Broken Blood

by Heather Hildenbrand

  Jack took it in stride, ignoring Steppe in favor of exploring Professor Flaherty’s sea glass collection. It only made Steppe angrier—which only made Jack smile.

  “His lack of family makes this that much harder,” Grandma went on. “According to our laws, which date back as far as The Draven was written, the only other way to replace leadership is to hold a vote among the other members of the board.”

  “Why is that so hard?” Cambria asked. “Let’s just get everyone together. I’m sure we can sway them enough to swing it in our favor.”

  One by one, everyone turned to look at Logan. My chest felt weighted and I blinked back tears for the second time in as many minutes. My emotions were strung so tight between the bond and my friends ... Everything we’d lost.

  Not just Logan’s dad and the vote he’d represented. I thought of Victoria’s mother. Bailey. My father. Even Miles and Leo. The past was littered with the victims of bigotry.

  “It’s fine,” Logan said in a hoarse voice. Beside him, Victoria reached over and took his had in hers. Logan stared down at it and then back up at Astor. But Astor was looking down at his buttons and mumbling to himself.

  “Astor,” Logan called. Finally, he looked up and their eyes met. “It’s okay. I understand.” Logan’s words were strained but heartfelt. Astor nodded, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth so his chin lifted, and looked away. Logan cleared his throat.

  “With Mr. Sandefur and Hugo gone and me fired, there’s not enough of a board left,” Grandma explained.

  I looked at Wes, whose features had hardened into an impenetrable shell. He didn’t look surprised, though. Most of them didn’t. In fact, almost everyone had lost their determination from earlier. Now, they all looked resigned.

  “Don’t forget about the video,” Derek said.

  “There’s footage of that?” I asked, horrified.

  The ensuing silence made me more nervous that the idea of the video itself. I’d seen the way it happened, but I’d also seen the events leading up to it.

  “It was released on the secure channel for Hunters by CHAS,” Wes explained quietly. “It shows Astor attacking Mr. Sandefur.” His hand hadn’t stopped its circular pattern on my back, but I could no longer feel it. Everything felt numb. These videos they kept talking about, the ones painting us as the bad guys—I finally understood the seriousness of the effect they must be having.

  “That was the night our allies stopped being our allies,” Fee added.

  At the mention of allies, Jack’s gaze flicked over to Mr. Lexington, who stood stiffly behind his daughter. Neither of them had said a word during our meeting. Victoria’s hand sat limply in Logan’s, a faraway look fastened to her pale features. She somehow seemed to look right at and straight through whoever was speaking at the time.

  “Are there no packs still open to peace talks?” Grandma asked quietly.

  “None that we found,” Fee said in a sad voice. Jack put his arm around her and something inside me pulled tight, cracking along the edges.

  No one spoke for a long moment. I could practically feel the discouragement in the room and it flipped a switch inside me.

  I looked across the room to the far wall, straight at Alex. “I need you to take Mr. Lexington and Victoria and go get Olivia from that cage we left her in. You can take the van and bring her back here.”

  Alex pushed off from where he’d been listening from the back of the room and folded his arms. “Now?” he asked.

  Victoria made a noise of protest but Logan patted her hand. “I’ll go with them,” he said before she could argue.

  “Yes, now,” I told Alex. “Victoria can track her in case she isn’t where we left her.” I looked at Mr. Lexington. “Can you bring back any of the medical supplies Astor would need to form a blood bond?”

  He nodded. “Not a problem. We can be there and back by this time tomorrow.”

  “Good. Professor Flaherty, we need a place to keep both Steppe and Victoria and we’ll need them close by so we can guard them both at once instead of adding to our shift schedule.”

  “The basement can be divided. I have an old chalkboard and some other wood we can use to partition the space,” she said a little uncertain. “It’ll take some time to construct it.”

  “Derek, can you help with that? Maybe ask Jack?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Derek said.

