Suddenly, the sky darkened even more, the flowers wilted, and the farmhouse vanished. Then a jarring pain clutched my chest, making it hard to breathe. I sucked in air, tears stinging my eyes. Once again, I began spiraling as if I were inside a tornado funnel.
Only, I was now heading into complete darkness. Whatever was about to happen, I prayed like hell she was wrong about the prophecy.
4
SAM
Squatting down, I reached into the mangled Ford Taurus and slapped Carly Aberdeen—or at least the monster who resembled her—a few times.
“That is Carly Aberdeen, right?”
I felt Tripp’s shock as if it were my own.
“Yep.” I studied her intently, examining her fingers, lifting her lips, then her eyelids like I was a doctor. All signs screamed that she had taken her own crazy juice. Her cheekbones and forehead jutted outward. Her nails were sharp and long, curling toward her fingertips. Her brown eyes were a deep red just like Noah Aberdeen’s, and the only things missing were fangs.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” Tripp asked.
Million-dollar question. If she was here for our help, we had none—no magic potion to reverse the DNA, or at least not that I knew of. Though wouldn’t that be a screwed-up twist on genetics? Especially if vampires like me could become human again. Not that I would want to. I was cool with who I was and what I was.
“And why did she drink her own serum?” I asked, knowing neither Tripp nor I had the answer yet.
Though I doubted she had done so willingly. Carly had experimented on voluntary participants—those dying from incurable diseases and who had signed a contract.
I tapped her face again, but she wasn’t moving even though her heart was beating. I pushed to my feet. “I wouldn’t put it past Rianne to have done this to Carly.” Rianne Aberdeen and Carly despised each other. “This was probably Rianne’s way of punishing her cousin-in-law for helping us rescue Layla.” I briefly closed my eyes, pleading with fate that my wife would be okay. She had to be.
Standing behind the driver’s side door, Tripp scratched his chin. “I feel like we’ve traveled back in time. This is the Edmund Rain shit all over again.” Aggravation wove through his tone. “We’ll bandage her up then throw her in a cell for now.”
Thunder boomed before a flash of lightning lit up the darkened area. Mother Nature was about to unleash her wrath as the wind kicked up dead leaves and rustled trees.
Webb came over, frustration steeped in his blue eyes. “Motherfucker. This shit has to stop. Who’s in the car?”
“Carly Aberdeen.” I moved out of the way so he could take a look.
Webb’s fangs lowered as his eyes shifted to black. “You’re kidding.” One glance at her, and he jerked backward. “For fuck’s sake. When are people going to learn that turning humans into a perfect replica of us isn’t going to work?”
“Probably never,” I muttered, standing next to Tripp.
Now that humans were warming up to the idea that vampires could exist, we would be battling humanity’s thirst for immortality for eons to come. If my old man couldn’t quell the media—then we were royally fucked. Anarchy would sweep across the planet in record time.
Webb’s lips thinned. “I’ll add one more problem to the mix. The reporter Letty sent the video she’d taken of Sam to her boss at the news station before Lynch nabbed her.”
He pinned me with a glare. “I have Sawyer working on trying to hack into the news station servers to delete it.”
I briefly closed my eyes as several swear words fired off like a rocket launcher in my head. I would like to hope he was kidding, but Webb never joked about anything.
My old man would have ten cows over this one. But he might be the least of my worries.
Motherfucker!
I was racking up infractions of our vampire laws by showing humans we existed. If the Council of Elders didn’t want my head on a platter before now, they would if that video leaked out.
My old man had been able to talk the elders, his colleagues, off the ledge when it came to Hawk and me. It also helped that I was off the hook for killing a cop at the hospital the day Roman had kidnapped Layla. A bystander had caught the cop’s murder on video. The culprit was none other than Scarface. The same asshole who’d been chasing Layla that day and had also killed my SEAL team brother Lane. But Scarface was dead thanks to Victor Costner. After Roman’s men had stormed Victor’s estate, Victor sliced off Scarface’s head.
Still, a major reason humans were running in fear or curious to confirm if vampires were real was that the cop’s murder had gone viral, showing how Scarface ripped out the police officer’s jugular. If we continued to show the public who we were and what we were capable of, then pandemonium would sweep across the world.
Tripp came to my rescue. “It’s not Sam’s fault. It was the only way to stop Carly. She was speeding and swerving.”
Webb held up his hand. “I’m not blaming anyone. But with the media in our faces, we have to be extremely cautious with our powers and our actions even on base. Clear?”
