The information she found said this should be a twenty-two-hour drive, and she saw no reason to make it much faster than that. She had five days after all. Still, Cadence was used to going faster than humans, and she pulled into Salt Lake City around midnight, well ahead of the time she should have arrived by people standards.
She’d already decided she would spend the night there and scoped out an unassuming motel on the outskirts of town. She wanted a place that took cash, even though she had a credit card with her just in case of emergencies. If she used it, Aaron could find her. As it was, he had no other way of getting a location on her—except for that unexplainable ability they both had to find each other that she had used to locate him in Ireland. That was something she couldn’t find a way to prevent.
By the time she was in her moderately disgusting room, she was wiped out. She’d driven the whole way with very few breaks, only stopping once to use the bathroom and grab a bite to eat. Even though the bed looked a bit abused, she intended to zonk out on top of the bedspread fully clothed so she could be on her way first thing in the morning.
She’d just closed her eyes when a commotion outside of her room in the parking lot caught her attention. Though she wasn’t certain at first what she was hearing, the sounds seemed awfully familiar. “Dammit,” she muttered, pulling herself up off of the not-so-comfortable mattress and grabbing her gun off of the table next to the bed.
Throwing off multiple locks, she pulled open the door just in time to see a man running across the parking lot, headed back toward the rooms from the overflowing dumpsters. Behind him, and closing in quickly, came a streak of black and gray, and Cadence knew immediately the squat man with the red hair and beard was not going to make it if she didn’t intervene.
The Vampire looked desperate. Rather than clinging to the shadows, he had apparently used the refuse for refuge and was now brazen enough to attack in a semi-well-lit parking lot. Though this wasn’t exactly the best part of town and chances were anyone who saw him would assume he was just a thug and not a bloodsucker, the fact that he had chosen this method to strike seemed a bit unusual to Cadence. As soon as the Vampire saw her step out of the motel room, he pulled up, his contorted face morphing back into a more human form.
It was an “oh shit” moment if Cadence had ever seen one.
She didn’t have any sympathy or patience. Once she had a clean shot, she took it, and this Vampire let out the unmistakable shriek they almost all did as it turned to ashes before hitting the ground.
The silencer had kept most of the motel’s inhabitants from realizing a shot had been fired, but the scream drew people to the windows, and Cadence hustled to put her gun in the back of her pants to hide it from anyone who might think the scream police-worthy.
Even the man who was being chased didn’t seem to realize what she’d done. As he turned to look over his shoulder and realized he was no longer prey, he pulled up and spun around, as if he wasn’t sure where his attacker might be hiding.
“Hey, keep it down!” Cadence yelled at him. “Some of us are trying to sleep. You wanna scream, do it somewhere else.”
Staring at her with panic in his eyes and adrenaline in his veins, he stammered, “But there was something… chasing me. From the trash pile.”
“Whatever, man. All I saw was you running across the parking lot screaming like a crazy person.”
“I didn’t scream…” he insisted, but by then the few other people who had dared to crack their doors were telling him to keep it down, and with one last glimpse around, he headed back to his room.
Stepping into her own room, Cadence re-locked the door and put her weapon back on the table. She tossed herself back onto the bed and stared at the off-white, water stained ceiling. “Great, now I’m awake,” she mumbled. Vampires always had a way of keeping a person up at night.
This one was strange, though. She wondered if it had anything to do with the blue moon. She knew full moons tended to bring the crazy out in everyone and everything; maybe this particular moon could make everyone act even crazier. It seemed like a valid possibility, and she decided that she would check with Christian tomorrow to see if he had any information. In the meantime, she knew she had better get some sleep. She hadn’t talked to Aaron at all that day, and the last thing she needed was to have him play twenty questions while she was hyped up and get her to admit she’d left headquarters. Perhaps she should try counting Vampires as they leaped over dumpsters.
The next morning, she awoke with a kink in her neck and an IAC full of messages. She hadn’t even bothered to look at the bathroom the night before, and as she stumbled toward the toilet, she realized that had been a good idea. “If a person has to squat above the toilet to keep from getting Hepatitis, is that an automatic zero stars rating on Travelocity?” she wondered aloud.
A glance in the direction of the shower was enough assurance that she would stay cleaner avoiding it. Even washing her hands and splashing some water on her face seemed counterproductive. “Deodorant and dry shampoo it is.”
Back on the road by 8:00 AM, she figured she’d be in Reno by 1:00 at the latest. The scenery was gorgeous, so different than what she was used to in Iowa, and she stopped in a small town to grab a donut and drive past some historic homes.
