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CHAPTER SIX 
FINN
“So… the man who attacked you, did you ever find anything out about him?” I ask.
Marcus glances over at me. “I did. I found out a lot. Including the fact that he would continue to haunt me for many years of my life until I heard he was dead. Clearly, he wasn’t.”
I’m confused now because the man he’s referring to couldn’t be Kaden, and he said he knew Landall as a human. That’s when it dawns on me what he’s saying. “You think the vampire that attacked us… that killed those people and got away, was this man?” He was unbelievably strong… he reminded me of Watson when he came after us.
“I could be wrong, but the pieces would fall into place. I’d heard he had been killed, but apparently he survived, though he must have laid low until now.”
“And he’s back now… for what?” I ask.
“I don’t think anyone can make sense of what that man does or why. I just know that he has slaughtered countless people without remorse.”
“Okay. So we at least have a lead. I didn’t get to see him, but maybe Landall did? I think he needs some time to calm down and then we’ll speak to him, maybe even this afternoon?”
“Until then… I guess we have to rely on our newest employee,” Marcus says with quite an impressive scowl as he thinks about his brother. One would think he’d be happy to have someone at his fingertips who could help, but that person would not know Marcus very well.
      
“Oh, my thundering heart! You need your big brother’s help!” Claude announces loud enough the entire department must hear.
He grabs Alexei—who was minding his own business at his desk that Claude was standing near—in a headlock and smashes Alexei’s head against his stomach.
“Do you hear that, my love? My brother wants my help. My heart! My aching—”
“Knock it the fuck off,” Alexei yells as he bats Claude off him. “This is why he refuses to ask for your help. Look at him! He’s already leaving! Just act like a normal person and maybe he wouldn’t leave.”
Claude falls silent as he considers this before going, “Huh, he sure is scurrying out of here, isn’t he?”
“Marcus, come back,” I say before he completely leaves the building.
“Nah,” he says as he disappears through the doorway.
Claude looks like a dejected puppy as he stares after him before slumping down on Alexei’s lap. “I fucked up.”
Alexei sighs and pats the side of his face. “Go help him normally.”
“Come on,” I urge, knowing that we need Claude’s help whether Marcus likes it or not.
“May I hold your hand?” he asks as he takes my hand without waiting for an answer. “You’re like my teeny tiny emotional support Finn. You shall protect me, and the moment Marcus looks my way—” He grabs me and holds me before him like a shield. “Half protection. Like either my head or my ankles aren’t protected, but I can move you if I need to.”
“Yay,” I say sarcastically as I’m placed back on the ground. Walking hand in hand, we head into the hallway where I stop Marcus before he proceeds up the stairs. He glances down at my hand in Claude’s like he could possibly be confused by it before walking into a conference room.
“Remember, calm and collected.” I look over at Claude just in case he’s not aware it’s him I’m talking to.
“Yes, of course, buttercup,” he says as I push open the door and walk inside.
Claude releases my hand, fixes his imaginary tie, and takes a seat across from Marcus. “What the fuck you want?” Claude barks.
And while this makes my eyebrows reach for my hairline, Marcus seems quite pleased.
“There’s a man by the name of Ender, a true vampire—”
Claude shakes his head. “He’s dead, Marcus.”
“What if he’s not?”
“Then what? You think he’s come back to kill you?” Claude asks as he slaps down a mini notebook and taps his pen against it. “He was infamous and feared for slaughtering vampires. They say that all the vampire blood he consumed is what made him so strong, but there’s no scientific proof of that. I think it was all in his head. He was just a strong vampire who loved the way destroying others felt and how they feared him for it. But many vampires fed into it. Some even turned to him and saw him as some type of god as he built this strange cult,” Claude says.
“Until he was reportedly killed and disappeared from sight.”Claude seems to consider this. “Since the true vampire origin has come to light, some have played with the idea that he was the first one created. That it’s why he had the strength he did.”
I think about this as I sit down. “But we know that’s not true. Watson was the first,” I say. “Is this man stronger than Watson?” The thought of that inflicts too much fear into me, but I refuse to let it show. I don’t want Marcus or Claude to know how anxious even talking about this makes me. We stopped Watson, so it’s not like anyone is impossible to stop.
