Squad Goals

by Kate Karyus Quinn

  Squad Goals

  Underworld Reformatory Book 1

  Kate Karyus Quinn

  Demitria Lunetta

  Marley Lynn

  Copyright © 2020 by Kate Karyus Quinn, Demitria Lunetta, and Marley Lynn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Preface

  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

  There’s more to read in the Mythverse

  Also by the Authors

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Sign up for the Mythverse Newsletter and you’ll receive THREE FREE SHORT STORIES—all set in the Mythverse!

  RAGE & RUIN is part of the Mount Olympus Academy trilogy and features Nico’s mom, Maddox.

  FIGHT OR SIGHT and TOOTH OR CLAW are prequels to Squad Goals.

  1

  “I am going to tear open your throat and drink you dry,” the vampire hisses, pulling at the chains that confine him to the table, his eyes roaming over my neck.

  I sigh. So, it’s gonna be one of those intakes. “Sir, do you have any family that we can notify about your incarceration?”

  “Then I’ll use your corpse as a shield when I claw my way out of here,” he snarls, his fangs elongating just at the thought.

  Okay, as a rule baby vamps are blood-soaked hangry jerkwads, but this one is being particularly dickish. He was found in an abandoned house surrounded by his kills. He’d been feeding on humans in the area and had taken out nearly an entire town.

  It took two dozen harpies to bring him down. Harpies act as the police force and guards, hunting down all the supernatural baddies and bringing them here to Underworld Reformatory. But these weren’t just any harpies—they were First Brood; i.e., the best, the brightest, and the direct descendants of a newly minted goddess. Once the First Brood had this vamp chained, all they could get from him was his name. I glance down at the papers in front of me.

  “Mr...eh...Kit.” Apparently all they got was his first name. “You are accused of murdering over a hundred humans. Usually I have a partner here who works on a reformation strategy, a way to re-enter human society after you’ve been properly trained on how to behave in our world. But my partner didn’t show up to work today, and I’m not known for being a pushover. I have to be honest. I’m really not seeing a way out of here for you.”

  The vampire isn’t paying attention. By the way he’s licking his lips I guess he’s too busy fantasizing about how yummy my blood would be. I make a note on his file. He needs to get into detox, quick.

  Most vampires are born, not made. That’s because made vamps seem to have a bottomless hunger for blood. It’s better to keep these baby vamps underfed when they’re first turned. The more blood they drink in that first year the more dependent they become on it later in life.

  Even worse, he was feeding when the harpies found him, which means that right now he probably feels like he just drained two semi-trucks worth of caffeine. I’d almost feel sorry for the guy, if it weren’t for the way he’s straining against his chains, desperate to kill me.

  I close my folder and stand. He can’t even manage speech right now—at least not anything worth hearing. Maybe after he has a few weeks without a fix, I can try again. Next time with my calm, sweet, “good cop,” partner by my side, things could go a lot smoother. It will be a rough few weeks for Kit while he’s straightening out, but it’s the only way I see forward.

  “I have a sister,” he tells me, suddenly lucid, his fangs receding slightly as he gains some control. I’m so surprised I forget that he’s not just making an announcement; he’s answering my question about if he had any family we could inform of his imprisonment.

  I sit back down, snapping my folder open, ready to take notes. I nod at him, encouraging what seems to be his first rational train of thought since he was brought in.

  “She’s fae,” he says. ”But I turned her.” His face twists for a second, as if he hates what he’s saying.

  “You turned your own sister?”

  “I had to!” he yells, straining against the chains again. “She was dying! The other fae came after her when—”

  “Wait,” I stop him. “Is her name Shauna?” Fae/vamp hybrids searching for their siblings aren’t exactly a common occurrence.

  “How did you know that?” he asks, surprise making him look almost human for the half second it takes him to figure out that the only way I could know that would be if I already had his sister in lockup.

  “I want my sister,” Kit says, looking around wildly like she might just apparate into the intake room simply because he wishes it.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible just now…”

  I play for some time. I’m certainly not bringing Shauna to him. She’s a pixie/vamp hybrid that I met IRL before she ended up in here. She’d seemed okay back then. Here at Underworld Reformatory we all secretly refer to Shauna as the mosquito. It’s not just because she’s a tiny bloodsucker. She’s annoying as hell and screeched for three days when we first brought her in, the tiny whine of her voice filling everyone’s ears.

  “I. Want. My. Sister.” Kit bites each word off, his fangs elongating again when I don’t immediately cave to his wishes.

  I push away from the table, bringing my file folder with me, and putting a hand to my hip where I keep my handy dandy ray gun.

  Kit is now banging his hands on the table and yelling each word, shaking his chains for emphasis. “I. Want. My. Sister.”

  As I back out of the room he stands, and with a mighty lunge, rips the chains from the table. It upends, and now there’s nothing between us but stale air. He charges with a hiss.

