Page 16 of The Predator
“Sam,” the familiar female voice said, “this is Tabitha Aberdeen.”
She didn’t sound as harsh and mad as she had when I’d spoken to her earlier, but I panicked.
I pressed my fingers to my chest to get the piercing pain to subside. I was a tough motherfucker. I could withstand anything. Hell, I had for years as a human and vampire, but everyone had a breaking point, including me. “What’s wrong?”
“I only have a minute,” she whispered. “You need to help Layla. You need to come and get her.”
I choked on her last statement, but that wasn’t the issue at the moment. “What did your husband do to her?”
“Nothing,” she said, sounding horrified. “Something is off with Layla. She’s been sick for the last three or four days, and today—”
“Who are you talking to?” Jack Aberdeen asked in the background.
“The doctor who saw Layla a few days ago,” Tabitha responded to her husband. “I’ll be out shortly.”
A beat of silence ensued until his footsteps faded.
“What happened, Tabitha?” I asked.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Don’t hang up on me.” I was ready to jump through the phone. “What type of sickness?” It had to be nonhuman if Tabitha wanted my help, but I had no idea what it could be.
As vampires, we didn’t get sick. All the symptoms Layla had experienced had been a direct result of her drinking my blood, but enough time had passed that my blood was out of her system.
Unless what I’d suspected all along was true: Layla had vampire DNA, and she was experiencing tendencies like craving blood. She couldn’t turn into one of us. She would need blood from her father. One, he was dead, and two, even if he had been alive, he wasn’t a vampire, which was the key to make the change.
“I don’t know. I can’t talk. Just help her.” Then she was gone.
I stared at the phone for a second before I redialed. The line rang and rang.
“Sam.” Jo’s voice punctured my sensitive hearing. “Get over here.”
Growling, I tapped out a text to Conrad, hoping he could find out what was going on with Layla. Then I jogged over to my sister, climbing the mountain of debris just as she was crawling through the opening they’d made.
“Dad!” Jo’s voice echoed in the distance. “Dad.”
I was about to follow my sister when Jonah caught my arm. “Man, I want to warn you.” His anguish gave me whiplash. “Roman isn’t in there. He got away.”
The blood in my veins gelled. If Roman had been able to escape, then he was gunning for Abbey. “Webb know?”
He nodded. “But Jo doesn’t. Webb has a team looking for Roman now.”
“Sam!” Jo screamed at the top of her lungs.
I dove into action, crawling through the tight and narrow opening. When I emerged on the other side, I took a breath to calm my racing mind and pulse. It felt as though my brain was on a collision course with a train and my heart was about to bulldoze its way out of my chest.
In the span of a few hours, the world had come crashing down.
Layla was in some kind of trouble. My father’s life was on the line, and now Roman had escaped, which meant Abbey was in danger, and Layla could be as well.
7
LAYLA
Jordyn and I were tucked into a booth in the back corner of a local restaurant in Big Timber. The lunch crowd was beginning to thin. Voices droned, glasses clinked, and the swinging doors to the kitchen squeaked.
I held onto my glass of Coke, debating whether I should ask the waitress if they had any Pepto-Bismol. My stomach still wasn’t feeling all that great. I was glad the restrooms were down a short hall next to me. That way, if I lost the spoonful of chicken soup I’d slurped a minute ago, I could dart into the ladies’ room quickly.
