“Okay, I’m going to send them to your phone. I’ll keep sending them as they change, but just stay on the line with me,” he says.
“I will. Thank you so much for doing this.”
“Of course! Did Finn just waltz right into danger?” Watson asks.
The moment the message comes in, I stick it into my GPS and start driving. “He’s good at sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Hmm… Finn is very smart; you just might not realize it.”
“I know he’s smart,” I say. “I’m just… a bit…” I take a deep breath. “If he gets himself hurt…”
“I get it,” he says. But I’m not sure he does. Not like this, anyway.
“You knew Finn as a child.”
“I did.”
“How long has this elder vampire been pursuing him?”
Silence. The only noise is my GPS instructing me where to turn as I hit eighty.
“Watson?” I growl.
“D-Did he take him?” His voice sounds hollow, a shake to it that I’m surprised to hear. Clearly, there’s more to this story than I know.
“I… I don’t think so. He was too busy kicking my ass while Finn was off getting abducted.”
“You need to call Orin, now,” he says and hangs up.
Fuck.
I don’t have Orin’s number, so I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to call him. Then I remember I have Finn’s phone, so I put in his passcode and call Orin.
“Hey, Finny!” Orin says.
“It’s Marcus.”
A momentary hesitation. “Is everything alright?”
“Depends on your definition of alright. Finn’s been abducted, Watson is giving me his coordinates, but I’ll get him back, I promise. But I was talking to Watson and he told me to call you. There’s a vampire following Finn. What the fuck is that about?”
“What?” he asks. The inflection in his voice tells me he knows exactly who I’m talking about. “No, no, no.”'
“What do you mean, ‘no’? You clearly know about this.” I can feel myself getting angry or upset or something. I just want Finn back. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted anything so much in my life. I want to protect him and keep him away from everything horrible. Has he not had enough horrible things in his life?
“Does he have him? Where are you? I’m coming,” Orin says.
“I don’t think so. Like I told Watson, he was too busy kicking my ass. I don’t think he had time to grab Finn. Who the fuck is he?”
“An elder vampire.”
“I figured out that much when he crushed my throat. What’s he want with Finn?” I ask, needing to know so I can keep Finn safe.
“I don’t know. I thought he was gone. I thought it was over with. If you can’t stop him… I’m not sure who could. I’ve tried protecting Finn… but we thought it was over with.”
“Will you stop with the beating around the bush?”
“He’s the one who took Finn’s arm and leg.”
I want to be surprised. I want to feel shock over this revelation, but I don’t because I feel like I already knew. “But… the car accident. I saw pictures of it. I looked it up because I thought Finn was lying to me.”
My phone starts beeping, and I see that it’s Watson. “I… I need to take this. It’s Watson.”
“Okay. Send me your coordinates. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
I want to tell him it’s a police matter, but honestly, I don’t care how many rules I break tonight if it means getting Finn back safely.
Chapter Eighteen
FINN
The box truck rumbles along as I get beat to shit against the metal floor of the crate. I can hear one of the men back here with us, occasionally yelling or beating on a man who is pleading to get out. The woman slides under the blanket and stares at me.
“You’d better have a very good reason for dragging me in here,” I hiss low enough that the human guard won’t hear. It probably wouldn’t matter over the noise of the stuff bouncing around in the truck and the sobs of the man.
She nods. “They took my husband… He was in the crate next to mine and they took him. If I let you take me away, we never would have found him, but they might be taking us to him. And then you can get us out, right? You can help us? I need to save my husband. Please. This is the only thing I can think of to find him.”
“And if you can’t get out, what makes you think I can?”.
“The drugs won’t affect you. They keep us down with the drugs. They’re constantly watching.”
“What are they doing?” I ask as I stay on my back with my head turned enough to watch her even though we can’t get much closer.
“Testing. They keep pumping me full of drugs that make me want to die… some drugs do kill… the last one they brought in, they killed them. I’m so scared. Will you help me? Please?”
“I’ll try. What’s your name?”
“Liz.”
I watch the vampire as I wonder what I should do. Right now, I have one guard to take down. I have my tranq gun loaded along with one backup magazine and that’s it. But the level of tranquilizer is for a vampire who needs a whole hell of a lot more than a human. While it’s a low enough dosage to not kill the human, it could cause damage. That is why I usually carry a taser for the humans. But seeing as I didn’t imagine I would be in this situation, I only have the tranq gun.
So right now would be a good time to escape. Shoot the man, unlock the crate with the key I still possess, and free the vampires. When we get to a stop, I could let the vampires bust through the door and together, we’d drop onto the ground and escape into the night.
She must see me thinking because she reaches out with a chained wrist and takes my hand. “Please. Please, please, please. Don’t you have someone you’d do anything for?”
I have a lot of someones I’d do anything for, including a vampire who is probably grumping about me getting caught. He’s probably even threatening to lock me up himself. He’ll remind me that I’m a feeble little human who would be better off knitting in some room surrounded by fluffy puppies. But not big fluffy puppies since they could crush my weak human body.
I sigh.
I think I miss my grumpy vampire.
“Thank you,” Liz says, looking relieved.
Somehow me sighing about Marcus makes her think that I agree with her stupid plan. But if Marcus was tied up somewhere… what a laugh. Okay, so… if for some reason in some weird world where Marcus couldn’t decapitate someone with a finger flick, he got all tied up and not in the sexy way, I would do whatever I could to get him back.
Now I’m thinking about Marcus tied up and in the sexy way which is kind of awkward with this woman pressed up against me. I’m getting further with her than I’ve gotten with Marcus!
“When my hot vampire not-boyfriend-kind-of-boyfriend comes along and tries to kick my ass for this, I’m pointing at you,” I warn her.
She gives me a slight upturn of the lips. “Thank you.”