When Stuart stopped gawking at the apartment, he looked at Melanie and Cliff as if he couldn’t quite believe it all.
Melanie winked up at him. “Want me to pinch you so you know you’re not dreaming?”
That managed to spark a smile. “Maybe.”
She grinned. “I thought you might feel more comfortable in the lab if Cliff came with us. Let’s get that done, then I’ll show you your place.”
Cliff accompanied them and kept up a running conversation with Stuart when his unease returned in the infirmary. He seemed like a good guy. Once Melanie led Stuart to the apartment that would officially be his, all his nervousness evaporated. He didn’t even seem to care that he couldn’t leave the apartment without Melanie or one of the others unlocking his door. He was too jazzed about having his own place… and a roomy one at that.
Cliff shook his head with a smile as he sank down on the sofa in his own apartment afterward. It looked like Stuart was going to be a nice addition to sublevel 5.
He heard Melanie call Bastien on the phone and tuned out whatever they said in case their talk turned amorous. Some things he just really didn’t need to hear.
“Hey, Joe,” he called as he picked up the PlayStation controller. “You up for some gaming?” He felt a little guilty that he hadn’t checked on his friend since Stuart’s arrival.
The pause that followed lasted so long Cliff wondered if perhaps Linda had given Joe a strong enough dose of the tranquilizer to knock him out.
“Sure,” Joe responded finally, sounding exhausted. “Okay.”
Sobering, Cliff grabbed the remote and turned on the big-screen television that graced his wall. He’d asked Melanie to test the tranquilizer on him when she’d developed it. He’d been curious to see if it would calm the anxiety that sometimes gripped him and, at the same time, concerned about testing anything on Joe while he was unstable.
While it had definitely eased the anxiety, he hadn’t liked the sluggish way it left him feeling.
“What do you want to play?” he asked Joe.
“How about—”
A thunderous boom drowned out whatever Joe said. The floor shook so violently the sofa shifted underneath Cliff. Chunks of Sheetrock dropped from the ceiling, exposing the titanium it concealed. Dust and smaller pieces floated down like snow.
“What the hell?”
Another boom followed, seeming to rock the whole building. Framed artwork leaped off Cliff’s walls as he clung to the sofa cushions. Books fell off shelves. Shit tumbled out of his kitchen cabinets and littered the countertops and floor. Then the room plunged into darkness.
Seconds later, dimmer reserve lighting he hadn’t even realized his room possessed flickered on as an alarm began to blare.
Wonk! Wonk! Wonk!
“Code red! Code red!” Chris Reordon shouted over the hallway intercom.
Oh shit. Cliff had been around long enough to witness the drills the network periodically ran. And this one—a code red—meant the network was under attack.
Chapter Two
“Hey!”
Emma jumped, then scowled at the woman who’d poked her head in the doorway. “Don’t do that! You scared the crap out of me.”
Grinning unrepentantly, Cynthia strolled inside and sank down in the comfy chair on the other side of Emma’s desk. “Kinda jumpy tonight, aren’t you?”
“Not until you shattered the quiet with your near shout.”
She laughed. “My mom has complained all my life that I was born lacking an indoor voice.”
Emma smiled as she leaned back in her chair, content to take a break. “You leaving early?” Both women worked the night shift at network headquarters, and dawn wasn’t far away.
“Thinkin’ about it. But that’s not why I’m here.” Eyes brightening, she leaned forward. “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“Sebastien Newcombe brought in a new vampire.”
Emma’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yes. A buttload of guards went down to sublevel 5 earlier to beef up security.”
“Todd told you that?”
“No. I had to take some paperwork up to Mr. Reordon’s office and rode back down on the elevator with some of them.” She shook her head. “Damn, they look good when they’re all decked out for war.”
Emma had to agree. Both the network guards and the Immortal Guardians garbed themselves in all black. And there was just something about it—as well as the confidence and general badassness with which they conducted themselves—that made even the least attractive of them freaking hot.
Which was likely what had first attracted Cynthia to Todd.
Emma narrowed her eyes playfully. “You didn’t start dating Todd because he works on sublevel 5 and can