“Are you hurt?” Liam asked me. He was close to me, but I couldn’t touch him or see him or speak to him. I shook my head. I wasn’t hurt. Not physically, anyway. I was still hurt and scared because of what had happened, but physically, they hadn’t done anything to me.
“Remove the gag,” I heard Lex give an order to someone, and then the gag was being removed.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. My throat hurt. Had I been screaming? Apparently, I’d been screaming. I hadn’t even noticed it.
Liam’s lips were on me then, kissing me, promising me silently that everything was going to be okay. I was still tied up, but I kissed him back eagerly, hurriedly. I needed as much of him as I could get. I wasn’t about to waste the moment.
Soon, someone untied me, and the blindfold came off, and I opened my eyes.
Liam was in front of me, and his face was covered in blood.
“You might want to close your eyes,” he murmured.
“I’m not scared.”
I looked around the room. Lex, Michael, Raven, and Helena were all there. There were some other vampires I didn’t recognize. The two girls who had blindfolded me were alive, as well, but everyone else was dead. They were all in piles on the floor: bloody, mangled. One vampire was crouching over a body and drinking, but nobody else seemed interested in touching the corpses.
Hank was by the door.
“You didn’t save him for last,” I commented, jerking my head toward my ex-boyfriend.
“Nope,” Liam said. “I got that fucker first. How dare he touch you?” He whispered. “You’re mine.”
“How did you find me?” I whispered.
“We went to your apartment,” he explained. “We met with your neighbor.”
“Betty? Did you read her mind?”
“Didn’t have to,” he said. “She told us everything we needed to know.”
“And this place? How did you find this?”
“So many questions for someone who just got rescued,” Liam whispered, cupping my face. I could feel the blood on his hand from his recent kills, but I didn’t care. I kissed him again, eagerly pressing my mouth to his.
“Lex had some intel,” Helena said. “He’s been watching this group.”
“We were planning to come tonight anyway,” Lex shrugged. “It was nice that you were here, though. Made our job easier.”
“Besides,” Liam said. “When we got to the building, I honed in on Hank and his thoughts, and that made finding the exact room they were keeping you in very easy.”
“So, Helena slipped in first,” I whispered.
“And gave us the signal,” Liam added. “As to when we could come in and kill everyone.”
“You saved me,” I said. “Thank you.”
“So polite,” Helena commented. “You’re doing a good job with her.”
I noticed the sound of sniffling just then, and I looked over. Raven was standing beside Helena, and there were tears pouring down her cheeks.
“I was so scared,” she said. She rushed over to me, then, somehow managing to squeeze between me and Liam, and she hugged me, holding me closely. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I chuckled, pulling her close. I pressed my lips to her head and held her for a long time. Finally, she pulled away and went back to Helena, and I looked around the room again. “So, what happens now?” I asked.
“We’re taking you home,” Liam said.
“What about clean-up?”