Page 34 of Suck This

That man—the one that I knew was the very one with his face missing—was the same man that’d pulled my car around for me at Constantine’s house last night.

The same one that was Constantine’s daytime eyes and ears.

I was screwed.

A, because I was in that very man’s presence just last night. My brother would figure that out, too. He had connections that I couldn’t even begin to think about. And B, because Constantine wasn’t going to take this death lightly.

Not even a little bit.

• • •

I knocked frantically on the door, desperation in the intensity of the way my knuckles met the scarred oak door.

No one answered.

I knocked again.

It continued like that for three long minutes until I finally got the person I was seeking. Just not the way I’d expected him to answer.

“What are you doing?” Constantine drawled.

I whirled around, my hand covering my heart as it tried to beat straight out of my chest.

My back hit the door, and I almost landed on my ass when the door opened.

Constantine moved, drawing me away from the man that was at my back, and pulling me into him.

“What’s wrong? Why are you here?”

I shivered at the way his words shot through me like a warm apple cider on a cold winter night.

“She smells of fear,” Pavlov murmured lightly.

The same vampire that’d been standing next to him only hours ago, the one with the scary yellow eyes that reminded me of a cat’s that were shining in the dark, observed.

I swallowed thickly and turned so that I had each man in my sight.

“I have some bad news,” I murmured quietly. “The man that helped me with my car the other night—he was found dead at an apartment complex next to some woman that had been bitten tonight.”

Both men froze.

“Chen?”

Before I could confirm that, though, Constantine had his phone out and he was placing a call.

“Abraham,” Constantine growled. “I need you to check on Chen.”

It took exactly point five seconds in between Constantine hanging up, and this man named Abraham, the other man that’d been at Constantine’s side, to arrive directly next to his friend.

“Gone.”

Had Abraham just teleported into existence in front of me? Or had my rational brain decided to start playing tricks on me?

I felt something ferocious roll through the air. It was almost as if a chill had swept through my body. A deep foreboding of bad things to come.

And as I finally returned my gaze to the man I’d come here to warn, I realized that maybe, quite possibly, I should have called.

I opened my mouth to say something more, but I was swept inside by Constantine.