Chapter Seven

I had been dreaming—I was on a table in one of the exam rooms of the ER. It was, I knew, the ER at Linda Vista, with its clean white and seafoam green walls and brand new medical technological instruments. I had been in some sort of accident, and I couldn’t move, and doctors and nurses that I didn’t know were all standing over me, the overhead light bright in my eyes.

“She’s losing blood!” One of the doctors cried out.

“Get us some O-neg!” another yelled.

“I have some,” It was Mark’s voice. They all turned, screaming in fright. Mark attacked them viciously, tearing out throats with his teeth. Suddenly, all was quiet in the exam room. All I could hear was the beeping of my heart monitor and the rushing of the ventilator that I was on.

I tried to move, but my limbs were locked. The light above me was suddenly blocked out. Mark’s face was above me; his teeth dripped with blood and gore.

“Your turn,” he hissed menacingly, his face ascending upon my throat, his lips twisted into a manic, hungry smile. I screamed, my body seizing in fear.

I jolted awake, freezing; I was wearing only my hospital scrubs. My face was pressed up against a cold concrete floor, and my neck ached. I sat up, the scent of mold and old, damp concrete in my nostrils. Looking around me, I found that I was in an abandoned warehouse; old, rusting machinery falling into disrepair from standing unused for several decades. There was light coming through the broken windows from the streetlights outside. I moved my legs, which had pins and needles in them. As I tried to get the blood flowing into my extremities, I heard the clink of a chain. Affixed to my right ankle with a leather-covered cuff was a chain, bolted into the nearby wall.

I screamed, calling out for help. I wondered if there were any people out on the street—I could hear the sounds of cars—the freeway was nearby…maybe a mile or less, if I had to make a guess. My voice was raspy after Mark had choked me into passing out. As I screamed for help, to my horror, a shadow detached itself from a nearby wall. I froze in terror to behold Mark.

“You can scream as much as you like, Samantha,” he said, looking at me in a dark, coy manner. “It won’t matter. I know of the trap that you and your vampire hunter lover tried to set for me.”

“He’s not—”I began, but he cut me off.

“Don’t lie to me,” he hissed violently. “I can smell him on you. There is no scent so…distinctive, yet disgusting as a dragon in this world.” He paused, looking at me darkly, with disappointment. “I thought that you were smarter.”

“Anyhow, I have sent for Jared. Now, I am the one who has laid a trap. When he comes for you, I will kill your dragon shifter boyfriend. I will do it slowly, brutally, and in front of you so that you can see his agony.” Two thoughts occurred to me: wow, Mark was a psychopath. And, Jared was a Dragon shifter. This threw me for a moment. I recalled Mark’s comment, just before I had passed out, about smelling a dragon. I had not known, although from what I knew of the Dragon shifters (which was not much to begin with, having only come from supposed myths), Jared fit the description. Why would he not want me to know?

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snapped. Now was not the time to be afraid. Death was coming to me, and soon. I wanted to go down bravely. “I am not even sure that he will come for me, to be honest. I was just a means to an end for him; bait, as he called me. If anyone, you’re the one he’s coming for.” Mark knelt down beside me, caressing my cheek with an ice cold hand; it sent chills down my spine, but I made sure to not move a muscle.

“If he doesn’t,” Mark leaned in, whispering in my ear, his cold lips against my skin, “then I will have a tasty treat.” He stroked my cheek, and then got up.

“I’ve given Jared a deadline…” he laughed maniacally. “Get it? A deadline.” He laughed some more. I sniffed, looking about me at the old machinery for something that I could use as a weapon. Even if Jared came, there was a huge possibility that we would both end up dead. Mark was a wild card. We couldn’t expect him to act rationally.

I reached for my grandmother’s cross necklace, pulling the metal that had warmed against my skin out from beneath my scrubs. Mark turned around, coming back to play with me some more. I held it up like an amulet or a protective spell, praying that it was big enough to protect me. Mark paused for a moment before he laughed.

“This isn’t a movie, girlie,” he said, voice dripping with derision. My heart sank. His cell phone rang, and Mark turned, walking off to go and answer it. As I listened to his voice echo from far off, I pulled halfheartedly on the chain. It was bolted solidly to the wall. I looked at the lock on the cuff—it was heavy, and gleamed with newness. He had planned this…recently. I heard Mark’s footsteps as he returned. His teeth shone in the dark, light from the streetlamps flashing off of his noticeable fangs.

“Good news,” he said, clasping his hands before him. “Your boyfriend cares about you. Quite a bit, in fact. I am going to save you for something post-lunch. Dessert, perhaps.” I threw my head back, wondering why Jared had let Mark have the impression that I was special. He had completely ruined the angle that I had been working. I sat, trying to figure out where to go from here.