I considered possible responses, but they all seemed inadequate. Christina could have threatened, she could have probably used her hypnotic powers to coerce me to leave, but instead she’d appealed to reason and had spoken to me as an equal…not as an inferior, which had been her tone before. And she sounded genuinely concerned about my presence here – not just because of Jared, but also for herself. So she too believed that the threat was both real and imminent.
I felt like a fool. I’d behaved exactly as Jared had warned me would be the worst possible scenario for him, and I’d done so willfully, without concern for the consequences, even to myself.
And I had nothing to show for the risk.
Christina reached into her pocket and extracted a fat wad of hundred-dollar bills. She peeled off ten and held them out. “Take a taxi back to the manor. Now. Please. Don’t hang around; don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just disappear. And watch the rearview mirror to ensure you aren’t followed.”
I looked down at my boots. “I don’t even know the address, much less what town it’s in.”
“Eighteen Serenity Lane. Outside Newcastle.”
I repeated the address and nodded as I accepted the money. “You really think it’ll be that much?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you hesitating because you don’t have enough. Please, Lacey. Go, now. I’ll deal with your supervisor. I’ll tell her that the insurance company didn’t want you on the set anymore.”
“I’m not worried about her.”
“Then take off.” She held my gaze for a moment. “I’ll tell Jared to call the moment he checks in. I promise you that.”
My eyes widened as I thought of something. “I…I locked the front door when I left. I don’t have a key.”
She thought for only a second. “If you haven’t heard from Jared by the time you get there, just break a ground-floor window and climb through. We can get a glass guy to fix it tomorrow.”
I sighed. “Okay. I…I’m sorry about this. It was…I just had to get out of there.”
“What’s done is done. Just make sure you get back safely. Jared will never forgive me…or himself…if anything happened to you. He…he doesn’t talk much, but I’ve heard about you at different times over the last hundred years, and you meant…you mean everything to him. Don’t ever forget that.”
My throat clenched at her words, and all I could do was nod wordlessly. She accompanied me back to the set and, after saying goodbye, returned to where Trent was waiting for her like a lost puppy. I continued past the trucks and the makeup and wardrobe trailer onto the path that led back to the dorms. The night was dark around me, a dense cloud cover blocking any starlight. I picked up my pace, and the lights of the set faded behind me. I was nearly at the road when a familiar voice called from only a few feet away, startling me to a stop.
“Lacey?”
I was turning when a strong arm clamped around my neck and a chemical-soaked rag covered my nose and mouth. I tried to hold my breath while I struggled to break free, but after a moment my lungs betrayed me and I inhaled. The astringent fumes flooded my airway, and my lungs burned like fire, and then the world pinwheeled and everything went black.
Chapter 33
I came to in the front of a motorboat, my wrists bound like a hog. As the small craft sped along, the light chop pummeled my bruised ribs with each hard bounce. Icy spray blew over the bow on particularly steep waves, and it was one of those torrents that had jarred me to consciousness. I groaned and opened my eyes and saw a figure hunched over an outboard motor in the stern of the boat, peering ahead into the gloom.
A tree of lightning lit the sky, revealing a seething mass of black clouds above. The explosion of thunder that almost immediately followed was deafening, sounding like the heavens had been split wide by a bomb. The air smelled of brine and ozone and rain, and I blinked away salt water to better make out who was piloting the boat. I thought you weren’t ever supposed to take out a small boat during a storm. You probably weren’t supposed to knock out and kidnap people either, of course.
Another bolt of lightning flashed in the clouds, and I caught my breath at the boom that accompanied it moments later. The boat changed course slightly, and the pitch of the engine changed, and I felt it slow as the water suddenly calmed. Moments later the hull scraped against a rocky shore, and the engine died.
The figure stood and moved toward me. I pretended to still be out cold. He paused over me for a second and then hopped from the bow. I heard boots crunching on wet gravel, and the boat lurched as he dragged it further up the beach.
He returned and jabbed me in the ribs with a finger as stiff as a branch.
“I know you’re awake. No point faking it.”
My eyes fluttered open and I fixed him with a bleary stare. “Victor? What are you…”
“What am I doing? What does it look like I’m doing?” He laughed, the sound as dry as sandpaper on a plank. “Can you stand? I’m going to help you to your feet. Try to kick me and I’ll break your nose, understand? That’s the only warning you’ll get.”
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, my voice as weak as my limbs.
“You really don’t know?” He paused. “All right. Stand on the count of three. One…two…three!”
He hoisted me to my feet, and I nearly fell face forward onto the beach when the hull shifted to the side. Victor caught me and lifted me out of the boat and set me on the shore as though I weighed nothing. My legs were still wobbly from the drug, and
