Trish Milburn: Out of the Night

“Yes, but we’re not hauling you off to a blood den, which is what there’d be a fifty-fifty chance of happening to you if we tossed you out.”

Olivia’s skin crawled with that image, or the other option of simply being drained and her body being tossed aside like useless garbage. God, she’d been dumped into a devil-you-know situation, one in which it felt as if the night would never end.

“Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “We’ll take you home, just as soon as we take care of this call. We have to move fast when we hear about a blood den or the trail goes cold.”

“Then they’re real?”

“Very.”

Olivia went silent as Colin sped through Midtown so fast that the buildings looked like no more than blurs through the windshield. By the time he stopped, she had no idea where they were. Colin looked back and met Olivia’s eyes.

“Stay here, out of sight. I don’t like leaving you here, but we don’t have any choice. We don’t know what we’re facing inside, so we need to go in full strength.”

The vampires filed out of the truck, Sophia going last. “Please, don’t try to run.”

Olivia didn’t say anything, not even when the door shut behind Sophia and she heard the locks engage. Alone, she became acutely aware of the rapid thudding of her pulse. Could the vampires outside hear it? Would they be able to get inside? Her hand tightened on the beer bottle in her sweaty hand. It was a useless excuse for a weapon, but she still couldn’t let go of it.

The minutes stretched along with her nerves. Her ears strained to hear some indication of what was going on outside. Were the vampires who’d brought her here even out there? Had they gone inside one of the surrounding buildings?

Something heavy landed on the roof of the truck, causing her to scream before she thought that wasn’t the smartest move. She raised the bottle and stared at the back door, ready to fight. She jerked her attention to the front when the sound of tearing metal sent her heart into overdrive again.

From where she sat she watched, horrified, as the locked driver’s-side door peeled away and was slung to the street by a powerful arm. In the next moment, an incredibly pale young woman was flung into the back with her, landing at Olivia’s feet. Olivia started to lean forward to help her but froze when she saw the vampire staring at her. He was huge, and his fangs made her think of a saber-toothed tiger. And they were bloody.

“Bonus,” he said as he slipped into the driver’s seat, stripped the steering column and started the truck in what seemed like one fluid motion.

Before she could grab the injured woman and make a run for it, he shoved the truck into gear and took off. Every time she thought this night couldn’t get worse, it did. She was still frightened of the other vampires, but her survival instinct told her that this one was way worse, that if she let him flee with her and the other woman, they were doomed.

She’d had enough! Careful not to fall in the moving vehicle, she stood and stepped over the woman, who was weakly trying to pull herself to a sitting position. Before Olivia lost her nerve, she slammed the beer bottle against the side of his head.

It didn’t faze him. He simply glanced at her with an angry look on his face then shoved her back so hard that she bounced off the wall of the truck and crumpled to the floor beside the other woman. Pain like she’d never experienced before consumed her, and she couldn’t breathe. She collapsed to her side and stared at the other woman, who was so incredibly pale and whose neck bore obvious puncture wounds.

Dear God, she was going to end up the same way.

She blinked hard against the black spots invading her vision. For the second time that day, she faced the very real possibility of her death.

* * *

Campbell reached the blood den just as Colin and Len raced out of the building onto the sidewalk. Colin cursed a mighty blue streak.

“What?” Campbell asked.

“This big bastard took the truck after he made me feel like a stupid rag doll,” Colin said. “We got the rest of them, but he jumped out the flipping window.”

Campbell’s anger roared to life. They didn’t need a V Force vehicle in the hands of a criminal. He glanced at something in the middle of the street, the door to their truck.

Len and Colin saw it, too. “What the hell?” Len asked.

“I’m telling you, this guy is strong, as if he’s juiced up on ’roids or something,” Colin said as he kicked the mangled door.

The sounds of squealing tires and horn blasts in the distance gave Campbell a good idea where the truck was. He glanced over as Kaja, Sophia and Billy came out of the building with the vampires in custody as well as the former blood slaves. The humans all needed medical attention. “Get Team 2 over here to help with this mess. I’m going for the truck.”

“This guy’s powerful, Camp, like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Colin said.

“So am I.” With a fresh supply of blood amping him up, he was ready to do some damage. And with AB-negative vamps being stronger than other vampires after they fed, he was their best bet for retrieving the truck.

Colin grabbed his arm as Campbell turned to leave. “The girl’s still in the truck, along with one of the captives.”

“Bloody hell.” Powerful bruiser or not, this guy was going to pay.

Campbell took off at a dead run, pausing occasionally to listen for sounds to lead him in the right direction. As he rounded a corner, he caught the ripe smell of human fear. He recognized it as the woman from earlier and followed her scent.

By the time he caught up to the truck, it was heading toward Brooklyn. With an extra burst of speed, he leaped onto the back bumper and grabbed one of the handholds next to the door. Just as his hand wrapped around the grip, the driver swerved wide, causing Campbell’s boots to slip off the bumper. He swung to the side but managed to hang on. As the driver steered sharply in the other direction, eliciting a chorus of car horns from other drivers, Campbell used the momentum to swing himself onto the roof of the truck.

As he steadied himself, he sensed two heartbeats below him, both of them beating like jackhammers. He knew if he were inside, the smell of the women’s fear would be overwhelming. No doubt it was tickling the nose of the driver and making him salivate, regardless of his blood type.

Before the jackass could swerve again, Campbell lunged for the front. When he saw it was the driver’s-side door that was missing, he swung over the edge of the cab and slammed into the guy with his boots, knocking him halfway across the truck. Left unattended, the steering wheel veered sharply to the right as they approached the Brooklyn Bridge, sending Campbell swinging wildly by one hand again. Horns blared all around him, and headlights cut across his vision. The women in the back of the truck screamed.

His biceps strained as he pulled himself back to a safer two-handed position. But as he reached for the steering wheel, the other guy recovered, slid back into the driver’s seat and punched Campbell hard in the face. He felt it to the root of his fangs.

“Wrong move, asshole!” Campbell yelled as he got in a good punch of his own, drawing blood from the guy’s nose.

They traded a few more blows before the driver slammed on the brakes and the truck started to skid sideways. Campbell’s grip slipped off the truck’s side mirror and he fell to the pavement with a loud thud. He barely had time to roll to the side of the bridge before a car drove over the spot where he’d landed. Granted, there wasn’t as much traffic as there had once been and all these cars were driven by his kind, but he’d still be every bit as flat if their tires rolled over him.