  “Grandma, we need a shift schedule for guarding the prisoners.”

  She winked at me, never missing a beat. “On it,” she said.

  “Tara, this is—” my mom began, but I cut her off.

  “Mom, Fee, I could really use an extra pair of eyes or two on The Draven. We need to study the laws to see if there’s a loophole in reversing anything Steppe has done,” I said.

  My mother’s eyes widened at me and her jaw hung slack as she regarded me from behind Astor’s chair.

  “Mom,” I pressed when she didn’t answer. “Can you do this for me or not?”

  “I ... yes,” she said finally and promptly closed her jaw.

  I glanced down and found Astor grinning at me. He caught my eye and winked just as Grandma had. My mouth twitched. It felt good to be in control again, ready to fight, to plan, to take action.

  “I’m sorry, this all sounds great, but someone’s got to say it.” Across the room, Cord pushed to her feet. “We’re ignoring the bigger problem here. Sooner or later, probably sooner if I had to guess, these ex-allied packs are going to find out where we’re hiding and they’re going to do the same thing they’ve been trying to do for weeks. We’re sitting ducks here, just waiting to be picked off. We should be coming up with a plan for counter-offense or something, not figuring out how to extricate Olivia and a bunch of syringes.”

  “Olivia controls some of those packs,” I said. “If we can control her, we can stop them.”

  Cord’s eyes narrowed. “Who died and left you in charge anyway?” she snapped.

  I took a step forward, angry and determined—and finally ready to fight. Not my problem the only people here to fight with happened to be my own army. Wes grabbed my hand, not so much holding me back as expressing his support. I could all but feel him ready to blast Cord. But I wasn’t the first to respond. Neither was he.

  “No one died, Cord,” Victoria said in an even voice. “Not for this.”

  It was the first thing she’d said all day and at her words, everyone stared. Including me. “Tara’s always been the leader. It just took her a while to step up.”

  I stared at Victoria, unblinking, as her words registered. With me, with Cord and the others—and with Steppe. Even he didn’t argue with it, and I realized as I looked around, I’d been right; they were my army. Always had been. They were just waiting for me to take the helm. If their reaction didn’t convince me, Steppe’s did. He seemed to agree with her, albeit begrudgingly, and I realized he’d always seen me this way. It was the reason he’d felt threatened enough to come after me even after he’d dismantled The Cause and ruined their progress.

  I stepped forward, my jaw tight and my shoulders squared. Here I am, I thought. And the memory of Vera’s predictions and visions wove through me like a twirling ribbon of truth. This moment, standing in the center of their circle, taking my place, felt more real than anything I’d been through these past few weeks. Or maybe it felt real because of everything I’d been through. I wasn’t sure.

  All I knew was I was ready.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I waited while everyone filed out, my knee bouncing along at the speed of my apprehension. Of course Cord had challenged me. Of course we weren’t friends, despite everything that had happened. The one time I needed her to trust me—

  “Holy crap, did you feel the heat from her laser beam eyeballs?” Cambria hissed when the room had emptied. Only Wes and Astor were left, but I couldn’t hear their hushed conversation from my perch on the couch.

  “Cam, please don’t remind me,” I said, rubbing my temples in a circular motion that wasn’
t doing much for the tension headache I had.

  “Sorry. I thought she would’ve chilled out since she’d been Tara-free for a few weeks. Looks like not,” she said.

  “Where has she been, anyway?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  “Wes said she spent a couple of weeks with the family of that girl Steppe had killed. Mal ... I guess Cord knew the girl’s parents and wanted to pay her respects.” Cambria’s phone rang and she paused long enough to check the screen and frown as she ignored the call.

  “Who was that?” I asked, instantly suspicious. Cambria never missed out on the chance to talk if she could help it.

  “No one,” she said.

  “Liar,” I said.

  “Dictator,” she shot back with a smirk.

  “I am not a dictator. This will be a democracy. And none of that has a thing to do with whose call you’re ignoring.”

