Gabrielle climbed the front steps and fished her key out of her purse. Her hand knocked against a small dagger she'd taken out of Lucan's weapon cabinet - a bit of insurance in case she ran into any trouble on the way home.
The apartment phone was ringing as she came inside and turned on the foyer light. She let the machine get it, turning to set all the locks and deadbolts on the door.
From the kitchen, she heard Kendra's clipped voice come over the message intercom.
"It's very rude of you to ignore me like this, Gabby." Her friend sounded strangely shrill. Pissed off. "I need to see you. It's important. You and I really need to talk."
Gabrielle walked through the living room, noting the blank spaces on her walls where Lucan had removed some of her framed photographs. It seemed like a year had passed since the night he'd come to her apartment and told her the stunning truth about himself and the battle that was raging among those of his kind.
Vampires, she thought, surprised to find that the word no longer shocked her.
Probably very little could shock her now.
And she no longer feared that she was losing her mind like her mother had. Even that tragic history had taken on new meaning now. Her mother hadn't been crazy at all. She'd been a terrified young woman, caught up in a violence that few human minds could grasp.
Gabrielle was not about to let that same violence destroy her. She was home, such as it was, and she would figure out some way to make her old life fit again.
She dropped her purse on the counter and walked over to the answering machine. The message indicator was blinking the number 18.
"You've got to be kidding me," she murmured, hitting the Play button.
As the machine did its thing, Gabrielle went into the bathroom to inspect her neck. Lucan's bite glowed dark red below her ear, right near the teardrop and crescent moon that marked her as a Breedmate. She probed the twin punctures and vivid bruise that Lucan had left on her, but found it didn't hurt at all. The dull, empty ache between her legs was the worse pain, but even that paled next to the cold rawness that settled in her chest when she thought of Lucan recoiling from her tonight as if she were poison. Stumbling out of the room like he couldn't get away from her fast enough.
Gabrielle ran the water and washed up, vaguely aware of the messages playing in the kitchen. As the machine advanced to the fourth or fifth one, she realized something odd.
All of the messages were from Kendra, all within that past twenty-four hours. One after the other, some with less than five minutes between them.
And Kendra's tone had soured significantly from her first message when she had been playfully casual, offering to take Gabrielle out to lunch or drinks or anything else that sounded good. Then the tone of the invitation had gotten a bit more insistent: Kendra saying that she had a problem and needed Gabrielle's advice.
The last couple of messages were strident demands that Kendra expected to hear from her soon.
When Gabrielle ran to her purse and checked her cell phone's voicemail, she found more of the same.
Kendra's repeated calls.
Her weirdly acid tone of voice.
A chill crept along her limbs when she thought of Lucan's warning about Kendra. That if she'd fallen victim to the Rogues, she was no friend of hers anymore. That she was as good as dead.
The phone started ringing again in the kitchen.
"Oh, my God," she gasped, gripped in a mounting terror.
She had to get out of there.
Hotel, she thought. Somewhere remote. Somewhere she could hide for a while, decide what to do.
Gabrielle grabbed her purse and the keys to the BMW, practically running for her front door. She threw the locks free and twisted the knob. As the door swung open, she found herself staring at a familiar face that had once been friendly.
Now she was certain it belonged to a Minion.
"Going somewhere, Gabby?" Kendra brought her cell phone away from her ear and closed it. The ringing in the apartment ceased. Kendra smiled thinly, her head cocked at an odd angle. "You're awfully hard to catch lately."
Gabrielle winced at the lost, vacant look in those unblinking eyes. "Let me past you, Kendra. Please."
The brunette laughed, a loud, open-mouthed chortle that faded into an airless hiss. "Sorry, sweetie. No can do."
"You're with them, aren't you?" Gabrielle said, sick with the understanding. "You're with the Rogues. My God, Kendra, what have they done to you?"
"Hush," she said, her finger to her lip as she shook her head. "No more talking. We have to go now."
When the Minion reached for her, Gabrielle pulled away. She thought of the dagger in her purse, and wondered if she could retrieve the blade without Kendra's notice. If she could, would she be able to use it on her friend?
"Don't touch me," she said, inching her fingers under the leather flap of her bag. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Kendra bared her teeth, a terrible parody of a smile. "Oh, I think you should, Gabby. After all, Jamie's life depends on it."
Cold dread pierced her heart. "What?"
Kendra nodded her head toward the waiting sedan. A tinted window eased down, and there was Jamie, sitting in the backseat beside an enormous thug.
"Gabrielle?" Jamie called out, a panicked look in his eyes.
"Oh, no. Not Jamie. Kendra, please don't let anyone hurt him."
"That'll be entirely up to you," Kendra said politely. She grabbed Gabrielle's purse out of her hands. "You won't be needing anything in here."
She motioned for Gabrielle to walk ahead of her toward the idling car. "Shall we?"
Lucan set two bars of C4 under the huge water heaters in the asylum's boiler room. Crouched down behind the utility equipment, he flipped up the transmitter antennas, then spoke into his mic to report his progress.