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THE DOOR

I t only really hit me later, the actual sequence of events.

Vampires move so fast, and it all happened so quickly and in near silence, I couldn’t really track it all in the moment, or make sense of which thing happened first. Piecing it together after, I came up with a rough timeline, but really, it’s only a guess.

Nick must have been gradually coming out of his daze from vampire venom or tranquilizers over a period of at least a few minutes. While Brick gave us his little speech about multi-dimensional versions of Jem, and his explanation for everything that had happened, Nick had been slowly regaining his ability to move, to think, to see, and somewhere in that, he must have come up with some kind of plan.

I strongly suspected it hadn’t been a very well-thought-out plan.

He’d likely wanted, more than anything else, to be free of Brick, and no longer his hostage. He didn’t want to be used as leverage against us, or against Dalejem, or as a means of Brick getting whatever he wanted from us.

Whatever Nick’s precise thoughts had been, he kicked viciously back at his sire, writhed out from under the wooden spike, and managed to get free for a split second.

He wasn’t fast enough.

As is often the case with tranquilizers––along with alcohol, anesthesia, or any other body or mind-altering chemical––Nick likely overestimated the amount he’d managed to recover in the minutes since Brick first hit him with the drug.

They both moved so fast, my eyes couldn’t track it.

A blur of motion flared in front of me as Nick managed to wrench his way free.

I barely saw it when Brick lunged after him.

I saw them struggle, briefly, Brick’s arm around Nick’s chest from behind, his fangs dripping as he hissed and sank his teeth into the torn area of Nick’s shoulder and neck. I heard Nick snarl, saw him stumble backwards, then kick violently off the rock, throwing them both hard in the same direction, likely in an attempt to slam Brick’s back into the stone––

Then they vanished.

They were gone so fast, in mere fractions of a second, it was a few more seconds before anyone screamed.

Then Aura did.

She screamed loudly, heart-wrenchingly.

Dalejem didn’t make a sound, but his reaction was more alarming.

He ran for the rift in the stone wall.

“NO!” I screamed frantically. I ran after him, and so did Black, so did Angel, who’d joined us on the ground without my noticing.

We all ran and I screamed out his name again––

Dalejem vanished through the opening in the rock.

All of us were so busy staring at his absence, gasping and shrieking and in shock, no one thought to grab the girl.

Aura ran into the rift a second later, pelting forward and leaping at the stone like a hare.

“Goddamn it!” Black growled.

He stood in front of the rift, breathing hard, his chest heaving. I could tell by the fire swirling through his aleimi that he didn’t dare get any closer. I honestly didn’t blame him. I could feel my own light reacting to the pulling energy there, as well.

Black turned around and glared at the rest of us.

He held up his arms, now standing maybe five yards from the rift himself.

“Anyone…” he snarled, eyes blazing. “And I mean anyone who fucking works for me…” He glared daggers at me, then at Angel. “Any one of you bastards takes so much as a goddamned step towards this fucking thing, I’m shooting you.” He glared at me again. “Don’t fucking test me, wife. I mean it. I’ll put you in a wheelchair for a month, if I have to…”

Everyone stared back at him, frozen in place.

Honestly, I don’t think it had even occurred to any of us to run into that wall.

I loved Nick. I loved him like my own brother. I loved him and Angel more than probably anyone else in my life apart from Black. Nick was family to me. He was dear, dear family to me, and I’d definitely die for him, if I had to. Dalejem, and not only because he was Nick’s mate, had become family to me, too.

Despite all those things being true, I still hadn’t meant to run into that dimensional tear.

The thought never crossed my mind.

I didn’t stop to think about why, either, not until Black stood in front of it.

I knew, intimately, how such “doors” worked, so maybe that was part of it. I knew there was absolutely no guarantee I’d end up at the same place as Nick, even if I went through it right after him. I’d just as likely be lost somewhere else entirely, on a completely different and potentially deeply hostile world, with no way to get back to anyone I loved.

There was no guarantee any of us would end up on the same version of Earth, or even on Earth at all. Inter-dimensional portals were mysterious, finicky, unpredictable, ruthless, things. There was no possible way I would have risked that.

Moreover, I never would have left Black.

When I met his gaze, I saw something in Black’s face relax. He didn’t look happy, not even close, but the relief there was almost childlike in its intensity.

I knew falling through an inter-dimensional portal, ending up in a place even remotely like the one where he’d been raised, was Black’s absolute worst nightmare.

I was so busy looking at him, I didn’t notice at first, that the vampires had begun to move in the direction of the portal. I only realized when Zoe practically reached the place where Black stood––and then I leapt forward in mind-numbing terror.

I was scared out of my mind she meant to force Black through the opening. Black must have seen it on my face, because he leapt away so fast he crashed into Mika and Ace on the opposite side of our circle. All three of them ended up briefly on the cave floor.

Zoe barely seemed to notice.

She looked only at me.

“See you around, sis,” she said.

Her vampire-perfect mouth lifted in a faint smile.

She gave me a finger-salute then, like she used to do back when we were kids, when she thought I was being too bossy with her and not enough of her co-conspirator. Before I could speak, before I could wrap my mind around any part of it…

She vanished through the opening in the rock.

I yelled out her name, but too late.

My eyes instantly filled with tears, blinding me.

My throat closed so intensely I couldn’t breathe.

Gods. Zoe.

Why? Why the fuck would she do that? For Brick?

I barely comprehended what was happening as the rest of the vampires who’d been waiting for us in the cave followed Zoe through that tear. I could have warned them, I suppose. I could have told them what I knew, that they had no idea where they’d end up, that they might not end up with their vampire king at all, or not the version they’d decided to follow to that other world––whether out of misguided loyalty, or duty, or whatever the fuck compelled them.

I didn’t warn them.

To be honest, apart from Zoe, I didn’t much fucking care if they got lost.

I was relieved to see them go.

I watched each one disappear through the cave wall, and I bit my lip, remaining silent. Black, who was back on his feet and now stood next to Kiko and Dex, his two lieutenants when I first met him in San Francisco, didn’t speak either.

None of the departing vampires, apart from Zoe, so much as looked at us.

None of them made a single sound as they got swallowed by that light.

When the last of them went through the door, the rift in the wall dimmed back to a dark green. The mist around it swirled, changing colors subtly.

It waited, although I knew not for what.