  “I know. I meant that’s who is calling. The dictator,” she said. Her shoulders sagged. “Otherwise known as ... my mother.”

  “Your mom is calling you?” I hissed, lowering my voice to secret-status volume. Cambria had a rocky history with her mom, in that her mom had treated her like a mutant for having the gift of compulsion (when it actually worked) and shipped her off to Wood Point Academy to be rid of “the problem,” as she’d called it.

  Added to that, Cambria’s mom was considered a social outcast in the Hunter world due to her being Werewolf friendly. (I theorized she was just friendly in general when she’d been drinking.) There’d been an incident that had led to her arrest by CHAS, and, thankfully, her release. But even once she’d been free, the two of them hadn’t spoken much.

  I had to wonder what had prompted the communication now.

  “What does she want?” I asked.

  Cambria shrugged. “No idea. She calls. I don’t answer. It’s our thing.”

  “Cambria, with everything going on, you should think about talking to her. The world’s not safe for any of our kind. She might be in trouble.”

  Cambria scowled. “You think I haven’t thought of that?” she demanded in the same whisper-hiss. The kind that meant she didn’t want to share this information with anyone else just yet. “But I’m in trouble too. My whole life is trouble. The last thing I want is to drag her into it all.”

  I couldn’t think of a good enough argument against her logic, not when I understood all too well the danger we were all in right now.

  “Do you think Cord was right?” I asked, “About the ex-allied looking for us? To attack?”

  Cord’s brow went up. “Do you even have to ask? You saw what happened at that rest stop before Derek showed up. They want your blood, Tara. And they want your head on a platter.”

  “I guess I was hoping it wasn’t as bad as she made it seem.”

  Cambria laid her hand over mine in a rare gesture. “It’s worse,” she admitted.

  Our eyes met. Hers were haunted with experiences I’d yet to hear about. A part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to. Not now. Not when I’d just found the strength to step up. I couldn’t let guilt and regret and whatever else cloud me. Steppe would love that. He was gunning for it. And, according to visions of those no longer with us, I still had a decision to make.

  “They’re wrong. The enemy is Steppe, not me. Not us,” I said, frustrated all over again.

  “I know that. But you’re bonded with him now,” she pointed out. “Which means you’ll have to protect him like you’d protect yourself. Cord has a valid point.”

  I scowled and it came out like a growl that had Cambria patting my hand in sympathy. “I hate it when she’s right, too, believe me,” she said.

  “It’s not that,” I said.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  I looked away, toward where Wes and Astor still huddled in deep conversation. Astor’s brows were knitted into one hairy caterpillar above his eyes. Wes was bent forward in earnest as he talked, his shoulders hunched. As much as I was curious what they suddenly had to talk about, I knew I needed to find Cord.

  “Nothing,” I told Cambria, rising. “Or maybe everything. I’ll let you know.”

  ***

  I found Cord in the kitchen with Logan and Victoria. Their conversation, already low, halted when I walked in. Despite being a leader five minutes ago, my cheeks heated and my chest tightened. It was middle school lunch room all over again, and I realized, no matter how old you get or how many enemies you fight, there will always be a sting when you walk into a roomful of people talking about you behind your back.

  “Time to go already?” Victoria asked, breaking the awkward silence.

  “They’re loading up now,” I said. “You better get going.”

  “Thanks.” She pulled Logan along with her and I heard the front door open and shut. Cord hovered only a second longer. When she moved to exit, I stopped her.

  “We need to talk,” I said, hoping the words were delivered with a neutral tone. Regardless, she glared, arms crossed.

  “So talk.”

  My eyes flickered to the open—and publicly accessible—doorway behind her. “Somewhere more private.”

  Her glare sharpened. “Based on the squatter in your head, I’m guessing it’s never going to be private,” she shot back.

