Page 67 of Fanged Desire
“What? Your coat?” She glanced back at me, holding the flaming shirt aloft like a torch. At my obvious grimace, she rolled her eyes. “Didn’t think so.”
The room began to fill with smoke, curling up toward the ceiling. Almost immediately, alarms began to blare and the light on the ceiling started up a frantic flashing. I grabbed Addison’s hand, pulling her to the door as a hiss of hydraulic locks released. It slid open a crack, and I shoved it wide.
“Let’s move.”
We darted through the corridors, sticking to the shadows wherever we could, but there was no need. The rest of the building was eerily empty, quiet aside from the distant wail of the alarm. The men I’d battled earlier were nowhere to be seen and every corner we turned was met with nothing but abandoned desks and the occasional hum of machinery.
Addison clutched at my sleeve as we reached another empty room. “Where is everyone? Where’s Penelope?”
I scanned the space, my jaw tight. There were no signs of struggle, no echo of footsteps or evidence of life. Just… nothing. “They must’ve cleared out.”
“Cleared out?” Addison’s voice wavered, frustration bleeding through her words. “You think they moved everyone?”
“It’s possible,” I admitted, though the thought churned uneasily in my stomach. “Maybe they thought it would be easier to leave you behind – I assume they weren’t prepared to deal with putting down a vampire.”
We crept down the hallway, moving with careful, measured steps. Every creak of the floor, every flicker of light overhead was amplified in the oppressive stillness. All the while, my senses stayed on high alert, scanning for the slightest hint of movement, but the place was abandoned.
As we turned a corner, Addison yanked my arm.
“Look!” she whisper-screamed, pointing to a small office space protected behind a glass sliding door. Inside, papers were scattered across a cluttered desk.
“We don’t have time to play detective,” I hissed and tugged at her forearm, but Addison held fast.
“It could be important. We need to know what Cathy wants with people like Penelope – people like me.”
With a resigned sigh I yanked at the sliding door, and when it refused to give put my foot through the glass. The panel shattered under my boot and Addison picked her way through the jagged mess before rifling through the stacked papers on the desk.
“Anything interesting?” I leaned over her shoulder, listening intently for footsteps all the while.
“Notes,” Addison murmured, holding up a page covered in intricate diagrams and familiar handwriting scrawled in red ink. “It’s all about the A-gene.”
My brow furrowed as I read over her shoulder. "Angelic DNA. Scent-detectable, first traces appearing at puberty..."
I flipped through another stack of papers, my eyes catching on a file filled with pictures. Ordinary people, their faces marked with dates and scribbled notes. “These are all targets who have the A-gene. But there’s no mention of what Cathy does after identifying them.”
Addison’s hands shook as she sifted through another folder. “This one… it mentions scent. Something special about a person’s scent. That’s what Cathy said about me.”
I frowned, my mind racing. “So she got a whiff of you and now she suspects you have… angelic DNA?”
Addison nodded, her eyes wide. “I mean, angelic DNA is a crazy term but the rest of it adds up... But why does itmatter? Why is she doing this?”
“We can ponder on that later.” I thrust a stack of files into her arms and dragged Addison back into the hallway. “Right now, we need to get out of here.”
We made it to the street without encountering a soul, though we did encounter a new problem. I had parked my car in an alley nearby and thought myself smart for leaving the keys in the ignition for a quick getaway. Now that alleyway was empty, and I was left kicking myself for thinking plans would ever go as smoothly as they did in my head.
At the sight of the very empty alley and my sheepish grin, Addison rolled her eyes and rifled through her pockets. She handed me a few crumpled notes and a handful of spare change before we hailed a taxi.
Needless to say, the ride was tense.
Addison sat in the backseat next to me – still shirtless – the files we snagged clutched in her hands, and she held them like a makeshift shield. The cab driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows slowly creeping toward his hairline.
I caught his eye and narrowed my own, scowling intently. The guy immediately looked away and I settled back beside Addison, slinging an arm over her shoulders to further emphasize my silent territorial statement.
Addison stifled a laugh, her cheeks flushed as she mumbled under her breath, “I think he’s more concerned than curious. Do you have to butt heads with every guy who looks my way?”
I shrugged, crossing my legs. “It’s a talent.”
The rest of the ride passed in relative silence, save for the occasional side-eye from the driver, which I quickly quelled with another glare. When we pulled up to a pay phone in a shabby corner of the city I tossed him some change and ushered Addison out of the car.
