“Please don’t let him do anything stupid,” Quinn pleaded to no one in particular when she turned a corner. She had a feeling that might be like asking the world to stop spinning.
She came to a halt when she realized the hall split off into four different directions. One hall led to the main entranceway, the others toward more rooms. “That man was fleeing Devon and Julian. He’ll most likely try to get out of this hotel or toward people,” Cassie said.
Quinn nodded her agreement before turning and running toward the main entranceway of the hotel. Before she could step onto the white tile floor marking the entrance, she stopped abruptly. She stepped back from the sun spilling through the glass doors to her right. The people in the lobby turned to look at her, but she ignored the disapproving and lecherous stares from some of them as they inspected her and Cassie in their bathing suits.
“They didn’t go outside,” Quinn said. “Julian would have followed him into the sun if he had. Our bathing suits are getting enough attention; imagine what the smoking man running across the parking lot would get.”
“You’re right, and I feel them somewhere in here.”
Quinn closed her eyes as she drew on her honed vampire senses and their bond to pick up some hint of Julian. Gradually, she was able to shut out the overwhelming scents of perfume, chlorine, cologne, cigarette smoke, and cooking meat from the restaurant across the lobby from them. The chatter of the humans checking into the hotel faded away.
Her eyes flew open when a bus boy clearing a table dropped the bucket he’d been holding. So focused on trying to tune into Julian, the piercing sound of the breaking dishes caused her to wince. She could feel him somewhere in this hotel, but with the numerous people within, she couldn’t figure out where he was exactly. Turning away from the main lobby, she raced back the way they’d come with Cassie at her side.
Chris, Melissa, and Dani were running toward them when they came around the corner again. They didn’t say a word as they turned to follow Cassie and her back down the hall toward the poolroom. When they returned to the split, Quinn stood and looked helplessly back and forth down the other three halls.
“Can you pick up anything on them?” she asked Cassie, who had far more abilities than she did.
“They’re inside, but they’re moving too fast for me to get a good sense of where they are. The presence of so many others isn’t helping.”
“No, it’s not,” Quinn agreed. “We have to separate.”
A crushing sense of doom descended over Quinn as she said these words. They had to find Julian soon. Devon may be able to keep him from doing something completely stupid, but she didn’t know if he could keep Julian from killing an innocent in order to get at the man he hunted.
“Chris, Melissa, and Dani go that way.” She pointed to the right hall. “Cassie take that hall, and I’ll take this one.”
Without waiting to see if they agreed or not, she broke off to the left. She almost bolted as fast as she could down the hall, but she forced herself to take her time and keep her senses alert for anything unusual. If she was closer to Julian, she would be able to find him.
Outside of a door near her, one of the maids had a cleaning cart in the hall while they vacuumed a room. Quinn stopped to snatch a folded white robe from the second shelf of the cart and tugged it on. The fluffy fabric settling over her made her feel a little less conspicuous than roaming the halls in her bathing suit did. She rolled the ends of the sleeves up and snugged them into place before belting the robe around her waist.
Snatching a butter knife from a plate on top of the dishes piled on the cart, she wrapped her hand around the handle. She kept the knife at her side while she continued down the hall. The butter knife was nowhere near as reassuring in her hand as one of her stakes or one of the knives she usually wore strapped to her would be, but it was better than nothing. Maybe the knife wouldn’t pierce through bone, but it would certainly take out an eye or a jugular.
By now, Julian might have returned to the pool, but she didn’t dare double back to check in case he was still hunting the man from The Commission. Arriving at the end of the hall, she stood and stared up the stairs to her right before looking at the emergency exit a few feet before her. The sun filtering through the window in the door danced across the red carpet centimeters away from her bare toes. They hadn’t gone through this door as the sign beside it read: Alarmed.