J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [90]
Well, not hardly. It was a closet with shelves of yellow-lined legal pads and printer cartridges and boxes of document clips. Maybe on the other side…
Nope. It was just an office. A regular middle-management kind of office with a desk and a swivel chair and file cabinets and a computer.
Okay, no Jerry Bruckheimer/Die Hard here. Try a commercial for Allstate insurance. Or a mortgage company.
“This way,” V said.
They went out through a glass door and down an unmarked white corridor to some stainless-steel double doors. Beyond them was a professional-quality gym, one big enough to host a pro basketball game, a wrestling match, and a volleyball exhibition at the same time. Blue mats were laid out across the glossy honey-colored floor, and there were punching bags hanging from under a stacked row of elevated bleachers.
Big money. Huge. And how had they constructed all this without someone on the human side of things catching on? There must be a lot of vampires. Had to be. Workmen and architects and craftsmen…all able to pass among humans if they wanted to.
The geneticist in her got a serious case of brain strain. If chimpanzees shared ninety-eight percent of the DNA of humans, how close were vampires? And evolutionarily speaking, when did this other species branch off from apes and Homo sapiens? Yeah…wow…she’d give anything to get a crack at their double helix. If they were indeed going to clean her mind before they let her go, medical science was missing out on so much. Especially as they didn’t get cancer and healed so fast.
What an opportunity.
At the far side of the gym they stopped in front of a steel door marked EQUIPMENT/PT ROOM. Inside there were racks and stacks of weapons: An arsenal of martial arts swords and nunchakus. Daggers that were locked in closets. Guns. Throwing stars.
“Dear…God.”
“This is just for training purposes,” V said with a whole lot of meh.
“Then what the hell do you use to fight with?” As all kinds of War of the Worlds scenarios marched through her head, she caught the familiar scent of blood. Well, semi-familiar. There was a different tint to the smell, something spicy, and she remembered the same winelike fragrance when she’d been in the OR with her patient.
Across the way a door marked PHYSICAL THERAPY swung open. The beautiful blond vampire who’d trucked her out of the hospital put his head around the jamb. “Thank God you’re here.”
All Jane’s physician instincts came online as she walked into a tiled room and saw the soles of a pair of shitkickers hanging off a gurney. She pushed ahead of the men, shoving them out of her way so she could get to the guy lying on the table.
It was the one who’d hypnotized her, the one with the yellow eyes and the spectacular hair. And he really needed attention. His left orbital region was crushed inward, the lid so swollen he couldn’t open the thing, that side of his face twice the size it should be. She had a feeling the bone above his eye was collapsed, and so was the one on his cheek.
She put her hand on his shoulder and met him in the eye that was open. “You’re a mess.”
He cracked a weak smile. “You don’t say.”
“But I’m going to fix you.”
“You think you can?”
“No.” She shook her head back and forth. “I know I can.”
She wasn’t a plastic surgeon, but given his healing capabilities, she was confident she could address the issues he had without marring his looks. Assuming she had the right supplies.
The door swung wide again, and Jane froze. Oh, God, it was the giant with the jet-black hair and the black wraparound sunglasses. She’d wondered if she hadn’t dreamed him, but evidently he was real. Totally real. And in charge. He carried himself like he owned everything and everybody in the room and could do away with it all in a swipe of his hand.
He took one look at her next to the guy on the gurney and said, “Tell me this is not what’s happening.