Page 24 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune (The Wayward Sons #4)
L isten to me very closely, Mr. Collins, because time is of the essence, ” Riley said, his voice loud in my ear. “ I clocked seven vampires on your trail. ”
“Fuck,” I muttered. That number seemed hopeless. I glanced around the small elevator at the weird band of rescuers Riley had sent. Why were we even trying? Even with their weapons and their uniforms, we were outnumbered.
“ Not the worst thing we’ve faced, ” he retorted.
“He says that like he’s right,” Omega said, shaking his head.
“Hey, we stopped the fucking apocalypse,” Cobalt shot back. “Twice.”
The apocalypse?
Twice?
Who the fuck were these people?
“What?” I managed to ask, unable to hide my shock. Had I missed two apocalypses?
“Maybe we should discuss this at a different time,” Andrea proposed, though her tone offered no room for argument. “We have vampires to handle.”
“You,” Omega jabbed a finger in my chest, “you’re with me. You have my six, I have yours. We shoot the vampires when we can. You don’t worry about them, got it?”
I nodded. At this point, I didn’t have a clue what else to do. I was so overwhelmed, in over my head, and feeding off the wild range of emotions in the elevator. Worry, anticipation, excitement.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, sending my heart rate damn near skyrocketing through the roof when the elevator dinged.
“Here we go,” Cobalt whispered, though his voice was impossibly loud in the small space. I braced myself—body tense, jaw clenched, senses in overdrive.
The doors opened to a dark garage. Impossibly dark. The lack of light was unnerving. Even the fluorescent light from inside the elevator seemed to just… end outside the elevator.
A rhythmic clicking echoed in the empty garage, bouncing off every wall until it faded out. Over and over in an endless trill.
“Well, that’s not fucking ominous,” Cobalt whispered.
“They close-range hunt by echolocation and scent,” Omega replied, his voice tight with tension.
“That would’ve been good fucking information to have,” he snapped back.
“It means they already know where we are,” I cut in. It was just a matter of time before they came for us.
“That just means we’re up,” Cobalt said. A cascade of gold ripples over his uniform. A descendant of Gabriel. He glanced at Andrea. “Can you feel them?”
“Mhmm,” she hummed. The tips of her fingers glowed and swirled with tendrils of air. A descendant of Uriel.
Both had heavy-hitting powers—not enough to give me hope but enough to make an impact if we needed it.
“You going to tell me what lineage you are?” I asked my last rescuer. Fuck, I hated even the thought of that concept. I didn’t want to need rescuing.
“Gabriel,” he grunted.
Great. They had active powers, and I had a crippling passive one. Thank fuck I was damn good with a gun, even if I had the smallest fucking target to hit.
I rechecked my weapon on instinct.
They readjusted their formation with the other two in front while Omega stuck in the back with me.
“Can you at least tell me your name?” If I was going to die alongside the guy, I wanted a name besides Omega to call him.
“Nash Crawford,” he answered.
“You can still back out,” I said under my breath.
“Let me make one thing fuckin’ clear,” he retorted. “I ain’t doin’ this for you. Me and them? We got a fuckin’ history.”
“Got it.”
“Good. Stick with me. Let them do their own thing.”
“You ready to fuck some shit up?” Cobalt asked. The light of his power and hers fell flat in the thick darkness. As they moved, the clicking increased. Or grew louder. Maybe both. It was deafening in a way that it shouldn’t have been. That fact alone was unnerving, to say the least.
“Remember, that’s my wife,” Nash interjected, talking directly to Cobalt. “If somethin’ happens to her, there’s a hole so fuckin’ deep that you’ll never be able to climb out of in a place no one will find you just waitin’ for you.”
Well, that was just lovely.
“God, it feels good to be back,” he murmured, his sarcasm bleeding through my worn defenses. The constant clicking vanished. We were left in a silence so dead that I was certain everyone could hear the way my heart beat violently in my chest.
The two of them took several slow steps forward while Nash grabbed my shoulder to keep me in place.
“You’re with me,” Nash reminded me, nodding to our left. “Stick close. We’re walkin’ the back wall—careful but quickly. Walk with a fuckin’ purpose, got it?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. Turning slightly, I kept my gun at the ready and moved with him.
Tight and pointed.
Keeping the wall at my side.
Losing sight of the other two.
The darkness swallowed up their presence.
Inhale…
Exhale…
Find my calm…
A horrific screech followed by an explosion of gold made me stall.
The spike of fear was a punch to the gut.
“Don’t stop.”
Inhale…
Exhale…
Find my calm…
There was no calm in this situation.