Caught in Darkness (12 page)

Please, no, Veronica whispered
silently before calling out, “Where are you leading me?”

“We’re going to that address,”
Allison called back. “You’ll never resolve whatever it is you’ve gotten
yourself into if you don’t occasionally do shady things yourself.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”
Veronica exclaimed, jogging for a moment to catch up with her. “Wait, Ali! This
isn’t necessary. I’ll deal with it later.”

“Or you can deal with it now,”
Allison insisted, never breaking stride as she began crossing the street. “And
since we took my car out here, you’re going to, because I’m going.”

“Allison,” Veronica tried,
desperate for a way to talk her friend out of her decision without breaking her
promise
to Seth. “Please, you don’t need to involve
yourself in this, okay?”

“It’s either not a big deal, like
you tried making it out to be last night, or it’s a very big deal and you
should have your best friend around for moral support,” Allison returned
easily. Veronica suspected she’d been rehearsing the line since the previous
night.

She sucked in a breath, searching in
vain for another tactic. She was still searching when they reached Allison’s
car, and Allison was already reaching for her door. Veronica’s feet stopped
moving somewhere beside the bumper, her heart pounding in her chest. This was a
terrible idea. But then why was Allison’s insistence starting to make sense to
her?

“You
coming?”
Allison asked, paused with one foot in the car as she glanced back at her
friend.

This is a terrible idea. “Yeah,”
Veronica replied as she moved forward and reached for the passenger door.

Allison didn’t ask a single
question as she drove. Veronica spent half of the drive cursing her friend’s
photographic memory and the other half thanking it. She doubted she’d have had
the courage to go on her own, and Seth certainly wouldn’t have let her, but a
morbid part of her really did want to know what was on the other end of that
address. Not that she knew why, since it was guaranteed to be bad.

And then the car was slowing,
pulling off of the road and onto a patch of gravel before stopping altogether. “This
is it,” Allison declared as she cut the engine. “Ready?”

“No,” Veronica replied honestly as
she released her seatbelt. “But let’s get this done.”

Together they climbed from the car
and started forward, walking side-by-side toward the lone building. It looked
condemned, which would actually make sense, since it was an abandoned
neighborhood. The building—which no longer qualified as the small single-story
house it had once been—had holes in the walls and jagged shards of glass
serving as windows. The yard was horrendously overgrown and the door didn’t
quite fit in the doorjamb.

“Because this isn’t spooky,”
Allison mumbled as they paused in front of the door.

You have no idea, Veronica thought
as she took a deep, stabilizing breath and stepped up. Someone had to go first,
and since the note had been for her it only made sense that she be the one. Praying
it wasn’t a
trap,
Veronica put her hand to the door
and gave a light shove as she called, “Hello?”

The door swung open, creaking
loudly, but nothing else moved. There were no other sounds and it was too dark
inside for her to see anything. And then Allison switched on the flashlight
mode on her phone and shone it forward, lighting the first few feet past the
now-open doorway. Veronica immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Oh my god.”

Chapter Seven

“Is…is that…?” Allison’s question
was nearly inaudible and the emotion was already thick in her voice, her eyes
undoubtedly focused on the object only barely illuminated by her phone.

Veronica couldn’t bring herself to
answer Allison’s question, just like she couldn’t bring herself to look away. She
desperately needed to look away. She couldn’t breathe, her stomach was roiling
like it did right before she threw up, and her knees were starting to feel weak.
She had seen a body before, but this…this was different.

This was Mandy.

Only a few feet beyond the doorway,
and barely within the beam of light, lay Mandy’s very-lifeless body. She was
curled almost in a fetal position, only her shoulders turned so that her head
was facing up, toward the roof. Her eyes were still open, hair tousled around
her, and her arms were resting at odd angles on either side of her torso. Most
importantly, however, was the gigantic chunk that seemed to be missing from her
throat. Blood was drying all around her, caking a large portion of her hair and
covering her left shoulder and the top of her chest beneath.

