Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(8)

“No,” she said to Chan. “I won’t do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“No!”

And just like that, Chan disgusted her. She had to get away from him. Away from everything he was telling her. She shoved him hard. Harder than she intended to. She saw him fly across the room. She didn’t wait to see him land, or even to see if he was okay. She took off, darting between tables until she saw a door and ran for it. That room was even darker—only two or three candles were placed on a bar. She darted away from the light, hoping to hide, hoping to lose herself in the crowd.

Suddenly a guy grabbed her by her forearms. “Slow down, sweetcakes. You okay?”

Sweetcakes? She looked at him, but with the tears in her eyes her vision wasn’t quite focused. Suddenly his forehead opened up and she saw his pattern. She didn’t know what he was, but when she looked deeper, she got a sleazy feeling.

He leaned closer. His breath smelled like onions. “I ordered this for me, but I think you need it more.” He placed a warm shot glass in her hand.

She was about to drop it away when the smell hit her. The exotic flavors. She brought the glass to her lips and swallowed it in one gulp. It was better than any alcohol she’d ever tasted. Even better than the blood she’d drunk earlier.

“What was that?” She licked her lips to collect the last taste.

“O negative. Freshly drained.” The guy smiled. “My name’s Marshal. How about we go back to my place? I got some of this stuff at home, too.”

The seediness of his presence suddenly overwhelmed her. “Ever heard of statutory rape, you pervert?” Della seethed, realizing the guy was older than her dad.

“Need some help?” asked a girl who suddenly stood beside them. Dressed goth, her eyes brightened a gold color. Della tightened her brows to read the girl’s brain pattern, and decided she was most likely a werewolf. The girl grabbed the man.

The man shoved the girl down and grabbed Della. Della lost it and tossed him across the room the way she had Chan, then she took off for another door, but not before looking back and seeing the girl who’d helped her give her the thumbs-up. Della couldn’t help but wonder if Chan was wrong about werewolves.

“Don’t believe everything he tells you. You look like a smart girl. Make up your own mind.” The doctor’s words played in her head, but she didn’t have time to think. She heard the dirty old man spouting out orders to someone to find her and bring her back so he could teach her a lesson.

She’d learned enough lessons for one day, Della thought. She ran faster, knocking over tables and chairs, and occasionally the chairs weren’t empty. “Sorry. Sorry,” she said as she went, moving through the dark, crowded spaces. She smelled beer, and heard the clinking sound of ice swirling in drinks. The club was like an old house, a lot of cubbyholes and tiny rooms filled with card tables for people to group together. The interior felt as if someone had just kept building on, creating an almost mazelike atmosphere. She moved aimlessly, through one door, then another, or maybe it wasn’t so aimlessly.

She followed something. She just didn’t know what it was until … until she did know. The smell.

Blood.

She entered another room, and three men lay stretched out on beds, needles in their arms and blood being drained from their bodies.

Her first thought was that they were being forced to give up their life-sustaining substance; her second thought was … yum. Her stomach grumbled and she licked her lips. Then her last thought sickened her. She took a step back, afraid of the urges vibrating through her body, but then the smell entered her senses and her mouth watered.

“If you’re wanting to buy it, you’ll have to go to the bar,” said one of the men. “We work for Tony and we’ll get our ass burned if we start selling by the pints in here. But if you want to take one of our cards, we can talk later.”

Della watched as one man got up, pulled a needle out of his own arm, and sealed off the bag with some kind of plastic clamp. But the ripe smell of all those exotic flavors filled the room. She watched as he put the blood on a metal tray.

“Hungry, aren’t you?” he asked and he smiled at her. She tightened her eyes and saw he had a pattern similar to the nurse. Was he fae?

She inhaled, the smell again filling her nose. Realizing they offered to sell her the blood later, she concluded that they obviously weren’t being forced to give up blood. Somehow that made her desire for it less hideous.

Her heart raced. Her stomach grumbled and she dove over the man, her only goal, her only desire to get her hands on that bag of blood.

She got it. The other men stood up from their beds. The needles were yanked from their arms, blood spilling on the floor as they stood. She hissed at them, thinking they would attack, but they all backed up, as if she frightened them. She knew she frightened herself. The deep, angry sounds parting her lips were unlike any sound she’d ever made.

Moving backward, she found the doorknob and made it outside the door, but a loud ear-pinching noise filled her head. Alarms. She held the plastic bag of blood close to her chest and ducked between crowded tables. Heads turned and followed her every move. She realized that perhaps the others were like her and could probably smell the blood. But she still didn’t care. She needed this. Had to have it.

Suddenly, she felt someone grab her arm and yank her across the room. She fought, but her attacker’s strength matched her own. The alarms kept ringing, she heard people running away from her and some toward her. Whoever had her continued to pull her across the room. She glanced up and didn’t see a door, no way to escape. Would she die here because she’d stolen blood? She tried to pull away, but couldn’t. And then they crashed through a window, shards of glass fell around her, and in seconds they were flying.