What Lies Beneath

I was still in my sleep clothes, sitting in bed. The sun was bright when Landon ripped open my curtains.

I groaned. "I'm not even in a bra yet. You're not allowed in here."

Landon turned with a smile. "Oh, I think there is no better reason to be in here, though I have one." He gestured down.

I looked to see a tray of food. Chocolate chip pancakes. Oh dear. "What's that?" Wow, I am stupid.

"I need food. I thought you would too."

Then I just stared. "You brought me food."

"I brought us food. Don't take it personally." He walked over and sat next to me in bed with the tray.

I pulled the blanket up to my chest and started eating. I was very wary of the vampire next to me. He was acting entirely... normal. Like a human being. Eating and enjoying it. I'd seen him eat before, but this seemed off.

I ate the bacon first, then I sipped on the orange juice that came with it. I kept glancing Landon's way, thinking this had to be a set up. He was gonna bash me over the head or something. Or, maybe he felt bad about the other day. He hadn't said much to me since. We'd just been here, waiting for today.

"Why are you in bed with me?" I finally asked.

Landon bit off a piece of bacon. "Because I didn't want to sit on the floor."

"You could have eaten in your room. You have the last two days."

He shrugged lazily. "Does it matter? We have things to get done today, and you needed to get ready. I just came in to start the day."

I couldn't be sure he wasn't up to something. Best be careful, lest he eat me in the night. I finished my breakfast and I decided to head for the bathroom. Better than sticking around and dealing with a mood-swinging vampire.

After my shower, I tied my hair up in a ponytail. I didn't need to look like anyone but me today, so I'd take advantage of the rare opportunity. I put on a pair of ratty jeans, a t-shirt, and pulled on my boots.

Landon was still on my bed. Again, it threw me. Seeing him so normal just made him look like the human he'd been when he died. He looked like something more innocent than he was. Someone kinder. A lie. My hip touched the dresser as I leaned, arms crossed. "How are we doing this?"

Landon set the empty tray on the table in the corner. He moved casually to the shadow that the wall cast, avoiding the sunbeam from the window. "The demons will be kept under the main room or above it, depending on the venue. This one is small, so I'm betting it's a basement that they're in. There probably won't be more than a dozen."

"What do we do if Jaxon is there?"

"Break him out," he said, simply.

"You sound confident that we can."

His lips were turned up as he walked to me. "I am. I'm capable of a great many things, sweetheart. You need only trust me. We get your brother, come back here, you write out my information, and I'm gone. You get your life back, and I get mine. Easy as can be."

My eyes went down when I thought of something else. "I have to explain to him what happened. How this was my fault. That monsters are real. I don't know how to do that."

Landon's sympathy almost looked real. "Good luck to you."

"What is the plan?"

"The auction is tonight. The night after an auction is when the demons are sent to their new owners so we have a couple days before everyone is gone," he said with a hint of distaste. "Some need to be sent across the pond, and arrangements need to be made."

My stomach roiled. "That's disgusting."

"Glad you think so. Not everyone does."

The day was spent doing not much of anything. Landon wanted to wait until almost nightfall before we left. Darkness would be a better cover, and people would be swarming the venue, getting it ready. Probably scrambling for what the party planner hadn't come through with.

I got a small amount of pleasure from that. Just knowing I'd ruined something for these demons. It wasn't enough for me. I wanted to do more. It wasn't even entirely for my brother. Some of it was just for those innocent demons that had been plucked from their lives and thrown up for sale, just because they had a gift. I wanted revenge for them. In this utterly aimless existence, I wanted to do something that mattered. The demons that had been taken had real lives, and I didn't. It felt utterly unfair that some demons got to go on, wasting time, and others couldn't.

I sat with Landon on my bed, each of us with legs crossed, and a pizza in the middle of us. The dumb-dumb had gotten us a two-liter of soda, but no cups, so we were passing the bottle back and forth.

"Your mouth cooties aren't gonna turn me into a vampire, is it?" I asked before I took a drink.

He gave me a look. "No, they won't. I don't plan on bleeding into your mouth any time soon, so you're safe."

"Aww," I said falsely. "No blood? And here I thought we were getting along." I handed over the soda, and he set it on the floor.

"If only."

The plan was to leave after we finished eating. Landon said it would be dark enough by then. He didn't tell me much of the plan, and I was beginning to think it was because he didn't have one. He seemed to be a confident and capable man, so I was hoping he would live up to that.

"So," I said when it got too quiet. "What do you do when you're not helping teenagers find people?"