  “Considering he is the topic of our discussion, I’m going to give you one more chance to take me up on my offer,” I said quietly. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Cord’s arms fell to her sides. A look of alarm washed over her defenses and she gestured at the doorway. “After you.”

  No one stopped us as we made our way through the house and out the back door. Cambria watched us, but she didn’t say a word. I felt eyes on us from the window as we wandered farther out into the yard.

  We got as far as the fence and stopped. There was a gate that led to whatever lay behind the subdivision, but I wasn’t ready to be quite that alone. This conversation was going to go one of two ways. And, knowing Cord, it wasn’t the easy one.

  “What do you want?” she asked, rounding on me, her back to the fence and her arms crossed. Everything about her stance was defensive even before I’d said a word. Between that and Steppe yelling at me to shut up or else, I almost turned around and walked back inside.

  But nothing he threatened was going to change my mind.

  I sighed. “I want the truth, Cord. Your story,” I said.

  As predicted, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. “My story is none of your business,” she said.

  “CHAS is my business,” I said. “It’s more than relevant. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What would I say, exactly?” she challenged. “No one would trust me if I told them the truth. They’d look at me just like you are now. Wondering if I were a double agent or what I was going to report back.”

  “I’m not—No one who knows you would ever think that,” I said. “But you can help us now if you come forward. They’ll understand why you didn’t before but doing it now could mean reversing—”

  “You have no idea what it would mean. Not for me. You’re only concerned with you. Your cause. Your mission. As usual, you’re only thinking about yourself.” She snorted and threw up her hands. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this. I don’t owe you anything.”

  She started to walk away but I stepped in front of her, blocking her and breathless with the fear I’d only made things worse. “You’re right. You don’t owe me. I owe you,” I said. “When Olivia took you ... what she did because of her hatred for me ... I still owe you for that. Whatever happened in your past that made you lie, whatever you’re forced to dig up and relive, I’d owe you for that too. And I’ll never forget it, but this is bigger than us. Bigger than your dislike for me or your fear of him.” Images flashed through Steppe’s mind and I caught a blurred rendition of them before I deliberately forced my attention away. I didn’t want to see it that way. Knowing this was enough. I refused to betray Cord’s trust by digging any further.

  Although, what I s
aw was enough to make me understand her hesitation. “Don’t be scared, Cord,” I added. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  For a split second, her walls came down and I saw the pleading and fear that lived behind her carefully constructed façade. But then just as quickly, the gate came crashing shut and she closed herself off again.

  “Screw you, Godfrey. I’m not scared and I don’t appreciate your demands that I offer up my past on a platter for your dissection.” Her hands shook at her sides and her eyes were wide—not with anger. There was something else.

  Even Steppe was quietly deciphering it while she ranted and raved at me. I sank back on my heels as Cord continued, her finger poking its way into my shoulder as she spoke. “I will not be made into a political maneuver now any more than I let myself become one five years ago. I am not going back there. Ever. So don’t ask me again.”

  Desperation.

  Steppe named it at the same moment I did. And just as quickly as her vulnerability faded, Steppe’s thoughts rose to the surface, confirming what I already suspected.

  “This is why you challenged me inside,” I said, realization finally dawning. “You knew I would say something. That I would ask you this.”

  “The moment I heard about the bond, I knew you’d figure it out,” she said, her voice ragged. “I don’t ... I’m sorry, but I can’t do this,” she said, her voice breaking into a whisper before she cut off and pressed her lips together in a tight line.

  This time, when Cord moved around me, I let her go. I watched her, feeling Steppe’s own retreat into the recesses, and thinking about what he’d felt when she’d denied him just now.

  Disappointment.

  Some small part of him had wanted her to claim him. Some small part had wanted to claim her back.

  But if Cord was anything like her dad—and unfortunately, when it came to stubbornness, she clearly was—there was no changing her mind. Without his daughter’s public acceptance of her rightful place as leader of CHAS, Gordon Steppe might never be removed.