  I sling my gun forward and shoot. A beam of light hits Kit square on the chest and he freezes with a cry of pain. He’s supposed to slump to the ground, immobile. But instead he simply falls to one knee, glaring at me the whole time. With willpower that can only be born of a powerful bloodlust, he pushes himself back to his feet and lurches forward.

  Fern, the witch who made this gun, was worried that a panicked guard might shoot a prisoner more than once. “The point of this stun gun is to preserve life on both sides,” she had said, and my tender-hearted intake partner, Cassie, agreed. So Fern put a magical fail-safe on the weapon. You can shoot the gun as much as you want, but after the first shot, it will have no effect on the same person. Not until twenty-four hours pass; that way guards don’t abuse their power…or the prisoners.

  This is what happens when the people in charge are afraid of being seen as the bad guys. We get guns that only work once a day.

  We’re locking up all the dangerous paranormals. But we pretend it’s temporary. We don’t even call this a prison. It’s a reformatory. Every prisoner gets a personalized plan to help them get out and rejoin society.


  It’s a joke. There is no world in which Kit and others like him won’t be a menace.

  Kit lunges desperately forward; my back is to the door. I shoot again, but as I already knew it would—the shot has no effect on him. His hands close around my shoulders, squeezing hard enough to leave bruises as he brings my neck to his hungry fangs.

  I manage to slip Mr. Freeze (yeah, I named my stun gun. It’s stupid and dorky and no one knows about it except me, because it would totally mess with the badass persona image I try to project) back into his holster and then I shift.

  In the blink of an eye, I shrink to the size of a small housecat. Though thankfully not one that’s been declawed. Curling up one of my kitty paws, I swipe a claw across Kit’s face before falling to the ground.

  The vampire strength may have made him physically strong and fast, but his bloodlust has made him stupid. He blinks down at me, confused, as I scoot between his feet.

  The door opens just in time and harpies enter the intake room. When the First Brood brought him in, he killed three of them, which their mother was not happy about. Technically, the three gods who serve as the Triumvirate aren’t supposed to interfere with what we do here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Zahara (Mama harpy and one of the Triumvirate gods) made a sudden amendment to the rules and decided to deal with this baby vamp herself.

  Even if she doesn’t, he’s going to have a hard time of it here in Underworld Reformatory; all of the guards are First Brood—Zahara’s children. Which means that the harpies he took out were their siblings, and harpies aren’t exactly the most forgiving of the supernatural species.

  The First Brood wastes no time putting Kit back in chains, and I’m kind of glad Cassie isn’t here to see it. Her sweet little heart would break at the sound of him calling for his sister. Even if he’s a psycho and his sister’s a total bitch.

  I waste no time getting out the door and into the hallway where I shift back into human form.

  Like my clothes, Mr. Freeze is magic so he shifts with me. I can’t operate him with my little kitty paws, but I can still keep him close so long as he’s holstered. Normally just having a hand on Mr. Freeze is enough to calm me. To make me feel safe.

  But not today. Mr. Freeze has let me down.

  Instead of staying on the job and helping the harpies with a crazed baby vamp, I walk away as fast as my legs will take me. With every step I fall apart a little more. My breathing grows uneven and my limbs start to shake.

  By the time I get into the bathroom, I’m gasping for breath.

  Grasping the edge of the sink, I stare into the mirror. “Get it together, Mavis,” I tell myself. My voice trembles and I close my eyes, not wanting to see myself anymore. Hating how weak I’ve become.

  I reach down the front of my shirt and pull out one of the pills I keep hidden inside of my bra. Like, Mr. Freeze, it’s magic. Unlike him, it hasn’t yet let me down. I swallow with a handful of water from the sink. A moment later, it’s like someone put steel in my spine. I’m standing straight and tall and am ready for anything.

  2

  I make my way down the hall to the warden’s office. I don’t bother to knock before I enter.

  Greg looks up at me with a flustered expression. His desk is piled high with papers, his baby face and big, innocent eyes barely clearing the pile. He’s not that much younger than me, but too kind to be in this job. He’s not exactly the person you’d think would be running a reformatory for supernatural creatures, but he kind of got stuck with it. It’s a long story.

  “Mavis. How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I say, sweeping papers from a chair so I can sit.

  “Any issues with the new supe?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Supe?”

  “Yes. Supe.” He bristles. “Short for supernatural being.”

  “That is so not a thing.”

  “It is,” he insists. “Ask Cassie. She’s been researching current slang…”

  “Oh, I would ask Cassie. Except your girlfriend didn’t show up to work today. Not that it mattered. That vamp is not getting rehabilitated. Truth time—I don’t even know if we can keep him safely contained. Maybe we can use his sister—who is also here, by the way—to get him to cooperate, but—”

  Greg stares at me wide-eyed. “Cassie didn’t come to work?

