His wax-white skin was cool to the touch when she brushed his neck to find the knot of the cloth. She’d never been this close to a vampire, never realized what it would be like to be so near to someone who didn’t breathe, who could be still as any statue. His chest neither rose nor fell. Her hands shook.
She thought she heard something somewhere in the bowels of the house, a creaking sound, like a door opening. She forced herself to concentrate on unknotting the cloth faster, even though she had to do it one-handed. She wished desperately for a knife, wished she’d been clever enough to pick one up when she’d been in the kitchen, wished she had something better than a pot-metal trophy covered in gold paint.
“Look, I’m sorry about before,” Aidan called from the bed. “I’m half out of my head, okay? But I won’t do it again—I would never hurt you.”
“You’re not exactly someone who’s big on resisting temptation,” Tana said.
He laughed a little, before the laugh turned into a cough. “I’m more the run-toward-it-with-open-arms type, right? But really, please believe me, I scared myself, too. I won’t do anything like that again.”
Infected people got loose from restraints and attacked their families all the time. Those kinds of stories weren’t even headline news anymore.
But vampires weren’t all monsters, scientists kept insisting. Theoretically, with their hunger sated, they are the same people they were before with the same memories and the same capacity for moral choice.
Theoretically.
Finally, the knot came apart in Tana’s hand. She scuttled back from the red-eyed boy, but he didn’t do anything more than spit out the cloth gag.
“Through the window,” he said. His voice had a faint trace of an accent she couldn’t place—one that made her pretty sure he was no local kid infected the night before. “Go. They’re swift as shadows. If they come through the door, you won’t have time.”
“But you—”
“Cover me with a heavy blanket—two blankets—and I’ll be tucked in tight enough against the sun.” Despite looking only a little older than Aidan, the calm command in his voice spoke of long experience. Tana felt momentarily relieved. At least someone seemed to know what to do, even if that someone wasn’t her. Even if that someone wasn’t human.
Now that she was out of his range, she set down the trophy carefully, back on the dresser, back where it belonged, back where it would be found by Lance’s parents and—Tana stopped herself, forced herself to focus on the impossible here and now. “What got you chained up?” she asked the vampire.
“I fell in with bad company,” he said, straight-faced, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if he was joking. It rattled her, the idea that he might have a sense of humor.
“Be careful,” Aidan called from the bed. “You don’t know what he might do.”
“We know what you’d do, though, don’t we?” the vampire accused Aidan in his silky voice.
Outside, the sun would be dipping down toward the tree line. She didn’t have much time to make good decisions.
She had to take her chances.
There was a comforter on the bed, underneath Aidan, and she started yanking on it. “I’m going for my car,” she told both of them. “I’m going to pull up to the window, and then you’ll both get in the trunk. I have a tire iron. Hopefully, I can snap the links with that.”
The vampire looked at her in bewilderment. Then he glanced toward the door and his expression grew sly. “If you free me, I could hold them off.”
Tana shook her head. Vampires were stronger than people, but not by so much that iron didn’t bind them. “I think we’re all better off with you chained up—just not here.”
“Are you sure?” Aidan asked. “Gavriel’s still a vampire.”
“He warned me about you and about them. He didn’t have to. I’m not going to repay that by—” She hesitated, then frowned. “What did you call him?”
“That’s his name.” Aidan sighed. “Gavriel. The other vampires, while they were tying me to the bed, they said his name.”
“Oh.” With a final tug she pulled the blanket free and tossed it over to Gavriel.
Her heart thundered in her chest, but along with the fear was the reckless thrill of adrenaline. She was going to save them.
There was a sudden scrabbling at the door, and the handle began to turn. She shrieked, climbing onto the bed and hopping over Aidan to get to the window. The garbage bag ripped free with one tug, letting in golden, late afternoon light.
Gavriel gasped in pain, pulling the blanket more tightly around him, turning his body as much behind another dresser as he could.
“Lots of sun still!” she shouted between breaths. “Better not come in.”
The movement outside the door stopped.
“You can’t leave me here,” Aidan said as Tana shoved at the old farmhouse window, swollen by years of rain. It was stuck.
Her muscles burned, but she pushed again. With a loud creak, the window slid up a little ways. Enough to get under, she hoped. The cool, sweet-smelling breeze brought the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-mowed grass.