A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(4)

"We were going to meet out front and walk to class together like we always do. But she never showed up. And I can't find her."

"She's not picking up her phone?"

"No. She texted me to say she'd be here in five minutes, but that was fifteen minutes ago, and she's not here. She's not anywhere, Quinn. I've been walking around looking for her."

"Zack." She'd never heard him sound so frantic - she'd never heard him sound frantic at all. She scrambled to think of a logical, safe explanation for Lily's disappearance and couldn't come up with a single one that fit Lily's serious, responsible nature. "Have you called her mom?" Lily lived with her parents about six blocks away.

"I don't know her mom's number."

Crap. "Do you know either of her parents' names?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wang."

"Zack. There have to be hundreds of Wangs in D.C."

"I know."

"Where are you?"

"Starbucks on Penn."

A couple of blocks from their apartment. "Stay there. Inside. I'm on my way."

Thirty minutes later, after handing off her work to a fellow technician, racing to her car, and flying through more nearly red lights than she cared to admit, she found Zack right where he'd said he'd be, his body rigid with tension as he paced. He looked up and saw her, the devastation in his expression lifting with relief. As if she could fix it. Oh, Zack. His T-shirt was plastered to his body, his face flushed and soaked with sweat. He loved that girl, she could see it in his eyes, even if he didn't know it, yet. If Lily was really gone, her loss was going to slay him.

And his grief was going to slay Quinn.

She took his hand, squeezing his damp fist. "Where have you looked?"

"Around." His eyes misted, his mouth tightening painfully. "She's not here, Quinn."

"We'll find her."

But he wasn't buying her optimism any more than she was. The cops hadn't found a single one of the missing people, yet. Not one.

"Do you know where she was when you last heard from her?"

"She was close. Within a block or two of our apartment."

Quinn cocked her head at him. "Doesn't she usually buy coffee on her way to class?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

He blinked. "Here."

"Have you asked if they saw her?"

His face scrunched in embarrassment. "No." He pulled out his cell phone as he walked up to the counter, stepping in front of the line and holding out his phone and, she assumed, Lily's picture, to the barista. "I'm looking for my friend. Did she get coffee here a little while ago?"

The man peered at the picture. "Yeah. Lily, right? She ordered her usual mocha latte no-whip."

Zack turned away, and Quinn fell into step beside him as they pushed through the morning-coffee crowd and left the shop. She squinted against the glare of the summer sun. "She went missing between here and the street in front of our apartment. It's just two blocks, Zack." And the chances they'd find her, after Zack had already looked, were slim to none.

Together, they walked down the busy sidewalk, dodging college kids, locals, and tourists as they searched for any sign of Lily or what might have happened to her. Quinn's chest ached, as much for Lily as it did for Zack. His anguish, thick and palpable, hung in the steamy air.

When that familiar chill rippled over her skin, it startled her. Oh, hell. Not here. Not now.

They were nearly to the block their apartment sat on, the street where, just last night, she'd seen an old-fashioned horse and buggy. In the dark. Surely she wouldn't see it in bright daylight.

Her pulse began to race in both anticipation and dread. What if she saw that strange scene again? What if, as always happened when she peered out the window, she suddenly couldn't see the real world? Would she start running into people? Maybe walk in front of a car?

She grabbed Zack, curling her fingers around his upper arm.

His gaze swung to her, hope wreathing his face. "Do you see her?"

"No. I just . . . I don't feel well."

His brows drew down, and he pulled her hand off his arm and engulfed it in his larger one, closing his fingers tightly around hers.

Hand in hand, they crossed the street, pushing through a throng of backpacked college kids, and walked around the construction barricade that was blocking her view of her building. As they cleared the barricade, Quinn swallowed a gasp at the sight that met her gaze. Superimposed upon a small section of her apartment building, to the left of the entrance, was what appeared to be a house of some sort. Or row house. It was set back and partially illuminated as if by a spotlight, surrounded by shadows. A crumbling, haunted-looking house that wasn't really there.

Holy shit. She pulled up short.

"You see something."

Zack's words barely registered, and she answered without thinking. "Yes."

"What?"

His excitement penetrated her focus. "I'm not sure." But she started forward, her gaze remaining glued on that impossible sight. The shadows fully blocked the sidewalk, extending almost to the street, as if the vision were three-dimensional, as if a slice had been cut from another world, a square column, and dropped into the middle of hers. But the house didn't appear to actually stand within that column. In fact, the column didn't appear to quite reach the front of her apartment building at all. It was as if the shadows acted as a window into the world where the house sat, alone and abandoned.