I stood there awkwardly, not sure if I should hug them goodbye, try to make plans for a future visit that would never happen, or ask them if they wanted me to cut a check for their million dollars. I kept it simple and opened the door for them.
“It was great to finally meet you,” I lied.
Richard and Maxine said nothing, their gazes fixed over my shoulder. I turned around and gasped when I noticed the scowling man standing on the doorstep. He had to be almost seven feet tall. In his hand was a syringe filled with yellowish liquid.
“We’re so sorry about this, Olivia,” Maxine said.
And then came the sting in my neck.
17
My head throbbed like crazy, and the air was a repellent potpourri of pot smoke, cheap aftershave, and rotten fast-food wrappers. Somewhere, a radio blared a heavy metal tune with lots of guttural screaming.
Dizzy, I attempted to sit up and get my bearings. I realized I was bound, my legs and arms painfully restrained with what felt like ropes. I couldn’t tell exactly what had been used, as there was a hood over my face. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but it couldn’t have been too long. The hood was transparent enough that I could see it was still daylight.
I was positioned on my side, with lots of open space to worm-wiggle on the floor, so I knew I wasn’t in my great-grandparents’ vehicle. I was likely in a van that belonged to the enormous thug who’d stabbed me with the syringe. I did a quick internal scan of my body. I didn’t feel like I had been hurt or violated, thank goodness, except for the shot of sedative I’d taken in the neck.
We were on the move. I could sense smooth, rhythmic bumping through the floor below. Where we were headed, Icould only speculate, but we appeared to be traveling to our destination on pavement.
Well, that escalated quickly, I thought, reflecting on the scene by my front door. It was bad enough that my great-grandparents had drugged me, but binding and kidnapping me was a whole new level. Though I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t afraid, I felt annoyance above all else, strange as it was. After witnessing the physical damage vampires could inflict with a mere flick of the wrist, humans didn’t seem as fierce by comparison, although my attitude might change fast if my stinky driver friend pulled a gun on me.
It concerned me that nobody other than my kidnappers knew where I was. All the same, if my great-grandparents had wanted me dead, they would have offed me back at the house. They’d obviously kidnapped me because they wanted my blood to reproduce Leopold’s serum. It was what they were planning on doing after they made it that baffled me. What was their big idea?
I swiftly concluded that I detested my great-grandparents and would not be contacting them in the future. Like,ever. I’d lived my whole life without them in it and I’d been just fine. I was also keeping their million dollars for all the trouble they’d caused me. Assholes.
I heard the unmistakable sound of a blinker clicking, and then we slowed. The floor underneath me jolted as the vehicle turned onto rougher terrain that sounded like gravel, then a bumpy dirt road. My trepidation increased with each minute we drove on. The farther we were off the main road meant the farther we were from civilization. Though San Francisco was a metropolis, one only needed to drive about an hour outside the city to be in the countryside. Having no idea how long I’d been knocked out, we could have been as far north as Napa or as far south as Salinas, two areas with lots of space to stash a hostage.
Finally, we stopped, and the stereo fell blissfully silent. I could deal with the rank aftershave and funky fast-food smells, but the ear-splitting shrieks were doing my head in.
From the front of the van came the electronic crackle of a walkie-talkie. “Is she up?” asked a distinctly warbled female voice. Maxine.
The thug groaned, as if he’d been taking a nice Sunday drive and had been suddenly reminded of the kidnapping duties he’d forgotten. His mammoth hand gripped the top of my skull, and he gave it a rough shake. “Hey, you awake?”
I stayed quiet, my hope being that I could fool him into believing that I was asleep, catch him off-guard, and then make a run for it after he untied me.
The walkie-talkie crackled. This time it was the intolerant snarl of my lovely great-grandfather, Richard. “Is she up or not, sonny? Speak up!”
“Hold on. I’m checking,” the thug answered.
“Well, hurry it up, Jason! We don’t have all day!”
Jason, whose name seemed far too innocuous for a savage kidnapper, thumped me on the skull like he was testing the ripeness of a watermelon. He pulled off the hood, ripping some of my hair out in the process. I tried not to flinch.
“Hey, girlie. You awake or not? I don’t care either way, but if you’re asleep I’m going to have to give you another shot. And this one ain’t as nice as the first. It’s basically pharmaceutical speed.”
I sighed and opened my eyes, squinting against the sudden change in light. “I’m awake.”
“Thought so,” he said with a grunt.
Jason spoke into the walkie-talkie, then went around the back of the van and pulled open the double doors. He removed the ropes from my legs so that I could walk, but he kept my hands tied behind my back. The rope binding my wrists wasitchy and synthetic, and it bristled my skin like thousands of tiny shark teeth.
I felt like crying once I saw the surroundings. Hills enveloped us on all sides, many of them studded with row upon row of grape vines. So, we were near Napa, then. The Nolans stood nearby.
I couldn’t see why Jason felt the need to keep me tied up. Where in the hell did he think I’d go? The nearest neighbor was probably over a mile away, and they had a vehicle. How fast did they think I could run with my hands tied behind my back?
Breaking up the horizon was an ostentatious McMansion at the end of the driveway. Jason, tugging me along by the bicep, led me toward it. I looked over my shoulder and shot my great-grandparents a filthy look. They smiled at me sheepishly, shrugging, as if they’d forgotten to send me a card on my birthday. Oopsie!
When we neared the mansion, Jason made a sharp left turn. A large shed stood about fifty feet behind the house. Jason pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door while the Nolans hovered about twenty feet back.
