Jax grips the mesh cover and tears it off in one smooth motion. I had spent months trying to open it by twisting the screws, but here Jax does it with a single, swift movement.
He pulls himself up and leans against the side of the airshaft. His hand rests on his hip, and blood stains his shirt, seeping into the cotton.
“You’re hurt.” I reach for him, but he leans away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. We need to keep moving.”
“Are we still going to the delivery room?”
“To be completely honest, I’m worried the creatures will return to the airshafts.” He squints and winces. “I want us to get the fuck out of here as quickly as we can, and I know we can sneak out through the kitchen. There is probably a mess full of dead Bleeders. One of them will have a keycard.”
“What about the monsters?” Cole says.
Jax brandishes a sharpened piece of wood and says, “Just one, kid. Last I saw, the remaining creature was making its way up to the third level, looking for a feed.”
“Youkilledone?” I can believe he managed to escape, but to kill a monster? The same monster that killed Dan and Manni. No, I can’t believe it unless he’s some fucking bio…I angle my chin higher and take in Jax’s wound. “Show me.”
The light blinks on, and blue eyes darken. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t make me ask twice. With a sharp sigh, he lifts his shirt and reveals a wrinkled white scar across tensed muscles.
“Nightwalker,” Cole says, sucking in a shaky breath.
Jax mutters a curse. “Nah, not abloodsucker. I’m a slayer. Leon’s my brother, and he sent me in here to find out what the Darkovish Feeding Ground has been hiding.”
He is a…slayer?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VENATOR
Slayers are forbidden from entering Feeding Grounds and cannot become Feeders.
— Serun’s Law
Jax is a slayer.A vampire hunter. Someone trained to kill something likeme.
His eyes soften as he reaches for my hand, but I pull away in disbelief. “I’m sorry, Saya. I should have told you sooner, but I liked how you looked at me. Like I was human. Not just an engineered biohuman made to combat the nightwalker infection.”
Infection. I am a disease in his eyes.
I rest my hand on his. “It’s fine. I get it, but we will talk more if we manage to get out of here alive.”
He smiles. “Whenwe get out of here alive.”
When we get out of here alive, I am getting as far away from you as possible before you drive a stake into my heart.
Jax shuffles ahead, and we position Cole between us. We need to retrace our steps down the airshaft and keep moving until we reach the praised room. As we go, I explain that there isn’t access to the airshafts in the mess —just small ventilation ducts—nothing like the ones between our rooms that let us see each other.
“The Bleeders designed the airshafts for nightwalkers,” Jax says. “But you know the stories from before the bloodbanks, right? Nightwalkers used them to slip into rooms without the Feeders noticing, taking as much as they needed for the week, only to do it all over again.”
“Why did it change?” Cole asks.
“Serun’s Law. A rumour went around that Serun didn’t like the idea that nightwalkers were sinking their teeth into Feeders’ necks without permission. As a result, the Bleeders set up bloodbanks. Except that not all Feeding Grounds function ethically. Darkovish is far from ethical, but we needed solid evidence before my brother sent word to Serun.”
I suspect thisSerunsent the nightwalker I encountered in the private room.
“This Serun,” I begin. “For a nightwalker, he doesn’t?—”
“We only work withitbecause we can’t fucking killit,” Jax interrupts. “It never leaves the Undercity, which is good for us, as it’s as lethal as the bloodsuckers come. But it’s also a double-edged sword. If we kill Serun, we kill every nightwalker.”
