The woman who had called Guilty Jen had said she could see the security monitors. That could only mean that she—and Clara—were up in the top of the central tower. Caxton was sure of it. And Jen’s underlings would never dare to hurt Clara until they knew whether Jen had killed Caxton or not. They would follow her orders to the letter, lest they tick Jen off and suffer the violent consequences. Caxton was sure of it.
She couldn’t afford not to be sure. This was Clara’s only chance.
The door to the command center was right in front of her. She had only to reach up and turn the knob. The gang members in there would be surprised to see her, she could overpower them before they could really react, and then—
Caxton’s legs went out from under her. Guilty Jen had grabbed one of her feet and yanked upward. Caxton went flying and bounced off the steps, sliding downward. Her broken arm collided hard with one wall and she sang out in pain as she slammed into the landing, her teeth grating on the concrete there.
Above her, higher up the stairs, Guilty Jen stood looking down. She was breathing a little faster than normal, and there was a drop of sweat on one of her cheeks. One of her hands was striped with blood where Caxton had cut her. Otherwise she was unscathed. The door to the central command center was right behind her. Caxton would never reach it now. She wasn’t going to save Clara. She wasn’t going to save herself. In a few seconds she would be dead, and everything she had ever cared about and the one woman she had ever truly loved would be destroyed. This was it. The moment she’d known was coming for years now. The moment when her calling failed her.
“I gotta say,” Guilty Jen told her, “you can hold your mud. Well. It’s been fun.”
The gangbanger took a step down toward Caxton. Another step.
Caxton couldn’t have fought back against a kitten just then. Pain, exhaustion, and utter desolation were all dragging her down. Telling her she was finished.
Behind Guilty Jen the door to central command swung open.
Guilty Jen just had time to look surprised as a snow-white hand reached around her face and yanked her backward, out of Caxton’s line of sight.
There was a muffled scream. The instantly recognizable sound of a human neck being snapped, the vertebrae letting go one after the other like popcorn popping. And then a sound that Caxton found far too familiar. The squelching, sucking noise of human blood being drained from a grievous wound.
The vampires were awake, alright.
50.
Maricón and Featherwood were arguing. Clara was paying attention with half an ear, just enough to hear if they started talking about her. Occasionally they did, and always it was to ask each other whether it was time to kill Clara or if they should wait for some kind of sign from Guilty Jen. The second that Laura was dead, they were supposed to cut her throat. Of course, they would have no way of knowing whether or not Laura was dead until Guilty Jen came up the stairs, probably brandishing some grisly trophy from the fight. Laura’s severed head, maybe, or just an ear to—
Stop it! Stop it! Clara howled inside her own head. She had managed to make her face blank, and had even stopped shivering. But she couldn’t stop the fear from getting inside. She couldn’t stop thinking about the future. About the very brief future.
The possibility that Laura might kill Guilty Jen never seemed to occur to the members of the set.