Veronica was still staring,
searching for her breath and begging her eyes to look anywhere else, when the
light clicked off and Mandy’s corpse was once again enshrouded in darkness. The
sudden disappearance of the light seemed to shock her system into functioning,
and she turned entirely around as she sucked in a shaky breath. It was only
then that she realized she was crying.

Allison’s slightly-shaky hands were
moving over her phone as she said, “I’m calling this in. And whatever it is
you’re involved in? You’re telling me everything as soon as I’m off the phone.”

No police. Seth had requested she
leave them out. Was that still the right thing? It felt like it, and that was
all she had to go on. And then her hand was landing over the phone, tugging it
from Allison’s startled grasp, and disconnecting the call before it could go
through. “No, we can’t,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” Allison began, her
voice sounding more stable to Veronica’s ears than Veronica’s own as she
snatched her phone back. “What?
Why the hell not?”

“Just wait,” Veronica pleaded as
she pulled her own phone from her pocket. “I have to call someone…but I’ll tell
you, I promise.” Her hands were definitely shaking as she dialed the speed dial
that would connect to Seth, and she was glad she didn’t have to hit more than
three buttons.

Allison was giving her an
impatient, suspicious look that was entirely foreign on her face, but she
remained silent as she waited. And for that, at least, Veronica was grateful.

“Veronica?” Seth asked as he
answered.

She dragged in another ragged
breath, swallowing, and said, “I need you to meet me. Something’s…something’s
happened, and I’m not sure what to do.”

“Where?”

Veronica rattled off the address
after digging the crumpled paper from her pocket and
squinting
her blurry eyes at it, and she could only bring herself to nod when he assured
her that he would arrive shortly. Then she pulled the phone from her ear,
disconnected the call, and promptly sank to her knees.

****

Seth hung up his phone and returned
his attention to the two women who were leaning against an early-model Prius,
his chest tight. His introduction to Veronica’s friend, Allison Drake, hadn’t
exactly been fantastic but that was hardly what was bothering him. He was too
old and too experienced to be bothered by mutilated bodies—at least on a
physical level. The uncomfortable feeling inside of him—the feeling that made
him want to tear out someone’s heart and possibly throw up—was entirely because
of Veronica.

She hadn’t needed to gesture toward
the building behind her when he got there in order for him to know that someone
had died there recently—the scent of blood was still thick in the air. But, for
the first time in a long time, it only made him angry. Veronica was a mess. Her
blue eyes were surrounded by red lines. Her cheeks were stained with the tears
he’d heard in her voice over the phone. Her shoulders were shaking from the
effort it was taking her to restrain her sobs. Her bare knees were discolored
from the overgrown grass that she was sitting in and indented by the little
sticks and pebbles that were trapped beneath them. She hadn’t even been able to
push to her feet for several minutes after his arrival.

Her friend had been slightly more
composed, though her cheeks were nearly as tear-stained as Veronica’s. She was
crying silently and had a tight grip on her phone that perfectly emphasized the
distrustful shine in her eyes as she watched him. That distrustful shine only
magnified when she learned the truth—a truth Seth had been very reluctant to
tell.

Sometime after revealing that their
friend, Mandy, had been murdered by a vampire Allison had practically dragged
Veronica to her feet and over to the Prius, seeming to understand that they
shouldn’t leave but clearly not wanting to be anywhere near him. He’d used the
opportunity to make a couple of calls, knowing that the situation needed to be
handled delicately. Now, however, it was time to see if Allison would let him
talk to Veronica.

“The police are on their way,” Seth
declared quietly as he came to a stop before them. The ache in his chest eased
a little. It seemed, if only for the moment, that Veronica had stopped crying.

Allison was glaring at him through
her red-rimmed eyes, arms crossed as she demanded, “And do you expect us to lie
to them for you?”

“No,” Seth replied calmly. “You
should tell them the truth—exactly as you knew it before I got here.”

Veronica swallowed, licked her
lips, and asked, “But…won’t they be in your way?”