Marcus hesitates. “No… I don’t believe so. But the issue is that the last time we came across him was around a hundred years ago. It’s hard for me to compare when it was many years between when I fought Ender and when I fought Watson.”
“True. I didn’t think of that,” I say. Even Marcus struggled against this Ender vampire, and he’s one of the strongest people I know. That was years ago, though. Marcus has surely grown in strength since then, but wouldn’t Ender have as well? Hopefully, my fears are needless.
“I also have people now that could help me. That’s not to say I didn’t have people back then, but Kaden was young and Landall… let’s just say I didn’t spend much time with him,” Marcus says.
Claude scribbles something in his notebook. “I’m shocked you guys got along.”
“It’s a wonder I didn’t kill any of them,” Marcus says. “There were a few times I fully considered it.”
I gasp dramatically. “You? Not get along with someone? Noooooo.”
Claude snickers before quickly straightening up. “I mean. How dare you, Finn. Marcus is extremely professional and…” He scrutinizes him for a long moment until he adds, “kind.”
That makes both Marcus and me smirk.
“I love how I can see the physical pain on Claude’s face when he said that,” I say.
“I’m glad you enjoy my pain. Clearly, Marcus’s savage attitude is rubbing off on you,” Claude says, like he’s devastated by this.
I grin at him—maybe I have been around Marcus too much, which is apparent from me finding joy in Claude’s misery. But he’ll forgive me because Claude has a heart of gold. “No, I’m perfect.”
“Of course you are,” Claude says as he grabs me and gives me a rather loud kiss on the side of my forehead. “I will dig up everything I can. Give me a few hours and I’ll see what I can do. I’m just afraid that I won’t have much because there hasn’t even been speak of him since his supposed death.”
“Thank you,” Marcus says.
Claude gets a look on his face that tells me he really wants to gasp and make a huge deal about the thanks, but instead, he says nothing.
Maybe he is learning.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVEN 
MARCUS
When I pull into the driveway of Finn’s adoptive father Orin’s house, Hela lets out a scream of excitement. Because she’s thrilled, Artemus starts trying to dance in the back seat but he can’t when he’s too big to even fit comfortably in the car—the top of his head is already pressed against the ceiling, surely leaving hair behind.
“Aw, you excited to see Gramps?” Finn asks, which makes them even more excited.
I put the car in park and Finn looks over at me before reaching across the console and squeezing my hand.
“You doing alright?” He seems concerned as he says this, so I just give him a look to let him know that I have absolutely no idea what he’s going on about.
“Yeah, fine,” I say.
Finn fixes me with that look; it’s a scrutinizing look like he knows how to read me and can tell what I’m feeling, so I return it with one that shows him that everything is perfectly fine. That there is absolutely nothing to worry about and he’s ridiculous if he even remotely thinks I’m worrying about something.
His expression just turns more suspicious, telling me that I didn’t convince him at all. Of course I didn’t because he can see through the most ridiculous of things.
“You act like I don’t know you,” Finn declares.
I shake my head, positive I’m not going to cave on this one. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop straight-facing me, you stubborn mosquito.”
That gets my eyebrow to rise. “Mosquito?”
“That’s what you are when you’re like this. Stubborn as fuck, suckling blood like a mosquito. Leaving me itchy.”
I scrutinize him while wondering how he can think he can get away with this shit. “You’re getting too sassy.”
Finn pulls my hand toward him and squeezes it. “Alright. Enough joking around and avoiding the question. Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I make sure to use extra conviction this time.
Extra conviction has failed. “Marcus.”
I sigh, realizing that no matter what I say, we’re not leaving this car until I finally answer him. “I’m not… overly happy, no. I’ve wanted for so long to keep this shit locked up so I could just pretend none of it happened, but clearly that’s not going to work.”
“I’m sorry. That has to be hard to deal with. I know your past isn’t something you like to think about or talk about, and I don’t blame you. The past sucks and no matter how much we want to live for the present, we can’t always forget about everything that happened in the past. We can try but it always seems to come back to haunt us,” Finn says, and I notice a change to his voice that makes me reach out for him.
