Jared, who had been leaning up against the wall beside the sofa, straightened. “Actually, Roland may be on to something.”
Aidan stared at him. “You think we should convince the scientists they’re proctologists?”
Jared gave his head an impatient shake. “No. I think we should do what Gershom always does—play the magician.”
Silence.
“Melanie,” Seth said, “Ethan could use some more blood.”
Aidan glanced over his shoulder as Seth stepped away from Ethan.
Melanie rose and left the room.
Heather’s face reflected both hope and fear. “Is he okay?”
Seth hesitated. “I’ve healed everything I can. I won’t know if that is enough—if the virus can heal that which is beyond me—until he awakens.”
Melanie dashed back in with two blood bags.
Heather stared at her husband’s prone form as Seth started down the length of the table.
Sheldon reached back, grabbed the arm of an empty chair, and sent it rolling down toward David’s end. Darnell caught it and scooted over to make room for Seth to sit beside David across from Zach.
Seth gave both Seconds a nod of thanks, then sank into the seat. His shoulders drooping with weariness, he looked up at Jared. “You think we should play the magician?”
Jared stepped forward. “Yes.”
Seth nodded. “Tell me more.”
“So she’s crazy?”
The male voice carried to Dana down what seemed like a dark, murky corridor.
“I don’t know,” another male responded.
Consciousness returned in tiny increments but lent her no memory of what had landed her… wherever she was.
She fought a frown, keeping her face expressionless as she listened to the murmured conversation and tried without success to pick out a familiar voice.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” a third male retorted. “You said her head is full of vampires.”
Where was she?
She lay on her back on a lumpy, uncomfortable surface. A bed or a cot?
The light behind her eyelids indicated the room was well lit. Not too clean though, based on the musty scents that tweaked her nose.
How had she come to be there? The last thing she remembered was…
Frustration seared her as she tried to recap events.
Oh shit. The last thing she remembered was watching Heather fall to her death. (Surely even an immortal couldn’t survive that much blood and brain splattering the ground.) Then Gershom had grabbed Dana by the throat and— “Did you really see vampires in her memories?” the first man asked.
“Shut up,” the second man snapped. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
Were these Gershom’s henchmen? Had he handed her over to them while he went back to finish off Aidan, Ethan, and Heather?
Her throat thickened. Aidan.
Footsteps approached. “Is she even still alive?” the third man muttered.
Fingers touched her throat.
Dana’s eyes flew open.
A man loomed over her.
Grabbing his arm, she reared up and yanked him down at the same time.
Her forehead slammed into his face.
“Ah shit!” he sputtered as blood spurted from his broken nose.
Still holding his arm, she rolled out of bed. Her bare feet hit cold concrete as she looked around wildly.
Small room. Four bare cement walls. Two sets of bunk beds. A sink. A toilet. Fluorescent lights overhead. A heavy door with a small shuttered window like one might find in a prison’s solitary-confinement cell.
Two men leapt to their feet across the room.
Dana adjusted her hold on Bloody Nose Guy. Gripping his elbow and wrist, she applied pressure at strategic points.
The man grunted in pain and sank to his knees.
“Whoa-, whoa, whoa!” the other men shouted as they lunged forward.
Dana freed one of her hands and yanked a plastic toothbrush off the sink. Clutching the handle tightly, she slammed the head against the porcelain edge and broke off the bristle end, leaving a jagged plastic point. She seized a fistful of Bloody Nose Guy’s wavy black hair and yanked his head back against her chest. Shoving the point of the broken toothbrush handle against his neck above his carotid artery, she shouted, “Stay back!”
Both men stopped short, eyes wide, mouths gaping.
Everyone went still, even the man Dana held captive.
“Easy,” one of the men facing her said. Though his voice was a little higher with anxiety, she recognized him as the second man she had heard speak. “Take it easy. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
She increased the pressure on Bloody Nose Guy’s neck. “You sure as hell aren’t.”
“Damn it, Phil,” the man on his knees grumbled. “Shut the fuck up.”
Everyone quieted.
Dana’s heart pounded in her ears. Her breath came in gasps as she glanced around, then down at the man she restrained.
He was tall, muscular and must be twice her weight. Yet she had taken him down in less than sixty seconds.
“How did I do that?” she whispered.
She didn’t know how to fight or turn a cheap plastic toothbrush into a weapon. About the only thing she knew to do when threatened was the old knee-to-the-groin trick. But she had just bloodied this guy’s nose and now held two others at bay.
“How the hell did I do that?” she whispered again.
“Ah crap,” the first man muttered. “She is crazy.”
“No, she isn’t,” Bloody Nose Guy said softly. “She’s just scared. Back away and give her a minute to acclimate.”
Phil and his companion backed away in unison and seated themselves on the lower of the bunk beds across the room.
A minute passed. Then another. Dana really had no idea what to do now.
The man she held cleared his throat. “So… help me out here, fellas. Am I supposed to find the fact that someone her size took me down so fast emasculating or a turn-on? Because I’m sorta goin’ both ways.”
Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, she laughed. “You sound like…” Aidan.
Grief flooded her. Aidan would have fought to his last breath to keep Gershom from taking her. Was he…? Had Gershom killed him?
She swallowed hard, blinking back tears. “There was a man with me.”
“Aidan?” Phil asked somberly.
Hope rose. “You saw him? He’s here?”
He shook his head. “We haven’t seen him.”
She frowned. “Then how did you know his name?”
His mouth twisted with a faint grimace. “I read your mind.”
She studied him. “You’re a gifted one?”
The man on his knees cautiously tilted his head back to look up at her. “A what?”
“It’s what she and the others call us in her mind,” Phil said. “Gifted ones. I guess because of our special gifts,” he finished wryly.
It was only then that Dana realized all the men were dressed alike in gray jumpsuits and white socks.
She glanced down and found herself similarly garbed without the socks.
Releasing Bloody Nose Guy, she stepped back but kept a tight grip on the toothbrush just in case. “You’re the gifted ones who went missing?”
Bloody Nose Guy eased away from her on his knees, then swiveled around and sat on the floor. “I’m sure as hell not where I’m supposed to be.”