Part 8 (1/2)
”Like?”
”Like that you were angry about losing your mother and that led to all sorts of trouble when you were a teenager. Obviously, your mommy issues have taken you right into adulthood.”
Nina was across the room in a shot, her hand around Phoebe's neck. In a split second, she had her pressed to the wall, her dark eyes on fire. The menace, the hot angry film that glazed them, might have made Phoebe s.h.i.+ver if not for the fact that she'd purposely gone for the jugular, and she'd done it to wipe that smug look off Nina's face. ”Never, ever mention my mother, Phoebe. You don't know jack s.h.i.+t about her or me and my life.”
Phoebe lifted her chin, her mouth a thin line, her hands clenching and unclenching. ”Let. Me. Go.”
”When I'm ready,” Nina squawked, jamming her face into Phoebe's.
”Get ready,” Phoebe squawked back.
Nina's eyes became narrowed slits in her head. ”I can kill you. You get that s.h.i.+t, right?”
Oh, she got it, and she was tired of the threat. Phoebe opened her mouth wide and pretended to yawn in Nina's face. ”You bore me. You get that s.h.i.+t, right?”
”Now, girls,” Sam said, poking his head between the two women. His gorgeous eyes amused, the fresh scent of his aftershave tickling Phoebe's nostrils even while she was pinned to a wall. ”Has it come to this in just the amount of time it takes for me to grab a shower?” He propped a disapproving raven eyebrow upward. Wrapping his fingers around Nina's, he tried to pry them loose from Phoebe's neck with little success. ”Nina? Let go. Please. If you kill Phoebe, I'll be all alone at Vampire Academy. There'll be no one to study my awesome mind-reading skills with. Now let go.”
But Nina didn't budge.
He nudged Nina's shoulder and gave her a cajoling smile. ”C'mon, vampire sensei. Let her go. We have more important things to do than kill Phoebe. We have to find the bad guy who trashed my place. We can't do that if we're too busy cleaning up Phoebe's scattered remains, now can we?”
Phoebe lifted her chin, and though she didn't reach to attempt to pull Nina's hands from her neck, she certainly wasn't going to back down. ”Let go of me.”
”Or?” Nina taunted, smiling sweetly at Sam before snarling in Phoebe's face.
Or she'd knock Nina into next Sunday, taking Sam with her?
THE burst of explosive anger that had sent Nina flying across the room with Sam behind her had Phoebe in a state of panic. Not just because she had no control over the force with which she'd shoved Nina, but due to what had happened to Sam who'd been caught in Phoebe's cross fire as a result.
Just as Nina was about to rush her in bull-like fas.h.i.+on, her eyes caught Sam's body, making her skid to an astonished halt.
Sam was stuck in the wall between his living room and what Phoebe guessed was his bedroom.
He wasn't the kind of stuck that entailed crumbling Sheetrock and cracked paint. Sam was literally wedged inside the wall.
In. The. Wall.
Well, that was that. Her crazy account was officially overdrawn.
For a stunned moment, all she could do was stare at him. His long legs, encased in well-worn denim, were sprawled outward at an odd angle, hovering above the deep wood grain of the floor. The black cowboy boots he wore peeked out from beneath his pant legs, floating in front of him. Her eyes followed the long line of his enormous body to his waist, where he disappeared inside the Sheetrock.
”Sam!” Phoebe yelled, scurrying across the floor to poke her head around the corner of his bedroom. His upper torso floated and twisted Matrix-ish above the deep brown carpeting, his handsome face disbelieving.
Nina was behind her in a flash, her eyes wide in shock. She slapped her hand against the doorframe in disgust. ”For the love of Jesus and all twelve ...”
”It's all fun and games until someone ends up inside a wall, eh, ladies?” Sam regarded them with a crooked smile. ”So what to do, what to do?”
Phoebe was kneeling beside him in an instant, her eyes roving his body, her hands hesitantly suspended over him, afraid to touch him for fear she'd hurt him. ”Does it hurt?”