“I feel ridiculous even bitching about the past when talking to you,” I realize.
He quickly looks over at me. “What does that even mean? It doesn’t matter what anyone’s past is compared to yours. It matters how you feel about your own past. Marcus, trust me. Don’t ever compare yourself or what you’re feeling to someone else. I know it’s already hard enough for you to express how you feel about things.”
How is this human always able to convince me of things? How does he make me cave the way he does?
“Okay. Thank you. I am doing alright now. Things aren’t going the way I’d hope, but it doesn’t mean things aren’t going to be okay or that we can’t deal with them. My top priority now is stopping him if it really is Ender. Obviously stopping him if it’s not Ender too, but there’s a bit more of a… let’s say if it is Ender, he would merely slaughter a city just for some attention. If it wasn’t, it might have been a targeted attack.”
“Right. And we’ll figure it out, I promise. How about we go get distracted by mundane family for a bit? We have to see what Claude and the techs can get us and go from there. Oh! I almost forgot. My sister has a new boyfriend. Please don’t terrify him like you did the last one.”
“I terrified the last one?” I ask, wondering when that happened. I feel like I was quite good when dealing with him.
“You told him his hair looked like blood.”
I still don’t see the problem. “That was a compliment!” I say, wondering how this could even relate to the “terrifying” I supposedly did.
“She said she ‘Really likes this one.’”
Still, I have no idea how this relates to me, and how I could possibly have scared the last one. “Hold on a minute! You’re the one that ripped off your arm in front of him!”
Finn rapidly exits the vehicle and hurries off as Hela lets out a noise of despair, believing she’s been forgotten for eternity. Quickly, I get out and let the bouncing dogs out before rushing up to Finn.
“Finn?”
“Oh. My love. My fangy love. It is splendid to see you this fine evening,” he says, talking in a weirdly sophisticated tone.
“Oh, no, no. You’re not getting me to forget about how you made the human keel over,” I say.
He hurries through the door and tries to shut it in my face. “Hurry! Orin, help! There’s a creeper on the porch!”
“I’m not a creeper,” I growl as I peer through the window at him while Orin walks up to see what the fuss is about. He glances at me through the door then nods before pulling the door shut and locking it.
I’m about to give Orin an earful for joining Finn’s side when he gives me a thumbs-up. “Run free, you can finally find someone that’s closer to your level,” Orin says to me. “You don’t need to be catfished any longer.”
Finn’s head snaps around to look Orin in the eyes. “Excuse me?”
“You have my number. Give me a call,” Orin suggests as he makes the phone sign with his hand and gives me a wink.
Finn gasps. “You did not just wink at my man.”
“My man now,” Orin says before walking off.
Finn presses his face against the window as he stares at me. “Is this because I’m not a whole man? Is it because Orin has four limbs?”
“You are literally the one who shut me out. You are the one who left me,” I remind him as I hear a car pull up behind me. “Maybe I’ll romance your sister’s new boyfriend and Orin.”
Finn’s eyes get wide. “Because you’re tired of having a man with only two limbs, you want eight?”
I sigh as Finn stares at me with the sappiest damn eyes I’ve ever seen. Why is he so good at weaponizing them? “You’re making shit up.”
“I’m not. Clearly, you no longer want me.”
“I will tear this door off the wall to prove to you that I do. I will rip this house in half if I have to,” I say.
Finn looks delighted. “Sounds sexy. Please do.”
I step back and grab a chair to pretend like I’m going to throw it through the window just to see Finn’s reaction when I hear an, “Um. Well, this seems normal,” from Aria, Finn’s sister.
I turn around while holding the chair and face Aria and the human I’m supposed to not frighten. Holding the chair in a threatening manner while facing him feels oddly aggressive but I’m unsure what else to do. Do I put the chair down? Will the swinging motion terrify the fragile thing? And then it’ll be my fault if he keels over. Do I drop it? Do I blame Finn? It feels like blaming Finn is the best way to react to this as Aria and her human stare at me.
I hand the chair to the human.
He takes it.
I give him a thumbs-up.
God, I’m good.
