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  LIES IN THE DARK

  LIARS AND VAMPIRES

  BOOK 4

  Robert J. Crane

  with Lauren Harper

  LIES IN THE DARK

  LIARS AND VAMPIRES, BOOK 4

  Robert J. Crane

  with Lauren Harper

  Copyright © 2018 Ostiagard Press

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, please email [email protected].

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Author’s Note

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  Chapter 1

  Witness me, a normal girl, ending a normal day of school.

  Saying goodbye to her totally normal friend with the blue hair—bye, Xandra!—exchanging waves, promising to call later, and ducking out of the sunny, locker-lined halls into the Tampa sunshine.

  The air smells faintly of magnolia blossoms and salt water—also normal. The crowd forms to get on the school buses parked outside. There’s shoving, jockeying for position, boasts, shouts, laughter.

  All totally normal.

  And here I am, normal girl, following my mom’s totally normal order to get on the bus and be home by quarter after three in the afternoon. On the dot.

  But … I’m not really normal.

  Which is why instead of getting on the bus, I gave a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching totes innocuous, totes normal me—

  Then, in defiance of Mom’s orders, I bailed for the parking lot, where a long, black stretch limo and a driver with brilliant green eyes waited for me. The driver opened the door and I ducked inside, where the tinted windows were so dark it practically felt like night.

  “Well, hello.”

  And there, in the shadows, waited my vampire boyfriend.

  This, for me, is totally normal. At least … lately.

  Mill’s hair was slightly ruffled, his blue-grey eyes tired but happy. Today he’d donned a crisp navy suit with a white shirt, and wing-tipped shoes. Sharp. A little more formal than usual, but if he was willing to go out of his way to look good for me, I’d go out of my way to appreciate it.

  “Hi,” I said, a little out of breath, both from the run over and the closeness to Mill.

  He lifted his arm, and I immediately scooched myself across the warm leather seat to slide in.

  Lockwood, our driver, closed the door behind me and made his way toward the front of the limo.

  Mill smiled a sleepy smile at me when I gazed up at him and planted a cold, firm kiss on my lips. Daylight hours were when he usually slept. A tingling rush spread all the way to my fingertips.

  I didn’t think that would ever get old.

  “How was school?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said. We could have been talking about the weather and I would have been happy. As long as I got a few minutes with him, it didn’t really matter.

  “You got out a little later today.”

  “Yeah. Chemistry test was a little more difficult than I expected. Had to rush through the last three questions, but then I got caught up talking to the teacher so …” I shrugged. “Here I am. Late. Done. Yay.”

  The engine hummed to life as Lockwood resumed his seat in the front.

  Mill was drawing little circles on my arm with his thumb, his touch cool and comforting.

  “This just means we have to get you home sooner,” Mill said.

  “Not an issue, sir,” Lockwood said from the front. “I can take a shortcut.”

  I sighed heavily, resting my head on Mill’s shoulder. “When will this torture end?” I asked dramatically, my bottom lip pouting out. I touched his coat. Soft, well made. Probably cost more than my college tuition would.

  Mill brushed my lip with the tip of his finger. “We’ll take whatever time we can, right?”

  “Hey, complaining about parents is a time-honored tradition among teenagers. Gimme a minute to gripe, okay?”

  “I’d rather use our time together more wisely,” he said. “Instead of whine about your parents the whole time.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Did you just say ‘whine’?”

  He looked away from me and out of the dark windows. The street beyond was barely visible, whizzing by as Lockwood drove us along. “I meant … never mind what I meant.”

  I stared at the side of his face. His jaw, strong and prominent, was tight. His shoulders were tense. His eyelids were heavy.

  “You’re crabby,” I told him plainly, returning to the crook of his arm.

  “Am not,” he said, and then softened. “All right, maybe a little. I should be sleeping right now.”

  “But you’d rather be spending time with me?” I said hopefully.

  “I’d rather be spending time with you, yes.” He pressed a small kiss on top of my head.

  “I really wish I wasn’t still grounded,” I said. “I probably will be for the rest of my life. I’ll be lucky if I’m un-grounded before I’m in a nursing home.”

  “Your teeth will fall out before you’re free again.” Mill smirked.

  I shook my head, chuckling. Ever the romantic. And so focused on dental hygiene, these vampires.

  “But seriously … you know we have a security camera on the front porch? She has it all set up to her phone, ready and waiting to catch me coming home even a second late …”

  “You’ve been dodging her just fine for weeks now,” he said. “It’ll all work out.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She’s been in kind of a … mood since we got back from New York. And it’s not improving.”

