A bright spotlight suddenly shines into the room and I leap back in surprise. A lone figure in a short skirt and big boots is silhouetted in the doorway, gripping a knife in her hands.
“Prepare to die,” she spits, before she lunges at me.
18
“Wait! Rayne! It’s me! Sunny!” I cry as my sister dives on top of me, ready to strike. I fumble at my hood, thankful I didn’t go for a full metamorphosis this time around. She shines her light down at my face, blinding me for a moment.
“Sunny?” she cries, her voice thankfully full of recognition. “What are you doing in here? And why are you wearing one of their cloaks?”
“I’m trying to rescue you, you dummy.”
She rolls off of me and scrambles to her feet. “I don’t need rescuing,” she replies cockily. Then she catches my expression and smiles. “Though, of course, I do appreciate the effort.”
I brush the dust off my clothes, trying not to remind myself they came from a vaporized vampire’s skin. “What about Jayden?” I ask, my heart in my throat as I await her answer.
“He’s hiding in Bite Room C,” she informs me. “Don’t worry, I made sure he was safe, just as I promised I would. I had no idea we were in for such a massacre of epic proportion when I made that promise or I might have asked for hazard pay.”
“It was Corbin,” I inform her. “Him and the rest of the Alphas. They came in through the café.” My voice breaks. “I thought they were going to kill you.”
“I’m not that easy to kill,” Rayne scoffs in her regular toughgirl way, but, at the same time, I can tell she’s visibly shaken by the idea that Corbin’s behind all of this. “I wonder how he found us,” she muses.
“It seems like wherever we go, they’re one step ahead of us,” I say. “First the Holy Grail. Now the Blood Bar...”
Rayne sheaths her knife and brings out her stake. “Go find Jayden,” she instructs. “I’m going to go have a little talk with Corbin and see what’s up. And by talk, I mean, I’m going to stake that bastard through the heart if he gives me half the chance.”
“I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing about you.” “Probably. But I’m better than him,” she says with a smirk. Then she sobers. “Sunny, give me a little credit here. I’m not going to go out, stakes blazing. I’m just going to do a little recon is all. The Consortium needs to know what the Alphas are up to.” She pauses, then adds, “Why don’t you go find Jayden, get him out of here, and meet me back at the ryokan? We’ll regroup and figure out our next strategy there.”
“Fine,” I reply, knowing it will do no good to argue with my headstrong sister. “I’ll see you in about an hour.”
My sister nods and turns to run out of the room. “Rayne!” I call back to her. She stops and turns around, her face impatient.
“Yeah?”
“Be safe, okay?” I say, giving her my best pleading look. “For my sake, if not your own.”
“Always, little sister,” she teases, before disappearing into the night. I watch her go, then head off to try to find Bite Room C and Jayden, trying to shake the bad feeling I have about all of this.
Jayden is mostly silent on the way back to the ryokan, as if still shell-shocked over the night’s events. Not that I blame him. When I found him in Bite Room C, he was almost catatonic with fear. It took a lot of reassuring to get him to leave his hiding spot and follow me out of the Blood Bar.
Once we get inside our cozy little room, I pull out the futon mats and help him down onto one of them, covering him with a thick comforter. But he’s still shaking like crazy, so eventually I decide to lie down next to him, pulling him toward my own body to share my mortal warmth. He’s like an ice cube, even for a cold-blooded vampire, as he cuddles against me.
“They killed everyone,” he whispers, his mouth against my ear. “It was so awful. All these vampires—just exploding into oblivion. And those people... those innocent people...” He shakes his head, remembering. “I tried to get the girl I was drinking from to come with me to hide. But she only wanted to escape.” He shudders. “I heard her down the hall... screaming and screaming... and then... nothing.”
My heart aches for him; I can’t imagine what it must be like to witness such carnage. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I murmur, rocking him close to me. “I was so scared that you’d been killed, too.”
“I’m alive ’cause I hid like a coward,” he spits out ruefully. “Let everyone else die around me instead.”
I pull away, giving him a sharp look. “What could you have done? You would have just gotten yourself killed if you tried to play hero.”
“What about you? You risked your life going in there.”
“I had a disguise,” I remind him. “And besides, I had to make up for you saving my life back in Vegas. Now we’re even.”
“Actually I think you might be a little ahead at this point.”
We fall back into our embrace and I can feel his heart beating wildly against my own. It’s hard to believe just a short time ago we were fighting for our lives. Now I feel so warm and safe and cozy in our tiny room. Me and Jayden, against the world.
“Oh, Sunny,” he murmurs, evidently sharing my sentiments. He nuzzles his head against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been acting like such a jerk to you this whole trip.”