“Human, it is with pleasure I greet you,” I say.
What the fuck was that?
He’s still holding the chair. There’s clear confusion on his face. There’s confusion on my face. Why am I overthinking this? Why am I even trying? Why does Finn make me try so hard?
“‘With pleasure,’” Finn whispers from where he cracked the door. “‘With PLEASURE.’ I’m crying. Marcus, how could you do this to me?” He’s cackling up a storm as I yank the door open, grab Finn, carry him over to the edge of the porch and set him over the railing into the yard—on his feet, of course, I’m not that evil.
“Stay outside until I forgive you for doing this to me,” I growl.
“Is this… normal? I know you warned me… but is it normal?” the human whispers to Aria.
“I wish it wasn’t,” she says as she takes the chair from him and puts it back on the porch.
“‘With pleasure,’” Finn continues to cackle on his way back up the steps onto the porch.
“I have not forgiven you,” I growl. “You should whisper words of forgiveness to me.”
“Oh! Right. I forgive you for being so damn ridiculous.”
Aria sighs and waves at Finn. “Pete, this is Finn, my brother. His joy in life is making everything ridiculous. This is his boyfriend Marcus who looks scary and acts scary and is kind of scary but would also like tear someone’s head off for you.”
“I feel like that’s a fair assessment of Marcus,” Finn says. “Come on, Fangy McFangface. We need to find Orin and threaten him.”
I follow him to where Orin awaits with a bouquet of flowers which he gives to Pete.
“Now I’m jealous,” I say. “I didn’t get flowers when I first met Orin.”
“Dad, why are you giving him flowers?” Aria asks as Pete takes them without the hesitation the rest of us are feeling.
“Maybe he thinks it’s his funeral,” Finn says with a grimace.
“These are welcoming flowers, Finn,” Orin says. “The lady at the store said they were a good gift for a boyfriend.”
“Did you specify it was your daughter’s boyfriend?” Finn asks.
Orin thinks about that for a long moment. “I did not.”
“They’re very nice, thank you,” Pete says.
“You did a good job preparing him,” Finn says to Aria. I mean, the man was a little surprised with the whole chair thing, but I do have to hand it to him. He hasn’t passed out or pissed his pants yet, and that’s always a good trait when dealing with humans.
Aria smiles. “Thank you.”
Finn just can’t keep his grin at bay. He’s loving this. He feasts on awkward situations and honestly… I don’t blame him. Even I feel awkward.
“Let us eat!” Orin says.
“The real question is what are we eating?” Finn says as he gives the human a glance.
Pete just laughs, clearly finding nothing to fear in this situation, telling me that he might make it after all. Aria, on the other hand, seems to be sweating a little.
Orin has the table ready with plates and Finn helps him bring the food to the table as I gather up Hela and Artemus from outside. They scramble through the house looking for where the excitement is, and Hela immediately starts looking for who might drop an entire chicken breast into her mouth.
After Finn declares that I’m drinking blood in a menacing manner, everything seems to go smoothly. And when we’ve finished eating, Orin waves us into the living room where he has what looks like a photo album sitting out near the couch. “I was looking through this the other day and saw this picture.”
He pulls one out of the sleeve and aims it at us. It’s a picture of a young Finn, maybe twelve or so, standing next to Aria who is completely decked out in Christmas wear. Finn is a reindeer and Aria looks like either a marshmallow or a snowman—either way, they look ridiculous and now I want this photo of Finn.
“Dear god, how embarrassing,” Aria says.
“I want it,” I declare. “I want a poster-sized one so I can put it on the living room wall.”
“I will make you a copy,” Orin says.
“Maybe you won’t,” Finn says. “Maybe I’ll burn it if you do.”
Orin doesn’t seem afraid at all as he pats Finn on the head. “But this reminds me of all our Christmas traditions!” Orin flips through until he finds one of them when they’re older looking just as ridiculous singing carols. “I decided this year we’re bringing it back.”
“I don’t know whether to be horrified or delighted,” Aria says.
“You imagine Marcus in an outfit like this?” Finn asks, sounding irritatingly thrilled.
“I will not wear anything of the sort.”
