Your Coffin or Mine? (26 page)

“Please, mister.” The young boy tugged and pulled at Logan’s hand. “You better let me go. My mom will be looking for me.”

“She can look, my friend, but she won’t find you. There’ll be nothing left to find when my friend, here, is done.”

I heard the creak of metal, felt the chains on my wrists tighten and release. And then days, weeks of confinement staggered to a halt. I was free.

I struggled to sit up, my gut clenching, my throat burning.

My gaze swiveled to the young boy tethered to the table. The steady thump of his heart echoed in my ears. I heard the blood pulsing through his body and my mouth watered. I gripped the stone table, my fingers clamping around the edge to keep from reaching out. One swipe and it would all be over. I could feed and gain my strength. I could escape.

“How gallant,” Logan said as he moved toward the doorway. “Fight all you want, but you won’t last long. The hunger is too fierce. It rules you. Take a taste, Ty Bonner. You know you want to.”

But I wouldn’t be able to stop with just a taste. I was too hungry, my control too tentative. I felt my fingers loosen. My vision narrowed. My gaze centered on the pale ivory throat, the pulse beat.

“That’s it. Give in. Give in to a night you shall never forget, and then you can regret it for the rest of eternity. Just like I do.” The door creaked and slammed shut. The lock clicked.

My own heartbeat grew louder, drowning out the music and the boy’s cries, and the damnable
pop, pop, pop.
I reached out.

“Ty?” The soft, familiar voice pushed into my head and stopped my hand in midair. “Can you hear me?”

My fingers closed, my nails digging into my palms. My own blood drip-dropped onto the floor and my body shook with unfulfilled need.

“Please, Ty. Answer me.”

But I couldn’t. I didn’t want her here, in my head, seeing the temptation, feeling the pain.

I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to close my mind. I didn’t have the strength.

Even more, I needed hers and so I held tight to each word that echoed through my head.

“I’m worried about you. I need to know if you’re okay. Not that I like you or anything,” she went on, her voice soft, hesitant even. “Okay, so maybe I like you a little. And I could possibly like you more than a little if you would just help me out here and give me some sort of clue so that I can help Ash find you. He’s looking for you. We both are, but obviously he’s better at it than I am because he does it professionally. On the other hand, if he were looking for a date, he would obviously be clueless and I would have to help him…”

She kept going the way she always did and I let her. I welcomed it because it gave me something to focus on, to drown out the need and resist the urge that churned away inside of me.

“It’s okay,” I told the boy and for the first time, I actually believed it.

It was okay.

For a little while, anyway.

Ty was okay.

I knew it as I lay there in the darkness. He was right there with me. Calm. Controlled. For now. But it wouldn’t last long. The Logan guy would come back and then Ty would be in deep shit and the boy…

In my mind, I saw him crouched there, his green shirt glowing like a neon sign in the darkness. Tears ran down his cheeks, washing away the mustard stain near his mouth—

Holy shit
.

I bolted upright as reality rained down on me and the pieces fell together one after the other.

Mustard.

Diesel.

The blare of music.

The colored lights.

The constant dings and the rattle of wood.

A fire lit under me and I scrambled from bed. Suddenly frantic, I tugged on a pair of jeans and pulled on the first shirt that touched my hands. I stuffed my feet into generic flip-flops (was I stressed or what?) and reached for my cellphone to call Ash.

He didn’t pick up.

I left a frantic message informing him where to meet me, and then sent a text message just in case. Stuffing the phone into my pocket, I grabbed my purse and headed for the nearest window. I shoved the glass up, closed my eyes, and focused my thoughts. In a matter of seconds, the sound of bat wings echoed through my apartment and startled Killer out of a sound sleep as I morphed into my fuzzy pink friend.

And then I hauled ass to Coney Island, all the while trying to shake the possibility that I might not make it in time.

While I still had at least three hours until daylight and no doubt that Ty was being held somewhere on the island, I didn’t know exactly where. Which meant every second counted.

Otherwise…

I forced the thought aside and concentrated on hanging on to Ty’s thoughts as they rolled through my head and the images played in front of his clouded vision.

I could do this, I told myself, flapping away toward my destination, my mind’s eye fixed on the dungeonlike room and the boy. I could reach Ty and Junior, and save them both.

And if I couldn’t?

I had a feeling we would all be fucked.

Twenty-nine

I
followed the West Side Highway toward the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. The city was a blaze of lights below me as I zoomed closer to Brooklyn, and on toward the beach and the boardwalk.

It was just after midnight on a Friday night and the attractions were starting to close up. In my mind I replayed the sounds I’d heard—the metal groaning and the wood rocking and shaking—and zeroed in on Astroland rather than the Wonder Wheel, which blinked in the distance.

The amusement park lights twinkled and flashed. The Top Spin flipped and whirled, giving a last
yippee!
to the stragglers intent on sticking around until the very end. The Astrotower stood like a sentry keeping watch over the area. My gaze fixed on the Cyclone. The massive roller coaster loomed above the other rides, a blaze of neon against the pitch-black sky.

I landed behind one of the concession areas, smack-dab in a puddle of something pink and sticky. I morphed and the flapping quickly faded into the frantic sound of my own heart. I glanced down at my rhinestone flip-flops, now ooey and gooey, and resisted the urge to scrape them off. I didn’t have time to worry about my shoes.

I know, right? Was I totally freaked or what?

But we’re talking life and death and Ty.

I rounded the building and started walking. My ears prickled, drinking in the sounds, fitting them together with what I’d heard in my head earlier that night.