Sam shook his head. ”Nope. It's sort of like ... like floating. That's the best description I can give it. Like I'm weightless.”
”Should we try to move him?” Phoebe asked Nina.
Nina ran her fingers through her long, wavy dark hair. ”f.u.c.k if I know. Can you move on your own, dude?”
Sam wiggled his fingers and nodded. ”Nothing hurts, I just can't seem to get any leverage to pull myself out.”
Nina moved around Phoebe to stand behind Sam's head, bending at the waist. ”Gimme your hands and I'll pull you.”
Sam reached upward, the strong muscles of his forearms flexing when he latched on to Nina's hands, gripping them.
”Gimme a holla if it hurts, okay?”
”Fire when ready,” Sam instructed.
Nina gave him a hard yank, but it wasn't necessary. Sam slithered through the wall like a knife through soft b.u.t.ter. Nina pulled him to his feet with ease and clapped him on the back with an awestruck expression. ”What the f.u.c.k is next with you two? Invisibility? I don't get it. You can jam your a.s.s in a wall, dude. She can teleport and see her reflection. Swear to Christ, if you two can eat, even one bite, I'll stake you myself. I haven't been a vampire very long, but I ain't never seen s.h.i.+t like this. We need answers, man. I can't help you if we don't get some. Soon.” Her cell rang just then, and she looked at the number with a frown, prowling off to a corner of Sam's bedroom to answer it.
Phoebe's eyes, filled with remorse, found Sam's. ”And the crazy just keeps on coming, huh?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders and smiled, running his broad hand over the unmarred wall with a tentative finger to find it swallowed his hand whole. ”It's a little cool, if you ask me. How many people do you know who can get stuck inside a wall without breaking a sweat?”
Clasping his arm, Phoebe winced. ”I'm sorry you got in the middle of the two of us.”
He cupped her chin, trailing a finger over her bottom lip. ”If we're going to get through this, you two are going to have to work this out. We clearly need our wits about us, and the both of you at each other's throats is nothing but a distraction we can't afford. Wanna tell me what that was about?”
Phoebe fought the urge to nestle against his hand. ”I brought up her mother, a very touchy subject. I get that she's feeling insecure and betrayed because there was this whole world that existed for her father that she had no clue about. I'd be angry if she knew about me, but I didn't know about her, too. I was prepared for that. I wasn't prepared to have her call me names and snarl at me every time I move. I also wasn't prepared to become a vampire. C'est la vie. But you're right. I let myself be goaded. It won't happen again.”
”That was some shove you gave her.”
Phoebe looked at her hands as though they belonged to a stranger. ”No kidding. I'm no candy-a.s.s. I mean, I Zumba and I kickbox. I'm in good physical shape, but that surge of power was two things. Scary and d.a.m.n heady.” She didn't have time to reflect on her incredible strength further because Nina was plowing between the two of them and holding up her phone with a pleased look.
”So good news, Supernatural Barbie and Ken. Help's on the way.”
”You've located the wall whisperer?” Sam quipped.
”Always with the funny, huh, Sammy? No. But it's someone who knows everything there is to know about vampires. He's been around forever.” The doorbell rang just then, and Nina left to go answer it.
Phoebe took a step backward into Sam's bedroom, feeling trapped. She clung to the doorframe, pressing her forehead to it. ”I've decided I don't know if I'm up to another magical mystery tour tonight,” she hedged. ”I need to catch my breath.”
”You don't breathe anymore,” Sam reminded her, brus.h.i.+ng a strand of her hair from her cheek.
”Or eat. Or go to the beach. Or-” Her anxieties were catching up with her.
”Hey. We're in this together, remember? I can't do any of those things anymore, either.” Sam took her hand, cool and dry, and caressed her thumb with his in soothing circles. ”But we won't be in anything but ashes if we don't find out what's going on and why we're different than all the other vampires.”
”Very Rudolph.”