But before any of the guys had a chance to answer, things took a new and wholly unexpected bad turn.

I heard the sound of feet barely in time to turn around before the first man reached me. I'd been too caught up in my argument with the guys to be listening, and my compromised sense of smell meant I hadn't smelled them coming, either. There were at least twenty of them - maybe more - dressed in black and with masks. Clearly, the same assholes who had attacked the night I met Kael and Milo in The Dark Bar, the ones who had killed Colt Harris. That meant they likely had blessed silver weapons. Well, I wasn't going to make it easy for them.

As the first man reached me, I grabbed him by the arm and swung him into the wall.

Or, at least, that was what I had intended to do. He barely moved and instead I was forced to duck his blade and roll away, moving slowly and clumsily across the floor.

Holy shit, I was in a dead zone. The stench of blood blocking my senses had been bad enough, it had never occurred to me that there might have been another reason to have the meeting here. Dead zones are areas where vampiric powers are weakened - where I'm not as strong and fast as I would be elsewhere. It's something to do with the moon and it's all very interesting, but I wasn't a fucking scientist and someone was currently trying to kill me. The only thing that mattered now was that Kael had lured me to a place where he knew I could be taken down. He had led me into a trap.

My attacker lunged at me again, but this time I was prepared. The knife in my boot was in my hand in an instant, and across his throat a moment later. Okay, I wasn't as strong as usual, but I was still stronger than them, I was armed to the teeth, and I had nothing left to lose. Two more black-clad individuals closed on me and swiftly learned that a weakened vampire can still be deadly. I may not have been myself, but even putting powers to one side, I was still a damn good fighter. I've taken courses in every fighting style there is - when you've got three hundred years to kill, you can get really good at stuff. Maybe I wasn't going to get out of this with my life, but I was going to take as many of them with me as possible. I lashed out again, but this time one caught me and, although it was only a graze, the blessed silver burned against my skin and I couldn't suppress a cry of agony.

My obvious pain emboldened the others. Now they knew I could be hurt, they all wanted a turn at it. I steeled myself. Let the bastards come and see how many of them could make it out of here alive. There were three who certainly weren't going to.

I spun around, looking for Kael, Milo and Gage, determined to make them pay for their betrayal. The sight that met my eyes almost made me drop my knife in shock. The black-clad attackers had entered from every side of the plant, surrounding me and giving me no chance to escape. They should already have taken me out. But my rear had been defended. Even as I watched, Kael disarmed a man with a complicated move I hadn't seen before and hurled him across the room, his inhuman strength backing up his martial arts skills. Milo caught a throwing knife in mid-air with impossibly quick hands, and sent it back at the thrower, who hit the deck with a knife buried between his eyes. Gage picked up two men at once, one in each hand, and threw them into an advancing group.

There was no longer room for any doubt; with this sort of speed and strength, and with these sorts of fighting skills, Kael, Milo and Gage were definitely Lawkeepers. But they seemed to be on my side.

I wasn't complaining, but they definitely had some explaining to do, not least as they had all fucked me, apparently just to get close to me. Admittedly, I had initially seduced Milo and Gage just to distract them, but that didn't mean I was happy to be used. They had also been the ones who had lured me into this trap to start with, although why they had done that, I now had no idea. Lots of questions to ask and answer - assuming we all got out of this in one piece.

The sight of the guys fighting in my corner had distracted me for a moment and I only just recovered myself in time to dodge a thrown knife. Three more men came at me. I handled the first, but the second slashed across my thigh as I was disposing of his friend. I grabbed his knife arm, trying to force it back at him, but the strength wasn't there; sapped by the dead zone and by the unspeakable pain of the blessed silver injury. The third man raised his knife, but never got to use it. Kael flipped the man over his head, giving me the necessary distraction to kick my current assailant in the balls.

"Come on!" yelled Kael as he picked the stricken man up and threw him straight through a closed door.

I only hesitated for a moment. I might not trust the guys, but they were a better option than the ones trying to kill me. I ran through the splintered remains of the door, treading heavily on the groaning man who had just gone through it head first. A van was waiting and the guys passed me, running faster than I could in my wretchedly weakened condition.

"Get in."

I paused.

Kael rolled his eyes. "Really? Now? Can you not be pissed at us later?"

Fair point. I jumped into the back of the van, followed by Gage, while Kael and Milo hurried for the cab. We took off at a bone rattling pace, bouncing over the uneven ground until we found the road and could bounce in and out of potholes instead.

I sat in the corner, seething in silence, anger boiling out of me. They were Lawkeepers. They had led me into a trap. They clearly considered me responsible for the deaths of many innocent people and, for all I knew, they had been planning to pin more on me. What they might have done if these men in black hadn't turned up I didn't know, but I already had plenty enough to be angry about.

