He put a finger to his lips. “Shh! We don’t know if anyone is here.”
“Why would anyone be here? It’s only open at night once a month.”
With a careless shrug, he trailed behind me up the steps. Our feet clinking on the cool, smooth tiles echoed as the familiar faded red arrow on the sign beckoned us forward. “Executive Lounge, that’s exactly where we need to be.”
With his gun held high, Jude followed me down the hallway. We passed endless rooms, each identical to the last, and I wondered if I’d recognize the lounge. I remember it being a big black door, but it didn’t have a sign or anything on it. I just got a weird feeling when I passed it.
A strange, unsettling feeling of intrigue settled deep within my bones, intensifying with each step we took. Straight ahead was the Diamond Bar, where I met that sleazeball Trent, who tried forcing himself on me. My heart fluttered as I remembered Gabe showing up and putting a knife to the man’s neck.
So romantic.
An inexplicable urge made me look down the hallway, where a heavy black metal door stood out, its keypad emitting a faint, warm glow against the cold steel. “This is it.” I hurriedly typedthe code Gabe gave me and heard a click as the door unlocked. A disconcerting flicker of the hallway lights was accompanied by a distorted, unsettling sound—a misplaced resonance—that seemed to distort the space. With electricity, there’s a constant humming in the air, but when that power is removed, it’s replaced with a strange silence.
“Gabe must have disabled the power.”
We entered the room behind the door to find a fairly large lounge, complete with a bar along one wall, velvet chairs, and couches all situated around a stage lined with a circle of light bulbs that had a shining pole in its center, affixed to the ceiling. Surprisingly, the room felt luxurious, despite the events that took place here. A strange smell lingered from the lounge, one I shudder to describe.
The electric hum, a low thrumming sound, started up again, and the circular ceiling and floor lights flickered to life. My lip turned upward as I passed a velvet couch, seeing stains on the armrest. Disgusting.
“Wh-what happened? Did Gabe fail?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered hesitantly. “Only certain lights came on. I think this hotel may have a generator that would provide power for necessities in the event of an outage.”
There was a sudden flash of red and green lights from a small, oddly placed door at the back of the room that startled us, and then we immediately ran towards it. A standard hotel-style card reader secured the door, its metallic surface slightly worn from frequent use. A faint green glow pulsed gently, beckoning me to turn the cool metal handle.
“Another shock that this door is open,” I breathed.
“It has to be because the power went out,” Jude whispered, keeping his gun pointed downward, ready for anything.
The next room had textured black walls which seemed to absorb the light, drawing the eye to the plush red headboard ofthe large bed, which dominated the space. The bed was so big, at least five people could fit in it. I rolled my eyes—of course, the vampiric council and military, who are majority men, would create a secret room to bring their flavor of the night. Men will be men.
On the far side of the wall, a door with a glowing red keypad hummed faintly. “Well, I think we found where the power is going.”
My hands grew slick with sweat as I gripped the cold, metallic handle of my gun, my heart pounding in my chest, knowing what lay beyond the door. I lifted my finger, pressing the code Gabe shared onto the keypad, and a satisfying click echoed as the red light blinked green. I looked at Jude, his expression serious, as he nodded and, with a powerful kick, sent the door swinging inward.
Jude and I stepped inside, guns raised, and three surprised faces stared back at us. The three men fumbled for their weapons at their hips, but our draw was faster. Jude’s silent shot sailed through the air, and the man closest to me stumbled backward, a look of shock on his face. The recoil jolted my arm as I pulled the trigger, but my shot went wide, the bullet striking the man farthest away.
“Fuck!” the man yelled and clasped his leg.
I looked at the vampire I’d missed, his sharp fangs catching the dim light, their points gleaming menacingly. A cruel smile stretched across his face as his finger tightened on the trigger of his gun. It was like everything happened in slow motion. A deafening gunshot ripped through the air, and I shoved Jude to the ground, our bodies hitting the floor just as the bullet ricocheted off the wall.
Jude’s hand moved like a blur as he brought up his weapon. The gunshot was sharp and immediate, correcting my earlier miss. The man fell to the ground in a solid heap while the lastremained seated. The room felt cramped, a suffocating density of objects making it hard to tell if it was actually small or just overflowing with machines. Floor-to-ceiling monitors displayed various zones of The Wastes, their flickering screens showing specific points along the perimeter of the wall outside the city.
Jude sprinted toward the final man and swiftly wrapped his arm around the vampire’s neck, pressing the cold steel of his gun to his temple. I scanned the several monitors displaying live feeds of the outside world, focusing on those pointed toward the city’s exterior wall. No sign of The Unicorns, they must be hiding well.
“How do we open the gate?” With a decisive shove, Jude pressed the barrel of his gun to the man’s temple.
“You’ll never take down the vampires, you filthy human!” The man’s voice was laced with disgust as he turned to me. “And you should be ashamed of yourself, you asshole!”
“Don’t talk to him like that!” Jude screamed. “Help us, or you’ll feel a bullet in your head.”
The man held his hands up. “Okay, okay, fine. What do you want?”
“Unlock the gate.”
“I can’t do that without Mr. Asposito’s direction.”
Jude punched the man hard in the face and then returned his gun against his head. “Does it look like we care about Mr. Asposito’s direction? Just fucking do it!”