Orin seems stupidly happy about this revelation. “I thought since Alexei and Claude would be joining us as well, we could leave the outfit theme to Claude!”
“I love that idea,” Finn says because he’s a sadist. Because he feasts off my misery.
“Hell no. I will do the costumes. I volunteer,” I say, deciding they’ll wear all black so at least Alexei and I will be satisfied. There is no way I will cave and wear anything else.
“I’m alerting Claude now. He’ll be ecstatic,” Finn says, way too on board with this.
“No, he’ll be so excited he’ll forget about work. Better to never tell him,” I say as I pull out my phone and text Alexei.

Me: If you don’t want to bleed from your eyes and rip your skin off, intercept any text that Finn is sending Claude. 
Alexei: Why? 
Me: Do it. 
A minute passes as Finn beams like a psychopath before Alexei texts again.
Alexei: Finn has been banished from my life. 
Me: Did you delete it? 
Alexei: I couldn’t pry it out of Claude’s delighted fingers before it was too late. He can’t stop smiling. He’s telling me about glitter now. Glitter, Marcus. I will not wear glitter. I will not join in on this holiday cheer. 
Me: Tell him that I will remove him from the family if he goes through with this. 
Alexei: He told me that gold sequins will match your eyes. 
Me: Fucking hell. We might have to do something to Finn and Claude until Christmas is over. 
Alexei: I’ll start digging. 
Me: I didn’t mean murder them. 
Alexei: Oh. 
Me: Like… send them off on vacation or something. What the fuck? 
Alexei: I said “Oh.” Chill. 
Finn is delighted when I finally look up at him. He knows what he’s done. He knows the horror he’s caused, and he loves it. He feasts on it. Because even if he looks one hundred percent innocent, he’s the evilest one here.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER EIGHT 
FINN
“I think that went well,” I say as we get into the car.
“Did it?” Marcus asks, sounding uncertain. I have no idea why with how open and normal we were for Aria’s new boyfriend.
Even thinking that makes me grin. “I can’t wait to see you decked out for Christmas. You’re gonna light my world, baby.”
“I’m actually sick on Christmas. Alexei and I have decided we’re going to be far, far away to prevent you guys from getting sick as well. It’s quite caring of us.” He seems adamant about this, but I can’t imagine how he won’t have fun.
“I love how much you two have bonded lately,” I say. “I always thought you had a lot in common like your desire to be mean to people, cuss at people, make people cry, and not only all of that but enjoy it when they do. How have you two refused to cave and be friends for so long?”
“You know what finally did it? We’ve bonded over how much we don’t want to do the shit you two try to make us do. Is that a healthy bonding?” he asks.
“Quite healthy,” I assure him.
He seems less convinced as he turns the car for home. We don’t get five minutes from Orin’s when Marcus’s phone starts ringing. I see it’s Brooks a moment before he accepts the call over the car’s speaker.
“Church, I need you two over at the hospital. There’s been an attack and I need both of you there as soon as possible. I don’t know yet what happened, but I do know Landall is missing. He hasn’t responded well to the others, and I know you two were the only ones who were making progress with him, so it’d be best if you both could help.”
“Okay, headed there now,” Marcus says as he slows the car down to turn off the road we’d been traveling down.
“I’ll see what else I can find and call you back,” Brooks says before ending the call.
I glance back at Artie who is hanging his head over the seat before yawning. He can’t lie down because Hela has taken up a large percentage of the back seat with her tiny body. “I’ll have Aria pick the dogs up,” I inform Marcus.
Thankfully she’d just left Orin’s house and is able to or I’m not sure what I’d have done with them. I suppose they’d have been fine until the car got too cold for Hela.
“They still had the guard on site, right?” I ask, just in case the guard had been removed and I’d been unaware of it.
“As of this afternoon they did. They knew we were quite concerned about his safety, so there should have been someone watching him at all times. And then the doors were supposed to remain locked to that unit. That’s not to say someone didn’t force a nurse or doctor to open the door,” Marcus says.
“True,” I agree as I rub Artie’s head.
I don’t know Landall overly well, but I feel anxious for what might have happened to him. He was alone and I feel like he needed us to protect him, but we failed… again.
