“What the hell is going on in here?” I managed.
“I thought that door was locked,” Dan said. He didn’t seem too concerned about it.
“Yeah,” one of his friends said. “I thought so, too. Weird, huh?”
I felt my face flush with anger. “Does Thierry know what you guys are doing in here? Maybe I should go get him.”
“Yeah, you do that, sweetheart,” one of the other guys said. “The thing is, the master told us to do this. That’s why we’re in his office.” He turned to the other. “She’s cute, but kind of dumb. Just the way I like ‘em.”
My eyes widened. “He told you to do this?” I backed up a step and felt someone behind me. I turned around.
“Why did you come back here?” Thierry’s voice was calm.
“You… you told them to do this? How could you?”
“You shouldn’t have seen this.”
“Untie him right now,” I said quietly. “And let him leave.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“Very well, I won’t. He is one of the hunters. We need to extract information from him about their master plan.”
I snorted at that. “From him?”
“You know him?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “Ah, perhaps you are dating him as well.”
I ignored that. “Eugene isn’t one of the main group of hunters. He’s only a wannabe. He could barely hurt a fly, let alone a vampire. He’s harmless.”
“I am! I’m harmless,” Eugene squeaked, but was silenced by Dan cracking his knuckles loud enough for everyone to hear.
Thierry turned his gaze to me. “That does not mean he wouldn’t know anything that could help us.”
“Has he told you anything yet?”
Thierry glanced at Dan.
Dan shook his head. “Nothing useful.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know anything,” I said. “Just stop messing around and let him go. Please.”
Thierry paused before he answered, “No.”
“Why not? Give me one good reason why you won’t let him go when you know bloody well he’s not going to tell you anything that you don’t already know. All you’re doing is scaring him half to death.”
“I don’t need to justify my decisions to you, Sarah. But, very well. I won’t let him go because I refuse to have another human out there who knows the location of this club.”
I frowned so deeply it hurt. “So, if you’re not going to let him go, then what does that mean? You can’t keep him here forever.”
“We shall do what needs to be done to protect our kind.”
I felt cold at his words. “Oh, my God. You’re planning on killing him, aren’t you? You’re no better than the hunters themselves. I won’t stand by and let this happen.”
“Then you had best leave.”
Thierry turned away from me. I couldn’t bare to look at Eugene again. I knew Thierry’s decision was final. If I continued to argue with him, all I’d end up doing was wasting my breath and looking like a whiny brat who didn’t care about the fate of “her kind.”
Whatever the hell that meant.
I left the office and slammed the door behind me, wishing that Thierry’s head had been caught in the middle. I was so furious I couldn’t think straight. I took a moment before I went back out to the club and walked through the crowd directly to the bar.
Zelda smiled at me. “I thought you’d left already.”
“Do you know what’s going on in Thierry’s office?”
“No, what?”
I studied her for a moment. “Never mind.”
“Are you okay?”
I shook my head, feeling stunned and damaged by what I’d just seen. “No. I haven’t been okay for nearly a week. I hate this. I hate all of this. Listen”—I looked up to meet her gaze—“about that cure thing we were talking about earlier, do you have any information for me? Maybe somebody I could talk to about it?”
She stopped mixing the margarita she was working on. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
She appeared to think about it for a moment, then grabbed a napkin that had the Midnight Eclipse logo on it. “Do you have a pen?”
I opened up my little purse and pushed past the two quarters and the shard that lay inside.
“Yeah, here.” I handed one to her.
She scribbled a name and number down. “Last time I heard anything about it, this is the guy you needed to contact. I don’t know if he’s still around, but it’s a start.” She pushed the napkin across the top of the bar to me. I picked it up, folded it, and tucked it into my purse.
“Thank you.”
She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “It’s not that bad. Being a vampire. You’ve hardly given it a chance at all.”
“I just like to have options. Thanks again, Zelda. You’re a real friend.”
I stood up and began making my way toward the exit. I was going to go home and, if I could get any sleep tonight, I was going to sleep on it. I knew that all I’d be able to see when I closed my eyes was Eugene, tied to the chair and looking like a helpless, geeky puppy.
“I know how you must feel,” a cool, soothing voice said. I looked up through my teary, blurred vision. Veronique leaned against an empty nearby table. Her long hair was pushed past one shoulder like a dark waterfall. “It is unfortunate what men do in the name of war.”