Page 5

CHAPTER THREE

HARLEN

T he elevator climbed as the floor numbers lit up in sequence.

At the twentieth floor, the doors slid open with a soft chime.

The hallway stretched before me. The plush carpet muffled my footsteps and made it hard for me to push the large rolling suitcase at a brisk speed.

Lifting the luggage wouldn’t be difficult, but I didn’t want the handle to break off.

Companies didn’t make sturdy and lasting products like they used to.

After a short trek down the hall and around the corner, I approached the condo door.

I felt it. Something wasn’t right. The door was slightly ajar.

Morgan was probably too tired to close it behind her when she entered.

There was a sliver of light coming through the doorway.

I pushed the door open enough for me and all the bags to fit through.

Stepping inside the condo, I dropped the bags on the floor in the entryway.

“Morgan?” My voice sounded too loud in the dead silence. I waited, but there was no answer.

She couldn’t be asleep this soon, and I didn’t hear the shower running. I moved deeper into the condo. The living room was empty. There were no signs that Morgan had entered the space. I turned toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

“Morgan, hey, you in here?” I called again, fighting to keep my voice steady.

An eerie, child-like laugh floated through the air. Not Morgan’s laugh. I followed the foreign sound toward the master bedroom. The door to the bedroom was wide open. I took a step inside, and the world tilted beneath my feet.

Past the bed, Teresa stood on the balcony.

How was she here? Her dark silhouette appeared against the night sky.

Her flaxen hair whipped around in the wind across her pale face.

She looked the same as when I followed her to that poor student’s dorm room.

She could even be dressed in the same clothes or something similar.

Teresa was here in the flesh and Morgan was— FUCK!

there, pinned against the balcony railing.

Teresa’s hand was fastened around my lover’s throat.

She was holding Morgan suspended partly over the edge of the metal railing.

Twenty stories up, Teresa had Morgan hoisted in the air and leaning on the edge of the railing.

Morgan’s feet were dangling over the railing on the safe side of the balcony.

But there was no real safe side in her current position.

“Harlen, my lover.” Teresa crooned. Her voice annoyingly scratched at my eardrums. “Right on time. I was worried you might miss the show.”

Morgan’s terrified eyes found mine. The look of horror in her eyes gnawed at me. Morgan’s lips tried to form my name, but no sound came out. Teresa’s grip on her neck was too tight and unyielding.

“Let her go.” I said, while moving slowly toward the balcony door. “She has nothing to do with this.”

Teresa giggled. “Ha! Nothing to do with this? She has everything to do with this. Darling, she’s a message for your brother.”

My hands clenched into fists. “Whatever beef you have with Zand, it’s between you two.”

“No?” Teresa tilted her head, studying my movements carefully. “You’re here, aren’t you? Playing fetch for your big brother again.”

Morgan struggled against Teresa’s grip. Her feet scrabbled against the balcony bars until one of her shoes fell from her feet. Teresa tightened her hold, and Morgan’s eyes bulged as she gasped for air.

“I always knew you’d kiss his ass.” Teresa continued. “You were always his sidekick. Always the weak one, the follower.”

I took another step forward. My brain calculated speed, distances, and possibilities. The balcony was about fifteen feet away. I could cross it in less than a second with vampire speed. But Teresa would see me coming. Morgan would be over the edge before I reached them.

“What do you want?” I asked, stalling for time.

Teresa grinned. “I want what Zand promised me, together forever.”

“And this doesn’t get you any closer to that.”

“It’s the first step.” Teresa said, her fingers flexing around Morgan’s throat. “Call your brother. Tell him what’s happening. I want him and his little nurse to hear this.”

“I’m not calling anyone.” I said, taking another cautious step forward. “It’s just you and me. Let’s talk this through and come up with a compromise.”

Morgan’s eyes locked with mine, desperate and pleading for my help.

“Wrong answer.” Teresa’s evil grin vanished. “There is no compromise. You have to see that. Harlen, you picked the wrong side. Zand left me and started a new family. Gill, you and Zand kicked me out. So, it was my time to start my own family.”

“Marisol is your family?” I asked, trying to keep Teresa talking and distracted.

It happened so fast that even my vampire senses barely registered it. One moment Morgan was there, pinned against the railing. The next, Teresa’s arm extended in a swift, violent push. She let go.

And Morgan was falling.

As I sprung forward. My body moved with pure instinct and panic. But I was too late. I was too slow. I reached the balcony edge just in time to see Morgan’s body tumbling through the darkness. Her arms were outstretched as if she was trying to grab the night’s air.

A screamed tore from my throat, raw and primal. I gripped the railing so hard the metal bent beneath my fingers. Twenty stories below, Morgan’s body grew smaller, a bright shape against dark pavement.

“No!” The word didn’t begin to contain the horror that ripped through me.

A movement to my left snapped my attention back. Teresa had jumped onto a balcony two floors down. She looked up at me with a face of cruel triumph.

“You picked the wrong side.” This psycho bitch called up to me. “Tell Zand I send my love.”