“I should have insisted on more people being with him,” I say. Landall has been lucky up to this point, but how far can his luck go?
“Finn, don’t you dare try to put this on yourself. There’s nothing you could have done differently. What happened has happened.”
“Doesn’t mean I feel any less shitty about it. I should have done something.”
Marcus reaches over and squeezes my leg. “We don’t know anything yet. He might be perfectly fine.”
“You really think the man who was trying to kill him just broke him out for a cup of tea?” I ask, knowing that I’m being unreasonable.
Marcus’s hand squeezes me again. “I know. But let’s just get there and see what we can figure out, okay?”
I nod and set my hand on his, hoping he’s right and hoping that I didn’t fuck up by not pressing for more help for Landall. That’s not to say we’d have gotten it; resources were already thin around here.
When we reach the hospital, I leave the front passenger door unlocked like I told Aria I would so she can collect the dogs. I can’t imagine someone would try to steal Artie and if they opened the door uninvited, I wouldn’t put it past him to bite them or at the very least bark. He’s not the overly trusting type when it comes to strangers.
I run beside Marcus, rushing into the building where security is watching the door. Marcus takes the stairs, seeing them as faster than the elevator, but running up stairs isn’t my forte. It slows me down a bit, but I force myself to keep up. It’s harder for my leg to respond to stepping up quickly than it is to run a straight line, so I use the railing to assist me. Even so, I manage to make it to the top without tripping. Marcus holds the door open for me and we quickly move down the hall over to the locked door. The man outside it was clearly waiting for us because he lets us inside and waves us in the right direction, even though we’d already been there.
Down the hallway, near Landall’s door, there’s a group of people surrounding someone who is on a stretcher.
He appears unresponsive, but I also know he’s a vampire, so I’m hoping he’s going to make it. I don’t get to see how bad he is as he’s rushed down the hallway, leaving behind copious amounts of blood splattered across the floor and hallway wall.
“What happened?” Marcus says, voice instantly full of authority that makes attention immediately shift onto him.
“I’m not sure. I just… I heard a commotion,” a nurse says, blood on her scrubs as she looks rather shocked. “I just… there was blood everywhere and the door was open and he was gone.”
“There are security cameras on this floor?” Marcus asks.
“Yes… I just—” She takes a deep breath like she needs to compose herself before she looks at us. “It all happened so fast. I’ll have someone here in a moment.”
She turns and hurries off to get us someone who can help.
“Can you smell Landall?” I ask as Marcus steps through the open door into the room that’s clearly empty. The blanket is lying in a heap on the ground, stretched toward the window like Landall hadn’t pulled it off before he’d gotten out of the bed.
“Can you follow his scent?”
“I can try. The smells here are quite strong.”
“Do you smell anyone else?”
Marcus considers it before shaking his head. “There are a lot of smells in the room, honestly. Hospitals generally have quite a pungent smell that is hard to ignore and ends up masking other scents,” he explains.
We walk out into the hallway as I look around, hoping to see a sign of something that’ll give us a hint of what happened. Whatever it was had to have happened fast; the nurses station isn’t too far from this point. Marcus starts walking down the hallway to the left, away from the door out of this wing.
“Why would he be taken away from the door?” I ask.
“Maybe he was fleeing and didn’t know which way to go or maybe he was being driven this way.”
“But wouldn’t the nurses have seen it? I know the nurses station is that way, but there had to have been someone in the hallway or a patient who had their door open or something.”
“Maybe,” Marcus says as he continues down and around the hallway as it loops back. A woman hurries toward us holding a tablet.
“Detective?” she calls.
“Yes?” Marcus moves over to her.
“Here’s footage from a camera that was facing his door,” she says. “We have others viewing footage right now, trying to find any cameras that might have caught something.”
She turns the tablet so we can watch and presses play. The door to the room is torn open by Landall as he tries rushing out but is immediately stopped by the startled guard outside of his door.
“What are you doing?” the guard asks.
“Go. I have to go. I have to go,” he says.
“Calm down, let’s go back to your room. Tell me what happened. I can help.”
“Let me go! Let me go!” he says.