Landon took a long drink of the soda. "Why do you ask?"

"Curious."

He set the bottle down again and chewed on his pizza. "I don't think you'd be interested."

"I asked, so I am."

The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Nice try, love. But I'm not telling. We're not getting to know each other."

I sat up straighter, annoyance flashing in my eyes. "I'm not allowed to know about the guy I'm sleeping twenty feet away from? The one who decided to drink my blood the first time I was unconscious in front of him? Not fair."

"I don't care. You don't want to know me anyway. You'd have greater difficulty dealing with me sleeping twenty feet from you."

My voice was challenging. "Do I look like I scare easy?"

He smirked at me. "You're so adorable, thinking you're tough. The fact is that you don't know what this world can be. What it does to little girls like you when it gets a chance."

He had no clue. "I know what kind of people lurk in the shadows. That's nothing new to me. I'm asking who you are, because I want to know."

"Not happening."

"Come on, darlin'. Give me something here."

He got off the bed. "My motivations in life are none of your concern, Mila. Just know that I'm not going to hurt you. Nothing else matters. Accept that and move on."

"Landon," I said in a softer tone, "I know you're not going to hurt me. If we're separating soon, does it really matter if one person knows who you are? Do you have anybody in your life?"

He took too long to answer me. "I don't need anybody in my life."

He left after that, I assumed just to his room. But he didn't come back for an hour. I didn't know why it made me feel so alone.

****

Landon parked the van a quarter mile away. The sun was just setting, and traffic was thinning. Most of the nine-to-five people had been home for a while, leaving everyone else. The parade of town cars was telling and annoying at the same time. Those people knew the sins they were about to commit, and they didn't care. What kind of horrors have to happen to a person to get to that point?

I walked behind Landon, and I watched him take in the scene, calculating in his head every move he'd make once we got to the building. It was bigger than I thought it would be, made of brick that looked too old to keep standing. We were on the opposite side of the traffic, hidden away.

It wasn't hard to see how clever he was, swiftly avoiding being seen and knowing which areas were better to try to break in. Curse him for being so smart and attractive. I hated that I didn't hate him.

"This way." He took my hand and led me around the building. We stopped below a line of windows next to a massive oak tree.

"How do we get in?"

He smirked crookedly with far too much confidence for one man. At least he wore it well. "Can you climb a tree?"

I looked up. "Maybe. I didn't do much tree climbing when I was a kid."

I was lifted up before I decided if I was able to do this. I made a sound that might have been a squeak. Landon held me still. My hands went to his shoulders, and the position was just awful. My chest was right at eye-level, and he held me so I was practically sitting on his arm.

"What the hell?!" I yelled.

He looked up at me and was entirely amused. "Should I have thrown you instead? Because I like this." His gaze dropped, and it made my heart race and my skin heat up. It only got worse when his eyes went back up to mine. The smirk vanished into something serious and soft at the same time.

I gathered myself and said, "What do we do?"

He blinked twice, like he couldn't understand me, and he needed to buy time. "Get to the top and wait for me." He set me as high as he could, and I grabbed the branch that was in my reach.

I climbed up. Landon was just behind me, handling himself much better than I was. After I got as high as the window, I stopped to sit on a branch.

When Landon climbed up there with me, he examined the window. Without effort, he popped the glass pane and tossed it to the ground. I watched it land and crack into a million pieces. It was oddly satisfying.

"Off you go," Landon said, grabbing my hips and helping me into the building.

My feet hit the floor, and I looked around. I was in a large, hall type of room that was empty and dimly lit. There were doors all along the walls with a wall lamp between each. The style of the room seemed to be some kind of Victorian thing. Trying to be classy, I guessed. Priorities.

Landon was just behind me. Close enough that I felt his hand brush mine. "Can you hear that?"

I strained to listen. All I could hear were distant voices from downstairs, and loud noises I couldn't identify. "What?"

Landon moved, his eyes focused on nothing and determination in his face. "Guests are arriving. That means we have about an hour before the demons are moved to the stage for display."

Disgust colored my expression. "So what do we do now?" I asked because he seemed to always know. My favorite thing about him.

Without hesitation he said, "They probably aren't being kept up here. We need to get to the basement, but we'll check these rooms first. We can get Jaxon out the window and down the tree."

I nodded. "Lead the way."

He went to the first door and turned the knob. Locked. But he took care of that in a moment, slamming his side into the door. Mmm. The door flew open and revealed a dark room. I shined a light using my phone. There was nothing in there but boxes and sheet-covered furniture.

