“I like it when they fight,” the man holding her said with a laugh, and then stiffened, a gurgling sound coming from his throat. Allie hardly noticed that, though, or the fact that she was suddenly free. Her wide-eyed gaze was fixed on the man who had suddenly appeared behind Liam’s captor and caught him around the neck. Liam was immediately dropped as the grubby man who had grabbed him turned to confront his own attacker.

“Liam!” Allie rushed to his side and helped the bewildered, but unharmed, boy up and out of the way of the battling men. She then urged him around her own captor and the man he was struggling with and toward the door.

Allie recognized their rescuers as the “detectives” from the hospital, but had no idea what was going on. She’d assumed on first seeing them that they were members of the vampire group that had been hunting her and Liam. But if that was the case, who were the two men who had just tried to grab them? And just how many damned vampires were out there? Allie had assumed, or at least hoped, that there was just the one group—the head vampire who had turned Stella and his minions. But obviously that wasn’t the case. The problem was she had no idea what the case was. She wasn’t willing to stop and ask questions, however. Her main concern was getting Liam out of there and to safety.

Tightly gripping the boy’s hand, Allie hustled him out of the apartment and rushed him up the hall as fast as she could. At her strongest, Liam could have outrun her easily. Weak as she presently was, and weighed down by the Go bags, she was just holding him back, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was moving as quickly as she could.

They had just turned the corner out of the hallway and into the foyer when Allie was grabbed from behind again and dragged back around the corner they’d just rounded. This time she was caught around the waist and held more gently, her mouth covered so she couldn’t scream. Even so, her panic was enough that she nearly didn’t hear the man holding her whisper, “Their friends are out there. Look.”

Blinking as his words registered, Allie peered around the corner, surprised when he allowed it. She stared silently at the three vehicles that had pulled up in front of her building. Men were piling out of them and moving toward the entry doors. They all looked grubby and most had long hair like the men who had first grabbed her and Liam in her apartment. She also noticed that their eyes were glowing slightly in the night as if reflecting the light like a cat’s.

“Is there a back door in this building?”