Page 53 of Vampires & Bikers

I felt the nurse touch my arm. “Come with me,” he said in a low voice. He fetched a file and took me around the corner.

“Look,” he showed me the names and dates in the file. I could see who was in the ward that day. All of them had been discharged.

“I’m sorry,” he said and walked away.

I spotted Captain Dennington at the bottom of the corridor and walked up to him.

In a low voice, he said to me, “I have looked at CCTV footage from the day your mother was transferred. A few hours before I arrived, two men entered your mother’s ward. They were visitors. I want you to see if you recognize them.”

He opened his laptop and accessed the film footage. He had images of them checking in at the hospital. My heart sank. I recognized them from the tunnels. Two of the guards.

I nodded and sank to the floor.

“We’ll find them!” He said and called his men over their comms.

But I knew it was too late. My mother was dead. That was the only possible explanation.

Tears were streaming down my face and I felt my entire world collapsing.

I walked out of the hospital and down the street, not caring where I went. I had no idea where I was going. I didn’t care about anyone or anything at this point. I wanted the shifters to grab me and kill me. It was what I deserved.

I heard a car come up behind me but I ignored it.

It stopped next to me in the road.

“Ruby!”

I turned to look at it. It was the nurse from the hospital. He was looking agitated.

“Get in! Quickly!”

I didn’t think twice, I opened the door and got in next to him as he sped away.

“My name’s Dixon, by the way,” he said as he checked the rearview mirror anxiously.

“I just want to shake off the bloodsuckers.” He looked at me. “Do you have anything they can use to track you?”

I took out my phone and threw it out the window.

He was taking turns quickly and speeding down a residential area.

“What is going on? Where are you taking me?” I asked him.

He licked his lips and said, “Hang on,” as he pulled into a driveway under a garage roof.

“Come on!” he urged me. “Get out.”

I did as he told me and watched him close the gate to the street. The car was now completely hidden from the road.

“This is my parents’ house,” he said as he opened a side door going into a kitchen.

“Come on, I’ll make you some coffee and explain everything.”

I sat down at a coffee table and Dixon told me how he had taken my mom outside for a walk when they saw the shifters arrive at the hospital.

“She knew something was dodgy about them. She sent me inside to find out who they’d come to visit. When she heard they were asking about her, she immediately knew something was wrong. She told me she had to get away immediately and I brought her here.”

“So they went to her room and found her bed, what, empty?”

---