God, please keep us safe. Don’t let me lose him. Please don’t let me lose him.
Sam, Claudio, and Adrian rushed out of the lab. Kyla couldn’t see them any longer. Tristan was back.
“We’ll stay here and wait. I wanna track him down myself but you’re right; no way I can leave you alone.” He caressed her cheek and snuggled up with her in the bed.
She put her arms around his middle and snuggled in, “Please don’t leave me. I have a horrible sinking feeling about this. Don’t let him hurt you, Tristan. Please don’t let him hurt you.” She tucked the dagger under the pillow and put both arms around him.
“I won’t. I’ll never leave you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Never. No matter what.”
She shuddered. The feeling of impending doom was real and tangible. It was as if she were in a movie theatre watching the heroine walking down a dark corridor, the ax murderer right behind her with the ax held up high.
“Kyla, c’mon…” he said, “This guy has nothing compared to me in terms of strength. I can protect you. Have faith in me.”
“Tristan, I know you’re stronger than him. I feel that. Honest, I do. I just can’t shake this awful feeling…”
It was worse than fear. It was all-consuming.
Suddenly, there was a loud click. A light above the door to the room they were in turned on and it was red.
“What?” she breathed.
Tristan jumped from the bed and pushed on the door. It was locked. He glanced over his shoulder at Kyla.
Claudio was in the lab, alone. He was at a computer.
“Claude, what the fuck?” Tristan shouted. Claudio ignored him and kept typing away at the computer. And then she heard a swish sound and the room started to fill with mist.
She saw Claudio reach down and then put a mask with goggles on.
“Tristan!” she shouted, “What’s going on?”
Tristan made the lock click open but the room was filling with steam and the steam was getting thicker. She couldn’t see Tristan. She started to choke on the steam. She tried to move in the direction she thought the door was in but she wasn’t sure if she was going the right way. It wasn’t hot, not smoky, but sweet tasting. Like burnt marshmallows but it kept making her cough and choke. She heard glass smashing but couldn’t see anything with the fog around herself.
Suddenly she was aware of hands on her shoulders and then teeth extending against her throat and just as everything went black she knew that it wasn’t Tristan who had her.-11-She woke up in strong arms. She felt woozy. Her throat was bleeding.
That room they were in off the lab was no longer separated from the lab because the glass wall was mostly gone. The hiss of whatever had sent the steam into the room was still hissing but there wasn’t steam.
She looked up and the face hovering over her zoomed into focus. She wasn’t in Tristan’s arms. She was in Liam’s arms.
He smiled his stupid toothpaste commercial smile and said, “Now, the real fun begins. Let’s see how much I can get before he notices,” and his head descended to the side of her throat that wasn’t already ripped.
Across the room she saw Tristan rip Claudio’s head off. Literally. Claudio’s hair, attached to his detached head was in Tristan’s hand and Tristan threw the head. The head had goggles on its eyes and fangs out and those fangs were blood-coated. The head bounced off the wall and landed on the floor and then Tristan spun around and saw that she was in Liam’s clutches.
She pushed but she was weak. No cold rose up in her. Nothing rose up in her. All she could feel was her body was failing. That, and Tristan’s pure unadulterated rage.
The gash that was already on her throat must’ve really weakened her. Blood trickled out steadily.
Tristan was there, hands on Liam while Liam’s teeth were still on the other side of Kyla’s throat.
“Let her fucking go!”
She knew he couldn’t yank Liam off while those fangs were attached to her or he’d rip her throat apart.
She was panic-stricken, feeling weaker by the second.
Liam’s wrist came up and she saw the green glint of the jewels on the dagger and then the dagger came down in the air and sank into Tristan’s shoulder.
Liam pulled it out and released Kyla’s throat to watch Tristan fall to the floor.
Oh God. No.
Liam licked his lips, “Fuck, you’re delicious!” he looked at the dagger in his hand. “That’s handy. I was wondering what this’d do.”
Adrian rushed into the room and froze in his tracks when he took in the scene. Liam let go of Kyla and darted to him, jabbed the dagger in him, and then Adrian went down, too.
Kyla sobbed as she saw Tristan on the floor, out like a light, but not looking all that injured. And Liam obviously didn’t know that the dagger had to stay in for Tristan to stay down. The dagger was bigger than hers. It was Adrian’s! Was the other one still under the pillow? It must be!