Petty Officer Byron Lynch, who was assigned to the master-at-arms command, or military police on base, escorted a female from the wooded area across the road. Byron was a tall and broad vampire, wearing blue fatigues and a reflective armband with the letters MP on it. “She was videotaping.” He held up her phone. “She and her partner sped through behind our intruder. They hid their vehicle off the road about a half klick back.”
The petite brunette stuck out her chest, oozing courage and a bravado that dared us to fuck with her. Her cocksure attitude kind of reminded me of Layla. She’d had that same attitude when we’d first met at the nightclub. But like Layla, this woman wasn’t fooling me. Fear was one of the hardest emotions to conceal. I could taste it, smell it, and I bathed in her fear. Not to mention, her pulse was skyrocketing as she shuffled closer to Vince and me.
“Vince, did you get any of that on tape?” she asked him with smugness etched on her pale face.
“It doesn’t matter, Letty.” He fired the words over his shoulder like a rapid round of gunfire. “They’ll destroy my equipment.”
I shoved Vince. “You’re right. The content on the camera is now the property of the US government.”
Hawk ran up and grabbed hold of Vince.
Petty Officer Lynch handed Letty’s phone to Webb. “I’ll take them to a holding room. We have a team en route to help Petty Officer Allan barricade the entrance until we can fix the gate,” he said to Webb.
Letty protested. “We have rights. If we disappear, my news station knows we’re here.”
Chuckling, I rolled my eyes, wanting to explain that we weren’t the type of vampires who murdered innocent humans. Though she wasn’t innocent. She and Vince had committed a crime but not one that was punishable by death.
I was about to tell Webb I would erase their memories once we were done questioning them when Tripp shouted, “Sam! Get over here.”
Webb whipped his head in Tripp’s direction, as did I.
The white Ford Taurus was scrunched against a tree with steam oozing out from the engine.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Webb said before he addressed Hawk and Lynch.
I darted over to Tripp as he tossed me a flashlight he’d been holding. “Take a look inside.”
“Do I want to?” I glanced in at a passed-out woman with a gash on her forehead. “What the fuck?”
3
LAYLA
Iwas spiraling down a long metal tube with darkness all around me until a tiny ray of light trickled through it. My stomach pitched and rolled, making me feel like I was free-falling out of an airplane.
“You need to go back, Layla,” a familiar female voice said.
I lost the ability to breathe. “Mom?”
I could barely see anything, and I had no control and was unable to stop myself from falling.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “Please go back. You can’t be here.”
I laughed out of nerves, swinging out my arms to latch onto anything to help put the brakes on. But all I felt was air. The farther I fell, the brighter the light became, spraying yellow and orange hues at me like laser beams.
“Mom, are you still there? How do I stop myself?”
“Believe in living. Fight like the warrior I know you to be, Layla.”
“Am I dead?” Please say no. I couldn’t die. I had children to raise. I had a husband to love and cherish. I had so many things I wanted to do with Sam and our kids.
“You will be if you don’t fight,” Mom said, her voice shaky.
I was tired of fighting. I wasn’t one to give up, but everyone had a breaking point.
“It’s not your time, Layla,” she said, loud and harsh, reminding me of the times as a little girl when she would reprimand me for disobeying her.
Fear overpowered my senses, and I couldn’t think straight or fast enough. But the closer I got to the beautiful light, the stronger the feeling of weightlessness and euphoria enveloped me. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go back. I was beginning to feel free—free of pain, free of enemies, free of darkness.
