“I’m guessing that you and I are onto something.” He smiles amusedly at me while picking off one last strip of skin from his stomach. He looks completely normal. “You know what,” he flicks the piece of skin onto the ground, “I feel so much better now.”
I flip the knife around in my hand, playing with it. “You look better now.”
“Better?” he asks with a crook of his brow. “Or sexy?”
I roll my eyes, but my stomach flips. “Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“You know you’ve missed it.” He waits, his silence challenging me to say otherwise. When I don’t answer, I’ve pretty much agreed he’s right.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“We should probably get going if you’re feeling better and it should be dark by now.” I hop off the crates and put the knife away. “There’s no point sitting around and wasting time.” I walk over and pick up the papers.
Sylas glances around the room. “I need a shirt or something.”
“Well, where did you get the pants?”
His eyes darken. “You don’t even want to know.”
He’s probably right, so I take off my jacket and toss it to him. He catches it and puts it on. It’s large on me, but still a little too small on him. He manages to get it zipped up then we head out a door that leads to the outside. We’re on high alert because of the abominations. Although, I now know how to change Sylas back if he gets bit, I’d rather keep the getting bit on my part low.
Sylas grabs the door handle behind him, but pauses. “What about Aiden?”
I pause, deliberating what the right thing to do is. “Um… I guess we should probably find him.”
“Are you sure?” he questions. “You do realize that the Highers are probably searching for us, right? They have a connection with their army and will probably know that you are here right now…. Plus, they’ll probably figure out that I’m no longer with their group of soldiers and search for me because I know stuff.”
“You think they know that you reversed back to a Day Taker?”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure. But if they do figure it out and find out that you’re the reason why I’ve changed, you will definitely become their top priority.” He lets go of the doorknob and takes hold of my hand, his skin temperature matching mine “You’ve got to promise to be cautious. If the Highers get their hands on you… well, they’ll have what they need to become what they’ve always strived to be. Perfection.”
“Then I’ll just have to make sure they don’t get their hands on me,” I tell him determinedly.
“We’ll make sure,” he presses, his dark eyes turning to liquid black like the ink on the papers that I’m holding. “We’ll make sure that they don’t get their hands on you.”
“You know, you sound so good at the moment,” I say in a light tone.
The corners of his lips quirk. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold.”
He lets go of my hands and then we head out the door, checking the hallway before stepping out. It’s silent as we back our way down the hallway, the only noises are the soft flaps coming from the plastic above us and the crunching as we step on debris. I follow him down the hall, folding up the papers the best that I can, then reach forward to put them into the jacket pocket that Sylas is wearing. He tenses and freezes from my touch, startled. When he glances at me, I shrug.
“I don’t want to be holding them if we have to run,” I say.
He stares at my hand as I pull away and then, when he looks up, he has this strange look in his eyes. He reaches forward and tucks a strand of my hair out of my eyes before turning away and heading up the hall again.
When we reach the end, the hall exits to the outside through a hole in the wall. We slip into the shadows of the night, carefully treading through the park to the dark streets, keeping to the alleys while listening to the vampire cries around us.
Sylas pauses for a moment when we reach a corner of a building and then sticks out his hand behind him, grabs hold of me and pulls me forward. I step up to the side of him as he puts his fingers to his lips, warning me to stay quiet, then he peeks around the corner and motions for me to do the same. I lean around him and look into the street. There are fires burning in barrels everywhere and three figures standing next to one of the closer fires, wearing all white that matches their hair. Their snow-white skin carves their perfect features and their pale eyes are haunting.
Highers.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I want to; I want to see if they’re talking about something that could clue us in on what they know. I start to sidestep around Sylas, wanting to get closer, when he catches my arm, but I shake my head and point to my ear. He hesitates then lets me go, following on my heels. We stick to the shadows and then duck behind a rusted vehicle on the street, just out of the glow flowing off the flames in the barrels.
Gabrielle’s voice rises and I tense, recognizing the sound of it far too well. I strain my ears to listen, hunkering low at the same time Sylas sits down on the rubbly street with his legs out.
“We need to send our army out,” he says. “Now that we know where some of the humans are hiding.”
“If Kayla gets the papers back to Mathew,” another one says, his voice is unfamiliar, but it holds the same icy tone, “eventually they’ll be able to figure out Monarch’s work. He’ll be able to figure out the cure.”
It grows quiet and I dare to peek up through the cracked window of the car. Gabrielle’s peering around the dark streets, his pale eyes ultimately resting on the rusted vehicle we’re hiding behind. I hold my breath, thinking he knows we’re there, but then he turns back to the other Highers.
“It’s more important to find her first, so we can capture her,” a Higher says, one that looks familiar, but I can’t quite place. “It’ll take some time for Mathew to decipher my work and we need her blood more than anything.”
I gasp when I realize Monarch is speaking and then slap my hand over my mouth. Sylas reaches up and pulls me back down, shaking his head at me.
“You need to stay down,” he hisses.
He’s right. I can’t allow my emotions to make me become reckless. I was trained not to.