The Meridian Gamble Read Free Page B

good fortune to stumble across Saga some day. She
would torture her the same way the vampires abused the Luminos, perhaps tie
dynamite around her neck and blow her sky high, just to keep her away from this
bastard of a man.
    “You’re still hung up on her? I
would have thought you’d have given up by now.”
    “Not quite yet,” he said, taking a
step.
    “Well, it’s too bad, because she’s
given up on you. I’m sorry to say, Saga has moved on. Her name is Emiline now,
and she lives in Toronto. In fact, she’s become one of our top assassins. But
if you don’t believe me, I’m sure she’d be willing to plunge a knife in your
heart to convince you.”
    There was no Emiline, of course. Abigail
only hoped he would waste his time looking for a phantom after she was gone.
    A slight look of concern trembled
across his face, and she could tell she had caught him off-guard. But quickly,
his features became placid once more.
    Adam smiled.
    “If that were true, I’d be the one
to hand her a blade.”
    She laughed at how easily he saw
through her ruse. But looking at him, Abigail suddenly realized something; he
didn’t care about the Luminos at all. All the hunting and stalking and
searching hadn’t been about the war, it was for her, this Saga. He was hunting
them down because he was hoping to stumble upon her again, because she was one
of them, and he thought she might go back to the one place where she wasn’t
wanted. It was almost romantic, somehow.
    But now that he knew Abigail was
clueless to Saga’s whereabouts, she had to act quickly. Because the vampire
could cover the distance between them faster than she could press the button.
    He didn’t move quite yet, but it
seemed he could sense what she was about to do. And he had one last thing to
say.
    “When you see your people again,
tell them I will do anything they want, if they give me Saga.”
    And her finger went down on the
plunger.
    For a split second, she could see
him dart, and thought he was coming after her. Which would have been a very
good thing, if he were to get caught up in the inferno. But was that the sound
of a window crashing, just before the world exploded around her?
    And if Abigail had more time, she
would have felt relief knowing she wouldn’t have to spend years floating in the
limbo of the tanks.
    Her body was engulfed in flames.
    And she found herself rushing down
a tunnel, into a bright white light, just like in the movies. But it wasn’t
just a light, it was a place she could see into. And Abigail remembered
something they always seemed to forget in their time on Earth, something the
vampires had tried to get out of them, which the Luminos had never revealed,
because they couldn’t. And yet in these final seconds, it always came back to
her like an old friend.
    Abigail remembered where it was
they went between lives.

Chapter
One: Meridian
     
     
     
    “I really need to step up my game
now that I’m officially an ad exec. The pressure is on to bring in new clients.
But it’s so much more than just the networking that I’m loving; it’s the
creativity. Jacob assigned me to the Bijoux Jeans campaign, which is such an
incredible opportunity. My imagination is on fire with all the fresh new ideas
I have for marketing their brand …”
    I roll my eyes, but Staci doesn’t
even seem to notice.
    Now that she’s gotten her big
promotion, she’s quickly becoming obnoxious. I’m not even sure why I’m friends
with this girl, sometimes. She loves to brag, endlessly. Everything seems like
a petty competition between us, even though she’s clearly more successful than
I am. In fact, at times I’m not even sure what it is we’re supposed to be
competing for.
    Though I suppose I’m kidding myself
to pretend it’s all one-sided. Staci knows I want to move ahead at the agency,
and I can’t help but to be just a bit jealous of her ascent. We both started as
receptionists at the same time, and now she’s an important creative