The fact that they had saved my life just made me question why.

What was their plan in doing so? Where were they taking me next? Had they set this whole thing up to win my trust so they could get information out of me?

"Sonja, are you okay?" Gage looked at me across the back of the van.

"Am I okay?" I asked, my voice deceptively low.

"That's what I asked."

My eyes flared red. "Let me out of this goddamn van this moment."

"It's not safe. We're still in the dead zone."

"You'd better let me out of here before we're out of it because, if you don't, I'm going to tear you limb from limb."

"Thanks for the warning."

"It wasn't a warning." I flew at him. We were still in the dead zone so I didn't have command of all my strength yet, but I was still stronger than an average human. Gage, of course, was not an average human, but with me fueled by rage, I could still put up a fight. I slammed him back into the side of the van with a loud clang and he grabbed my hands, trying to hold me back without hurting me.

"What the hell's going on back there?" Kael called from the front.

"Uh... guys? Little help?" Gage called back.

Moments later, I felt Milo's hands on me, pulling me back. The two of them together were too strong for me when I was in this condition and I screamed in anger and frustration.

"Let me out of here!"

"Sonja, give us a chance to explain."

"Give you a chance to tell more lies, you mean?" I growled. "You've done nothing but lie since I met you. All to get close to me, to try and take me down, to try and pin a bunch of murders on me I didn't commit."

"You're not the only one who's been lied to," Milo fired back. "We were told that you abducted Layla."

"That's a lie, too," I snapped. "I've seen the case file. HK. That's human kidnapping."

"That's just the public file. Layla's disappearance is officially registered as VKV. And it says that you kidnapped her to stop the truth coming out about your involvement in the death of Tyler Gray," Mile said.

"What?" I demanded.

"That's just the start of it. The official version is that you killed him alongside countless other humans."

"Countless?"

"A vampire gone rogue. Your sister, Layla, finally couldn't take it anymore and decided to go to the Lawkeepers. You hijacked the transport, killed the Lawkeepers, and took her."

"Our job was to take you down before anyone else died," said Gage, nursing his jaw where I had gotten in a good hit.

"So you're taking me to Lawkeeper Central?" It didn't seem like it, but I wasn't ready to start being an optimist and trusting these guys, not yet.

"No," said Milo.

"Why not?"

Milo shrugged. "I guess, maybe, we believe you."

"Why?" I asked again. It was good news, but it was also very sudden, and I wasn't ready to trust people who believed me for no reason. They could still be trying to play me.

"Maybe we just want to believe you," admitted Gage. "You seem... well, not honest, exactly, but... What's the word?" He turned to Milo.

"You seem pretty upfront about the bad stuff you've done," said Milo. "And we just... What is the word?" He turned back to Gage.

"We..."

"We..."

"We like you," the two finally said together.

"Holy shit," I muttered. I had wandered into a Twilight novel. Admittedly, I was in the X-rated version, but still.

Did I believe them?

I didn't know. There really was a limit to the number of criss-crossing intertwining lies I could cope with in my life. The simplest answer is usually the best one, and every now and then it actually has the advantage of being true. Yes, they had done nothing but lie to me, but their explanation was plausible. And why else would they have saved my life? That they liked me actually seemed like as good an explanation as any.

Or, perhaps, I just wanted to believe them. Because I liked them, too.

Dammit. That just complicated everything. I had to remember that this wasn't about me, it was about Layla. I couldn't afford to trust them yet, not while her life was at stake. But maybe I didn't have to distrust them quite as much.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere safe," Gage said.

"Care to be more specific?"

"We'll tell you more when we get there."

"You're not making it easy for me to trust you," I mumbled.

Milo grinned. "That works both ways, Miss Sonja."

"I need some sleep." The dead zone was making me feel queasy.

Gage took off his jacket and balled it up to make a pillow for me. I lay down in the back of the van. I hadn't really been feeling that tired, I just didn't want to talk anymore - I needed to do some thinking to try and make any of this make some sense. But once I put my head down on my makeshift pillow, the world seemed to go fuzzy at the edges. I guess I was more tired than I had thought, the dead zone sapping my energy as well as my strength. Or, perhaps, they had drugged me somehow. Nothing was simple anymore, everything had to have two sides.

I drifted off to sleep, not knowing what the future held for me or Layla. Maybe sleep wouldn't fix that, but what choice did I have right now? I was sleeping in the van belonging to my only real leads. Who might still turn out to be my primary suspects.

But I really hoped not.