We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) (29 page)

Looking at her was painful. I was afraid to touch her, because I didn’t think it would bring her any comfort. Tears welled in my eyes as I saw that her skin was covered in bites, red, angry marks, as if she was a dog’s chew toy. Her breath came in labored gasps.

“What happened?” I asked. I didn’t want to know, but I needed to.

“He said he was going to fuck me to death.” Her voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to her. “He said that’s what whores deserved. He said I left him to rot in that hospital.”

“What? That was over a hundred years ago. That wasn’t you.” Cash had totally lost his mind in this killing spree. I wondered if he could even separate his current reality and Lennon from his past torture.

“I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he just called me a liar.” Lennon’s voice wore thinner, and she had to close her eyes halfway through talking. “He said he only kept me around to get closer to you.”

I was close to passing out.

I looked down her body, the blanket covered her hips. If that was Cash’s method of destruction, I knew I didn’t want to see what she looked like under that blanket. Lennon watched my eyes move down her body, and back up to her face.

“It’s worse down there,” she managed, then slumped. “He tore me up with his fangs.”

“Jesus,” I hissed. And he left her to bleed out. “Is he still here?”

Lennon flinched. “I don’t know.”

I looked at Rachel, who had tears streaming down her cheeks. “I need to find Cash. I want you to stay here with Lennon. Give her blood. As much as she needs, whatever it takes.”

“You mean,
anything
it takes?” Rachel said, wiping her cheeks and coming to replace me on the couch. “I might turn her.”

Lennon gasped.

“Turn her,” I said. “That’s why I want you to do it. With my blood, she might become too powerful. I know she just wants to survive.”

As I stood up, I took one last look at Lennon, who nodded at my words. I leaned down to her, wrapping a lock of her hair in my fingers. It was the only thing I could touch that wouldn’t cause her pain. “You’re going to be okay. We’re not going to leave you.”

She winced, and it was almost impossible to tear myself away. My heart broke for the second time today, as I repeated leaving someone I loved who was suffering.

All because of me.

Cash could not get away with this.

“Cash!” I called out. “You fucking coward! Where are you?” I didn’t know my way around his house. I had no idea how big it was, or what I would find in the other dark rooms. I looked in all the rooms I could find.

The slippery bastard could be sitting quietly, blending into the darkness, or casting an illusion to make himself invisible. Or he might not be here. It had been close to show time when we arrived, it made the most sense. I trembled with anger that I might have missed him.

“Where is he?” I asked the guard, who had waited dutifully for us by the entry way. He didn’t say anything, but went up the stairs. Whether or not he meant for me to follow, I did.

“Rachel,” I poked my head back in to Cash’s apartment. “Will you be able to hear me if I call for you?”

She looked up from Lennon, her face solemn. Lennon’s recovery was taking much longer than the girl Cash tried to kill the other night. I had to separate myself from my despair, lock it in a little box to come back to later. To help her, I needed to stay focused. “I’ll concentrate on you,” Rachel said. “And I’ll know if you need me.”

I braced myself, throwing my shoulders back before I followed the guard up the stairs. No one had cleaned up the mess we’d left with Tony’s body in the hallway yet. But that wasn’t even close to the worse thing I’d seen that evening. Images of Lennon’s chewed up body and Tristan’s burned body flashed in front of me.

I added those images to the box. They’d cripple me if I didn’t. I let myself think of the most infuriating thing I could, besides Cash.

Blade.

The guard stopped in front of a door, not knocking on it, not giving me any further information. I tried the knob, and it turned easily. Cash didn’t need to lock the door. Nothing scarier than him was ever going to break in.

“Nice to see you tonight, Mistress.” He smiled at me in the mirror as he trimmed his beard. “I’m flattered you’re such a fan of my art.”

Moving as fast as I could, I got myself between him and the mirror, grabbing him by the wrist of the arm holding the razor. “That’s not art, its torture.”

He shrugged, his eyes sliding down my body. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And you should be glad for that, Mistress.”

Twisting his arm down fast, I smiled when I heard the bone snap. “This isn’t about me. This is about Lennon, and all the other girls you’ve done this to. She was in love with you, do you know that? And you gnawed on her like a crazed animal!”

“Lennon is a whore.” He grimaced with the pain of the broken bone. “When someone sells their body for money, they can’t be picky about what happens to it.”

I brought my knee up to his groin, similar to the move Rachel had made on Tony. I hoped his balls came out his mouth. “And you’re not selling yourself, to this audience, turning tricks for ticket sales? Lennon’s a gorgeous girl, or was, before you chewed her half to death, so she was making the most of what she had. Just like you.”

Cash cradled his bad arm in his good arm, both pressed against his groin. He’d sunk to his knees in front of me, his eyes red and his fangs bared as he worked through the pain. “At least she’s got something to offer,” he growled. “You, you just fuck whoever gets in your way if you think there’s anything to gain from it.”

“Bullshit.” Now my eyes glowed red, and I felt my body getting hot.

“You’re just lucky, but it doesn’t make
you
any less of a whore.” Cash came to his feet slowly. I was painfully aware he still had the razor in his hand. He positioned his feet so they were on either side of mine, leaning against the counter and trapping me with his body. “Maybe your luck just ran out.”

He wrapped his good arm around me, pulling me into his body. Even injured, he was stronger than me. His fangs ripped down the side of my face, making me scream. He pushed me down on the counter, covering my mouth. “Shut up,” he commanded through clenched teeth. “No one is coming to save you, Mistress.”