Before I could move, she leaped again, a dark shadow flitting from balcony to balcony with inhuman grace before she disappeared into the darkness.

I pounded the railing with my fist, the metal rattled beneath the impact. My mind couldn’t process what had just happened. Morgan. Falling. The sound her body would make when it hit the concrete below. The sound I couldn’t bear to imagine.

I should have been faster. Shit, I should have anticipated Teresa’s next move. I should have protected Morgan like I promised Zand and Chanel I would. Like I promised myself I would.

The rage came first, a red-hot flood that threatened to consume me from the inside out. Then something else, the leaden weight of failure. The thought of letting down the people who mattered to me. Morgan, she mattered more than she knew.

I turned from the balcony. My movements were robotic as I rushed back through the condo toward the hallway. There was no time for elevators. I yanked open the stairwell door so hard it tore from its hinges.

There were twenty floors between me and Morgan’s broken body. Twenty floors of nothing but failure and the knowledge that I’ve let down the one person who saw something in me worth trusting.

The stairwell became a blur of steps and painted walls.

I took entire flights in single bounds. My body moved faster than human eyes could track.

The rage and grief inside me fueled something primal, unlocking speed I didn’t know I possessed.

Each landing barely registered beneath my feet.

Twenty floors, nineteen, eighteen—counting backward toward the inevitable horror waiting below.

“Fuck!” I cried out so loud that I’m sure it woke the residents on the sixth floor.

I burst through the exit door so hard it slammed against the outer brick wall.

The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet night.

My eyes found her mangled body immediately.

Morgan laid lifeless on the concrete. Her small body was twisted in angles that human bodies should never form.

Blood pooled beneath her, spreading outward like dark angel wings. She was my angel.

No.

No.

No.

I fell to her side in an instant. My knees hit the concrete with enough force to crack it. Her heart wasn’t beating. I couldn’t hear the sound I loved beyond no other.

“Morgan.” I whispered. My hands hovered over her, afraid to touch her and cause more damage. Her beautiful face was mostly intact, though blood trickled from her nose, her ears, and the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were closed.

Every bone in her body must be broken. Her spine, her legs, her arms had to have all shattered from the impact. No human could survive this fall.

A light flicked on in a window above me. Someone had heard the commotion. Soon there would be people, law enforcement, and questions with no answers. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let some morbid asshole whip out a cell phone and record her in this state.

I made my decision instantly. I slid my arms beneath Morgan’s broken body and gently lifted her from the concrete. Her blood soaked into my shirt. Her head and crimson streaked hair lolled against my shoulder.

I hurried into the underground garage. I went directly to the Jeep parked nearby, cradling Morgan against my chest like someone that was fragile.

The back door of the Jeep opened under my touch. I laid Morgan across the backseat with care that seemed absurd, given the catastrophic damage already done to her body. Her blood immediately soaked into the leather seat.

I slid behind the wheel, trying to keep my anger and grief at bay. My hands left bloody prints on everything I touched. The engine roared to life. I drove out of the garage. I was mindless of direction, mindless of everything, except the fact that Morgan was no more.

The town turned into a rural countryside as I drove further away from the water. I drove too fast, daring any state police to stop me. My mind raced faster than the speedometer, calculations and possibilities colliding.

My time with her had run out. I wished we would’ve defied Zand and went to Minnesota. Maybe I could’ve convinced her to go back to L.A. with me. The what ifs were dancing around in my brain and suffocating me.

I turned onto a dark country road. There were no houses, no lights, no witnesses. When I could no longer bear it, I pulled over on the dirt and grass that laid before the tree line. I cut the Jeep's headlights and settled into complete darkness.

“Fuckkkk!” The scream tore from my throat.

I got out of the driver’s seat and opened the back door. Morgan was where I placed her. Her blood had dried on her face.

I gathered her in my arms. Her body weighed nothing to me. I carried her away from the road, into the trees where the darkness was complete except for a few patches of moonlight filtering in on us.

The forest floor felt soft under my feet. I didn’t think to look in the trunk for a shovel. I kneeled, sitting Morgan down as if she might still feel pain.

Her face looked peaceful despite the trauma. The fierce, vibrant, independent woman who wasn’t afraid to fuck a vampire was broken beyond repair. I brushed a strand of her sandy blonde hair from her face.

I thought of Zand, of Chanel, of my promise to keep Morgan safe. My mind thought of Teresa’s cruel smile as Morgan plummeted to her death. I thought of all the mistakes I’d made, all the betrayals and failures that had defined my vampire existence.

I looked down at Morgan’s face, memorizing the way she looked. There was warmth in my chest. It was something I hadn’t felt in decades. It was the feeling I had when I played music with the Rock It Boys. I felt a connection I never expected to feel again.

I gathered Morgan closer to me. I cradled her head in the crook of my arm. My face hovered above hers, looking down at the woman I wanted.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, but I knew she couldn’t hear me. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

If only I had made different choices. Morgan could go back to Minnesota with her mother, father and brother. I wasn’t the only one that loved her. The somber thought was like a dagger to my heart.