Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Where’s Papa Prejean taking us, Dante-angel?

A bad place I’ve been before. Get behind me and stay there .

I’m scared .

Pain twisted, jabbed, gouged. Dante squeezed his eyes shut. His muscles trembled. He heard a door open, then click shut.

A voice called, “Daddy? I forgot my iPod!”

Dante opened his eyes. He uncoiled from the body cooling beneath him and moved .

HEATHER CLIMBED IN THROUGH the open window, blinds rattling as she ducked under them. She straightened. A white washer and dryer stood side-by-side in the tidy laundry room. Dark spots of blood marred the sage-green tiled floor, leading out of the room.

She followed Dante’s trail through the kitchen and down a hall decorated with framed family photos, the thick, coppery reek of blood filling her nostrils.

She glanced in each doorway she passed, trank gun held at her side. In the last room on the right side of the hall, she saw a man’s body— Rodriguez —motionless on the floor. Blood glistened on his ravaged throat and chest. Her heart sank.

I’m too late .

From the front room, pitched voices discussed boxing strategies—TV talking heads. But underneath that, Heather heard soft sobbing, followed by a voice she recognized, Cajun-thick and low, ragged with pain.

“Shhh, don’t cry. J’su ici, mon princesse, j’su ici .”

Dante wasn’t alone.

Heather dashed to the living room, then halted, heart in her throat.

A girl of about nine or ten in jeans and a Tinker Bell tee stood rigid against a cinnamon-colored sofa littered with papers. Dante was crouched in front of her, stroking her long dark hair with one pale, blood-smeared hand. “Shhhh,” he soothed. “J’su ici.”

Her face wet with tears, the girl cast a sidelong look at Heather. “Help me,” she whispered.

Heather lifted the trank gun, pulse pounding hard and furious. She aimed.

Dante moved . In a blurring streak of leather and pale flesh, he grabbed the girl and shoved her behind him as he whirled to face Heather. He hissed. Bared his fangs.

The girl squeaked, then fell silent, eyes wide.

“Get down, Chloe. I won’t let ’em have you.” Dante’s shades were gone and Heather saw rage blazing in his dilated, red-streaked eyes, a fevered fire that underscored the resolve on his blood-smeared face. “You ain’t taking her.”

“Baptiste, listen to me,” Heather said softly. “That’s not Chloe. She’s long gone. Alex Lyons triggered you with a message from his father, Dr. Robert Wells .”

Dante sucked in a breath. Touched trembling fingers to his temple. More blood trickled from his nose. Heather took a step closer. Lifted the trank gun and aimed.

“Just you and me, princess,” he said. “Forever and ever.”

He lifted his burning gaze to Heather’s and the desolation she glimpsed in the dark depths of his eyes broke her heart. His muscles flexed. “Run,” he whispered.

She knew in that moment, she would hate Alexander Lyons forever.

She squeezed the trigger.

Damascus, OR

March 24

DANTE moved .

Heather jumped back, shielding her throat with her arms, hoping to hell she’d hit her mark. Dante stumbled to a stop about two feet from her, staggered. He plucked the dart from his throat. A familiar smile tilted his lips and, for an instant as he looked at her, he was himself again.

Relief flickered in his dark eyes.

The dart tumbled from his fingers. Then he followed it, sprawling belly down on the oatmeal-shaded carpet, his black hair spilling across Heather’s Skechers.

Heather lowered her arms. She tossed the trank gun aside, then dropped to her knees beside Dante. She grabbed his shoulders and rolled him over. She touched his face. He was burning up, his skin hot beneath her shaking fingers.

“Good shootin’, Tex,” Lyons said from behind her—in the hall. “I kinda thought he’d tear you apart. Gotta admit, I’m glad he didn’t.”

Heather glanced at him from over her shoulder. “You’re so full of shit, I’m surprised you haven’t suffocated yet.”

“Ouch,” Lyons murmured, voice amused. He sauntered into the room and crouched beside her. “Looks like he took a bullet.”

Heather followed his gaze to the hole in Dante’s PVC shirt above the left pec. Almost a heart shot . Not fatal, but Rodriguez would still be alive if he hadn’t missed. But where would that have left Dante?

“Move away, Wallace. I’ll truss him up.”

“Where’s my dad?”

Heather lifted her gaze to the girl still standing wide-eyed and trembling beside the sofa where Dante had shoved her for safekeeping. “Is my dad here?”

Heather’s throat tightened. “I don’t know, honey,” she said softly, rising to her feet. “What’s your name?”

“Brisia,” she said. “Shouldn’t we call 911? My dad always told me—”

“You’ve been very brave, Brisia,” Heather said, crossing to the sofa. She knelt beside the dark-haired girl. “Your dad would be proud of you. You just need to be brave for a little while longer, okay sweetie?”

Brisia nodded, expression uncertain, her eyes glassy with shock. Heather stroked her arm, knowing her attempt to soothe the girl was hollow, at best.

Brisia’s father was dead, his body in another room, just yards away. She’d learn the truth soon enough and it wouldn’t matter to her that Dante’d had no choice, that he’d been programmed to kill on a madman’s whim.

All Brisia would know was that he’d murdered her father.

The mingled smells of coffee, blood, and burning leaves wove a pungent latticework throughout the room, a scent of pending grief. A scent Heather knew Brisia would always remember.

Lyons flipped Dante back onto his belly and cuffed his hands behind him. Then, still face-down, Dante’s unconscious body lifted into the air, his hair swinging forward to curtain his face.

Heather felt Brisia tense beneath her hand. She looked at the girl just as she hid her face behind her hands as if she was a three-year-old watching a monster movie.

But she was a ten-year-old and the monsters were real.

“Back in a sec to tie up loose ends.” Lyons accompanied Dante’s floating body down the dark hall and out of sight.

Heather squeezed Brisia’s arm, then rose to her feet. The girl dropped her hands from her face. Heather hurried her to the front door. “I want you to run to a neighbor’s house and have them call 911, okay?”

Brisia nodded. She grasped the doorknob, then glanced at Heather. “Do you need help too?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” Heather said. “Just go.”

Brisia yanked the door open and dashed out into the night and across the street, her long hair streaming behind her.

Breathing a little easier, Heather closed the door. She left the house by the back door and trotted over to Lyons’s truck. He finished snapping the black cover over the truck bed, then looked up.

Heather’s hands curled into fists. Lyons had stashed Dante in the back of the truck like a piece of equipment. “We need to move,” she said. “Cops’ll be on their way.”

Lyons shook his head, his expression amused. “So you let the kid go. I figured you would.” He shrugged. “It’s Dante she’ll remember. I’ll bet his face will be burned into her memory.”