The Watcher

WHEN I OPEN MY EYES AGAIN, I REMEMBER. Everything.

Marta is no longer standing over me.

I look around.

I'm in a room identical to Max's. I'm on a cot, lying on a torn, rough-textured blanket. A sheet has been thrown over me. I'm naked beneath it.

I don't know where I am in the house. I thought there were only two rooms on the landing. But I'm alone here. And there is no blood on the white tile walls, none on the cement floor. After what I did to Martinez, there would be blood.

Unless.

I pull myself into a sitting position, groaning with the effort. My limbs are in revolt.

But I have to sit up to look around. There is a drain in the middle of the floor. And from it wafts the scent of pine and bleach. And underlying it all, blood.

The sheet falls away, and I see that the room is not the only thing that has been cleaned. There is no blood on my body, on my hands. My nails have been scrubbed. The same slightly antiseptic smell of soap wafts up when I raise my hands to rub at my eyes. The wound on my arm from Marta's blade has a dressing covering it. I rip it off. There is only a flush of color where the knife penetrated my flesh.

Confusion clouds my thoughts.

If this is the same room, where is Max?

Max.

A tremor passes through me.

Where is he? What have they done to him? Why did I let this happen? I should have attacked Martinez the moment I saw him at the door. I should have had a plan. I let the fact that I am vampire lull me into thinking I could handle anything a human could throw at me. I was wrong. It may have cost Max his life.

I swing my legs over the side of the cot and push myself off. Marta has left me nothing to cover my nakedness. I tear the sheet into two pieces and knot the smaller portion around my body. It falls just to my knees allowing me the freedom to move without tripping over the ends.

I'll need to be able to move.

I start for the door. I expect I'll have to break it down, and I'm surprised when the knob turns in my hand. Cautiously, I let it swing open.

The corridor is dark and empty. And quiet. I pull the door shut behind me.

I cross to the other side and put an ear to that door to see if I detect any sound. There is none. Again, the knob turns in my hand and the door opens.

The cots are lined up as before. But the bodies of Martinez' family are gone. Three other bodies are laid out.

I tiptoe from one to the other.

Foley.

Martinez.

Max.

I touch Max's face, too full of anguish to do anything else. When my fingers brush his lips, I realize with a jolt that he is warm. I rub the tears out of my eyes to examine him more closely. His color is good, flushed even. I push my ears against his chest. There is a heartbeat. Slow. Regular. His chest rises and falls in measured, controlled breaths. He is asleep. Drugged again?

But alive.

It sparks my resolve.

I move to Martinez. There is no doubt that he is dead. His throat has been torn open. His head is cocked back at an unusual angle, shattered vertebrae visible through the wound. Delicate streamers of shredded skin are all that hold skull to shoulders. The connection is tenuous. I don't know how anyone managed to lift him onto this cot without the connection being severed. His skin is pale, his eyes closed, his mouth open in a silent scream.

I view him with detached coldness. I know it was I who inflicted the damage. But he was going to kill me. He was going to kill and torture Max. I used the weapons I had at my disposal. Teeth and my vampire nature. I feel no remorse.

My glance falls on Foley. Martinez killed him with a gun he had under his shirt. I slip a hand beneath Martinez' body. The gun is no longer there. I'm sure Maria thought to take it before leaving me alone to find the bodies.

Because I'm also sure this is part of her plan.

I need to be smart this time. Decide how to handle her when she comes back. I can't kill her outright. I'll need her to help me get Max out of here. To bring him around when we're in the chopper.

The chopper. A memory surfaces. Before we got out of the car in the desert, Foley threatened to drug me if I was uncooperative. Is the syringe still in his jacket?

A sound in the corridor distracts me. The door to the landing is opening. I'm at Foley's cot in two strides. I yank at his jacket, searching first one pocket, then the other. My fingers close around the leather case just as footsteps approach the door across the hall. I open the case, tuck the syringe into a fold of the sheet at my breasts, and slip the case back into Foley's pocket. I hear the click of tumblers falling, the quiet opening and closing of the door across the hall and know.

Marta is now right outside my door.