What I could still hear if I closed my eyes and concentrated.

His wall had completely crumbled now, and so I was there with him, flat on my back on the hard concrete. Every once in a while, my eyelids fluttered open and I saw the swirl of lights on the cement wall. The young boy’s whimpers echoed in my ears, making my gut twist, reminding me that salvation was close.

Too close.

Hold on.
I sent Ty the silent message, begged him to be strong, and picked up my steps.

I moved through the amusement park, moving closer to the roller coaster and sifting through the barrage of stimuli. I listened, picking up every sound, turning it over, letting it guide me.

The tinkle of the music.

The frantic
whoooshhhhh
of the coaster.

Ka-chunk, ka-chunk.

Cha-pow.

Ba-da-bing.

I felt like I was starring in a bad kung fu movie as I turned this way, took a few more steps that way. I half-expected a masked ninja to jump out at me (or a ravenous vampire), and so I kept a careful watch on my back. Unfortunately, that put my feet at risk, and I stepped down on a fully loaded ketchup packet. I was thanking the Big Vamp Upstairs that I didn’t spray the leg of my Chloe jeans when I heard the familiar sound.

Pop, pop, pop!

I forgot all about the ketchup. My head snapped up. My ears prickled. My gaze swiveled to the food stand just to my left. They offered everything from popcorn to sodas, hot dogs to pretzels. A large tub of mustard sat on the counter next to a bucket full of ketchup packets.

Dread rolled through me, followed by a rush of anxiety. My heart pounded and my blood rushed as I scanned the surrounding buildings. Another ride. Another concession stand. My vision moved deeper, farther, pushing past people and obstacles, until I spotted the broken-down building off to the side, a small warehouse that housed tools and parts for the rides.

I stepped forward, my feet carrying me so fast that I actually felt my flip-flops leave the ground. I whipped past a group of teenagers. A collective gasp and a
Holy shit,
followed by a
What the hell?
trailed after me. I should have stopped, vamped them, and covered my tracks, but I didn’t (Sorry, Ma!). I was past the point of caring. I had to move.
Now.

I neared the building. My gaze sliced through the darkness, drinking in the row of windows that sat an inch above the ground. Each square of tinted glass measured roughly six inches by six inches. Big enough to provide light for the basement below, but small enough to prevent burglary: No one was crawling in or out.

I headed around the side of the building until I spotted the only window that sat open, the glass pushed out several inches. To my left the top portion of a carousel was visible. The lights played across the building and pushed around the pane of glass, and crept through the opening to sprinkle the cement walls inside.

My heart seemed to stall as I leaned down and peered into the opening. No snaxy bounty hunters or freaked-out kids. Just a bunch of dusty tarps, a few old carousel animals, and a giant rusted teacup.

Disappointment rushed through me, followed by a surge of panic. I started searching again. I followed the row of windows around the back, to the opposite side, peeking inside each one. My anxiety mounted and my sticky flip-flops kept sticking to the concrete.

“I could use some help here,” I finally blurted when I stuck my fingers around a window to open it up, and the glass slammed shut. Two of my nails cracked and snapped. I stared down at the ruined manicure and my eyes welled. Not because I’d lost a nail (no, really), but because Ty needed me and I couldn’t find him. I was close, but I wasn’t there. “Please.” My throat closed around the word and I swallowed, closing my eyes for a long moment to try to get a grip.

Vamps didn’t cry, I told myself. They raised hell and kicked ass and they stayed strong. I gathered my courage and sniffled. “I am NOT blubbering like a baby.”

“Yes, you are.”
The deep, familiar voice echoed through my head and my heart skipped its next beat.

“Where are you?” I murmured, and then I heard him.

“Here.” The word was little more than a croak, and it didn’t come from the other side of the damnable window that now owed me a manicure.

I turned and eyeballed the next building. It was a brick structure that fit halfway beneath the roller coaster. It probably housed the guts of the ride. Maybe an engine room. There were no windows, just a small section of bricks near the ground that had been pulled out of the mortar so that someone could peer in from time to time and keep an eye on what was going on below.

Because whoever had taken Ty was close by. Watching.

I glanced around, tuning my senses, searching, but I saw nothing. Felt nothing. Just the desperation that came from beyond the hole in the brick. The ride had shut down and so there was no rattling wood, no groan as the cars raced around the track.

I walked over to the building, knelt, and peered inside.

My heart lunged into my throat as I saw Ty’s shivering body draped over a mortared stack of bricks. In the far corner, the young boy crouched, his face tear streaked, his eyes full of fear and worry and desperation.

I had half a notion to barge through the hole (my manicure was ruined anyway), but a crazy vampire slinging bricks was sure to attract more than just a
holy shit
or
what the hell?
On top of that, I was pressed for time. I needed to get inside and save the two people inside before their abductor came back.

Rounding the large structure, I found a door at the very back. I grabbed the padlock and twisted. The lock crumbled in my hands and the door creaked open.

The ride had shut down, but the motor still hummed. The smell of diesel surrounded me. I sent yet another thanks to Sistah Vamp in that Great Big Coffin in the Sky for the fact that I didn’t need to breathe, otherwise I would have been flat on my back before I found Ty instead of after, as I’d anticipated (see life-affirming sex).

It took several minutes and a lot of stumbling before I found my way around the monstrous machines to the rickety staircase that led below. The stairs creaked and moaned, leading to a small hallway lined with doors. I filtered out all of the engine noise coming from upstairs and focused on the small ticks and creaks that surrounded me.