CHAPTER Thirty-four
Tess made her way into the city from the compound‘s property in a state of emotional numbness. Without her purse, coat, or cell phone, she had few options—not even a key to get into her apartment. Breathless, confused, utterly exhausted from everything that was happening to her, she headed for a corner pay phone, praying it wasn‘t out of order. She got a dial tone, hit 0, and waited for the operator to come on.
―Collect call, please,‖ she panted into the receiver, then gave the operator the number of the animal clinic. The phone rang and rang. No answer. As it went into voice mail, the operator disconnected, saying, ―I‘m sorry. There‘s no one there to accept charges.‖
―Wait,‖ Tess said, worry niggling at her. ―Will you try it again?‖
―One moment.‖
Tess waited anxiously as the phone began ringing again at the clinic. No answer.
―I‘m sorry,‖ the operator said again,
disconnecting the call.
―I don‘t understand,‖ Tess murmured, more to herself. ―Can you tell me what time it is?‖
―It‘s ten-thirteen A.M.‖
Nora wouldn‘t break for lunch until noon, and she never called in sick, so why wasn‘t she picking up the call? Something must be wrong.
―Would you like to try another number?‖
―Yes, I would.‖
Tess gave the operator Nora‘s land line, then, when that call came up empty, she gave her Nora‘s cell. As each call rang unanswered, Tess‘s heart sank deeper in her chest. Everything felt wrong to her. Very wrong.
With dread pounding through her, Tess hung up the pay phone and began walking for the nearest subway station. She didn‘t have the dollar-twentyfive fare it would cost to ride to the North End, but a grandmotherly woman on the street took pity on her and gave her a handful of loose change. The trip home seemed to take forever, each stranger‘s face on the train seeming to stare at her as if they knew she didn‘t belong there among them. As if they could sense that she had been changed somehow, no longer a part of the normal world. No longer a part of their human world. And maybe she wasn‘t, Tess thought, reflecting on all that Dante had told her—everything she had seen and been a part of in the past several hours. The past several days, she corrected herself, thinking back on Halloween night, when she‘d truly first seen Dante.
When he‘d sunk his fangs into her neck and turned her normal world upside down.
But maybe she wasn‘t being totally fair. Tess couldn‘t remember a time when she‘d really felt a part of anything normal. She had always been... different. Her unusual ability, even more than her troubled past, had always kept her separate from other people. She‘d always felt like a misfit, an outsider, unable to trust anyone with her secrets. Until Dante.
He had opened her eyes to so much. He‘d made her feel, made her desire in ways she never had before. He‘d made her hope for things she‘d only dreamed of. He‘d made her feel safe and understood. Worse than that, he had made her feel loved.
But that had all been based on lies. Now she had the truth—incredible as it was—and she would give just about anything to pretend it wasn‘t real. Vampires and blood bonds. A mounting war between creatures who shouldn‘t exist outside the realm of the imagination, of nightmares.
It was all true, though.
It was real.
As real as her feelings for Dante, which only made his deception cut deeper. She loved him, and she‘d never been more terrified of anything in her life. She had fallen in love with a dangerous vigilante. A vampire.
The admission weighed her down as she stepped off the subway car and made her way up to street level in her North End neighborhood. The local shops were bustling with morning patrons, the outdoor market enjoying a steady flow of regular customers. Tess passed a knot of tourists who‘d stopped to browse autumn melons and squash, weathering a chill that had little to do with the crisp fall air.
The closer she got to home, the deeper her sense of dread grew. One of the tenants came out as she reached the front stoop. Although she didn‘t know the old man by name, he smiled at her and held open the door for her to enter. Tess went inside and climbed the flight of stairs to her unit. Before she got within ten feet of the door, she realized that it had been broken into. The jamb was chewed up near the doorknob, as if it had been jimmied open and then closed to make it appear that nothing was out of place.
Tess froze, panic dousing her. She took a backward step, ready to turn around and bolt. Her spine connected with a solid mass, someone standing right behind her. A strong arm snaked around her waist, yanking her off balance, and a length of cold, sharp steel pressed meaningfully below her jaw.