The guard steps in front of the doorway, body blocking him so he can’t leave. And that’s the moment Landall attacks him. He rakes his nails across the guard’s throat while shouting, “I have to leave!”
The guard stumbles back, blood spraying out as he staggers and grabs for the deep wound. Landall hesitates as he looks down at the man who’d fallen to the ground, then turns and flees before the nurses come rushing onto the scene to see what the noise was.
Fuck…
“Why would he do that?” I ask.
“Landall has always cared about his own life more than others,” Marcus explains. “Something spooked him and drove him to flee. Was there any monitoring in his room?”
“There wasn’t,” she says.
“The guard might have had a body cam on. Maybe we could see into the room with that?” I ask.
“I’ll look into it,” Marcus says.
The woman hugs the tablet to her chest. “The hospital went into lockdown within a few minutes of the attack. We have security watching the exits to see who comes and goes, but he could have been gone by that point.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“He went this way, as I thought,” Marcus says as he hurries down the hallway and over to the emergency exit. He pushes through it and heads down the stairs. “The amount of time it took for them to register what happened and get security distributed to the main exits in this area would have taken too long. He could have easily left the building.”
“But what the hell spooked him so much that he did? Why would he attack the man who was trying to help and could have called for more help?” I ask.
Marcus shakes his head. “He wanted out and he was going to get out no matter what happened.”
“Something set him off. He’s on the second floor, he could have seen someone outside the window. Maybe they sent him a note or—”
“Then why leave? Why not ask for help?” Marcus asks. “He knew your number. He knew he had a guard.”
“Maybe he didn’t think he could,” I say, but I realize I’m just trying to defend his actions over the guilt I feel about what happened in the ambulance.
We end up outside before going over to the back parking garage which is where Marcus loses his lead. Landall probably got into a vehicle, cutting off the scent.
I look around while feeling uncertain. “I just don’t get why he’d even have come out here. If he was fleeing… wouldn’t it be riskier to leave the safety of the building to come out here where the vampire who is wanting to kill you is?”
Marcus shakes his head. “Fear makes people do some crazy shit. I’ve seen people kill ones they love to protect themselves.”
He walks the area some more before giving up and heading back inside in case someone found something else.
When we reach the floor Landall had been on, I see that we have backup, but it’s surprisingly in the form of humans instead of vampires, surely because of Chief Burns’s new policy that demolished the idea that humans and vampires were only allowed to work on issues pertaining to their own kind.
A woman turns and hurries up to Marcus. “Have you found anything so far?”
“Besides the surveillance footage, I was able to track him down to parking garage two, where his scent dissipates. He likely got into a vehicle, so I’m hoping we can figure out if there are any parking garage cameras accessible.”
“I’ll get them on that,” she says. “We saw something interesting in the room if you’d like to go in and have a look.”
“Thank you,” Marcus says before turning to where another human waits for him just inside. This one looks terrified to be working with the infamous evil detective who has, in the past, threatened human detectives more than worked with them. But honestly, I have to say that I’ve been proud of Marcus for working well with the human officers and clearly trying hard because I remember a time when he absolutely couldn’t stand being around humans.
I remember the shit he gave me when I joined the VRC. The times he’d toss me out into a situation just to see if I’d sink or swim. He’s grown a lot since I met him, even if he’d deny it until his last breath.
That’s okay. I love him even if he’s stubborn as absolute hell.
I follow them into the room and over to the window where the officer points to the glass that appears to have been clawed at, presumably by Landall.
“W-We noticed this,” the human stammers out, choosing to stare at me instead of Marcus in case Marcus sucks his soul out with just a glance.
“I think you were right, Marcus. I bet he saw the man we’re looking for outside… but then why run outside?” I ask.
Marcus surveys the area before glancing over at me. “Maybe Landall saw him enter? The entrance is right below his room.”
The thing is… Landall had our number. He had the guard. He had so much he could have done to seek out our help, but instead, he just ran. He literally attacked a man who could help him to get away. Why?
Marcus said he was selfish, but was that all it was?
I know some people panic when forced into a situation, so maybe the panic pushed him over the edge.
I just hope we can figure this out.