Vicious (21 page)

Our entrance into the bar created quite the stir. We were instantly noticed, analyzed and judged as uppity out-of-towners, which turned out to be a fair assessment. For once, my lack of intensely beautiful features and vampiric otherworldliness helped me blend in to the crowd better rather than making me stand out like a piece of red plastic among genuine rubies. I stepped forward and the bartender addressed me as though I were the leader of this odd congregation of wild-eyed outsiders. I figured he saw me as the least unique-looking and therefore easiest to communicate with of the group.

“Evenin’ strangers. What can I getch ya’ll ta drink?”

If my college years taught me anything, it was to know what to order to fit in with a new crowd at a bar. I glanced around quickly and noticed several tables were sharing iced buckets of bottled Corona. I peeked quickly at a ragged chalkboard behind the bartender and noticed that a bucket of Corona ponies was the house happy-hour special all night long, so I promptly ordered two buckets. I instantly felt the room relax a little upon hearing my order, and most people turned back to their previous conversations. Nothing warms you to people like ordering what they drink.

We took our beers and grabbed some tables nearby. There was a bottle opener fastened on the wall by us, and I opened a beer for each of us to pretend to enjoy. The vampires sipped their beers with distaste and tried not to wince visibly. However, I sure enjoyed mine. It was cold and refreshing, and the act of drinking it not only calmed me and provided a little comfort to an otherwise anxious event, but it gave my sweaty hands something to do besides fidget.

Slowly, we relaxed into the normal cadence of the bar and began to split up and mingle with the other patrons. Anna and I broke off to talk with a small group of men while Lea, Jackson and Bridgette tried to join a game of darts in the corner. At first, Marshall and Lulu began kissing at our table as to not draw attention to the fact that we were obviously there to obtain information, but when the sight of the obviously mixed race and bizarre-looking couple began to draw a lot of attention, they ceased and faked conversation instead.

Our story was that we were LSU students, easier to explain the Louisiana plates on our cars, driving around the South and interviewing various prisoners for a sociology presentation on institutionalization. We told the three men we were talking to as much, and they seemed only mildly interested.

“Sociology, huh? What’s the paper about? How many times they get knifed, or how much television do they get to watch?”

His buddies chuckled at his lame attempt at a joke, and Anna suddenly turned on her brightest fake smile.

“No, no. Of course not,” she said in a sweet sing-song voice. “We are studying the effects of institutionalization on various age, race and social groups. Our results have been quite fascinating so far, and we hope our next stop will prove to be just as interesting,” She beamed with the innocence of her perceived youth.

The men couldn’t help but smile at the strangely lovely girl, but it was an attraction marred with unease at the same time. I noticed what Anna had tried to explain to him before. Most normal people found the vampires attractive but odd. They may have thought Anna was pretty and sweet, but something about her made them wary of her and uncomfortable. It was as though they saw her as beautiful yet unattainable in a cautious, look-over-your-shoulder-in-a-dark-alley sort of way.

Perhaps this was something natural? A gazelle instinctually knows to be afraid of a lion. Maybe somewhere in their very genetic makeup, normal people recognized the otherness of the vampires and reacted as such. Thinking back on their first encounter at the bar in New Orleans, this seemed all the more apparent. My buddies had stared at her from afar, but not even the boisterous and brave Eric had it in him to approach her. In fact, she had been standing there all alone in a room full of drunken, horny men, and I had been the only one to approach her. I hadn’t felt any of the fear or hesitation the guys had showed towards her, just blind attraction. No wonder Anna had looked at me funny when I’d come up to her that night.

“What prison are you visiting around here, little lady?”

I quickly brought myself to the here and now. We were about to get the reaction we had been waiting for. We needed some sort of proof this place was what we thought it was before we raided it, and getting the locals’ reaction to the place was important evidence.

“Saint Lawrence Prison. I don’t think it’s terribly far from here,” Anna said so sweetly and without pretense she almost fooled me.

The men’s faces went white. The main guy we had been talking with, Chuck I believe his name was, let his mouth drop open a little in astonishment. His eyes betrayed a knowing that was unmistakable. Yes, they knew Saint Lawrence Prison without a shadow of a doubt, and they were terrified of the place.

The men all promptly stood and placed some money down on the bar for their drinks. They began to move away from their chairs and toward the door when Anna looked up at Chuck innocently.

“Did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean to offend.”

He stopped and looked back at her before he sighed. “No offense, little lady, but just trust me that you don’t want to go anywhere near that there prison. I wouldn’t ask anyone else ’bout it either. People don’t like talkin’ ’bout it. It’s a damned place.”

She nodded solemnly to the men as they turned and exited the bar. The bartender, not having heard the conversation, glared at us for driving his good-paying regulars away. We ordered another bucket to compensate.

“Well,” Anna began quietly to me, “at least we know it is the real deal. The prison is truly what we think it is.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I think we have all the proof we need to set up the visitation for tomorrow.”

Just then, I noticed Anna staring across the bar near the dartboard. Four obviously drunk men were surrounding a woman who had either had way too much to drink or had been drugged. She stammered about and frequently wrapped her arms around one or more of the men for support. Her eyes could barely open as her mouth lolled agape, and the men were leading her out of a back door hastily and quietly to what I assume would be an unconscious gang bang in the back of one of their pickups. The tell-tale signs were there.

I felt nauseous and began to go after them when Anna put a hand on my chest to stop me. She delicately hinted at the small group already following close behind the men. It was Lea, Bridgette and Jackson, and they were planning to follow the men outside and drain them dry. I knew this like Anna knew this.

“Are we going to let it happen?”

