Quinn sat on the bow of the boat within the garage, her feet dangling over the edge of it. Dani and Melissa sat on each side of her. The three of them had just finished searching the boat with Julian touching everything he could get his hands on. Afterward, they’d settled here to watch as Julian went down to help the others finish searching the garage.

Dani stifled a yawn; Quinn knew exactly how she felt. Stressed and exhausted, all she wanted was to retreat to the RV and sleep, but they still had a lot to do before that could happen. Below them, Vern, Julian, and Chris were going through all of the drawers and cabinets lining the walls. Most of them were full of an endless array of tools. Julian handled every one of the tools before tossing them aside.

Glancing over the boat, she now understood the reason for the large garage; it had been necessary to house Herb’s work in progress. If she hadn’t known what Herb was, she would have considered him a reclusive man, content to work with his hands and enjoy nature. It was unnerving to see how much the surface could differ from the interior of a man.

Julian and Chris were blessed or cursed to be able to see beneath that surface, to be able to spot the monsters lurking within someone; the rest of them had to take everyone at face value. Herb’s face value was that of the serial killer who all the neighbors swore was the kindest man there ever was, until they were interviewed for the news after a hundred bodies were pulled from the guy’s basement.

“If he has anything, it’s in the house; where vampires can’t go,” Julian said as he closed another cabinet and turned to face the room. The dim glow of the overhead lights danced over his platinum hair as he ran a hand over it.

“Then we’ll go back in the house,” Chris said.

Julian’s eyes met Quinn’s as she swung her legs back and forth. He didn’t have to say a word; she knew he didn’t want them back in that house. She didn’t either. Nothing had gone wrong the first time, but they might have gotten lucky. Luck could easily run out.

“It’s what needs to be done,” Chris said and turned from the garage.

Chris walked out the door and toward the house before she could leap to her feet. She clutched the railing on the boat and jumped over the side of it. Her feet landed silently on the ground; her fingers brushed over the cool floor beneath her as she bent her knees to take the impact. Julian stepped beside her and clasped her elbow as she rose back up.

Melissa and Dani leaped down beside her; their feet thudded dully on the concrete floor. “Really not looking forward to going back in there,” Melissa said as they trailed Chris out of the building.

“Picture his head mounted on the wall,” Julian suggested.

“Done that already,” Melissa replied. “All of his things give me the creeps.”

Julian rested his hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention away from where Chris waited for them near the porch. “You don’t have to go back in,” Julian told her.

“Yes, I do. We all do.” Melissa turned and walked over to join Chris.

“It will go quickly,” Dani said.

Quinn climbed the steps to the porch. She felt as if a stone had been tied around her neck; it weighed her down as she watched the three of them enter the cabin again.

“What do you want us to bring you first?” Melissa asked Julian.

“Clothes, pillows, photos, ledgers or journals he’s written in. Pens are always good,” Julian replied.

Quinn gazed out at the wood line as he spoke. The vamps who had come here with them crept forward to stand at the edge of the trees, making themselves visible now. Cassie, Devon, Luther, and Lou stood at the front of the group. Quinn tore her attention away from them when the Hunters began to bring Julian items from the house.

Leaning against the cabin wall, she folded her arms over her chest as the night crept steadily onward. Julian held each of the things handed to him for a minute or so. No one looking at him would realize how much this task wore on him, as he kept his shoulders back and his jaw set, but she felt his exhaustion deep within her. She resisted touching him, knowing that it would only break his concentration if she did.

Relief, instead of her normal dread of the sun, filled her when the sky began to lighten on the distant horizon. “It’s time to go,” she said as Chris handed Julian a glass paperweight and disappeared back into the house.

Julian glanced at her before lifting his eyes to the sky. “Yes. We have to go!” he called into the house.

His hands ran over the glass paperweight as the Hunters emerged moments later from around the corner of the hall. With the shadows under their eyes and the lines forming around their mouths, they looked as exhausted as she knew Julian felt. All she wanted was to get him back to the RV so he could shut his ability down and rest.

Quinn stepped to the side just as Julian’s entire body became as stiff as a rod. His jaw clenched, and his hands tightened on the paperweight to the point that the glass shattered in his grasp. Quinn gasped and stretched her hand toward him. He seized her before she could touch him.

“Get off the porch,” he snarled.

“Julian?”

