Awake at Dawn (Shadow Falls #2)(102)

"Tell her that your mom did this for you when you weren't feeling good," Fanny said.

Good idea. "My mom used to do this to me, and it really made me feel good."

Sara dropped her hands down. "Okay, but if you try to kiss me, I'm screaming for my mom." Sara giggled.

"What? I'm not your type?" Kylie asked, and giggled, and then she tried to concentrate on positive healing thoughts.

It was after nine that night when Kylie left Sara's house. When she'd been there for about an hour, Kylie had slipped into the bathroom and called her mom. She cried when she told her mom about Sara's cancer. Her mom said she'd call Mrs. Jetton tomorrow and that Kylie should stay with Sara as long as she wanted but to call before she started home. Kylie didn't leave until Sara went to sleep. She had forgotten to call her mom, but since she lived close, she didn't worry.

Her neighborhood was dark, no streetlights-no lights on in the houses, either. A power outage, Kylie told herself as she fought an urgent sense of unease.

And that's when it happened.

Something large hit the windshield of her car.

Chapter Thirty-three

Kylie's heart stopped when she saw the body against her windshield.

She slammed her foot on the brakes. Oh, my God. She must have hit someone.

Then she saw the face staring through the windshield at her. The rogue, the vampire who'd killed those girls in Fallen. But how? Hadn't he been "dealt" with?

She accelerated and swerved, hoping to throw him off the car. It didn't work. Clinging to the car like a spider, he inched over, smiled, and punched his fist through her car window. Glass shards went everywhere.

She screamed and pushed the accelerator harder. He reached for her.

His fist wrapped around her neck and squeezed. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Fireworks exploded before her eyes. Her last thought was of Sara. She hoped she'd healed her. One of them should live.

When Kylie woke up, she sat up on a cold, heavy wooden chair. Her head and throat throbbed. She went to rub her temple, but her hands wouldn't move. She heard a clinking noise, metal against metal. Chains? She pried open her eyes but saw nothing. Pitch-blackness surrounded her.

Shuffling her feet, she heard chains rattling again. Aware of cold metal bracelets against her ankles and wrists, her mind started rationalizing. Her arms and legs were bound with some kind of metal chain. She attempted to shift her limbs to test her theory.

Yup. Chains.

She hated being right, too. The memory of the rogue filled her head. A scream lodged in her throat.

She blinked and hoped to see something but only blackness invaded her senses. She inhaled. The scent of dirt and concrete filled her nose. The lightest intake of air reached her ears. "Is someone here?"

No answer came. "I know someone's here," she said. Trying to test her strength, she pulled at the chains.

She was barely able to move.

"So the rumors of your strength were just rumors." A raspy male voice echoed in the darkness.

"Release me!" Panicked even more, she fought against the chains that bound her, but she couldn't free herself.

"You shouldn't struggle, Kylie. You'll spend your energy uselessly. Save your strength to think. To make wise choices."

Forcing herself to calm down, she listened. The voice echoed in the room. She didn't recognize it. She remembered the rogue vampire who had crashed through her windshield. Panic clawed at her raw, dry throat.

She tried to remember what his voice had sounded like. She could hear him in her head, but it hadn't been the same. Had it?

"What kind of choices?" she asked.

"We have much to talk about." Definitely not the rogue and not a voice she'd heard before. It sounded ... rusty, almost ... old. From the way the voice bounced around the room, Kylie sensed she was in a tunnel. "Where am I? Who are you?" She would have asked what he wanted, but she was too scared to know. Face it, when you find yourself in chains in a pitch-black room, tea and scones weren't usually going to be offered.

The only noise she heard was the sound of her own breathing and the lighter short breaths from the man with the rusty voice. Her mind shot to the visions with the ghosts and she wondered if she had misread them. Was Kylie the person who would be tortured?

Taking a deep breath, she pulled against the chains. She couldn't free herself. Where was her strength? "What do we have to talk about?" she asked.

The light flickered on with blinding brightness. She blinked and on the second rise of her eyelids she saw him. He wore a strange robe, like a monk. His skin was wrinkled, leathered. She tightened her eyebrows and saw his brain pattern. As she suspected, vampire.

An old, weird vampire like Miranda's enemy Tabitha had described.

Kylie's gut had tried to tell her not to ignore it. She hoped this didn't turn out to be her fatal and final flaw.

"You were watching me."

"You have keen instincts." He stepped closer, frighteningly closer. His eyes were cold and gray. Dead gray. "Do you purposely keep your mind closed?" he asked.

She wondered how much she should tell him, or if she should tell him anything at all. Then again, if he thought she was blocking him on purpose, he might get angry. And she had to remember not to lie. "I don't know how to open up."

The sound of metal scraping concrete rang out. Kylie looked behind the old man to a door being pushed open. Her heart stopped and her throat ached as she remembered the newcomer's hand cutting off her airway.