Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 49

Hi!

The questions keep coming. What will happen to Anna after what she did to Alexander? She's been suspended, but is that all, or will there be more ... consequences?

You know the drill: read, vote, comment! Let me know what you're thinking. Hope you like the chapter!  :-)

Lara

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Chapter 49

I stepped out of one of the swing doors of the hospital, getting a good dose of smog-saturated air. Not exactly what one would call healthy. Still, it beat the hell out of that nondescript odor of medicine and neutralizers the health facility behind me had to offer.

Taking another deep breath, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks as I spotted the man. A police officer, and by all appearances he was human. Apparently Brown sent a human police officer to perform the task of giving me a ride, which was kind of weird. But since he was the only non-civilian in sight, it had to be him.

I walked up to the man in uniform, gripping the straps of my bag tightly. Someone had been smart enough to pick it up from the clearing in Boyd Park. I paid a fortune the last time I had to have my IDs remade, thank you very much. I even had my cellphone back. Another thing I was insanely grateful for.

Coming to a halt a few feet in front of him, I opened my mouth, about to address the man, find out just why Brown sent a human cop to begin with.

The police officer rushed past me without even making eye contact. My eyes followed his back as he joined a man in a trench, who, judging by his poise, had to be a cop too. Then they disappeared through the automatic doors, walking right into the white hellhole I’d come from.

Okay, so I wasn’t going to cop a ride with the human police force. Maybe Brown hadn’t lost his wits yet. That begged the question who was going to pick me up.

“Anna?”

The voice startled me, its familiarity sending the ghost of an unpleasant tingle down my spine. I spun around, finding a pale-faced, red-haired vampire staring down at me like he had a right to. He was tall and lean, towering over me in complete motionlessness. I had to look up and up to assess the butterscotch eyes that were regarding me expressionlessly. A pale imitation of what his boss was capable of.

“George? What the hell are you doing here?” I said.

I met the vamp on my trip to Pennsylvania, the first time I played Alexander’s flunky. The punch line? Back then I did it willingly, although I wasn’t Alexander’s servant at that time. I was stupid and naïve, blinded by the loss of someone close to me.

Would Maria have seen through the head vampire’s game right from the start? Would she have had the intuition and insight it took to know a monster by sight?

The vampire standing in front of me was one of them. I took my time assessing him, searched for something – a tell that would let me know how much of his humanity was left, if there was any to begin with.

There was nothing in the butterscotch color of his eyes. They were impassive, close to what a voice inside of me kept calling ‘dead.’ George wasn’t as powerful as the head vamp, but I knew for a fact that he was Alexander’s enforcer by choice. Back then when I met him first George was our designated driver. So what the hell was he doing here?

Then my mind finally made the possible implications behind his presence. Had the head vampire also been hospitalized? Instants later I discarded the idea.