“If we don’t,” started Anna, “that poor girl will get violated against her will.”

“We could go stop them and call the police,” I said, unsure.

“This is, I’m afraid, where my morals and Lea’s morals collide, dear Grant,” Anna said thoughtfully. “I promised her blood as long as it was the blood of someone criminal. These men are arguably criminal. It’s overly apparent this is not the first time they have done this. I watch people a lot, and I can tell the repeat offenders when I see them. Now if it were me, I would beat the men, take the girl to a hospital and call the police. However, Lea has another type of justice. It is not for me to judge her. I did promise her blood.”

I looked at Anna as she watched the scene unfolding in front of us with a troubled expression. This is not what she wanted, but she was making a concession because she needed Lea’s help tomorrow. I wondered if discovering that picture had anything to do with this.

The men had just exited the door when Anna grabbed my hand and walked quickly with me to intercept Lea’s group before they disappeared after them. I thought that she was going to stop them altogether and apparently, so did Lea.

“Don’t start with me, Anna,” snapped Lea angrily before Anna could say a word. “You promised us blood. Real blood. These men deserve it. Or would you like me to let that girl get raped out back?”

Anna gave her a deadpan stare. She leaned in very close to Lea and spoke so softly that I barely even heard her, and I was standing three feet to her right.

“All I ask is that you spare the girl. She is innocent.”

Lea was taken aback, and she looked at Anna very seriously with that cocked-head expression the vampires got when studying something confusing. After considering only a moment, she replied simply, “She will be spared.”

They separated from us then and exited out of the back door. I shuddered to think of what was going to happen next to those men, no matter how despicable and vile they seemed. Anna saw my reaction.

“Like I said, Grant, you should not confuse me and Lea as good and evil. I don’t really know the meaning of the word enough to judge myself one way or another. Life is a series of choices, and sometimes you compromise in ways you’d rather not to in order to reach what you think to be a more important goal. All I can do is make the choices I think are right and hope against hope that they balance out some of my compromises. I’m not proud of this, and I hate for you to see me this way. However, I’m much more worried about the evil you will see in me tomorrow at the prison. I’m not sure if after that you will ever be able to see me as good again.”

Chapter Twenty Three

Anna

The plan was a good one, and one Grant had come up with himself. He was definitely proving to be more of a help in this mission than I had originally anticipated, and the more he showed his capabilities, the more a certain knot of tension in my chest began to unravel. He knew more about computers and researching than any of us did, and he seemed to know how to work social and business situations to our advantage. Being vampires and looking the way we did separated us from the human community more than I wanted to admit.

I had worried about bringing Grant along, and I’d used the threat of exposure as an excuse to give in to his request to come with us. Then I’d worried I had allowed him to come purely because of my attraction and feelings for him since I did not believe he would ever expose us like he proclaimed in his half-hearted threat. Now, his worth was really becoming apparent, and I was pleased to see the others respond to him positively and with respect rather than an object of childlike interest.

I repressed a smile as he phoned in the prisoner visitation request to the Saint Lawrence prison. I wasn’t used to showing a lot of emotion, nor was I used to feeling a lot of emotion, but I needed to rein in my subtly loving looks since Lea was watching us like a hawk.

“Five thirty then. Thank you, sir,” stated Grant over the phone in a very professional manner.

He ended the call and looked up at the vampires who were all staring at him patiently crammed in the little hotel room he and I were sharing.

“It’s set. Visitation ends at six o’ clock, but they don’t schedule visitation past five thirty. The sun is timed to set at six thirteen tonight. By the time Anna and I go in pretending to be visitors, scope out the place and return to the front it should be dark enough for easy maneuvering with your shades on. Once inside, any windows around won’t be filtering in much light at all, so that shouldn’t be much of an issue. Anna will have already found the main entrance to the labs, and we can go from there.”

A round of respectful nods moved about the crowd. Only Lea sat stoic, eyeing Grant in a way that made me intensely nervous. We went over the particulars for a while longer and designated our meeting place and time meticulously before everyone departed for their own rooms to turn in for the day. This left Grant and I finally and blissfully alone.

He looked tired and a little frazzled. Watching life and death play out in front of me every day was quite normal for me, but not for a normal human like Grant. All carnal thoughts I had about him faded in the realization that he needed rest, and a sex session with me might not be welcomed at the moment. I disappointedly understood, but at the same time, I wrestled with this new fiery need for him that I had previously not known.

Physical affection had never been something that interested me much until Grant had come into my life, and now I didn’t know how to deal with the intense wanting I felt for him. This might be our last day together, because who knew what was in store for us tomorrow. Making love was high on my list of ways to spend my last possible day on earth. I could think of nothing better than to be intimate with this man that I had all of these new, intense feelings for. But I turned toward my suitcase and sighed down at my pajamas. Restraint and control had always been my strong suit, and I clung to those old familiar traits with a renewed resolve.

I removed my shirt and reached for a tank top to sleep in when two gentle, warm arms wrapped around and embraced my naked torso. I hadn’t even heard him come up behind me, which was an odd sensation for a vampire. I normally heard every movement and anticipated every action before it happened. My thoughts must have been so terribly occupied that I had not paid attention.

What a strange idea. A human had taken me by surprise. I didn’t think on this long because he began kissing my shoulder and the nape of my neck very gently. I gasped at the sensation as he worked his way up to my earlobe, and the passion within me began to blaze again for him. The tiny hairs on my skin shivered and stood at attention.

“I was thinking, Anna,” he whispered into my ear, “that we don’t know what might happen tomorrow. One or both of us might not make it out of that prison alive.”