putting aside the Philip argument for now and feeling herself growing almost lost in wonder over whatever it was that Rose needed to show her.
“What is this about?” she asked, following Rose up a questionable-looking flight of stairs. “Where are we?”
“This used to be a warehouse for grain and rice, but it’s been long abandoned. I’m surprised any of these buildings are still here. I’m certain that soon some developer will tear them all down and put up a Starbucks, a Gap, and a Pottery Barn. Soulless bastards.”
Eleisha glanced up at the back of Rose’s head, wondering how she’d feel about Eleisha’s plan to sell her shares of Starbucks in order to purchase the church.
The warehouse was so dark inside, it was difficult to see at all. At the top of the stairs, they emerged into a cavernous room. Eleisha squinted, but she couldn’t see all the way across to the back wall. The effect was unsettling. She felt exposed and in the open, and yet half-blind.
What was she supposed to see here?
Rose took a few steps into the vast, black room. “I don’t think I felt any true hope until after you wrote back to me, and then suddenly . . . so many possibilities seemed real. That there might be others like us. That someone was willing to fight back. I know that I should have waited for you, I shouldn’t have started on my own, but I couldn’t help it.”
Eleisha shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Rose turned to face her. The white streaks in her hair glowed softly. “I started looking. I studied news reports, looking for anything that might give me a clue. And then . . . then I found recent stories about people in Moscow, Russia, being admitted to hospitals with unexplained blood losses. I sent Seamus to Russia.”
Eleisha wavered, almost losing her balance, reaching back for the stair rail. Rose had been looking for other vampires on her own?
“You found . . . Wait,” Eleisha stammered, “the stories were about living people admitted with unexplained blood loss?”
“Yes. The old ones, the ones who existed before us, they didn’t kill to feed as we do. They didn’t have to.”
How could Rose possibly know that? Edward hadn’t known, and Eleisha had been able to put some of the pieces together only in the past month.
“Who?” she demanded. “Who told you that?”
“I did.” A clear masculine voice rang across the cavernous warehouse floor.
Philip climbed out of a taxi back on Jones Street, carrying a long wooden box. He had made one stop—one purchase—before coming back, but now he was feeling anxious to get up to the apartment to watch over Eleisha and Wade.
He didn’t trust Rose, not even after reading her memories. Especially not after reading her memories.
She was nothing like Eleisha or Wade. They both felt things. They liked to please others. Rose did not care to please anyone besides herself. She was cold inside . . . not at all like Eleisha or Wade.
He walked quickly into the apartment building and took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor. Finding the door locked, he knocked.
No one answered.
He knocked again, louder. “Eleisha? It’s me. Open the door.”
Nothing.
Fear began swelling inside him, and he knocked a third time. Then he kicked the door open and looked around wildly, seeing Wade lying on a couch with his eyes closed—but still breathing. Philip saw no one else. He rushed over, dropping his wooden box and shaking Wade.
“Wake up! Where’s Eleisha?”
Wade’s eyelids fluttered briefly, and he murmured something unintelligible, but then his head lolled to the side. Using two fingers, Philip opened one of his eyelids.
Wade was unconscious.
The fear swelling inside Philip exploded into panic, and he looked around. Eleisha was gone, and he had no idea what Rose had done with her.
“Seamus! Where are you?” He strode through the apartment. “You tell me where they are or I swear I’ll . . .”
What? What could he swear? Seamus was already dead.
Panic and indecision flowed through him. He didn’t want to leave Wade lying there helpless with the front door broken, but he had to find Eleisha.
This was his fault. He never should have left them in the first place.
Striding back to the couch, he leaned down, jerked open the wooden box, lifted out a machete, and pulled it from its leather sheath. He wouldn’t leave Wade for long, but he had to start looking for Eleisha.