  “No. I thought she was sick or something.” I sit up, suddenly worried. Cassie and Greg are a couple. Totes co-dependent. The kind of couple that basically live in each other’s back pockets. If Cassie was sick—he would know.

  Greg jumps to his feet, clearly concerned. “She hasn’t sent me a thought since…” He studies the ceiling, clearly trying to remember. “Not since yesterday. I brought her tea.”

  “Oh, right,” I say, “I keep forgetting Cassie has ESP now.” And by “has” I mean she randomly sends thoughts to people she knows. I grimace.

  Greg nods and gives a watery smile. “She calls it ESPN. It’s adorable.”

  Is it? I bite my tongue to keep from saying it out loud.

  Cassie was raised at Mount Olympus Academy, a school run by Greek gods. There was no television or cell phones or modern conveniences. She constantly gets confused about phrases that everyone else knows.

  You’d expect someone with the power to see the future to be a little less flaky, but Cassie is a lot like her power. Her visions are unpredictable and often useless. At school she was famous for predicting the lunch menu. After touching a seer stone, her power increased, but was still fluky.

  Recently, she’s started being able to telepathically project her thoughts. But as usual, she has no ability to control it. So, sometimes she accidentally tells some rando that she wants to meet in Greg’s office in ten for some afternoon delight. That got awkward for all of us when one of the First Broods showed up wearing nothing but her cuffs and a smile.

  “Maybe she just needed some me-time,” I say.

  Greg shakes his head. “That doesn’t sound like Cassie. She loves practicing her ESP with me. She’s sending me her thoughts constantly. Last week—”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, holding up a hand to stop him. “Insert cute Cassie story here. Look, are we worried about her, or not?”

  “I just can’t imagine her skipping out on work for no reason,” Greg says.

  I have to agree. Cassie takes her job very seriously. She advocates for prisoner rights and puts each offender in a custom-made rehabilitation program. Even the ones that I deem to be too bad to ever get parole, she fights for. We both have experiences being imprisoned, but hers somehow made her a better person.

  Mine? Well…mine landed me with trust issues and happy pills in my bra.

  “Maybe she just overslept or met a guy who doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life in the underworld—” Greg says, clearly spiraling into panic mode.

  “Maybe we should send the harpies to look for her?” I suggest.

  Greg’s face goes red. “You think it’s that serious?”

  Oh shit. His eyes bug out.

  “She’s been murdered and kidnapped!” And just like that—he’s totally freaking out.

  I need to backpedal a bit.

  “I’m totally sure everything is fine and absolutely nothing is wrong. Besides, Cassie was already kidnapped a few years ago. Nobody gets kidnapped twice in the same lifetime. It just doesn’t happen.”

  Which is absolutely not true, but why tell Greg that? As I’d hoped, my overly optimistic, clearly made up proclamation makes Greg look a lot better.

  “Yes, you’re right…” He smiles at me weakly.

  “Try and give her a call, but maybe also get the harpies on it just in case.”

  “She never answers her phone,” he tells me. “And the other week she had an apple, like the actual fruit, in her hand and kept saying, ‘Siri face, call Edie.”

  “Adorable,” I say, because I know it’s what Greg wants to hear.

  Greg nods in agreement, and then reaches for his phone presumably to call in the har
pies. I let him get to it.

  Do I think something happened to Cassie? Probably not. She’s a bit ditzy and sometimes gets ideas in her head about certain things. It’s also possible my sister Edie grabbed her for a mission.

  Edie is a dragon-shifter who accidentally broke the world and is now obsessed with doing everything she can to fix it. Cassie is her BFF and Edie wouldn’t hesitate to bring her in on a job if she thought Cassie might be helpful. Speaking of my sister…

  When I reach my office I grab the phone, an old-timey looking rotary thing. Supernatural beings are not great with technology. The ancient phone isn’t even hooked up to anything. It’s spelled to call out whoever you think your call toward.

  I dial Edie’s number while thinking about her. That seems to work the best to avoid a wrong number. Edie. My sister, the famous demi-god and dragon shifter. Cassie’s best friend. Saver of worlds. Killer of gods. Bringer of sass.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Edie’s phone. I probably can answer but I don’t want to talk to you right now. So leave a message and if I don’t call you back, you know why.”

  “Hilarious message, Sis,” I tell her voicemail. “Don’t freak out, but Cassie didn’t show up to work this morning. Is she off adventuring with you? Call me back when you can.”

  I hang up and dial Merilee, Cassie’s mom. She was the keeper of records at Mount Olympus Academy, but when MOA sunk into the ground she stayed behind to protect and recategorize the artifacts. Normal phones don’t work there, but Cassie insisted they have a magical one installed so she could talk to her mom.