We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) (26 page)

We locked eyes. No one had ever looked at me like that before. Like I wasn’t human. Waves of shock went through my body. The look of absolute horror in the eyes of someone I’d saved from death.

“You’re safe now,” I whispered, wishing I believed it. “Go.” The girl had stopped, exhausting easily, but then scrambled to her feet, holding on to the wall as she ran away.

The thugs chased after her, an easy catch. Once she was captured in a bear hug, the thug who caught her snapped her neck. The girl’s eyes would forever be frozen in awful shock.

I slumped against the wall, eyes closed. I smelled Lennon’s perfume coming closer. She sat next to me, and we held on to each other. She sobbed. I stared up at Cash.

“She’s next,” He mouthed to me, pointing to Lennon.

“I’
m fine, doll.” Lennon sniffed. “I know what I’m dealing with.”

She had no idea what she was dealing with.

I’d insisted Lennon come back to the Alta Vista with me. I got her out of there as fast as I could, only slowed down by what human eyes could process. Tony drove us back, and I’d be damned if I said anything in front of him. My whole body shook. I didn’t know how to tell Lennon the new love of her life considered her nothing more than an item to cross off a list.

But she’d been scared in that room, too. I was too rattled from what happened to that girl to get into Lennon’s head. I needed to know if the fear she’d felt was because of the girl or because Cash had already started making good on his promise. It didn’t matter. She was in danger, and I needed to protect her.

Both Cash and Blade had a vendetta against Talis, who had been a prostitute when she was alive. Now the two of them had some twisted logic that all prostitutes were responsible for what Talis had put them through? A sea of faces to hang their blame on, a myriad of easy targets in Sin City.

Lennon used to work in a strip club, but when she moved to Vegas, she saw quickly how different the job description of a stripper was here. She switched professions. Lennon wasn’t a whore. She was just a girl making the best of limited choices.

Did these crazy bastards know the difference? Did Lennon have to worry about Blade as well?

“I just think you should stay with us for a while.” My voice wavered. “It will be fun. Like when I stayed with you.”

“Oh sure,” Lennon crossed her arms and looked out the window of the SUV. “You two will be screwing your brains out, and I’ll be watching old movies on cable. Sounds like a blast.”

“We do other things, too,” I insisted, and Tony snorted. He now saw me with as much suspicion as I saw in him, since our confrontation. Any time I’d tried to read his mind, he was thinking of something inane. All I could pick up was smugness. The bastard had to be working with another vampire, but which one? Before today, I would have bet anything it was Blade, but now Cash emerged as a front runner. “Please? How often do I ask you for anything?”

“Never.” Lennon sighed. “Okay, but I need to get some stuff from my apartment.”

Tony looked back at me in the rearview mirror and nodded before changing lanes to head to Lennon’s house. No one said anything for the rest of the ride.

“I’ll wait in the car, ladies,” Tony said as we climbed out of the SUV into the parking lot. Just as well. I didn’t want to make any awkward small talk with him.

Walking double time to keep up with Lennon’s long, quick strides, I grabbed her arm. “Don’t say anything important in front of him, okay?”

She turned to face me before unlocking the door. “What the hell is going on, Callie? This is getting crazy. Cash is making live sacrifices, and you’re acting like the whole world is against us.”

“They might be.” I followed her into the apartment, looking behind me before I shut the door. I was becoming paranoid. I flopped down on the couch, mentally exhausted, as Lennon headed into her bedroom to pack a bag. I dug my phone out of my purse, giving me something to kill some time.

Rachel had left me a text.
Call me ASAP.

“I think Blade and Cash are working together.” Rachel spoke in a hushed tone when she answered the phone. I wondered where she was, and her words made my brain spin.

“Why?” It was all I could manage.

“They were in a meeting together last night at Embrace. Blade came out, and he was laughing, telling the guys they wouldn’t have to worry about you anymore.”

My muscles twisted painfully. “Did he say why?”

“I don’t know.” Rachel sounded apologetic. “I asked Josiah about it, and all he said was that Blade was nuts, and I needed to stay away from him.”

Great. “Does Josiah know that you’ve been talking to me?”

“Not everything.”

“You need to tell him, Rachel.” I had almost no control over the amount of disclosure in my life, but this we could control. “We need to be as open with each other as possible. Blade is dangerous. And powerful.”

Lennon’s scream overpowered whatever Rachel said in return. Dropping the phone, I ran towards the bedroom. I stopped short at the threshold, met with a human-shaped fireball flailing in front of the closet.

Now it was my turn to scream. Moving as fast as I could I grabbed all the blankets off to the bed and ran towards the flames, smothering them. I held tight to the form under the blankets, tears streaming down my face. I looked up, expecting to see Blade standing there or maybe even Cash, but all I saw was a broken window by Lennon’s bed.

Fucking cowards.

Lennon whimpered from underneath the blankets. Thank God, she was still alive. I patted her softly through the blankets, trying to comfort her, but wary of causing her more pain than she was already in. I was terrified to peel back the swaddling and look at the damage Blade did to my beautiful friend. But I had to. Lennon didn’t have forever to begin with, and depending on how bad her injuries were, that clock might be ticking double time right now.

God knows that’s how my heart was beating.

I couldn’t lose Lennon.

Slowly, I pushed the blankets away from her body. My stomach flopped violently every time Lennon shuddered. Her hair spilled into my lap, remarkably unscathed. I ran my fingers through it to make sure I could believe my eyes. Lennon jerked, almost like she was trying to get away from me, but didn’t have the strength.