  “Oh?”

  A tightness formed in my chest. “I guess she heard back from the insurance company. Finally. They’re refusing to pay so far. She thinks we’re going to have to sue them.”

  “Good luck with that,” Mill said. “Insurance companies get a little touchy about arson. Especially an u
nsolved one.”

  “Urgh,” I said. “I wish I could have handed the guilty parties over to the police, but they would have burned up at sunrise when the sunlight came flooding into the jail cell.” Damned vampires. Except for the one who was nuzzling me now.

  Speaking of, he stopped, and I raised my head. Mill was giving me a look.

  “Right, sorry. Complaining. I’ll stop.”

  He squeezed me more tightly against him, the coolness of his body helping to take some of the angry heat away.

  “One day you’ll be free again,” he said. “And we can … hang out properly.” He stiffened. “That is what they call it these days? ‘Hanging out’? Or ‘hooking up,’ or something?”

  “Um …hanging out, yes, that works. But maybe someday we can … yes, hang out properly. At night. When you won’t have to worry about the sun or getting caught by my vengeful mother.”

  “That … would be nice,” Mill said. “Maybe get some … pizza? Netflix and chill?”

  I suppressed a giggle. “I don’t think we’re quite ready for ‘Netflix and chill.’ And pizza? Really? I thought that you said that—”

  But whatever I had thought he had said was lost, because just then, something slammed into the limo and sent me hurtling against the side of the car as glass shattered all around me.

  Chapter 2

  I was upside down when the world stopped tumbling. Or maybe the world was upside down. All I could be sure of was the ringing in my ears and the pounding in my head.

  Light was coming in from somewhere above me, and I could hear muffled shouts, almost as if I was at the end of a long tunnel.

  I blinked, but everything was hazy.

  There was a strong metallic smell in the air, and my fingertips were numb.

  I realized then that they were trapped beneath me.

  Cas … sie …

  Who was calling me? Where was I?

  What had happened?

  “Cassie!”

  I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead. The top of the limo was there, and it was suddenly a lot brighter inside.

  “Mill?”

  He leaned over me, and I felt his hands underneath me, trying to lift me. I was flat against the carpeted floor, its fuzziness tickling my ears, my head resting heavily against it.

  “You’re okay,” he said. Light was shining around us, but Mill was crouched down, avoiding the beams. He looked pale.

  “What happened?” I asked, rising to my knees.

  He brushed his sleeve against his nose. His beautiful suit was ruined. “An accident, I think.” The air held a slightly smoky quality.

  My bones turned to liquid, the blood in my veins to ice. My head just ached through it all.

  “Mr. Mill!” Lockwood’s shouts came through the window separating the driver from the back. “Mr. Mill, are you and Miss Cassandra all right?” He peered through a small vertical gap in the divider.

  “Serves me right for not wearing a seatbelt,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

  “We’re all right,” Mill said. “What hit us?”

  “I—” Lockwood said. “I’m not sure. But it was no traffic collision.”

  The tentative nature of his voice amped up my own worries, sending shivers all down my limbs.

  “Mill,” I said, “the sunlight.”

  I was looking back toward the seats where we had been seated before being flung forward, and saw that the back windows had been broken. Bright, golden sunlight was beaming down right on the spot where Mill had been.

  “Oh, I’ve noticed,” he said, keeping his head down. “Believe me.” He smiled tightly, and I realized that smoky smell was not the engine on fire—

  It was him, catching stray UV rays.

  “This isn’t good,” I said with my usual talent for understatement. “Mill, don’t move. I’ll try and—”

  BOOM.

  My shoulder collided with the side of the limo, pain shooting up the side of my arm.

  There was another clatter of breaking glass, the window right over my shoulder bursting into a hundred pieces.

  I ducked my head, but pebbled glass rained down across my skin on my back, my neck, my shoulders like a hard shower.

  Hot, bright sunlight fell upon my back, and I froze.

  “Mill, move!” I said.

  Mill was way ahead of me.

  He had pulled his knees in, his feet just out of the reach of the beams, throwing himself against the driver’s compartment of the limo. There he huddled, barely out of reach of the light. Sweat slid down his forehead, making him look waxy.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I can stay here like this until—”

  The moonroof overhead shattered, glittering pebbles of glass tumbling down into the limo. I dodged away as it fell, allowing even more brilliant light inside.

  The shafts of light cornered Mill up against the back of Lockwood’s seat. His knees were now pulled up to his chest, his head bent low.