We repeated until every door was checked. There was no sign of anything shady. That was the problem. This place was just a venue, and nothing would be incriminating.

"We need to get downstairs without being seen," Landon told me. We walked to the end of the hall. There was a single staircase leading down into darkness. "Be ready for trouble."

I got my knife from my pocket and held it tight in my hand. If I was up against humans, I might stand a chance. I wondered if demons would work security at an event like this. I supposed that would be preferable to the people running it, but would they watch something so inhumane?

We descended into the darkness, and I clutched Landon's shirt, not knowing I was doing it until I felt his hand pull mine away. "You'll be fine," he said.

I still walked glued to his side as we went. I didn't know what this room was, but Landon said he could find a door, listening to the sounds of the starting party.

"Kid, you are too close," Landon said. "You're gonna be fine. Just calm down."

I sighed. "Fine, whatever." I moved away from him so that he wouldn't pout. For someone who made frequent comments about my body, he didn't seem to like touching it. I should put my tongue in his mouth just to piss him off. And to get my tongue in his mouth...

I really should have used my phone light to get around. I left Landon's side, and then my knee bashed into something hard. That wasn't the end of it. My knee gave out, and I stumbled into another object in the room. I was yanked out of the way, and something crashed loudly to the floor. I heard breaking glass, splitting wood, and general noise. The kind of noise that would attract attention, even over a party.

I was being held against Landon's chest; one hand was on my shoulder, and his arm was tight against my ribs.

"Dammit." Landon sighed, more annoyed than worried.

"Sorry."

Suddenly a door swung open, and light from the room poured in. The room was illuminated enough to show what I'd knocked into. A curio cabinet. I couldn't tell what it used to be filled with, but I didn't really care at the moment. Landon let go of me, and I stood straight, flicking open my knife. Four guards came through the door, one of them switching the light on while they moved. The door shut behind the last man.

"Run, Mila," Landon ordered me.

Yeah right. "I'm not going anywhere."

Then the men descended on us. Two on me and two on Landon. I ran to the back of the room, trying to buy myself some time. I couldn't see if the men had guns on them, but they weren't going for weapons.

The men grabbed me and turned me around, pinning my arms behind my back. I still had my knife in my hand, and I ripped my hands away, slashing at the air. I heard a man yell when it connected.

He yelled a very not-nice name at me before he bashed me over the head with something I couldn't see. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air. My back slammed into a wall, making little spots flicker in my vision.

My head throbbed, and I looked up in time to see Landon break a man's neck. If I hadn't been dying, I would have cared. Or cheered. Who the fuck knows?

My shoulders were aching, and my lungs refused to accept air. I was gasping helplessly as two of the remaining men came back for me. One pulled a club from his side. He hit me in the chest, and the last bit of air in my lungs whooshed out of me violently. I was already crumpled on the ground, but I sank sideways, gasping and crying. Blood coated my teeth when he hit me again.

Landon's head turned at the sound of my cry. The man he'd been fighting got a swing in, connecting with his jaw. Landon came back at him, grabbing his arm and swinging him around. One twist of the neck, and the guard was dead. The other two guards turned to the vampire, but he was too fast. He grabbed my knife off the ground and stuck it in the spine of the guard to my left. He wrenched it up and threw the man aside. The knife went in Landon's pocket, but I had trouble peeling my eyes off the man that was bleeding out.

The guard that hit me went for Landon, swinging his baton. Landon caught it and ripped it from the man's hands. He bashed it into the side of the guard's head. A cracking sound filled my ears, and the man froze where he stood. Blood was barely dripping from his ears when Landon swung again. That time, the man fell. That didn't keep Landon from hitting him two more times. The man stilled, and Landon dropped the baton.

His eyes found me as I panted on the floor. He bent and scooped me up in his arms. I still could hardly breathe. My chest felt like a Mack truck was on it.

When my eyes started closing, Landon said my name. "Mila, don't fall asleep." He started going back up the stairs, leaving the men where they were.

"Jaxon," I said, fighting sleep. "We can't leave."

Landon hushed me. "Don't worry about that right now."

I wanted to protest, but I was fading in and out. Everything was coming in flashes: when Landon was at the window... jumping with me in his arms... somehow not getting jostled when he hit the ground... then the car... walking up more stairs and into my room. The very last thing that I remember is Landon putting me in my bed.

He checked my head and eyes. He sighed, and it almost sounded like relief. "You can sleep, love. Just remember to wake up."

All I could do was whimper.