A Shade of Vampire 8: A Shade of Novak by Bella Forrest

close.
    “Sorry,” one of them muttered, as he ran a finger over the floor number we had already pressed.
    The elevator being small, I huddled closer to Kristal and looked down at the floor. I always felt awkward standing in elevators with strangers.
    The ding sounded once we arrived at level seven and the doors opened. The two men’s footsteps followed behind us. When we stopped outside the door, I gripped Kristal’s hand before she could open the door with her keys. We stayed standing still, waiting for the footsteps to pass.
    They got fainter as they disappeared down the corridor. I breathed out. I released Kristal’s hand and she opened the door.
    “You sure are jittery tonight,” Kristal said as she locked the door behind us.
    The television blared from the living room. We left our shoes by the doorway and I sat down on the couch next to the boys, who were munching on popcorn and yelling at the screen. Kristal went into the kitchen and returned later with some fruit tea for us.
    “Agh, I can’t take any more of this,” she said after about two minutes of trying to watch their match. “Let’s go into my room.”
    I followed her and we changed into our pajamas. Then we went into her bathroom. Kristal decided to take a shower while I perched on the counter, removing my smoky eyes. As I was wiping off the last smudge of mascara, my heart leapt into my throat as a crash filled the apartment, followed by yells.
    “What the—”
    Kristal leapt out of the shower and, flinging on a bathrobe, raced out of the room after me.
    Jake and Ben lay flat on the floor with gags in their mouths, struggling against two tall figures wearing long black leather cloaks. Two more men stood standing near the TV, facing Kristal and I. All four men wore balaclavas that covered everything but their eyes.
    But those eyes… they were several shades more vivid than they should have been. And the skin surrounding them was far too pallid to be that of a human.
    I was too stunned to even scream, though Kristal managed to. As soon as she opened her mouth, the two men launched forward. One grabbed Kristal, stuffed a gag in her mouth, and wrestled her to the ground, while another blue-eyed man chased after me. I sprinted into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer as the vampire entered.
    The vampire extended his claws.
    “You want to play with knives?” he said. “I can play that game.”
    As he stepped closer, I waved the knife in front of me and backed up against the kitchen counter. Reaching out, I gripped the kettle and, thanking God that there was water left over in it, chucked it over him.
    He cried out as the boiling water splashed against his face. It gave me a few seconds to leap over the counter and race back out of the kitchen. I ran for the front door, hoping to make it into the corridor where I could scream for help, but I didn’t make it that far. The vampire who had wrestled Kristal to the ground grabbed hold of me and tripped me up.
    The blue-eyed vampire reentered the living room, his chest heaving with rage. He gripped my neck and pushed me down to my knees.
    “Kristoff,” he said, breathing heavily. “Take the Novak boy. I’ll take the girl. We may as well bring those two along with us too.” He gestured toward Jake and Kristal. “Christian and Sebastian—you bring them. Make sure that none of them scream.”
    I yelled, but he gagged me. He pushed me flat against the ground, face down, and the next thing I knew, there was a loud thud against my skull and all faded to black.

Chapter 10: Sofia
    D erek and I had stayed up with Eli all night, helping him pore over maps in his study. We had made mark upon mark on the maps and taken copious notes, but we’d completely failed to make any sense of the targets.
    “I’m just not seeing anything,” Eli muttered, rubbing his temples.
    “Maybe that’s because there is no pattern.” I sighed. “We’re trying too hard to see something that’s not there because