He ripped my shirt open, slicing my skin with his dirty fingernails, probably caked with Lennon’s blood. My skin burned, and I thought I might ignite, myself.

My mind flashed to Blade, angry and possibly trapped at Ryder’s house. His thoughts were so strong, I could pick them up across town. I knew they were his, because I picked up nothing but an orange cloud of flames, fueled by hatred.

I concentrated on the flames as hard as I could, ignoring Cash pulling my jeans away from my body. My legs kicked and flailed in protest, but it was wasted energy. Physically I might not be able to overpower Cash. But mentally, I could certainly try.

I pictured the flames forming all around my body. When I opened my eyes, I saw them, just inches from my skin.

“What the fuck?” Cash exclaimed, and jumped back. I sat up, and willed the flames to chase him, to follow the oxygen that had moved into the space he’d been in. It was like moving them with a magic wand. The fire attached itself to his body, like a swarm of bees attacking, and now it was my turn to watch him kick and flail as he burned.

“Rachel!” I called to her just in case I couldn’t control the fire. She’d put it out once to saved Tristan, hopefully she’d be able to do it again if I needed her to.

The fire grew more powerful, but the outline of Cash’s burning figure shrunk as it melted. A black puddle formed on the floor, black as his heart. Soon he was nothing put a small pond of burning goo on the floor.

“Oh my God.” Rachel stopped at the door, shocked by what she saw. “Are you okay?”

I looked in the mirror at my ripped clothes and shredded skin. My body was already trying to heal, sealing the wounds with pinky purple new skin. I turned and smiled at her. “Never been better. How’s Lennon?”

“She’s out right now,” Rachel said, and my heart sunk as I realized what she meant. “In a couple days, we’ll know for sure.”

T
he guards didn’t question anything. They knew how this worked. I took out their leader, now they answered to me. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I shuddered at that thought, as we drove west towards Ryder’s house. I liked to think I was better and kinder than Cash or Blade, but I wasn’t. Cash wasn’t my first kill. And no one was horrified by it but me.

Everyone was silent. Rachel was lost in her own thoughts as she drove, it hadn’t been an easy night for her, either. Lennon lay unconscious in the backseat, her body hopefully regenerating and making peace with its new vampire blood. I could only hope now that her body didn’t reject it. She’d gone through so much, she deserved to live for all of her efforts.

And I needed her.

Most of Soul Divider met us in the driveway when the SUV pulled in. Two of the guys, I felt bad that I couldn’t remember the other two who weren’t Ryder or Josiah by name, carried Lennon’s stiff lifeless body inside. Completely covered in a blanket, she looked like a corpse on a stretcher.

“Do we have a safe place she can rest?” I asked Ryder, my brain refusing to consider the option that Lennon might not make it.

“Yeah. Well, sort of,” he said. “I’ve only got the guest room, I turned the third bedroom into a studio. Tristan’s in there now, but I think he’ll be able to go home with you tonight.”

I gasped with relief. “Really? The way he looked when I left, I wasn’t sure what I’d be coming back to. That’s amazing.” That was the best news ever. For all I knew, he could have been a pile of ashes and bone by now. I knew the fire could burn internally.

Now we needed Tristan’s good fortune to extend to Lennon.

“Yeah, go see him. He’s doing great.” Ryder smiled, and I didn’t give him a chance to say anything else before running into the house to see for myself.

I found Tristan sitting up in bed, watching TV. Like he’d stayed home from school sick, not like he’d found himself in the fryolator of angry vampire. The deep red burn marks had disappeared, but his skin still looked like old, tough leather.

“Hey.” Tristan’s face lit up when he saw me. “I was wondering when you’d come back.”

“Not a moment too soon.” I sighed as I crawled into bed and let him put his arm around me. This time I didn’t worry about his skin being so sensitive that my clothes might hurt him. I looked down at myself and laughed a little. One of the Cirque Macabre costumers had to give me something from the show to wear home. All the glitter looked ridiculous right now. I rested my head on his shoulder, relieved that he no longer smelled like burning flesh. His hair had even begun its recovery, tickling my torn cheek as I laid my head on his shoulder.

“What happened to you?” He said softly, his finger trailing over the scar on my cheek. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” It didn’t sound convincing. “Lennon…she’s going to be one of us. I hope. She’s in bad shape. Like worse than you were earlier when I saw you. I hope she can recover. She was human when it happened to her.”

“What happened?” Tristan’s muscles stiffened. He’d become well acquainted with the worst case scenario.

I pictured her lying on that couch, waiting to die, and shook my head. “Cash attacked her. Like a rabid beast.” I blinked back tears. “Lennon said he’d confused her with a nurse from a mental hospital that Talis had condemned him to, but he was always talking about whores. Why do vampires have something against prostitutes?”

“Lennon never did that, did she?” Tristan said in surprise.

“No, but she stripped back in Nashville. I think Cash lumped the whole thing together. But he and Blade seem to have it out for those girls. It’s disturbing.”

“It’s messed up.” Tristan pulled me in a little tighter. “And it’s just them. The only reason I can think of for it is Blade is so angry with you for getting him mixed up with Talis, and Cash sounds like he had just as big of a grudge against Talis. Maybe their way of taking it out on you, was taking it out on them.”

“Oh, God.” I dissolved into tears at the thought of being someone’s motivation to inflict pain like that on another person. How could I be responsible for such pain? I never meant to hurt anyone. “They did it because of me.”