Page 76 of Caretaker

He had burns all over his body.

A couple of guards rushed through the entrance door, murmured something to another man, and I watched as the man strode to the front of the room.

He stood in front of the stage, his hands up until the room quieted. And that took some time.

He wore a suit and an unmistakable resemblance to Jamie Stone.

The warden.

“Fights are over for the night,” he said, and the audience immediately erupted into boos and angry stomping.

The warden waited for the room to quieten, and when it finally did, he explained. “Four of our guards were found murdered. By vampires. I don’t know how they escaped, but a search is underway as we speak. Go to the hall, my friends. You’ll be safe there. Eat, rest, and prepare for the battle between the bull and the giant tomorrow!”

He beamed at the audience, and as I watched, hatred choked me. I couldn’t breathe through it, but I didn’t care. I would kill the warden. I would kill the watchers. I would kill the guards.

The humans began to exit the room, unsure but not yet afraid.

Warden Stone, surrounded by guards, hurried from the room via a side door. He’d tried to hide it, but he was afraid.

I’d forgotten Madalyn.

But then, a strange sound, a sound like moaning wind, drifted through the air, and when I lifted my nose to catch it, Madalyn’s scent wafted once more into my brain.

I needed to find her, because I wasn’t sure the judge would give me Angus if I didn’t have her in hand.

I couldn’t leave Angus, though.

Handlers shoved the giant toward another door I hadn’t even noticed until it began to rise. I glimpsed the enclosed bed of a truck, its door open and waiting. A ramp extended from the truck’s bed like a tired, heavy tongue.

My attention was taken by Angus, then. Men rushed him, cuffed him, and dragged him across the floor to join the giant.

Angus looked up, finally, as he neared the huge man, and the giant gave him a nod. “You going to make it, Angus?”

“Maybe.” Angus’s voice was rusty but so familiar I was once again fighting tears. “We’ll have to buy the vampires a round of blood.” Despite his words, his tone was like darkness itself.

“A couple of rounds,” the giant agreed.

They were friends, Angus and the huge man.

The giant’s laugh turned into a quick wheeze of pain as his handlers shocked him, then shoved him through the doorway.

Angus and his handlers followed.

The two prisoners were herded into the back of the truck, the ramp was extracted, and the doors were slammed shut.

“Take ‘em home, boys,” one of the guards yelled, and slapped the back of the truck.

It seemed like an eternity since I’d first peered into that room, but in reality, it hadn’t been longer than a few minutes. I no longer heard the helicopter, so likely the judge was already inside the Byrdcage, screaming at the workers.

The moaning wind wafted past me once more and I shivered. “What is that?” But then the bloodhunter in me rose up and grabbed that sound. And I knew exactly what it was.

I knew because I hunted them, killed them, and they were part of me. Part of what I did. And one of them called himself my master.

“Vampires,” I whispered. “They have captive vampires on the island. That’s the sound of despair.” I clutched my stomach and bent forward, trying to breathe through the sudden memory of what the incubus had left inside me after his hideous kiss.

That’s what the captive vampires were feeling. And though they were only vampires, I wanted to make it stop. No being deserved that feeling. Not even the vampires.

I wanted to wipe it out. I wanted to chase it from existence. I wanted to not remember that such a thing could touch anybody. It could touch me. Again.

I shuddered. “We have to save them.”

Al and Clayton looked at each other, then Clayton reached for me. He withdrew his hand before he actually touched me, frustration and need in his eyes. “We have to save Angus, Trinity.”

I wiped my sweaty forehead and nodded. “Yes. Angus. Then the vampires.”

Alejandro cleared his throat. “Can you still track the judge’s wife? You have her scent?”

“She’s dying,” I told them. “Maybe she’s dead. She’s so…faint.” I lifted my nose and with a few quick inhalations, I had her. “This way.”

And as we slipped through the shadows, our weapons out, the image of a shattered, cold, damaged Angus Stark hung in my mind, and dread lay like an iron fist in my belly.

Even when we rescued him, and we would, he would never be the same. He’d been owned by humans. He’d killed other supernaturals. He’d lived in total darkness for months.

Part of Angus would stay there, in the Byrdcage, and no matter what I did, it would never be enough to free him.