Omega (12 page)

R
anda awoke with a start, instinctively knowing she’d somehow slept past sundown, something that happened only when a vampire’s body was trying to heal an injury. It was black as obsidian, the air around her close and damp. Something light touched her face with a feathery tickle. Where was she?

She tried to move her legs, to sit up, but she was immobile below the waist.

“Stop wiggling.”

She froze, suddenly aware of a heart beating directly beneath hers, the male voice coming from just north of her ear.

“Will?” Why was she lying on top of him? Why couldn’t she move?

Then it finally came back to her. She had recognized the grenade right away. Military issue, the same type the army bought by the gross. When it hit the floor of the exit room, she hadn’t stopped to think. She’d plowed into Will and knocked him on his back, away from the grenade. Then it blew.

“Are you OK?” He ran his hands along her back, and she flinched at the pain of his probing fingers on her skin—her shirt must have been in tatters. “Damn it. I think some kind of projectiles came out of that thing and hit you in the back. Your skin must have healed over them during daysleep. I have one on my face.”

She returned her head to rest on his chest, letting his hands stroke her hair. “Don’t feel any here,” he said. “Are you in pain?”

“Not too bad. How much trouble are we in? I can’t move my legs.”

“Me either. I think we’re pinned. And I can’t even feel my left foot.” Will coughed, and Randa felt another feathery touch on her face. “Concrete dust and dirt keeps sifting down. We have to be in some kind of air pocket—I’m afraid if we try to pull free, it’ll bring everything down on top of us.” He shifted his upper body slightly, causing another shower of dust. “Don’t guess you have a cell phone on you?”

“Planning to call nine-one-one?” She regretted the words before they were out of her mouth. She had to stop being such a smart-ass. If she lived through this,
nicer
would be her goal. “Sorry. Being bitchy is a habit I’m trying to break.”

“It’s hard to stop something when you’re so damned good at it.”

She bit back a retort, then realized he was laughing. His upper body shook with it. An embarrassing giggle-snort escaped her before she could stop it, which made him laugh harder. She fought to control the giggles. They were both on the verge of hysteria, just happy to be alive, but if they didn’t quit laughing, the whole damned tunnel was going to bury them. “I think my phone’s in my pocket—why?”

“You got a flashlight app on it?” Smart man. Randa tried to move her right arm, but it was pinned beneath Will’s body. She was afraid to reposition enough to retrieve it. “It’s in my right pocket, and my right arm’s pinned.”

“Let me try.” His left hand was warm as it slid slowly down her side and eased between their bodies. Fingers explored the waistband of her pants and slid straight down with a pressure that sped her heart rate. Her left hand was free, and she pinched his side. Hard. “Watch it, buddy. My pocket isn’t over my…crotch.”

“Sorry.” Will’s voice didn’t sound the least bit sorry. In fact, it sounded as if he might start laughing again. “I was afraid it might be my only chance to get my hand in your pants.”

“Just get the damned phone.” She ground the words through her teeth, thinking of mountains of dirt over their heads, whether they could run out of air, anything except Will’s wandering fingers and how this was not the time to flirt.

His hand found the opening to her pocket and slid inside, scrambling for the phone. Finally, he pulled it out. “Where’s the power button? Oh, never mind. Found it.”

The little screen cast a greenish light over Will’s face, and Randa gasped. His left cheek was red and swollen where a projectile had hit him and he’d healed over it. Her back probably looked the same way.

He was frowning at the screen, punching buttons. “You have it password protected?”

“The password is…” She paused. Damn, she hated to admit she’d used his pet name for her as a password since she’d spent so much time pretending it pissed her off. Really, she thought it was funny. It was the first nickname she’d ever had. “The password is
veranda
.”

The phone’s glow caught his smile, then his scowl. “Here, you type it in.”

“But you’ve got both hands free and I only have my left—try again.”

