You guys are amazingly talented, and I am privileged to have you at my side.

A huge thank you to the following people. Without you, this couldn't happen. I hope I didn't miss any of you, if I have, please forgive me from the deepest parts of my heart. You are not forgotten: Michael K. Rose, Amy Conley, J.T. Lewis, Lori Parker, Jay Ellis, Katie Shelby, Wendy Lovetiggi Nielson, Carly Wallace, Tiffeny Moore, Lauren Reidy, Amber Garza, Jacquie Talento, Cherry Crawford, Julia Crane, Ella James, Jenny Phillips, Nikki Archer, Lavinia Urban, Annie Walls, Sheika Doctor, Cameo Renae, Merisha Abbot, Melissa T. Lee, Terri Dion, Monique O'Connor James, Alicia Battista, Emily Walker, Jenny Bynum, Candice Terry, Jaime Hutchison, Benjamin Daniels, Anne Nelson, Frankie Rose, Christy Weaver Kuykendall, and Emily Goodwin.

You all have been there for me, and I appreciate all the advice, chats and friendship you have given me. YOU ROCK!

About the Author

Alexia Purdy

Alexia Purdy is a USA Today Bestselling author who currently lives in Las Vegas and loves spending every free moment writing or hanging out with her four rambunctious kids. Writing is the ultimate getaway for her since she's always lost in her head. She is best known for her award-winning Reign of Blood series, and A Dark Faerie Tale Series.

Connect with Alexia Purdy:

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Alexia Purdy's Website

Twitter

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You-Tube

 Goodreads Author page

 Alexia Purdy's Facebook Fan Page

A Dark Faerie Tale Series Facebook Fan page

Reign of Blood Series Facebook Fan Page

Also by Alexia Purdy:

The Vampires of Vegas Series:

Reign of Blood (The Vampires of Vegas #1)

Disarming (The Vampires of Vegas #2)

Elijah (The Miel Chronicles):

(The Vampires of Vegas Companion Story)

Amplified (The Vampires of Vegas #3)

The ArcKnight Chronicles:

ArcKnight

Sovereignty

A Dark Faerie Tale Series:

The Withering Palace (A Dark Faerie Tale #0.1)

Evangeline (A Dark Faerie Tale #0.5)

Ever Shade (A Dark Faerie Tale #1)

Ever Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #2)

Ever Winter (A Dark Faerie Tale #3)

The Cursed (A Dark Faerie Tale #3.5)

Ever Wrath (A Dark Faerie Tale #4)

History of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #5)

Without Armor (A Dark Faerie Tale #5.5)

Ever Dead (A Dark Faerie Tale #6)

Legends of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #7)

Guardians of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #8)

Poetic Collections:

Whispers of Dreams

Five Fathoms

The Dark I Keep

Anthology:

Soul Games

Faery Worlds

Faery Realms

Faery Tales

The Shapeshifter Chronicles

Once Upon a Curse

Once Upon a Kiss

Fuse: A Collection of Fantastical Tales

A Plague of Dragons

