I slowly opened my eyes and looked back up at the window we’d just jumped out of. “I think so.” He let go of my legs, and I slid off of his back. The fall must have thrown off my equilibrium or something because I felt off balance and dizzy. I started to tip sideways and Laylen caught me by the shoulder.

“What? Have you never jumped out of a window before?” He joked.

I shook my head, and we started off across the dark parking lot.

“So where exactly are we going?” I asked

“To a place that’s just up the road a little ways,” he replied.

“So we’re walking there then?” I asked, glancing up at the flickering lamppost as I walked by it.

He nodded. “It’s not very far. Plus, my car got damaged during Aislin’s and my little escape from the Death Walkers, so driving really isn’t an option.” I looked around at the ominous-looking, graffiti-decorated buildings, the shadowed cars dotting the parking lot, and the giant garbage cans towering not too far away from us. All were perfect places for someone—or something to hide. And, okay, I know I made the choice to come out here, but now that I actually was, warnings were popping up all over in my head. And now that I thought about it, no one had ever said how high of a chance it was that Stephan and/or the Death Walkers would show up.

“Are we safe?” I asked Laylen as we reached the sidewalk that bordered the dark street.

“Hmm…Define safe,” he said, fiddling with his lip ring.

I gaped at him. “What? So we’re not safe?”

“Gemma, I already warned you it might be dangerous,” he reminded me.

I shielded my eyes with my hand as a car driving by blinded me with its headlights. “Yeah, I know, but….

What are the odds of us running into a Death Walker?”

Out here?” he asked, and I nodded. “Probably lower than when we went into the Black Dungeon.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and moved to the side as a homeless man, pushing a cart, passed by us.

“Well, what about the place we’re going to?” I asked. “What are the odds of us running into one there?”

“Pretty low,” he said.

“Well, what kind of place are we going to exactly?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “The truth?” I gave him a ‘duh’ look, but wasn’t sure if he could see it through the darkness. “Always,” I answered.

“A place where vampires hang out,” he replied.

Maybe I should have asked this question beforehand, because going into a place where vampires hung out seemed kind of sketchy. “But isn’t there going to be a problem with me going in there since I’m human?” Even Laylen himself had told me that other vampires—non-Keeper Vampires—were not really good. And then there was the whole humans-letting-vampires-bite-them thing that I’d seen going on back when we’d been at the Black Dungeon.

He shook his head and answered, “There’ll be other humans there. It’ll be like at the Black Dungeon, when you saw that man getting bit.”

I tried not to freak out. “So…There’ll be a bunch of humans standing around, getting bit by vampires because they want to…” stimulate their desires. Well, that idea was comforting. How was I supposed to walk into a room like that, when I couldn’t even talk about it aloud?

“You’ll be fine. Just make sure you stay by me at all times,” he said, sounding just like Alex.

“Well, what are we going to do when we get to this place,” I asked, inching closer to Laylen as a door to a bar swung open and a group of men stumbled outside, talking rowdily.

“We’re going to go see if we can talk to Vladislav,” he told me. And when I gave him a confused look, explained further. “He’s a vampire…a very important vampire.”

Even though the air was hot, I shivered. An important vampire. What did that mean? Well, I got that it meant he was important— duh—but what did it require to be considered important in the vampire world.

I hated to even think about it.

We veered off to the right, away from the road. The already dark atmosphere, shifted even darker. There were no lampposts and no lights on in any of the broken down buildings.

“Laylen, are you sure this is the right way?” I asked in a quiet voice. “There’s nothing here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He swung his arm around my shoulder, all buddy buddy, which was the strangest thing ever. “Trust me.”

And trust him I did, letting him lead me deeper into the shadows of the night, making me grow so edgy that I just about turned around and ran back. Of course, since it was almost pitch black, and I could hardly see a thing, I’d have probably just ended up getting lost if did.

“Alright,” Laylen muttered to himself as we came to a stop in front of a garage door belonging to an old metal warehouse.

“So this is the place?” I asked uneasily.

He nodded. “This is the place.”

I glanced at the closed metal garage door. “So how do we get inside?”

“Like this.” He turned around, guiding me with him, and he looked up at a camera perched on the wall above us. “Smile for the camera.”

Okay… I highly doubted that whoever was watching the surveillance screen could actually see us—it was way too dark. Then again…I squinted up at Laylen.

Did vampires have night vision or something?

I opened my mouth to ask him if he did, but I was cut off by the roar of the garage door lifting to life as it moved up from the ground. I was surprised to find that, on the other side of it, there was nothing. And I me a n nothing, other than a concrete floor and a stairway leading up to a second floor, which also appeared to be bare.

“Umm…Where is everyone?” I asked.

Not answering, Laylen pulled me along with him as he stepped inside the warehouse. I was abruptly smacked in the face by an invisible wall of cold air. It was as if we’d walked into a freezer, and right away, I started to shiver, my low tolerance for the cold kicking into full force. Plus, I was wearing shorts and a tank top, so that didn’t help.

“Are you cold?” Laylen asked. Then he shook his head. “Stupid question. Of course, you’re cold. It’s barely forty degrees in here.”

“Why is-s it so c-cold?” I chattered.

“It’s a vampire thing,” he explained as he started to slip off the long-sleeved black thermal shirt he was wearing.

“What are you doing?” I asked, taken aback. Why was he taking off his clothes?

He wasn’t, though. He had a black t-shirt on underneath it, and he handed the one he’d taken off to me. “Put this on. It might help a little.” I slipped his shirt on, smelling a hint of cologne lingering in the fabric. Putting it on did help a little, but the bottom of my legs were still exposed, and goose bumps spotted my skin. “So now what do we do?” I asked.

He nodded to the stairs. “We go upstairs.” He took me by the hand, and we made our way up the metal stairway, which shook with every step we took. The air sank colder the higher we got, which didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t warm air supposed to rise?

At the top of the stairs, there was a door; a red door

—the color of blood—which seemed like an omen or something. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stay warm as Laylen opened the blood-red door.

Instantly, the smells of smoke, rust, and sweat swirled all around me.

“Stay close to me,” Laylen whispered, and we stepped through the doorway and out onto a balcony.

I had no problem with staying close to him—I was already clinging to him like a scared little child.

Below the balcony, a room opened up packed with tables, chairs, and lots and lots of people. Black Angel’s, “Young Men Dead,” was blasting through the speakers. The lights were low, and the air was heavy with smoke.

We started to make our way down the stairs, the metal railing pressing cold against my skin as I held on to it. Looking down at the room, I didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, like I’d expected to. People were just sitting at tables, drinking, talking, and smoking. But as we got closer, I realized that most of the crystal glasses were filled with a deep red liquid, which I assumed was blood.