He closed his eyes, and his chest rose and fell beneath her. “I can’t. Here, I’ll hold it, and you can punch in the letters.”

Weird. Maneuvering her left hand, she did as he asked, then scrolled to the flashlight app and clicked on the icon. A brilliant light came off the back of the phone. “Take it,” she said. “I can’t see anything but your pretty face.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s a dirty shade of gorgeousness right now.” He turned the phone over, and Randa watched his eyes as he followed the beam of light above them. Shifting his head an inch to the left, he squinted past her shoulder toward their legs. “Hm.”

Not helpful. “What do you mean,
hm
? What’s the situation?”

He laid the phone on his chest, and she was glad he hadn’t turned the light off yet. They needed to save the battery, but she didn’t feel as panicked when she could see him.

“One end of a support beam’s wedged across our legs, and the other end’s propped against a part of a broken beam above us. We probably have enough vampire power between us to shove the beam off our legs, but it would bring everything down. We’re gonna have to wait until the cavalry arrives.”

Randa felt panic bloom in her gut like an unfolding flower. “Which ‘cavalry’ will find us first—our people or Matthias’s?”

Will didn’t answer. His gaze had grown distant, and she badly wanted to know what he was thinking. The only way to get him to open up might be for her to do it first. She would not be taken hostage.

She rested her cheek on his chest again. “If Matthias finds us, I’m going to make sure he kills me—just warning you.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, but she knew he could hear her. “I hate being a vampire. I’m not good at it. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time or how to gauge what I can do. Feeding grosses me out. I’m intimidated around you guys who are so good at everything. I felt that way growing up around all my brothers, trying to be as good as them, trying to be a good little soldier like them. And now I have to do it for eternity. So if it isn’t Aidan coming through the cave-in first, don’t try to save me from Matthias.”

Will didn’t say anything, so Randa shifted her head to see his face. His eyebrows were bunched so tightly he had crinkles between them, and the muscles in his jaw clenched and released. “None of us knows how to be a vampire the first few years; give yourself time.” His voice dropped, grew hard. “If you think I’ll let Matthias touch you, forget it. He’ll have to tear me to pieces to get to you, and I don’t think he will. If he finds us first, I’ll go with him peacefully on the condition you go free. He’d consider that a good deal.”

It was Randa’s turn to stare. Will had obviously been abused by his father and, at least on some level, was afraid of him—with good reason, as near as she could tell. “Why? You don’t know me that well. You don’t even like me—and don’t get me wrong, I know I haven’t given you any reason.”

Will finally lowered his gaze to look at her, and the fierce light in his eyes softened. “I like you, Randa. I…You intimidate me with all your training—look how you pushed me away from that grenade when I hadn’t even figured out what it was. When I feel threatened, I get competitive and act like an asshole.”

She intimidated him? Randa searched his face for a twinkle in his eye or an upturn of his lips, but they weren’t there. “So
I’ve been a bitch because you intimidate me, and you’ve been an asshole because I intimidate you?”

He grinned, then winced when the gesture stretched the reddened skin on his cheek. “We are a couple of pathetic losers.”

“Damn straight.” Randa knew she shouldn’t be smiling. The world was literally about to cave in on them, and they had a fifty-fifty chance of rescue by a murderous sociopath. And yet, here she was, smiling.

Will clicked the flashlight app off, and they rested in the soft light from the illuminated phone screen.

“If you go to settings and type in the password again, you can set that light to stay on. It won’t drain the battery too fast, and I don’t think I can stand the dark again.”

Will moved the phone toward her left hand, which was resting on his shoulder. “Here, you do it.”

“I don’t think I can maneuver it left-handed.” She’d always been hopeless with her left hand. Ambidextrous, not so much. “You have both hands free.”

Another big sigh. “I can’t.”