“Everyone, get off the porch, now!” he barked.

Before she could reply, he wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her up and raced with her across the porch. Quinn’s legs encircled his waist as he ran toward the railing and cleared it in a single leap. His muscles bunched and flowed beneath her hands when he hit the ground and threw himself forward so that she was pinned on her back beneath him.

Her back crashing into the ground caused her to lose her grip on his shoulders, but she realized he presented a far larger target than she did as he remained on top of her. One of his arms encircled her head while the other remained around her waist.

He rolled rapidly to the side just as a clicking noise registered and a wave of crossbow bolts fired. The sound of splintering wood filled the air. One of the bolts scraped down her arm, slicing her from shoulder to wrist. She gritted her teeth against the pain as a startled yelp came from the other side of the house.

Peeking beneath Julian’s arm, she saw some of the vampires across the way poking their heads out from around the trees they’d hidden behind.

“Bastard!” Julian spat.

Quinn tried to lift her head to see what exactly had happened, but he rolled her further out of the way as another wave of bolts fired. Rising to his feet, he lifted her and pressed her against the cabin wall.

“Are you okay?” he demanded, his ruby eyes filling her vision as he gently clasped the hand of her wounded arm.

“I’m fi-fine,” she stammered out. “The others?”

Julian stuck his head out far enough to see around the corner of the house. He pulled back almost instantly. “Chris, Melissa, and Dani are trapped inside. Vern’s on the other side of the cabin.”

“What just happened?”

“The bastard’s hiding beneath the porch.”

“The whole time!” she gasped.

“Yes. I should have seen it sooner.” He shook his head and slammed his hands against the side of the cabin. Wood splintered and pieces of it fell around them from the impact of his fists.

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I’m the only one who could have known,” he growled. “Objects are just so precarious sometimes. They don’t hold the memories like a person does. Still I should have seen something.”

“Stop. Don’t beat yourself up, not over this. Why didn’t he attack us sooner?”

“Either he knew he was outnumbered and didn’t want to risk giving away his hiding place unless it became necessary, or he was waiting for the sun to rise when he knew he’d have a better chance at taking us out. He might not have enough weapons to defend himself with against all of us either.”

“Can he get under the house too?”

“I don’t know.”

Quinn shuddered at his words as he knelt beside her. She examined his body for any sign of injury, but though he had a jagged tear on the side of his jeans, she saw no blood.

Daring to poke her head out around the corner of the building, she spotted Chris plastered against the wall next to the door and Vern on the other corner of the cabin. Blood trickled from the bolt in Vern’s thigh, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.

The porch they’d been standing on all night was nothing but a shredded mess of broken boards and wood splinters. Parts of the porch roof had at least a hundred bolts embedded into it. Some sections of the roof had been completely torn away. Despite all the destruction, enough of the porch remained that she couldn’t see what was hidden beneath it. More bolts were embedded in the walls of the garage across the way and the trees surrounding them.

Quinn gulped and ducked back. If those bolts had all unleashed last night, they would have been dead, but then Herb would have given away his hiding place to the vamps in the woods. Cassie and Devon wouldn’t have left here until they’d managed to flush the rat from his hole.

Herb must have something rigged beneath the porch to release so many bolts simultaneously like that. “How many more bolts do you think he has rigged like that?” she asked Julian.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

The sun would soon be breaching the distant mountains; they didn’t have much time left. If Herb wasn’t able to travel under the cabin too, they might be able to go around the back and head for the woods there, or they could be making themselves wide open targets by doing so.

Even if they all made it to the woods, they would have to leave Devon, Chris, Melissa, Lou, Dani, and Luther here to guard Herb. The idea of leaving her friends alone to face Herb made her stomach churn.

Quinn glanced at the sky as a pinkish hue crept over the mountains in the distance. They only had fifteen minutes at most before the rays of the sun reached them. The anxiety rolling through her belly now had nothing to do with the rat they’d uncovered and everything to do with the rising sun. They had to get out of here, soon.

Julian glanced at the garage and then at the ruined sides of the porch. “I have a plan,” he said to her. “Stay here.”

“Julian!” she cried, but he was already moving across the yard and to the garage with enough speed that he became a blur.

When he entered an area where he had to cross in front of the porch in order to get to the garage doors, three more bolts released. He dodged the first two and sprinted into the garage as the third embedded itself in the door right where his head would have been. Quinn’s fangs lengthened as bloodlust rolled forth. She’d happily tear the throat out of this bastard.

