Delinquents Turned Fugitives - Ann Denton Page 0,127

staying open. I can hardly focus on the one thing Andros told me to do. Told me I must do if I ever got captured.

I turned my palm to face behind me and turned on my microwaves. I blasted them at full power—right at Muller’s dick.

I couldn’t even revel in his screech of terror because his hand clenched my neck even harder, wrenching it to the side … I felt my limbs go limp. I started to fall forward when I felt a whoosh.

I was on the stairs. And there was a knife at my neck. “You thought you were so clever, setting me up. But now, guess what? I’ve got nothing to lose. Which means I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to you.”

Muller. The detective had me in a chokehold and had a knife at my neck. My mind raced as he dragged me backward down the stairs.

“Jordan!” I screeched, calling for the vampire who was still twitching and writhing on the ground.

His head flashed up.

“Fresh blood,” I gasped.

And suddenly, a vampire loomed over Muller and me, his fangs dripping poisoned blood.

I felt Muller stiffen behind me and I felt something wet against my ass. Muller had pissed himself.

Jordan wrenched the detective away, and I heard Malcolm yell, “Shakespeare!” at the same moment, but I couldn’t respond—couldn’t do anything. Jordan’s movement had made Muller slice right through my neck and all I could see was a fountain of blood erupting from my own neck.

A huge hand latched onto me, and Andros’ voice growled in my ear. “Ignore everything I fucking told you. Don’t make him kill you. Don’t! I can’t watch it again,” his voice cracked.

Whoosh.

Fingers tightened around my neck and the business end of a knife pressed into my jugular.

A strange sense of déjà vu hit me as I realized Muller was attacking me. My first instinct was to burn him. But then I remembered what Andros had told me.

Get him to kill you.

The fastest way to ensure that Muller killed me … was summoning my stepfather. “Claude,” I gasped.

The ghost materialized a second later, his blue eyes gleaming with wrath as if he could hear my voice and realized I’d summoned him.

Immediately, I coated my body in shadow so that Claude wouldn’t have the chance to possess me himself.

“Fuck no—” Muller started to wrench himself away from me when he realized what was happening, but I watched Claude slide easily into his body. I knew the second that my stepfather had taken control because Muller’s voice changed. It got breathier.

“I always knew you had a taste for pain, little Hayley,” Claude whispered using Muller’s lips. The edge of the knife slid down from my neck and stabbed just below my collarbone where I could see it.

I gasped.

Muller chuckled, the sick, twisted chuckle that my stepfather had always had. “Such wasted potential.”

Malcolm’s voice floated down the stairs as he realized what was happening. “Shakespeare!”

I didn’t look up at him because I didn’t want to see the fear on his face. I couldn’t let fear taint my determination. If I could get rid of Muller and Claude somehow, then they still had half the serum. They could still get to Matthew and get him out.

“Go on!” I yelled up the stairs.

Yelling earned me a knife twist and Muller’s hand shoved the knife back up under my chin. “Stay back!” he called, stepping carefully backward, down the steps. He pulled me with him, ignoring how I stumbled a bit.

“Claude’s here!” I roared the warning, so my guys would know.

“Claude?” Callum’s tone was shocked.

A rush of wind hit my face and Muller was ripped away.

I turned, gasping, hand coming up to clutch my chest wound. I saw Callum holding Muller aloft, the detective’s feet dangling in midair. Callum glanced over at me. “This isn’t Claude King.”

“Claude’s a ghost. He’s possessing that man.”

Callum squeezed Muller and I watched in rapt fascination as Claude popped out of his body, backing away. As soon as Muller’s mind was his own again, he slashed at Callum with the knife. He was wild and uncoordinated and destined to lose.

Until he got a lucky shot—he swiped across Callum’s neck and the vampire gave a gasp, releasing Muller and stumbling slightly.

Shock made me freeze.

But it wasn’t just shock that Muller had attacked Callum—it was shock that when he did, Claude had flickered.

Holy fuck.

Holy fucking hell.

My eyes darted between the two men, if they could be called that any longer. One was a vampire and one