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hers, clouding her mind with something sticky and warm. The light from the hallway faded until there was nothing but his eyes, his will, his desire. He reached for her, and somewhere deep inside she screamed. * * * * Sarah rolled out of bed, not even stopping to turn on the lights in a blind dash for the bathroom. She fell to her knees and threw up, her stomach heaving uncontrollably as she gripped the sides of the toilet bowl, gasping for breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she begged silently, Not again. Please, God, not again. She huddled on the floor next to the cold porcelain, her stomach empty, her throat burning. Repulsed by the smell, she slammed the seat down, reached up and flushed. Pushing back against the wall, she levered herself up to sit on the closed lid and turned on the water in the sink, splashing her overheated face, ignoring the water that spilled over the sides and onto the linoleum tiles. She grabbed a towel from the rack D. B. Reynolds 34 and covered her face, leaning forward until her forehead touched her knees. It was all so familiar, the isolation, the cold, every heartbeat like a bass drum against her rib cage, every breath as loud as a bellows in the dead silence of her captivity. Theresa Bracco, the teenager from West L.A., and Julie Seaborn, a mother of two from Hollywood . . . and the others, the nameless others who d haunted her dreams. The ones she d tried to ignore. She remembered them all. And she remembered what had happened when she went to her parents for help. The institution they d sent her to was more of a boarding school than an asylum except for the locks on the doors. She d been fifteen years old when she walked through those doors, and she hadn t walked out again until her eighteenth birthday when, as an adult under California law, she d fled her parents tender care and reinvented herself. A new name, a new city, a new life. College, graduate school, a job. Just like everyone else. No one knew who she really was. No one. Not even her good friend Cyn knew the truth about Sarah Stratton. There was nothing to distinguish her from the millions of people who went to the office or to school, who worked hard and slept safe in their beds every night. And that was just the way Sarah wanted it. But now the dreams were back, and with them had come the memories of all the women who d cried in her nightmares and now lurked like ghosts, half-seen in the corners of her mind. She stood and opened the mirrored cabinet, taking out her toothbrush and toothpaste with quick, determined movements. She couldn t do this again, she decided firmly. She wouldn t do it again. This wasn t some docudrama on television. This was her life. The years of working two jobs to put herself through college and graduate school, piecing herself together from scratch, from nothing. Helpless, frustrated tears filled her eyes. She let them come until she was nearly choking on toothpaste. She spit sloppily into the sink and rinsed her mouth, then forced herself upright. She gazed into the mirror, seeing the pink and gold reflection of sunrise just visible between the slats of her mini- blinds. And she couldn t help wondering if Regina was looking at the same sunrise, if that damp basement had a window somewhere, a taunting shred of freedom for her and the others. The ones she could hear crying in the dark. Chapter Eight Raj made a sharp turn down the alley without slowing, feeling the rear end of his big BMW sedan fishtailing slightly on the slippery pavement. It was that time of year in Buffalo when the weather couldn t decide if it was winter or spring, when one day could bring a last ditch snowstorm and the next a quick melt that might freeze overnight into slick ice. It was one of the reasons he hated this town. Too cold, too wet, too windy. And too goddamn dead, even for a vampire. He punched the remote attached to the car s visor as soon as he made the turn. By the time he reached the garage, the door was fully open, and he slid the big sedan into the narrow space, closing the door behind him before he d even turned off the engine. He was cutting it too damn close and knew it. He should have stayed put at the airport, but he hated sleeping in a public place, even a well-guarded one. He never felt really safe unless he was behind his own door, with his own security. He d known too many vampires who had trusted others and were no longer around to bemoan their foolishness. The garage was mostly dark inside, but that was no problem. Vampires could see as well in dark as light, maybe even better. In the dark, one saw only what was necessary. By lamplight, one could be distracted by beauty or whimsy. Feeling poetic, tonight, Raj? He grunted at his own idle thoughts. It was more morning than night by now. He had only moments to get inside or he d be sleeping on the garage floor next to his car, and there was nothing poetic about that. The interior door closed behind him with a heavy thud, locks sliding home automatically. He walked directly to the security panel, rearming it with his thumbprint and a six digit code. His Buffalo lair was in a small warehouse, fifty feet on a side and nearly three stories high, echoing in its emptiness and lit only by the green glow of the alarm panel s LED. This was his private place, a place even Krystof didn t know about. Raj might hate this city, but he came here far more often than the vampire lord was aware. He crossed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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