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Hopefully, she’d find what she was looking for in one of the two bedrooms above the holly bushes She paused beneath theclosest to the front of the house She couldn’t see as inside, but people were rarely silent She listened intently, but there was nothing Not the scrape of a foot, not a single whih the prickly bushes to the second bedrooh to see that this , too, was sealed off tightly It was as if they didn’t want any bit of sunlight to creep in, as ifShe froze as a horrible thought occurred to her What if there weren’t slaves in the house at all? What if it was nothing but vampires?

Her heartbeat kicked into panic mode as she checked her watch Nearly 4:00 PM, and this was Dece She’d actually counted on the early darkness to help her slip away after her little recon But if those were vaet the fucking flock out of there right now

Sid forced herself to ht instinct that was telling her to Run! Now! She kept telling herself she had time Sunset had to be at least half an hour away, and if the vamps were at all like people, they wouldn’t jump up and be ready Didn’t they have to pee like everyone else? Brush their teeth or so? She rolled her eyes and concentrated on the i in the bushes, and how long since the guards hadtoward the front of the house, she considered slipping out through the front yard instead The covered porch where the guards sat had an old railing around the open sides and more of the unruly holly bushes It was just possible she could sneak past the next door That was certainly a better alternative than risking a dash across the wide-open back yard with the guard sitting right there and nothingfast, the shadows growing deeper And the h the front yard, the better it sounded

She shrugged out of her hoodie, put the ball cap in her backpack, then tightened the straps until it lay flush with her back Donning the hoodie once more, she zipped it fully and yanked the hood up over her hair, with her braid tucked inside Then she got down on the ground and crawled along the base of the house until she reached the edge of the porch On this side of the house there was an open lattice along the base of the porch that let her see the underside of it It was dark in there, and it s recently dead, butits ti in there, but realized that the noise she’d h the latticeould alert everyone to her presence She shuddered in relief, then froze when she heard the guards talking

"What tio down?"

"Hell if I know When it’s dark"

"Do ait ’til they co What if they wake up hungry, uard snorted "You rather they hunt you down for not doing the job they paid you for? You don’t want these fuckers co after you, bro Besides, they like the women better"

"Yeah, the women Think they’ll share?"

"You ask too many questions Better you sit there and shut up"

Sid heard all of this with a mixture of fear and triumph She shivered at the idea that so only a few feet away But at the sa she’d been right about the slaves being held here

Now, if only she could persuade the police to do soone She sighed in frustration, then had a sudden thought She’d seen the flash of rage in Aden’s dark eyes when she’d told hiined that He ht not want her involved, but his reaction had been real

On a whie off to Aden He’d probably ignore her, but just h to check it out, or at least have one of his guys do a drive-by

She tucked her phone back into her pocket and looked around The shadows had grown uards had started talking The apart next door towered four stories over the s shadow this late in the afternoon The street lights had flicked on a moment earlier, but they were diht closest to the va a star-shaped bullet hole

It was now or never

Checking her gear one last time, Sid turned off her cell phone and shoved it as deep into her pocket as it would go She drew a long breath, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer to whatever universal forces , then rose into a bent-over crouch and made a dash for it

She nearly made it A few minutes sooner, and she’d have disappeared into the shadoith no one the wiser

But those gods she’d whispered to obviously had a twisted sense of huuard caht her uards, and suddenly she had three aruard nearest to her position, the talkative one who’d asked all the questions, hopped directly over the porch railing and landed only a few feet away froht and caught her in three strides He grabbed the back of her hoodie and twisted, nearly yanking her off her feet

"What you doin’, fucker?" he growled and hauled her back against his thick chest Her hood fell back, revealing her braided hair, and the guard grunted "Well, fuck ed her kicking and fighting back to where his buddies waited at the foot of the stairs

"Fuck" Sid recognized the other guard’s voice, the one who’d been the voice of reason "This ain’t good Where’d she come from?"

"Side of the house there She didn’t see nothin’" Her captor shook her, his big hand gripping her hoodie so that it dug into her throat "You didn’t see nothin’, did you, bitch?"

"I gotta tell the boss--" the reasonable one started to say