Page 30 of The Union
I doubted that.
“You will,” Lester said as if I’d spoken my comment out loud.
I threw him the finger. “Fuck off.”
Junior placed a hand on my leg and mouthed, “Chill.”
I narrowed my eyes at him despite knowing he was right. I had no control over whatever was about to happen. But I was in charge of my actions, and I was ready to wipe the condescending smirk off Lester’s face.
“Layla, language, please,” Harriet said in a brusque tone.
Funny she didn’t scold Rianne earlier when she swore.
Rianne snorted. “See, sis. There’s a new sheriff in town. Uncle Jack and Ray are puppets now.”
If Ray weren’t dead, he would fall in line and kiss my grandmother’s ass. Jack, on the other hand, wasn’t the type to allow anyone to jerk his chains, not even his mother. He’d always stood up to Harriet.
Adam banged on the switch, swearing. Then he found the drawstring, fiddled with it, and the curtains slowly opened. “Rianne, hit the lights.”
My pulse was knocking hard against my skin. Gripping the left arm of the chair, I braced myself. When the room below came into view, I squinted at the bright lights and shiny, empty stainless-steel operating tables. A whoosh of air flew out of my mouth. I was relieved that Sam wasn’t lying on one of them, and even more so that humans, or anyone, for that matter, weren’t either.
But my relief screeched to a halt when I spied the emblem on the wall adjacent to the door in the distance. The same letters I’d seen in my dream, or at least the first two,EandM, were encased in a red circle. I had no idea what EML stood for, but I was pretty sure either Sam had been reaching out to me in my dream or I had a magical ability to see into the future. I’d had visions here and there since meeting Sam, which was a result from drinking his blood. At least that was the theory.
If there was a show planned, nothing was happening. “Is this a joke?” I asked. “What are we supposed to be looking at?”
Adam searched below.
All of us were on our feet and looking too.
“If Carly is the leader, where is she?” I asked Junior.
A deep, cavernous crease dented the space between his thick reddish-brown eyebrows. “I don’t know.”
Rianne curled her fingers around the microphone and lifted it slightly, as though she was about to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to a packed theater. “Carly, where are you? We’re waiting.”
Adam dragged his hand through his brown hair. “Something is wrong. Lester, find out what’s going on.”
Lester hurriedly obeyed the command, running out.
Junior pulled on the collar of his golf shirt. “This is so wrong.”
My grandmother wagged her finger toward Junior and me. “You two need to straighten up and get on board.”
Her matriarchal tone shredded the last of my nerves. “I will not listen to you. I think Fiji fried your morals and smashed your brain cells. In whose universe do you think the world would be a better place with manufactured clones of vampires?”
“Super soldiers,” Adam said proudly.
An acidic taste coated my mouth. “I thought Carly ran the tech department.”
“In a way, she does,” Junior was saying when a loud crash resounded.
The five of us were riveted to the window.
Then Lester soared through the air. His limp body crashed into a cabinet before falling to the floor.
Adam and my grandmother were frozen as they waited for Lester to stand, but the man wasn’t moving.
“I swear that bloodsucker is getting on my nerves,” Rianne bit out. “Why the fuck can’t Carly keep him down?”
