“Because you keep my doll safe when I’m not around. But you need to understand that he’s mine.” His voice turns sharp at the end. “He is my masterpiece. My beautiful work of art, and you will not touch him.”
Even though something in the back of my head is telling me that I will not win against this man, I’m enraged. I will never let another look at Finn or touch him or hurt him.
I step toward him even though I want to back away. “Finn is not yours. He belongs to himself and I will protect him from parasites like you.”
“How cute,” he says as he slams into me. He moves so quickly I barely see him, and though I manage to grab his hand before his nails tear into my abdomen, his other hand grabs my throat and squeezes so tightly, I feel him begin to crush it. Breath rips out of me as I slam into him. I reach for him, but he’s gone before I can.
I turn just in time for him to ram a chair into my head, snapping me back and throwing me into a table. My weight and the force I’m thrown with crushes it and the table slams to the ground with me on top of it. I grab a wooden shard and rush forward just as he flickers out of my sight and reappears on my right, but this time, I’m ready for it. I drive the shard into his stomach, and he howls out, clearly enraged that I was able to get one up on him. But it doesn’t last long before he throws me hard.
I slam onto my back, gasping for air that can’t fill me with my crushed throat. I roll up onto my feet and find that I’m alone with the humans. They’re staggering around, confused and scared.
What the fuck?
I stumble, body aching as I look around for him and realize that for the first time in hundreds of years, I’m afraid.
Not of my own death, but because I’m not sure I can protect Finn from that monster. He’s like something I’ve never come across before, so different than anything I’ve ever dealt with, especially to have that much power.
And why is he obsessed with Finn?
I can feel my body healing as I see my phone on the ground. It must have fallen from my hand when he slammed into me. I scoop it up and see that I have countless messages from Finn and Brooks. I quickly call Brooks, needing to get him and a team here.
I rush into the hallway, then realize that I have no idea where Perry is or where he’s taken the vampire from earlier.
“Dammit, Church, what the fuck is going on? Finn messaged me in a panic that he can’t get ahold of you and now he’s not replying to anything! I told you guys to look! This doesn’t seem like fucking looking!”
I open my mouth because now all I can think about is Finn in a panic, but nothing comes out. That asshole must have crushed more of my throat than I thought, and now I’ll have to wait for it to heal to speak. I quickly cancel the call and text Brooks instead.
Me: Been attacked. Can’t talk. Need backup immediately.
Brooks: They’re already headed there. Where’s Finn?
I rush over to the door leading into the basement and find it locked. I pull the mask over my face, knowing I’ll have to handle the smell. Maybe it’ll help now that I feel I can’t breathe at all. I grab the door handle and tear the entire door off the wall in my hurry. I rush down the stairs, foot slipping halfway down from my slightly disoriented state, and I nearly fall down the rest of them. I steady myself and hit another locked door. This one is much heavier duty. I slam into it, but it barely budges. I yank on it and listen to the metal whine against the pressure. I can hear people on the other side—they know I’m coming, and they sound panicked.
Wait until I get in there, and we’ll see just how fucking panicked they are. I back up as far as I can and slam into the door, making the metal cave in the middle, but it refuses to open. I continue beating against it until the metal finally gives and I rush inside.
The footsteps grow distant as I come across another fucking door. At least my throat is healed enough that I’m no longer struggling to find air, so when I slam into this door, it only takes a few hits before it finally gives, and I can push through it into the next room. The first thing I notice is that a large door at the other end is open and I can’t sense any life in the room. There are strange metal crates scattered around the room that are empty, other than a few dirty-looking blankets. I rush through the door and look at the ramp that leads to a back parking lot that I move into.
I pull my mask off and breathe in the air. I can smell Finn, but his scent ends right here, telling me that he must have gotten into a vehicle, but why? Did they force him? I can’t smell his blood, so that’s good, but I’m shocked he went without a fight.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down at it, begging it to be Finn, but it’s Brooks. My throat feels healed enough that instead of texting, I reply to his text with a call.
“Hey, can you talk?” Brooks asks.
“Yes,” I say, voice a little rougher than normal. “I lost Finn.”
“What do you mean you lost Finn?”
I rush back into the basement hoping to find a clue of where he’s gone. “Brooks, where the fuck is he?” I growl, panic oddly tugging at me. He’s a human and he could die so easily. Nearly anything could kill him.
“How am I supposed to know? He was with you and you guys were supposed to just blend in and see if you heard anything. Remember that?”
That’s when I notice that Finn’s smell is thick toward the corner. I rush over and see his phone lying on the ground. Quickly, I pick it up and check it, but there’s nothing for me to see besides the frantic texts I’d been sending him.
“Fuck, I found his phone. I was hoping to track him.”
“Oh wait! I might have something. Hang tight,” he says, then promptly hangs up on me.
Finn, where the hell did you go? You were supposed to be careful. You were supposed to go in and just check it out and leave. And now you’re gone. What if I can’t find you? What if they hurt you? What am I supposed to do without you?
As I begin grabbing things from the counters, flipping through them like crazy, I realize that I’m completely disrupting the crime scene, but I don’t even care. I’ll tear this fucking place down if it means finding Finn.
What if that vampire has him? What if I can’t get him back? That vampire could have killed me if he wanted to. Instead, he toyed with me. But if he took Finn from me, is there anything I could do?
And all Finn wanted was some attention from me, but I kept pushing him off and shoving him away because he’s a human. Because I didn’t want to deal with a human. But now…
My phone rings and I grab it, not recognizing the number but not caring. “Hello?”
“Church? This is Watson.”
“Watson?” I ask, confused.
“Finn’s doctor.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just… I’m kind of busy at the moment, can—”
“Hold up. So I have trackers on his prostheses.”
“On his prostheses? Why?”
“They’re extremely expensive pieces of equipment. If someone realized that and took them, they could get thousands of dollars for the technology alone. I might be a little… paranoid, but it’s helping us in this case because I can give you Finn’s coordinates.”
“Tell me,” I growl as I rush up the ramp and run to my car. I’m inside it before he even starts talking.