Running her eyes around the room, she noted the bureau had all its doors closed. There was a laptop and camera equipment out on a desk. Wallet and purse were next to them. Bedside table on the left had a silver dish with a bunch of gold jewelry and a heavy watch in it.
Erika rubbed her aching head. “I gotta go make a phone call.”
“You pulling in the feds?” Andy asked.
Erika walked up to the rough wood headboard. Above it, in cursive, a four-letter word had been screwed into the wall.
L O V E.
“This is the third set of victims,” she said grimly. “I think we’ve got a serial killer.”
Back at the moment Sahvage’s throat was slashed, he had one, and only one, thought going through his brain: Maybe he was finally getting off this fucking train.
That’s what he was thinking as he went down on his knees and felt the warm pump of his blood breaking through his fingers and falling free to soak into his pants and pool on the concrete. As the fight crowd bolted, his brain started slowing down—so he had some hope, some optimism that finally, after all these years—
Who knew that human had it in him.
And speak of the stupid, the skinny guy with the knife in his hand scrambled out from under and tore off like his life depended on it. Sahvage let the fucker go. The quick bastard deserved the bid for freedom given that slick move with the hidden blade. Although if that female hadn’t been such a distraction—
Before he lost consciousness, Sahvage’s brain ordered his head to turn to where she’d been standing. But things were draining rapidly, energy, awareness, cognition. So he didn’t make a lot of headway with that. Instead, the world went on a whirl, spinning around him.
The funneling sensation ended with a clapping impact, something cold and hard hitting the side of his face—and he wondered who had swung a frozen salmon at his jaw like a baseball bat. Except no, it wasn’t a pescatarian assault. It was the concrete floor he’d been standing on rushing up to grab his body and hold it down.
Wait, that didn’t make sense.
And wasn’t that great, he thought as his vision tapped out, even though his eyelids were still open.
Maybe this time, he thought with an exhausted anticipation. Maybe . . . this . . . time . . .
He was momentarily surprised as his vision got back with the program, but then he recognized that another brilliant, blinding light was calling him to attention. At first, he thought it was the Fade, but no. The source of it swung away. And then there was another. And another—
The cars that had lit the fighting area were getting out of Dodge.
And someone was standing over him.
That female . . . the one who had shouted at him. And even as he bled out, he took note of her.
Which was so much better than having his life flash before his eyes.
She was tall, and dressed simply, her jeans and thick sweatshirt out of place with the elaborate, revealing shit that the humans wore. Her hair was pulled back, so it was hard for him to tell what color it was, and her face was angular, the cheekbones high, the jaw strong, the hollows between the two suggesting she was hungry some portion of the time.
What the hell was she doing in a place like this?
As another car took off, its blue-bright headlights streamed over her and her wide, scared eyes.
“Go,” he told her. “Leave me.”
When she didn’t move and didn’t acknowledge his words, he wondered if he’d only spoken in his head—
Sahvage started to cough, but it was weak because there wasn’t a lot of air in his lungs. And goddamn, his mouth was full of copper.
The female looked around, and that was when he saw her ponytail. Dark hair, but with blond streaks. Then she was down on his level and her mouth was moving.
What the hell was she doing? She needed to take care of himself—
Herself. She needed to take care of herself.
Just as he was getting ready to stand up and push her over the side of the fucking parking garage, she straightened to her full height and took one last, long stare at him. She seemed pained. He wanted to tell her not to bother.
Even if they’d been intimates, he wasn’t worth that. And they were strangers.
Eventually, she disappeared into thin air, the space she had inhabited vacated, the last of the cars that had been used to light the fight, a boxy black SUV, squealing its tires and passing right through where she had been standing.
The thing nearly ran him over. He wished it had finished the job for him.
As the last of the lights faded, and the sounds of the humans became silence, and the temperature of the night grew colder and colder, Sahvage smiled in the pool of his own blood.