Then, her eyes fell to her feet and the wooden siding of the house behind her. Keeping her back to the cabin, she inched her feet away from the house at the thought of Herb being able to travel underneath it.

She tried to control the crushing feeling gripping her chest as she waited for bolts to explode out of the wood and into her ankles. Or worse, for an arm to slide out and slice her Achilles tendon with a knife. She’d seen that happen in a movie once; not only had it made her wince to watch, but it was a scene she’d never forget. Sweat beaded on her brow as she became increasingly certain something was about to explode out of the foundation behind her.

Her eyes darted between her vulnerable feet and the garage as she waited for Julian to come back. What if Herb had set up a trap in the garage too that they had missed? What if Julian was in trouble right now? The wood beneath her fingers broke away from the cabin when her fingers tore into it.

Just as she was about to launch herself away from the wall and run for the garage, Julian reemerged from the building with chains draped around his shoulders. He ran in a zigzagging pattern, dodging the bolts firing at him as he raced back to her. She wanted to strangle him when he arrived at her side; instead she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Don’t do that again!” she scolded.

He kissed her cheek and then her ear before stepping back from her. She watched as he pulled the chains from around his neck and removed a blowtorch from inside of his jacket. “Blowtorch is the last resort,” he said. “For all we know, we could burn this whole place down and whatever Herb is hiding in could withstand it. We need to uncover him, which means getting rid of the porch.”

He leaned cautiously out to wrap the chain around the railing of the porch.

“It will collapse on him,” she whispered.

“Maybe not if I go fast enough,” he said.

“You can’t expose yourself to him again.”

“We have no choice. I’m not taking the chance of him escaping,” Julian replied as he took the rest of the chain and threw it across the remains of the porch to Vern. “Wrap some of it around that beam and throw the rest back to me,” Julian commanded.

Vern inched his way out to snatch the chain from where the end of it had fallen on the shredded top stair. The chain rattled as he twisted it around a beam before tossing the rest of it back to Julian.

“We don’t have much time, Boss,” he said to Julian when the chain crashed against the railing inches away from Julian.

“I know,” he replied, but she knew he wouldn’t leave here until it became absolutely necessary.

Quinn’s gaze went to the vampires in the woods. Surprise filled her when she saw all of them still standing there. She’d expected most of them to have fled between the hundreds of crossbow bolts and the rising sun, but they seemed determined to follow this through for as long as they could. Devon had moved forward to stand at the front of the group with Cassie close behind him.

Quinn’s attention was diverted from them when Julian took hold of her arms and kissed her.

“Stay here,” he commanded and released her.

“I can help you with this.”

He shook his head as he coiled the chain around his fist and gave it a small tug. “I can move faster on my own.”

Before she could respond, he took off like a sprinter from the starting line. A sprinter with supernatural speed and strength. She was still trying to process where he was when the chain jerked solid, a grinding noise filled the air, and the whole porch tore away from the house. It slid off its foundation like a dock sliding into a pond.

It continued to move forward for another ten feet before coming to an abrupt halt. Quinn spun toward the remains of the porch to discover the concrete bunker beneath it that the removal of the porch had revealed. Like a groundhog, a man emerged from an opening in the bunker. He pushed open a thick metal door, keeping it at his back as he lifted a rifle to his shoulder, took aim at Julian and started pulling the trigger.

Herb, she recognized him from the hotel.

Julian ran in a zigzag pattern across the ground. The earth around his feet kicked up around him from the impact of the bullets. Some of them pelted the garage doors, shredding wood as gunfire rang across the clearing and echoed through the mountains.

Quinn sprang forward to distract Herb from Julian as Vern lunged forward from the other side of the porch toward their enemy. Seeming to realize retreat was his best option, Herb’s hand closed on the handle of the metal door beside his head at the same time blood burst out the side of his skull.

Quinn staggered back when Herb convulsively fired a few more shots that cracked off the trees before he slumped over the side of the bunker. Her eyes widened on the bolt that had driven all the way through Herb’s skull until it jutted out the other side of his head.

Her eyes were drawn to Chris in the doorway as he swung his crossbow over his back and secured it into place. No emotion played over his face while he surveyed Herb’s unmoving form.

“Nice shot,” Julian said to Chris as he strode past her and toward the body.

