On Midnight Wings

She lies on the concrete floor, staring up at the hook, her blue eyes as wide and empty as a doll’s. The blood from her slashed throat stains her hair a deep red.

Dante sucked in a sharp, painful breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Pressing his fingers against his temples, he desperately scrubbed the image from his mind.

“They’re coming,” the dead girl repeated. “What do we do?”

His answer came without hesitation, a rough whisper. “Make ’em pay.”

“Or run. We could try running. I think that’d be better.”

“Yeah?”

Dante opened his eyes. Relief flooded through him at what he saw, knocked him back on his heels. Not dead. Chloe stood a few feet away, freckles stark on her pale face, her blue eyes huge, red-rimmed as though she’d been crying. She hugged the box of crayons tightly against her chest instead of Orem.

“Dante-angel? You . . . um . . . okay?”

“Oui. Ça va bien. Now. But where’s—” Dante looked down for the plushie orca and his words jammed up in his throat. A man in a blood-soaked black suit lay sprawled on the floor, throat savaged, a cooling and unfinished not-so-happy meal. “Shit.”

He remembered taking the asshole down as he reached for his gun, remembered tearing into his throat with ravenous relish. Remembered the panicked, fire hose intensity of the blood pulsing between his lips.

All while Chloe watched.

“Shit,” Dante repeated, shifting his gaze to Chloe. “Did you close your eyes?” he asked, hoping against hope.

“I did,” she confessed in a tiny voice. “But I could still hear . . .”

Dante sighed. “Merde. Sorry, princess.”

“That’s why you cuffed yourself to the door, huh?” Chloe said. “Why you told me to keep away from you. So you wouldn’t”—she looked at the dead man sprawled on the concrete, then swallowed hard before returning her gaze to Dante—“do that.”

Dante rose to his feet. Pain jabbed his skull, dizzying him for one brief moment. Even though he felt better after the gulped infusion of hot and heady blood, he definitely wasn’t at one hundred percent. Not even close. But it would have to be enough.

Survival for both of them depended on it.

“Oui, chère. That’s why,” he replied.

Out in the hall, Dante heard the thunder of multiple pairs of running feet. Still a fair distance away, but getting closer with each passing second. He glanced at Chloe. Wondered if she was safe with him or not. Although his hunger was currently under control, it was far from sated, leaving his control unreliable at best.

But one quick look at the hook hanging from the ceiling, at the merciless slice of curving metal, told him that Chloe was safer with him than without. Besides, safe or not, he could never leave her behind. Never leave her alone. He’d made a promise: You and me, princess. Forever and ever.

Dante shifted his gaze back to Chloe. “They’re coming like you said, princess, so we need to haul ass.” He reached for her, but she took a hesitant step away from his blood-smeared hand. The fear in her eyes was an ice pick to his heart.

“You said to keep away.”

“I did, yeah. Because I couldn’t control my hunger. I’ve got a grip on it now, thanks to him”—Dante nodded at the black-suited body cooling on the floor—“but before that, with all the blood loss and the—”

“And the owies,” Chloe finished, the fear fading from her eyes. “They made you even hungrier, huh?”

“Yup. And I’m damned fucking sure that’s why they put me in here with you in the first place. They wanted me to . . .” Dante shook his head, unwilling to finish the sentence.

But Chloe finished it for him. “Drink me all up. Monsters and fairy tales and poisoned apples.”

“ ’Fraid so, p’tite.”

Footsteps pounded ever closer. Dante heard the hummingbird-pulse of mortal hearts. Heard the slide of rounds being chambered. “We need to go, princess. Now. Even if you say no, I’m taking you with me. I ain’t leaving you for them.”

Chloe nodded, her tangled red tresses dancing against her purple Winnie-the-Pooh sweater. “Okay,” she said, “here”—she extended her hand, the fingers uncurling to reveal the key resting on her palm—“I kept it.”

Dante accepted the key with a quick smile and unlocked the cuff with its dangling door handle charm from around his wrist. Cuffs, key, and door handle hit the concrete, the room’s padded walls swallowing the musical clang.

Chloe’s paper wings rustled and her sweet strawberry-and-soap scent washed over Dante as he snugged her securely against his side. She looped an arm around his waist, instinctively tucking her fingers through his belt. Anchoring herself.

He frowned, wondering when he’d grown so much taller than her and, taking in the leather pants and boots he wore, he also wondered where his jeans and duct-taped Converse sneakers had vanished to. Not that he was complaining, but . . .