Lib Novel Page 28
I’m out the door before I have a chance to shut my applications or power off my computer, sprinting as fast as I can toward her apartment, which is just a street away. When I get to the front of the building, I look up at her window, heart pounding.
She told me not to watch her anymore. If I go up there, and nothing’s wrong, I will have completely shattered her trust.
But, if I don’t go up there, and something is wrong, I’ll never forgive myself for not checking. She’s already been through enough the past couple of days, with the curse and the blood bond.
Remembering the blood-bond, goosebumps break out over my skin. In the moment, all I’d wanted was to save her, but now, I’m thinking it through, and the consequences of that choice are sinking in.
If she dies, I’ll die. If I die, she’ll die.
Pulling out my phone, I quickly tap into the security system for her apartment building, bypassing the code and popping open the front door. As I run up the stairs to her floor, I reach for my throwing knives.
When I get to the landing outside her unit, the door to her apartment flies open, and she comes out, two vamps on either side of her, their arms hooked around hers, wrestling her away.
“No!” she shouts, kicking one in the shin. When he drops her, I let my knife loose, catching him right in the heart. Maybe it’ll have the same effect as a stake through the heart.
The other sees I’m there and tightens his hold on Olivia, moving like he’s going to take her down the stairs.
“I don’t think so,” I mutter, throwing two knives—one for each of his Achilles. He yells in pain—he may be immortal, but you can’t walk if your ligaments are sliced clear through. He tumbles to the ground, and I run forward.
“Byron!” Olivia shouts, rolling to her feet and backing against the wall. “Behind you!”
I turn just in time to catch the arm of a third vampire, swinging to try and throw me down the stairs. With the two knives still in my hands, I dance around him, slicing at his major arteries.
Vampires bleed for days, and it makes a mess all over the hallway. This guy is a beast, and I can see from his forming black eye and the way he favors his right arm that Olivia already did a number on him.
I’m faster than him, but he’s stronger than me, so when he gets a hit on me, it knocks my brain loose for a moment. I’m still recovering when Olivia appears again, wielding a frying pan. She hits the guy over the head as hard as she can, and then, to my surprise, she plants a foot in the middle of his chest, launching him down.
He stumbles back and trips over the other vamp, who’s still on the ground, trying to figure out how to stand.
I hear the flick of a lighter, and I realize what Olivia is going to do. Planting my hand on the wall, I kick the second vamp down the stairs, so he lands on the first one just as he’s trying to get up.
“Shit,” Olivia says, tossing the lighter toward them. “I wanted to whisper something clever.”
They go up like flash paper, their screams swallowed by the smoke.
“Shit,” I say, “this building is going to burn down.”
“Shit,” she says, turning to me, the two of us realizing at the same moment that, as cool as it is to kill vamps via fire, we’re on the third floor, and there are humans in this building to evacuate.
I send out an S.O.S. through the pack link as Olivia runs to pull the fire alarm, then races back into her apartment.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, running after her. The last thing she should be doing is going back into her apartment. Those vamps are like gasoline, meaning this building won’t last very long.
“My things,” she hisses, grabbing a bag and reaching her desk. She grabs several vintage video games from the shelf, sliding them into the bag before moving to her TV. She unplugs a vintage console and tucks it in the bag, too.
I stare at her as she grabs several hard drives from the shelf. If the situation were different, if we weren’t in this colossal mess, watching her save video games from the fire would be enough for me to profess my love.
“Okay,” she says, after a moment, her eyes flicking up to mine. “I got the essentials.”
***
“Okay, honey, everything is going to be okay,” Linnea says, her arm around a woman who’s sobbing, okay but scared. “We’ll move you into the shelter until you can chat with insurance and find a new place to stay, alright?”
The woman nods tearily. I’m sitting across from Olivia’s building—or, at least, what remains of it—sipping the energy drink Percy brought me.
“I don’t approve of it,” he’d said, “but I figured you were probably having withdrawals by now.”
When the pack showed up, it was quick work to clear out the building, trying to shield the humans from the worst of the vampire remains. They’re so oily that they tend to melt more than burn, and their remains turn to a special type of fuel. I can only imagine what raises the flames in hell.