“Told you I wouldn’t hesitate,” Chris replied, and there was a coldness in his eyes she’d never seen from him before.

“So you did.” Julian knelt beside Herb and slid his fingers into Herb’s thick brown hair. He jerked his head up to peer more closely at him. “It’s Herb.”

Quinn glanced at Herb’s bugged out eyes before focusing on the bunker Herb had been hiding in. Hundreds of holes lined its concrete walls. Holes that had housed the numerous bolts Herb had unleashed on them. It was an ingenious and disturbing design; she would bet anything that Herb could have survived in the bunker for months at a time.

Julian abruptly released Herb’s hair and rose to his feet. Pulling Herb from the bunker, he tossed his unmoving body aside. Before she could blink, Julian disappeared inside of it.

“Julian!” she gasped and rushed forward. She was about to jump in after him when Julian’s hands grasped the sides of the entrance, and he pulled himself out. “Stop doing shit like that!” she snapped at him.

He rose to his feet and reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.

“I’m sorry, Dewdrop. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You should start. It’s not just you anymore!”

“I could never forget.”

This time when he went to touch her, she didn’t try to stop him. She was still pissed, but they’d almost been killed. She could get angry with him again later. He cradled her cheek with his palm for the briefest of seconds before his hand fell away.

“What was in there?” Chris asked as he jumped down from the doorway of the cabin, followed by Dani and Melissa.

“Enough supplies to keep him alive in there for a while, portable toilet, family photos and some medals from Vietnam; they were his father’s. From what I’ve glimpsed, he kept most of those things stored in there and must have been in the process of retrieving them when we arrived. All documents involving The Commission are elsewhere. We have to go.” Julian clasped hold of Quinn’s hand and pulled her away from the wall of the cabin.

“Where elsewhere?” she asked as they ran across the clearing with the others flanking them. They reached the woods, and the group gathered there.

“Where the rest of The Commission can be found,” Julian replied. Quinn’s hand squeezed his as all the others exchanged looks.

“Do you know where that is?” Devon asked.

“I do, and I have somewhat of an idea on how to get there. We can discuss it later, but we have to get to safety before the sun rises, and to Maine to meet with the others. We’ll talk more there. You have my new number?” he asked Vern.

“Yes. We’ll be staying at the motel in town for the day. I’ll let you know when we’re on the move again and on our way to Maine.”

“Good.”

No one said another word as they raced down the road to the waiting vehicles. The first rays of the sun broke over the horizon as Julian opened the door of the RV and stepped aside to usher Quinn into it. The others all scurried into their vehicles as they sought protection from the sun behind their tinted windows. Julian’s gaze remained on the vamps piling into the van until it took off down the road and back to the town where they’d eaten dinner last night.

Devon pulled his Challenger up behind the RV as Julian climbed inside and shut the door. He took hold of Quinn’s hand and tugged her toward the back room without another glance at the others. Pulling her inside the room, he closed the sliding door.

“Julian—”

She didn’t get a chance to ask how he was before he turned to her, grabbed her waist, and drew her against him. She jerked as the intimate feel of his fangs sinking into her flesh, and her blood being pulled from her caused her body to turn into liquid heat.

Turning her head, she kissed the tender hollow of the exposed flesh above his jacket. Her lips skimmed back until her fangs scraped over his skin. His fingers dug into her hips as he pressed her closer. Sinking her fangs into his flesh, she moaned when his blood pooled into her mouth in a rich, intoxicating way.

His exhaustion beat against her while she drank. She caught a brief flash of the images he’d received from Herb’s cabin before he abruptly shut them off. He released his bite on her neck and slid his tongue over her flesh to lick away the last of her blood.

“Too much. I saw too much from his things,” he whispered hoarsely.

Retracting her fangs, she leaned back to peer up at him. Shadows marred his eyes; lines that normally weren’t there etched the corners of his mouth. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself,” she said.

“The Commission must be stopped, and we are so close to doing so.”

“But not at the cost of you.”

He didn’t reply as he bent and swept her into his arms. His mouth fell upon hers in a claiming kiss filled with a hunger she could never deny. Every time his lips touched hers, she felt an electric thrill of need. She kept expecting the sensation to fade away, but it only increased until there were times when she wasn’t certain where he ended and she began.

He laid her on the bed before lowering himself over the top of her.