No one was watching us. In fact, they were all lined up like ants, filing out the door where Ezra stood, eyes glowing fiercely. I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, though he was definitely ordering them to leave. And they did, faces slack, their minds defenseless against his will.
“Go into the back rooms and get the tapes,” I shouted to Vivian over Antonio’s screams.
She still sat stunned, motionless, her eyes wide, as if she didn’t realize we needed to leave.
Cahal’s Vampire growled, ordering her, “Now, Vivian. Get the footage.”
She blinked. Nodded hastily, jumping from her chair and blurring into the back room.
Two things happened almost simultaneously.
The first was the sound of a gun firing in the back room.
The second was Cahal’s shout joining Antonio’s, right before his eyes closed, out cold.
The air choked out of me, Cahal falling on top of Antonio and making me take on both of their weight. Oh Jesus, no. My knees hit the ground, even as I trained my gun on the door Vivian had gone through, and I heard Ezra roar. As in, his Vampire actually f**king roared, rocking the tiles under my knees. The next second he blurred, people still moving outside. I lost track of him, but I did see the back door fly open, then swing shut, where I had my gun aimed.
There could have been only one reason for someone as powerful as Cahal to have suddenly passed out in pain, the evidence dark. I breathed heavily through my nose, trying not to get emotional right now, concentrating on the task at hand, carefully lowering Antonio’s body, which was slowly beginning to stop convulsing, and Cahal’s slack form, to the ground. I barely had them there when I heard a man screaming from behind the door as if the hounds of hell were after him.
Ezra’s Vampire roared again.
My hands trembled on my gun, this being a first for me, hearing that terrifying sound from him. Or any other Vampire, for that matter. It wasn’t a sound I wanted to hear again, and I prayed that the man would scream just a little louder so the roar wasn’t so earth-shattering. I stumbled to my feet and quickly closed the door behind the last person to leave, all of them still under Ezra’s mind hold as they got into their cars and drove away. Slowly, I made my way into the back room, even as the man’s screams stopped, my ears ringing from Ezra’s Vampire and feeling like they would soon start to bleed from the pressure.
“Ezra!” I shouted loudly, scanning an area full of refrigerators but not a soul.
The roar stopped echoing, and a furious growl sounded to my right.
Alright, I think that was an answer.
Carefully, I moved in that direction. There was a door that was slightly ajar. Moving past a stainless steel table, I saw…my gun trembled even more…Vivian’s leg keeping the door open, stuck between the doorframe and the door. Slowly, it began gliding back into the other room while Ezra’s Vampire growled in a long soulful tune behind the door.
Oh, God.
Keep it together.
Keep it f**king together.
I shook my head, catching the door as it began to close, the scents of Mystical blood, silver, and a shitload of Com blood filling my nostrils. “Ezra, baby. It’s me. I’m coming inside.” I bit my lip, blinking tears back when I heard his Vampire’s growl sputter on a whimper. “It’s only me, baby.”
I gently pushed the door open, my eyes taking in everything all at once.
There was one Com male, maybe nineteen years old, lying right inside the room with his throat sliced open, blood pooling around his head, and a gun not too far from his slack hand. I gulped, keeping from puking when I saw another Com male lying on his back over an office desk, his age indeterminable because his face was smashed in, his head sitting crookedly on his neck. His shirt was vivid red because his stomach was sliced open, his entrails hanging over the desk’s edge and to the floor, another gun lying on the ground where his arm — that was still attached — hung, while his other arm…who knew where the f**k it was.
Ezra was kneeling on the ground, rocking back and forth while clutching Vivian’s dead body close to his chest, the back of her head missing, blood covering his face and hands.
I swallowed again, breathing through my mouth. “Ezra, baby, can you look at me?”
No response, his rocking and growling not cutting off.
“Ezra, I need you to look at me,” I stated more firmly, putting a little of my power behind my command. I instantly jerked, feeling a backlash of his power. He apparently didn’t like that so much. “Alright. No more of that.”
Carefully, I walked through the room, heading for the video surveillance that I saw in the corner. Through the monitors I could still see Antonio and Cahal lying on the floor, and I quickly shut the computer down. There was a panic button on the wall, bloody fingerprints lining it, which probably meant the authorities were on their way. It was time to go.
Now.
I took all the CDs from the machine recording the footage, stuffing them in my pockets, and then tried one more time. “Ezra, we need to leave.” I carefully edged toward him. “You need to get up.”
Again, no answer.
Taking a deep breath and another step, this time directly behind him…I hit his head hard with the butt end of my gun. He groaned, his body falling, unconscious. Swiftly, I put the gun away, lifted him over my shoulder with my Shifter strength, and raced through the building. I ran outside to the Hummer, gently placing him on the passenger seat. I went back for Antonio. He went on the back seat. I heard sirens in the distance, and I muttered a litany of obscenities as I ran back into the building for Cahal. He groaned when I threw him over my shoulder, but he didn’t wake as I ran from the building. The sirens were almost on us, and I haphazardly threw Cahal on the back seat too, his head banging against the other door as I quickly stuffed their legs in before slamming the door.
Nervous sweat beaded my brow as I jumped onto the driver’s seat, turning the car on, hearing Bonnie and Clyde growling in the back. I didn’t have time to get Vivian’s body, and I didn’t even want to think about the ramifications of that yet. Quickly reversing, I kept my lights off, but let my eyes flare in the darkness. I saw the flashing headlights less than a block away, so I cut the wheel to the right, praying the place had a back entrance.
It didn’t.
I made one.
Bumping over the curb into the next parking lot, I heard multiple Com police car tires squealing to a stop at the ice-cream parlor. I kept the gas pedal down, zigzagging through the parking lot of a grocery store, also exiting their back entrance — they had one —before driving onto a main thoroughfare. Destination unknown.