Essence (Nectar 3)

The beverage she was drinking didn’t taste great. It tasted like watery grape juice, and evidently it wasn’t concentrated enough to keep the withdrawals from starting but Tristan would be there the following day.

She went to bed ignoring the itching, anxious to have him back.~~~“Kyla! Wake up!”

“Sasha?”

“We have to get into the safe room. Now, quick!”

Kyla jumped out of bed.

“What happened?”

“Hurry!”

Kyla grabbed her robe and put it on and got the dagger into her pocket. She fumbled into her bag for the satellite phone.

“We don’t have time!”

“I need this!” Kyla grabbed the phone and put it in her pocket with the dagger.

Sasha grabbed her hand and they ran downstairs together. There were lights outside, big lights on the beach. Two or three watercraft were almost to the shore.

Sasha and Kyla got to the basement, in through the office closet, where Kyle was asleep in the bed in the safe room. Sasha woke him and took them both through a doorway into a long dark hallway lit only by her flashlight. Kyla didn’t feel good. In fact, she started to feel a strong sense of impending doom.Sasha had a flashlight lit and then another door opened and Kyla’s heart nearly stopped when she realized they were inside a cave. A cave! It had stone walls like the tunnel in her dream.

The alleyway with the stone walls and her bloody hands outside the hotel in Phoenix wasn’t the tunnel from her dreams.

Was this?

“Oh God, no! We have to get out of here!”

“It’s okay. This leads to our true safe room. There’s a weapons cache, food, and a way out into the deep part of the forest so we can get out of here.”

“My phone can summon a plane for us, a boat. I can call Tristan.”

“Good,” Sasha said, “Call him first.”

“Who’s here? Who is that?”

“I don’t know but I know it’s not good. Almost no one is here but those who are on watch haven’t reported anything odd. They’re either taken out or they’re part of this.”

“Shit.”

They were in a big open room with tables and chairs and a hallway leading off.

“There are bathroom facilities, food and medical supplies, sleeping areas that way. There’s also a cave exit that’s not too far.” Sasha pointed to the left hall, “Kitchen, weapons cache, meeting rooms, and a longer way out that way,” she pointed to the right.

“Kyle,” Sasha said, while pulling navy blue sweatshirts and sweatpants out of the cupboard as well as white running shoes; there was a shelf of them.

Kyle’s attention snapped to Sasha’s face.

“Get into these,” She told them, “If anything happens to me, you take care of your sister, okay? Get her to Tristan. And if Tristan can’t get you to me afterwards, please track down Dr. Levi in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He will carry on with my work, okay?”

“Yes,” Kyle answered blankly.

“Why would anything happen to you?” Kyla asked.

“Because you two are going out there and getting on a plane. I’m staying here. I’m going back to my place to see who they are, find out what they want. Figure out if there’s someone on my team dead or if someone’s double-crossed us.”

“Why won’t you come with us? Figure that out later.”

“Sorry, Kyla. I need to do this. Follow me,” She headed into a room filled with shelves that held guns. She passed two to Kyla.

“Keep those until he’s lucid and give him one. Point and shoot if you need to. A vamp needs a lethal shot or he won’t be down too long. Depending on how old he is will dictate how long before he can heal. A vampire that’s royal and an elder can handle bullet wounds unless they’re right to the heart or the brain or big enough to blow out a vital organ. Shoot to kill, if you have to shoot. Make it count, Kyla.”

“But…” Kyla started.

Sasha shook her head firmly, “Tristan needs you to be safe. So do I. Because I care, Kyla, and frankly because without you Tristan will be nothing and we need him. I’m going to go out the short way and figure out who they are. If we separate, you both have a chance to get off this island safely. Go the long way. Go; quick.”

“But without you, Kyle will go back into a coma. You can’t separate.”

She shook her head, “No. I talked to some experts. Kyle felt my presence; that’s why that happened. If I wasn’t around him, he’d have gotten over it after a few weeks. We don’t have the same bond you two have.”

Kyla believed that. She’d started getting better after withdrawal in Victoria after a few days.

“He would’ve woke up from that coma. He doesn’t need me. Hurry. Go that way,” she pointed to the hallway, “Kyle, take your sister. Keep her safe. Go fast.” Sasha passed him the flashlight and two bottles of water, which Kyle put into his jacket pockets, “Don’t stop until you are at the end of the tunnel and then be careful. It’s dense but there’s a path from the mouth of the tunnel that leads to a dock at the water down a ways.