He was Mr. Computer Wiz, architect, engineer, good at everything. Why was he being so pigheaded about her stupid cell phone? “What do you mean, you can’t? What’s the—”

“I can’t spell without sounding it out, and I didn’t want you to think I was stupid, OK? Shit.” His voice dropped so low she had to strain to hear. “Don’t tell Aidan. Please don’t tell Aidan.”

The exit room was silent but for the soft thud of earth hitting earth. Another piece of the matchstick palace had fallen somewhere.

Randa tried to process the admission, but couldn’t. It made no sense. “Will, you are the smartest person I’ve ever met,
but you know that. Help me understand.” And if he was pulling some joking crap, she was going to forget her vow to be nicer.

He didn’t answer for a while, and she settled back down, with her head tucked under his chin. He ran his hand up and down her left arm, shoulder to elbow and back up to shoulder, but she didn’t think he even realized he was touching her. He was a million miles away from this cave. She wanted to understand him, but he had to let her in, and she didn’t know how to make him. “Talk to me, Will.”

“I flunked first grade—how stupid was that?”

Randa held her breath, willing him to go on.

“I couldn’t learn to read. Dad tried to beat it into me. Mom tried to defend me. They fought all the time. He’d lock me in the basement—this was all before he was turned vampire. I didn’t see words the same way the other kids did.”

Understanding finally dawned. “You’re dyslexic?”

Will looked at her finally, a long, steady gaze before he nodded. “I know that now. I heard something about it on the news and started doing some research. But I was a kid in the 1950s from an upper-class family, the son of a prominent New York attorney. Nobody knew what dyslexia was. I gradually learned to cope, to fake my way around things, to get by enough so my father only made fun of me instead of beating the shit out of me. I like computers because they’re so graphic intense.”

Randa thought of her own childhood, growing up with a by-the-rules father whose only way of raising five children by himself was to treat them as another army unit. She’d always beaten herself up over not being as strong or fast as her brothers, but her dad had never made her feel that way. He’d never belittled her. She never felt as if she measured up, but now, listening
to Will, she realized she’d done that to herself. Blaming her dad had been easier than seeing the flaw in herself.

“Thank you for telling me. I won’t tell Aidan, but you should.”

He gave a bitter chuckle. “Not so intimidated by me now, are you?”

God, how could his self-image be so totally wrong? And how could she have misjudged him so badly?

She hated Matthias Ludlam. If she got a chance, she’d kill him herself for screwing up his beautiful son so badly.

“Will, I’m in awe of your strength. I mean”—she lifted her head to look at him, willing him to meet her gaze—“you are an amazing person, and I always thought it was because you had everything handed to you. Now I realize it’s because you made yourself what you are, through strength and smarts and determination. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch.”

He gave her his old cocky eyebrow lift, but it was shaky around the edges. “And I’m sorry I knocked you out and left you on the sofa before I went to rescue Mirren.”

OK, so he’d had enough soul-searching and was ready to hide behind his humor again. Now that she knew it was his defense mechanism, she could deal with it. Aidan had been right when he’d paired them up to…

“Holy shit.”

“What?”

Their rescue was within reach, and neither of them had realized it. “Call Aidan. You need to call Aidan.” Randa’s heart rate sped up. They could get out of here!

Will stared at her. “Do you have a concussion or something? What the hell are you talking about? There’s no cell service this far underground.”

Randa’s mouth dropped open. He honestly had no idea what she meant. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Y
ou’re becoming a master vampire.” Just like that—she’d said it twice. Then he made her repeat it, just to make sure he didn’t have dirt and concrete dust plugging his ears.

She must’ve misunderstood Aidan. “Why didn’t he tell me this big news? I mean, shouldn’t I know if I was turning into some kind of supervampire?” It was ridiculous. Except the more Randa tried to explain, the more he thought about a couple of nights ago when he’d been able to alter Ethan’s memories, and the kid at the ice-cream shop. Later, he’d been able to not only scent vampires in the woods from greater distances, but also to tell what scathe they were from.