How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,73
“It illuminates the area that it senses movement in.”
He lets the curtain fall and rushes over to us. “Get down to the safe room,” Claude says. “I’d rather we wait it out in there—”
The security alarm begins to sound, telling me there’s someone in the house that should not be here. Either they’ve broken a window or broken the lock on the door. But he’s here. He’s inside this house mere yards from us.
“Get downstairs now,” I say as I pull my gun out and scoop up Hela. I shove her in Aria’s arms and yank her after me since she’s never had any real combat training. Claude slips past me into the hallway and that’s the moment all of the lights go out, dropping us into darkness. The only light now is the sliver coming in from the window at the end of the hallway, and while my eyes can track things a little better than they should be able to, I can’t follow much in the darkness.
“With this fucking alarm I can’t hear shit,” Claude growls, but I’m afraid to tell him that even without the alarm, he won’t hear him until he’s there.
I want to get them down to the safe room, but I know he’s down there. He’s between us and our escape, so we just have to outsmart him somehow. “Don’t take the main stairs. There’s a servant path this way,” I say as I push Aria toward it.
Claude keeps close to me, almost brushing against me as he ushers us toward the stairs and we start down it.
“Hold on,” he whispers, yanking Aria to a stop. “He’s coming this way. Fuck. Is there another path besides the main stairwell?”
I shake my head. “Out the window?”
“We’ll be sitting ducks out in an open space. There’s no way all three of us could outrun him. We need to make it to the safe room and get you inside and the door locked. Marcus assured me he couldn’t break inside.”
“There’s a window for the basement; we could drop down to the first floor and break the window,” I suggest.
Claude nods. “Okay,” he says as he pushes through a bedroom door and shuts it behind us. As I work on opening the window that leads out onto the porch roof and popping the screen out, Claude pushes a dresser in front of the door. Clearly, it won’t stop a vampire, but it’ll alert us when he tries to enter. I push Aria through the open window that leads out onto the porch roof before following her. “Come on, Artie,” I say.
Artie’s convinced he won’t fit through the small opening and whines as he paws at the windowsill.
“Leave the dog,” Claude says.
I pretend he didn’t say such a thing and grab Artie’s collar and pull. Artie begins to balk and with his weight, I’m having trouble holding on. I plead he’ll understand that he has to get through this window or he could die. “Come on, Artie, please.”
“Dammit, Finn, we’re wasting time!” Claude says, but he grabs Artie and shoves him forward. I grab Artie’s paws and with some pulling, we manage to drag Artie onto the roof. “Finn, exactly where is the basement window?”
“It should be right below us here,” Aria says as she peers over the roof.
“We’re going to jump at the same time; I’ll break the window. Aria, you go through first and get in the safe room, got it?”
She nods.
Claude grabs me around the waist as well as Artie. “Jump,” he says as he drops both of us down to the ground. He lets go of me and spins around to the basement window, but what I hadn’t realized is how much smaller this window is than the one we’d just gone through. There’s no way Artie is going to fit through it without putting him on his side and dragging him through, and there’s no way I can ask Claude and Aria to waste time and risk their lives. I dig my fingers into Artie’s coat. “Please run, bud. Please,” I whisper, but I know he won’t. But maybe he’ll be scared of him and will if it comes to that.
Claude breaks the window that rests right against the ground and starts shoving Aria through it into the basement. Then he grabs me, but I need no urging. “Finn, the dog.”
“Just come through,” I say, hating myself but knowing that I can’t risk Claude’s life.