“Maybe,” Seth allowed, “but
sometimes it’s necessary. There’s also the chance that, with the police
searching for them, Richards and the others might slip up enough for me to find
them.”

“What,” Allison began, angry
sarcasm layering her tone, “are you some sort of vampire bounty-hunter?”

“Not technically,” Seth replied. “But
I am looking for them in order to get them off the streets, so in this case
that’s not too far off.”

Allison looked away and Seth
pretended not to notice that she was struggling with a fresh round of tears
before she grumbled, “This is crazy.” She cut her glare back to him and asked,
“Why shouldn’t I tell them the truth as I know it now?”

“You could,” Seth assured her, “but
then I imagine it’s you who would be considered ‘crazy’.”

Silence fell over them after that. The
fight seemed to have fled from Allison’s system and she looked away again. Seth
watched them for a moment, both bracing their weight against the car and holding
themselves
in search of comfort, and his heart ached. For
a moment he stood there, wanting to pull Veronica into his arms to offer what
little solace he could, but telling himself that he shouldn’t. And then she
sniffled.

He didn’t even think as he strode
forward and gently tugged Veronica into his chest, wrapping his arms around her
tightly. She released a muted, choked sound, curled her fists into his shirt,
and let herself cry into his shoulder. With one thumb rubbing soothing circles
over her back, Seth bowed his head and pressed his lips to her hair. He wanted
to do so much more, but he knew there wasn’t anything more that he could do, at
least not in the moment. As he stood there, breathing in the mixed scents of a
grieving Veronica and the drying blood of her friend, he vowed that he would
find Gregory Richards. And when he found him, Richards would pay for every tear
Veronica shed.

****

Dealing with the police had been
terrible, though Veronica had managed to pull herself together enough to form
coherent sentences by then. And though she felt bad for the tension between
Allison and Seth she didn’t have the energy to smooth the ruffled feathers. She
was just glad that Seth stayed with her the entire time. It was easier to
breathe when he was near her.

She figured that was the reason she
felt like she might collapse the moment Allison suggested going home.

Allison meant ‘come on, Veronica,
I’ll take you home,’ which made sense since they had arrived together. Only,
that wasn’t what Veronica wanted to do. She didn’t particularly care where she
went—a roof was a roof—her problem was that she was feeling incredibly
particular about what company she wanted to keep.

She didn’t realize she was staring
at Allison’s car, frozen in place, until Seth’s hand landed lightly on her
shoulder. “Veronica?” he asked just as gently.

Sucking in a breath, Veronica
whispered, “I don’t think—.” No, she couldn’t say that. Instead, she turned her
head enough to look up at him and asked, “Will you take me home? Can you…stay
awhile?”

Seth inclined his head, giving her
shoulder a light squeeze. She was touched by the sympathy and concern in his
expression.

Turning her attention forward
again, she found Allison watching with an odd look on her face, and offered,
“I’m sorry, Ali…. Seth’s going to take me home, all right?”

There wasn’t an ounce of surprise
in Allison’s eyes as she nodded.
“All right.
Be safe.”
She ducked into the car without another word and with barely a glance at Seth.

Once Allison had rolled the engine
over Seth said, “Come on, let’s get you inside.” As he spoke he let his hand
trail down to the middle of her back in order to gently steer her toward his
car, parked a car length behind Allison’s. Veronica let him guide her, moving
on autopilot.

The drive to her house was quiet,
Veronica spending it with her temple resting against the side window and her
left hand wrapped securely in Seth’s right. She held on to his hand, to the
feeling of his strength and support, and hoped it would seep into her after a
while.

Seth was locking the front door
behind them and Veronica had been, albeit slowly, moving toward her couch when
one of the forbidden thoughts floating through her mind finally found a voice. At
least Dad was cleaned up. Her forward momentum died as her throat swelled with
the memory. She’d been trying so hard not to let what happened to Mandy send
her back to that place, but she supposed that was unrealistic. His was, after
all, the only other dead body she’d ever seen. And suddenly that open-casket
funeral didn’t seem so horrifying.