He looks back at Aiden. “Ear plugs.”
Aiden releases my arm and reaches into his cargo pants, pulling two foam plugs from his pocket. He rolls them betweenhis fingers to compress them and presses them deep into his ears.
I look at Kade, then at Aiden with his plugged ears, and something cold runs through me that has nothing to do with the building’s failed heating. “What’s happening?”
“He’s about to release his cackle.” Her voice carries no urgency, just stating fact. She folds her arms across her chest and that smug smirk crawls across her face. “It paralyzes humans. Shuts down the nervous system, locks every muscle in the body.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Doesn’t work on the dead.” Her smirk widens. “And it certainly won’t work on you. You’re his fated mate.”
“Well alright then.” I swallow hard, bracing myself for whatever’s coming.
It tracks with what I witnessed at the gas station, when he used that sound on the two men who tried to rob me. I stood five feet away and felt nothing while I watched two grown men drop like their strings had been cut. I just stood there holding a pistol I had no clue how to use, completely unaffected.
Kojo walks forward into the dark corridor, his bare feet making no sound on the thin carpet. He stops ahead of us, plants his stance wide, feet shoulder-width apart, and tilts his chin toward the ceiling.
The cackle erupts from somewhere deeper than his throat. It starts low, a growl that builds into a frequency I can feel vibrating in my teeth, then climbs into something that doesn’t sound like it should come from anything human. The sound fills the corridor and layers over itself, each echo stacking on the last until the whole hallway is saturated with it, and every part of me knows this should be tearing me apart.
But the frequency washes over me and through me and past me, and I feel none of it. The sound touches everything except whatever part of my nervous system it’s designed to destroy. Thevibration hums along my skin and moves on, discarded, like my body is a window the sound passes through without breaking.
I glance at Kade. Her jaw is set, her fangs partially extended, and she looks irritated, like the noise is unpleasant but manageable.
Behind me, Aiden has both palms pressed flat over his ears, his features twisted in pain, knees buckling beneath him. The foam plugs clearly aren’t enough protection. He’s fighting to stay upright, swaying precariously, teeth clenched so hard I can see the tendons in his neck straining beneath his skin.
Kojo stops. My ears ring for two seconds, then clear. He’s at the far end of the corridor, his head tilted to one side, listening intently. His ridge is fully extended.
“They are still moving.” His voice comes back flat with disbelief. “It did not work.”
Behind me, Aiden drops. His knees hit the carpet and his palms slam flat against the floor, catching himself before he hits the floor. I kneel beside him and hook my arm under his shoulder, pulling him up. He leans heavily into me, blinking hard, shaking his head like he’s trying to dislodge water from his ears.
“I can’t hear you.” His voice is too loud, how people talk when they can’t hear themselves. He pulls one plug from his ear and winces immediately. “That damn cackle. It pierces right through you even with ear plugs.”
I steady him on his feet and turn back to Kade, who hasn’t moved from her position. Her look has shifted from irritation to something sharper, more calculating.
“They have protection.” Kade’s voice drops an octave, and she pauses, her bright blue eyes narrowing as something clicks behind them. “And I know exactly who they got it from.”
“Who?” I ask, but the answer never comes.
A metal canister bounces off the wall three feet from my face and cracks on the floor with a metallic ring. The hiss starts before it stops rolling, white smoke pouring from both ends, expanding outward in a thick cloud that hits my lungs before I can hold my breath. My eyes burn instantly, like someone threw acid in them, and I double over coughing, hands clawing at my collar, trying desperately to pull it over my face.
Kade grabs me and pulls me behind her with supernatural speed, positioning herself between me and the spreading gas. The smoke curls around her, but she doesn’t even flinch.
Kojo vanishes into the fog. I can’t see him anymore. The corridor fills with white in seconds, thick and chemical, and all I can hear through my own desperate coughing are the sounds of violent impact. A grunt. The heavy crack of bone meeting bone. A body hitting the wall hard enough to shake the framed prints in the hallway. Another grunt, lower this time, and then a scream that’s short and abruptly cut off by a wet sound I don’t want to identify.
A body slides out of the fog and comes to rest at my feet. A man in black tactical gear, his face mask pulled sideways, his jaw hanging at an angle that jaws don’t naturally bend. His eyes are open but empty, staring at nothing. I step back instinctively, my boot catching on his arm.
I look up at Kade. She stands with her arms crossed, that infuriating smirk back in place, watching the fog like she finds the entire situation tedious.
“Aren’t you going to help?” I cough through the words, my lungs burning. “You’re a vampire. You can handle this.”
Kade laughs, dark and short. “Honey, if I leave you alone with Aiden and something happens to you, I will have to put Kojo down.”
I narrow my eyes at her through the burning haze. She gives me a shrug so casual it makes me want to scream.
“Of course you don’t understand. You’re just a silly little naive human.” She tilts her head and studies me. “You are the only thing in this world worth living to him. He’s not going to tolerate so much as a scratch on you.” Her smirk deepens. “Go on. Be the little hero and try to help him. See what happens.”
She winks at me. I hiss at her and she laughs, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves. I turn and try to push through the fog, pulling my coat collar over my nose, but Aiden’s arm tightens around my waist from behind, anchoring me in place. He’s covering his own mouth with his free hand, his eyes streaming, but his grip doesn’t waver.
“Did you not hear her?” His voice rasps through the smoke. “Please understand what you are dealing with. Kade is right. You are the only thing holding him onto this world. If you get hurt, he will go insane.”
I huff in frustration, my lungs burning, my eyes watering until I can barely see. “So what are we supposed to do, just stand here and...”
