In Blood We Trust Read Online Free PDF Page B

sank deep, enough to make me shiver.
    But I didn’t think it was just Chaplin’s comments that did it.
    Out of instinct, I turned round, feeling extra watched.
    The vampires had come to fix their stares on me—blank, cryptic gazes that almost made me feel . . .
    As if I were 562 and worthy of some dedicated attention, too?
    One vampire, a guy with stubble on his pretty-boy face and long, straight blond hair that came to his neck, smiled at me just before they all went back to watching our origin.
    I didn’t like that smile.
    â€œWhy’re they being weirder than vampires usually are?” I whispered to Chaplin.
    If a dog could shrug, that was what he did. They’re guarding. But if I didn’t know any better, I would even say they are . . . paying adoration.
    From the way Chaplin uttered it, I knew he’d noticed how that vampire had smiled at me, too.
    What was going on?
    There have been others who have come here, Chaplin added. Only those who know that we kept 562 alive. In and out, never saying a word, only watching the origin.
    â€œDo they think 562’s going to break out of this funk or something?”
    As the blond vampire spoke, I startled, right along with Chaplin.
    â€œIt’s doubtful that 562 will break out of anything, Mariah.”
    And he gave me another strange look that sent more chills down my spine, mostly because I could’ve sworn that he meant something that I just couldn’t understand.
    Not at that second, anyway.

4
    Gabriel
    A s Gabriel moved through the asylum halls, flickering torches lined the way, much like the fellow monsters who stepped aside, allowing him to pass.
    He didn’t really look at them, not when it took all his energy to steady the chaos that was still winding through his body from his time with Mariah.
    His blood was literally bubbling, his fangs scraping his bottom lip even now, so far away from her, his sight a dull red as he went toward the cells where he was to meet the other vampires for their nightly round of questioning prisoners.
    Red. He could barely see around it. In his mind’s eye, he could picture Mariah lying in bed, her hair knifed in a short line to her jaw, the color of it as red as his appetite. Her back smooth and pale as he went to touch it. Her eyes a brighter green than usual after she’d started to turn into the monster he always seemed to bring out in her.
    He’d wanted Mariah’s blood so badly, and he’d taken it like a thief. But he’d paid when his tongue had gone numb from the taste of her.
    Was it some sort of cosmic punishment? Or was it nature’s way of keeping all the vampires here from feasting on Mariah and her 562 blood?
    He was so consumed by his remaining hunger for her—for her old blood as he remembered it during better times—that he came around a corner, nearly banging into the oldster.
    Gabriel steadied the man, who’d found a long-sleeved white top and black pants somewhere in GBVille. His whiskers were longer than usual, making his stubble more into a beard these days. His posture was bent, echoing the slight hunch of his body when it was in were-scorpion state.
    â€œDang, Gabriel,” the old guy said, immediately moving aside just as fast as the other monsters had done when they’d seen Gabriel glowering his way down the halls.
    Gabriel sensed how the oldster’s pulse had picked up, beating in that clean, unblocked cadence that distinguished the Badlanders from any polluted urban hubite.
    â€œOldster,” Gabriel said by way of greeting.
    But the other man just kept looking him up and down. “Looking a little rough tonight, aren’t ya?”
    He even said it with a certain amount of discomfort, but that was how it’d been lately between Gabriel and the Badlanders—the oldster, Hana, Pucci, and even Chaplin. And though the oldster didn’t have to say another thing about it, Gabriel had the feeling that the man knew