Bloodlines

Instead, Lee pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, still keeping the knife at my throat and preventing me from attempting any sort of escape. He dialed a number and waited for an answer.

"Dawn? It's Lee. Yes... yes, I know. Well, I have two for you, ready and waiting. A Moroi and an Alchemist. No - not the old man. Yes. Yes, still alive. It has to be tonight. They know about me. You can have them... but you know the deal. You know what I want... yes. Uh-huh. Okay." Lee rattled off our address and disconnected. A pleased smile crossed his face. "We're lucky. They're east of LA, so it won't take them long to get here - especially since they don't care much about speed limits."

"Who are 'they'?" asked Adrian. "I remember you calling some Dawn lady in LA. I thought she was one of your hot college friends?"

"They're the makers of destiny," said Lee dreamily.

"How delightfully enigmatic and nonsensical," muttered Adrian.

Lee glared and then carefully studied Adrian. "Take off your tie."

I realized I'd spent so much time with Adrian now that I was ready for some comment like, "Oh, glad to know things aren't so formal anymore."

Apparently, the situation was dire enough - and the knife at my throat serious enough - that Adrian didn't argue. He'd handcuffed his wrists in front of him and, after some complex maneuvering with his hands, was finally able to undo the tie he'd donned for Jill's show. He tossed it over.

"Careful," Adrian said. "It's silk." So, not completely devoid of snark.

Lee rolled me over to my stomach, finally freeing me of the knife but giving me no time to react. With remarkable skill, he soon had my hands tied behind my back with Adrian's tie. Doing so required some pulling and restraining of my arms, which hurt quite a bit after the stabbing. He backed off when finished, allowing me to gingerly sit up, but an experimental tug of the tie showed that I wasn't going to undo those knots anytime soon. Uneasily, I wondered how many girls he'd tied up before in his sick attempt to become Strigoi.

Weird, awkward silence fell as we waited for Lee's "makers of destiny" to show up. The minutes ticked by, and I frantically tried to figure out what to do. How long did we have until the people he'd called arrived? From what he'd told me, I'd guess at least an hour. Feeling bold, I finally attempted communication with Adrian, again hoping maybe we could covertly team up on Lee - even though our success rate had just become that much lower with both our sets of hands bound.

"How did you even get here?" I asked.

Adrian's gaze was fixed on Lee, still hoping for direct eye contact, but he did spare a quick, wry glance at me. "Same way I get around everywhere, Sage. The bus."

"Why?"

"Because I don't have a car."

"Adrian!" Amazing. Even with our lives in danger, he could still infuriate me.

He shrugged and returned his focus to Lee, even though his words were obviously for me. "To apologize. Because I was a total ass**le to you at Jailbait's show. Not long after you left, I knew I had to come find you." He paused eloquently and glanced around. "No good deed goes unpunished, I guess."

I suddenly felt at a loss. Lee turning psychopathic certainly wasn't my fault, but it troubled me that Adrian was now in this situation because he'd come to apologize to me. "It's okay. You weren't... um, that bad," I said lamely, hoping to make him feel better.

A small smile played over his lips. "You're a terrible liar, Sage, but I'm still touched you'd attempt it for my sake. A for effort."

"Yeah, well, what happened back there seems kind of small, in light of the current situation," I muttered. "It's easy to forgive."

Lee's frown had been growing as he listened to us. "Do the others know you're here?" he asked Adrian.

"No," said Adrian. "I said I was going back to Clarence's."

I didn't know if he was lying or not. For a moment, I didn't think it would matter. The others had heard me say I was coming here, but none of them would have any reason to come seeking us.

No reason, except the bond.

I caught my breath and met Adrian's eyes. He looked away, perhaps for fear of betraying what I'd just realized. It didn't matter if the gang had known where I was earlier. If Jill was connected to Adrian, she would know now. And she would know that we were in trouble. But that was assuming it was one of the times when she could see into his mind. They'd both admitted it was inconsistent and that high emotion could bring it out. Well, if this didn't count as a highly emotional situation, I couldn't think what would. Even if she realized what was happening, there were a lot of if's involved. Jill would have to get here, and she couldn't do it alone. Calling the police would bring the fastest response, but she might hesitate if she knew this was vampire business. She'd need Eddie. How long would it take to get him if they were back in their dorms?

I didn't know. I just knew that we had to stay alive because if we did, one way or another, Jill would get help here. Only, I no longer knew our odds of survival. Adrian and I were both confined, trapped with a guy who wasn't afraid to kill with a knife and who desperately wanted to become a Strigoi again. That was a bad combination, and it threatened to get worse...

"Who's coming, Lee?" I asked. "Who did you call?" When he didn't answer, I made the next logical leap. "Strigoi. You have Strigoi coming."

"It's the only way," he said, tossing his knife from hand to hand. "The only way left now. I'm sorry. I can't be like this anymore. I can't be mortal anymore. Too much time has already passed."

Of course. Moroi could become Strigoi in one of two ways. One was by drinking the blood of another person and killing them in the process. Lee had tried that, using every combination of victims he could get ahold of, and had failed. That left him with one last desperate option: conversion by another Strigoi. Usually, it happened by force, when a Strigoi killed someone and then fed their own blood back to the victim. That was what Lee wanted done to him now, trading our lives to the Strigoi who would convert him. And then he wanted to do it to Jill, out of some crazy misguided love...

"But it's not worth it," I said, desperation and fear making me bold. "It's not worth the cost of killing innocents and endangering your soul."

Lee's gaze fell on me, and there was a look of such chilling indifference in it that I had a hard time connecting this person before me to the one I'd smiled indulgently on as he courted Jill.

"Isn't it, Sydney? How would you know? You've deprived yourself of enjoyment for most of your life. You're aloof from others. You've never let yourself be selfish, and look where it's got you. Your 'morals' have left you with a short, strict life. Can you tell me now, just before you're about to die, that you don't wish you'd maybe allowed yourself a little more fun?"