“It’s me, Lennon,” I reassured her, so she didn’t think she was still under siege. Her body didn’t relax. I picked up a piece of her hair, realizing all the pins were gone, along with her blonde streaks.

This wasn’t Lennon.

I jumped back, and the stranger’s body fell out of my lap. She sat up, making me scream bloody murder. How could she do that? Just minutes before, she was engulfed in flames. Only one person could survive that.

“Holly?” I asked.

She turned around and looked at me, only meeting my eyes for a second. Holly nodded more at the ground than at me. My body relaxed momentarily.

Where the hell was Lennon?

“What just happened?” My words came slow, like I was speaking to someone who didn’t speak English. But this girl, she was so timid, I felt like anything coming at her too fast would scare her deeper into submission.

She looked up at me, wide eyed, pulling the blanket tightly around her body, shivering. She was cold after igniting. When Blade did that thing to me that I thought he might cook me from the inside out, and I shivered the rest of that night. But Holly wasn’t a vampire. And she was used to bursting into flames. Maybe that’s what always happened. She looked down again, mashing her lips together like she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say.

“Who brought you here?” Eventually, she had to answer one of my questions. I moved towards her and she jumped.

“Stay away from me, bloodsucker.” She startled me by speaking loudly. I stopped in place. “I’m fine. I do this all the time.”

“You break into people’s houses and burst into flames? You make the people who live there disappear? I don’t think I’m following you.” The time for niceties passed when she conspired in whatever the hell just happened to Lennon. I moved faster than she could get away from me and grabbed her arm. “What the hell are you doing here and where is Lennon?”

Holly struggled to get away from me. “You’ll have to ask Cash.”

“He’s not exactly taking my phone calls right now, so you’re going to have to play secretary for me.” I rose to my feet, pulling Holly up with me. “You’re coming back with me.”

“What? No! I can’t,” she pleaded.

I looked back at her and laughed. “The only way Blade is going to talk to me is if I have something he wants. And since he’s got a newfound thing for redheads, I think he’s going to want you back.”

Holly pulled away from me as hard as she could, but I still dragged her easily across the carpet. “I need something to wear.”

“What?”

“My clothes burn when the fire comes.” Her voice was so low, I could barely make out the words. But the way she said it, it sounded like she had no control over bursting into flames.

Sighing, I stopped, pushing her back in the direction of Lennon’s walk-in closet. Lennon took immaculate care of her clothes, so many of them vintage pieces, and she kept them in better order than some stores I’d been in. I gave Holly a shove hard enough to make her fall back against the rack of clothes. Lennon would be pissed about the mess, if she ever got to see it. “Pick something. I don’t care if it fits or not. Make it fast. We’ll clean this up later.”

Holly started flipping through the hangers, and pulled out a T shirt dress. Her other arm still held the blanket tightly against her body. She tipped her chin up towards me, defiant. Sort of. “Are you going to watch me get dressed?”

I crossed my arms and tried to fill as much of the doorway as possible. I hated shaming this girl, but I couldn’t give her any opportunity to get away from me. “Yeah.”

Now it was my turn to look at the floor while she pulled the dress over her head, letting the blanket fall. I still shook with the horror of finding someone on fire in Lennon’s bedroom and the anger of Lennon being missing. Again I hated that I couldn’t drive, I was at Tony’s mercy to bring me and Holly back to the Alta Vista. And Tony was probably as in on this as Holly was. And on top of all of it, I was irritated that after all that just happened this evening, I could still manage to feel bad about being mean to this girl. Whatever, Holly, you burn your clothes off every night in front of a live audience. The whole world had watched me have sex. Naked bodies weren’t anything remarkable around these parts.

“Her shoes don’t fit me.”

“Too bad.” I grabbed her arm and brought her out to the parking lot barefoot. Tony waited for us outside of the SUV, and looked alarmed when I returned with someone other than Lennon. I didn’t bother offering an explanation. “Can you get the door, please?”

“Back to the Alta Vista?” Tony asked once we were settled and he put the car into drive.

“Yeah. Unless you want to tell me what the hell Cash is doing to Lennon.”

He looked back at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

His guilt slapped me in the face. I wanted to put his head through the windshield. If Lennon was being hurt right now, he was just as responsible for letting it happen, and I’d never forgive him. Lennon had nothing to do with any of this. But I had to be careful. Tony had a really good idea I was on to him, but I still needed him to cooperate. Or at least bring us back to the Alta Vista.

“Just bring us home, and I’ll handle it from there.” I leaned against the window, rubbing my hand over my eyes. I was having a hard time resisting the urge to jump out of my own skin. I looked over at Holly, who sat stick straight beside me. “You’re not going to burst in to flames, are you?”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered.

“I’ll try not to.” She didn’t sound too convincing.

The fifteen minute drive back to the Alta Vista seemed like it took roughly a day and a half. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Holly, who seemed just as nervous as I was. Every so often, I managed a quick glance out the window, to make sure Tony was bringing us where he was supposed to. I wanted to kiss the concrete floor of the parking garage of the Alta Vista, but that meant I would have had to let Holly out of my grasp. No chance of that.

The apartment was quiet when we came in. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it felt really late. As much as Tristan could probably use a babysitter, I usually had no reason to wonder where he was. So far, he’d made good on his promise of no more girls. Outside of work and its extracurricular activities, Tristan didn’t stray far from my side. The world’s most unlikely homebody.