  “Don’t … move …” I told him, my voice shaking.

  “I have to cover myself,” he said, his lips tight. He put his hands up, carefully avoiding a stray beam that shone right over his head as he slipped off his jacket and draped it over his head like a shawl.

  My heartbeat was wild inside my ears, inside my head, against my chest. This was not good.

  Someone knew that there was a vampire inside this limo.

  I crawled back through the limo, scattering safety glass as I went, my hands trembling.

  I checked myself; no blood. I didn’t need to go back to the hospital. If anything was broken, I couldn’t feel it. But the adrenaline was probably pumping too hard, too fast, for me to know if I was injured or if my body was just covering it up.

  “Wait here,” I said, casting a look over my shoulder as I tugged the handle.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, “I’ll just play sunlight Twister until you get back. No big deal.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, and threw my weight against the door farthest away from Mill, grasping the handle with weak hands. It popped open, and I tumbled out of the limo and onto the street.

  It only took me a second to figure out where we were. Only two blocks from my house, off the main drag. The sun was hot and bright overhead, making me squint my stinging eyes up against it. Beads of sweat were already working their way down the back of my neck, either from the nervousness and exertion or … maybe just because it was Florida in May.

  I turned to look at the limo. Dents covered the black metal as if it had been pierced with bullets. Almost every window was broken. The front grill was bent inward as if we had struck a tree.

  Had we been in a battle I’d somehow missed? You know, during the nuzzling? Because that was good nuzzling, but it felt like I would have noticed or heard someone shooting up my car. How long had I been unconscious?

  We were right in the middle of the street. Houses on either side sat quiet, undisturbed by whatever was happening to us. There were no other cars around, no obvious reason for the severe amount of damage to the vehicle.

  What. The. Hell.

  I heard another cry and wheeled around. Lockwood was on the other side of the limo, shouting something intelligible. He jumped into the air and leapt over the roof, waving his hands in the air.

  I saw why.

  Dozens of little lights, no bigger than my knuckles, were swirling in the air around him. They were bright, flashy colors, like disembodied Christmas lights in flight. I might have probably found them beautiful if they hadn’t been darting around Lockwood like a swarm of militant fireflies.

  Panic flared as another group of little lights appeared around the side of the limo and came flying at me. I ducked, purely out of instinct, and they slammed into the side of the limo, knocking it aside. The crash they made was as loud as if a car had struck the limo; it physically moved across the pavement a few feet.

  I stood, gaping.

  “Uh, Lockwood?” I asked. “Did you fail to renew your vehicle registrat
ion with supernatural Uber or something? Cuz I’m pretty sure we’re being attacked by psychotic, miniature stars.”

  The lights pulled themselves from the car’s side panel, buzzed in the air for a second—

  —then hurtled toward me.

  “Oh, crud.”

  I tried to dive out of the way, but I was way too slow. They didn’t move quite at the speed of light—which was ironic given that they were, uh, lights—but they were blazing fast and a few of them met their mark.

  They hit like dulled bullets, and I went flying from the impact, sprawling on the ground.

  “Ow.” Pain like pin pricks covered my exposed arms where they’d struck. Little beads of blood bloomed on my arms like polka dots. Aches spread where I’d landed, and my vision swayed, head spinning.

  I tried to push myself away from them, crawling on hands and knees around the other side of the limo. Each impact on my knees stung, but not nearly as much as those things had when they’d struck.

  The lights followed, shimmering above my head, dancing as if taunting me. A faint tinkling sound like crystal or wind chimes seemed to resonate from them. Giving up on getting away, I swatted at the air, trying to shoo them. “Get lost, you glittery bastards! Go light up someone’s roof for the holidays—seven months from now! Shoo!”

  “Miss Cassandra!”

  Lockwood appeared around the side of the limo, his typically pristine suit covered in small slashes. He looked like he had gotten into a fight with a paper shredder. And maybe lost.

  “Lockwood!” I said, wincing as another tiny light managed to sting me, drawing more blood. “What are these things?”

  He dashed across the distance to me, the glass beneath his shoes cracking as he ran.

  The little lights flickered as he approached, and after some aggressive waving of his hands, he chased them off down the street a ways before they ascended into the sky, disappearing in the bright sunlight.

  Lockwood returned to me, both of us panting as he helped me back to my feet.

  “Okay, level with me,” I said. “Is this a Florida thing I’m not familiar with? Like nuclear mosquitos, maybe?” I cringed in pain. They certainly seemed to have bitten.