by Lizzy Ford
Calm, Zoey. If she learned anything recently, it was that reacting like the sky was falling every time something upset her only made things worse. “Yes and no. If they’ve got a position open, then I think we should fill it with someone strong enough to handle the Enforcers and the rest of the Incubatti.” Zoey almost held her breath, wanting Vikki to go without the fight she sensed was brewing. “Lydia isn’t ready. Ginny is our head instructor, and Tiff is managing the logistics. You’re my right hand, Vikki. You need to be inside to help me figure out what to do.”
Zoey finished and waited, willing her friend to take her advice. She was not above dragging Vikki kicking and screaming to her new duty.
The angry hue faded from Vikki’s features.
“Okay?” Zoey asked. “You can figure out how they’re tracking us and warn me.”
“You swear it’s not solely because I’m pregnant?”
“Promise.”
“Rock, paper, scissors.” Vikki held out her fist. “One, two –”
“– three!” Zoey shook her fist in time with Vikki. She drew rock while Vikki chose scissors.
“Best two out of three?” Vikki asked hopefully.
“Hell no.”
Her best friend gave a noisy sigh. “I’ll do it, if you promise to read that book.”
“Fine.”
“All right,” Vikki said, displeased.
Zoey rolled her eyes. “Cool. Can you prep Aiden for transport? I’ve gotta check in with the team that went out last night.”
“Sure.”
They entered the warehouse and froze. A fight had broken out among the Hunters, the second in as many weeks.
“Goddam it!” Vikki charged into the melee.
Zoey followed. They pried half-succubus Hunters off one another to get to the center of the fracas. Vikki disappeared from sight for a moment only to reemerge with her arm around someone’s neck. Zoey shoved another Hunter aside and spotted the woman clinging to the trapped Halfling’s leg.
Zoey leaned down to drag her off then put her in an arm lock. She dragged her out and deposited her on the ground.
The girls had stopped fighting and were loitering, an occasional shove going around.
“It’s eight. Report for pre-mission briefings!” Zoey barked.
The Hunters dispersed, most headed for their bunks to grab weapons or shoes for the meeting that went on behind the warehouse.
Irritated, Zoey turned to face the two girls who had been scuffling. The beautiful brunettes were rumpled, one with a bloodied lip.
“What the fuck is going on?” Vikki growled.
Zoey sought their names. One was the newest member to join, a twenty-three year old Hunter who by all accounts was unstable and in the medical bay as often as she was on a mission.
“Jess, Wendy, what was this about?” Zoey asked more calmly. She’d gotten used to being the good cop while Vikki played the bad one.
“Jess said we’d be forced to go back to the Sucubatti soon,” Wendy, the newest girl, said. “Because we have no food or supplies.”
Zoey glanced at Vikki, surprised the girls knew the content of the private conversations that went on in the offices.
“I won’t go back, Zoey,” Wendy added defiantly. “I won’t be put down like some sort of dog!”
“Easy,” Zoey murmured. “No one is going back. Jess, who told you these things?”
Jess frowned. “One of the girls overheard a conversation. Said we had a week left.”
Shit. “Look, it’s true we aren’t as well supplied as we were under the Sucubatti,” Zoey started. “We have what we need to make it. It won’t be pretty, but we’ll get by.”
“Anyone who doubts this is welcome to leave,” Vikki added. “We don’t need fights in our ranks. We’re a team.”
Jess was staring at the ground. Wendy, however, nodded.
“Go to the ops meeting,” Zoey ordered.
Without another word, they moved away. Wendy made it no more than ten feet before she dropped, convulsing.
Jess knelt beside her, and Zoey rushed to her side. Wendy’s seizures contorted her body, the sound of her teeth gnashing and the foam forming at the corners of her mouth were indications that the episodes were getting worse.
“Chrissy!” Zoey shouted. “Now!” She rested her weight across Wendy’s legs while Vikki subdued her arms. Jess stretched across the woman’s chest.
Chrissy raced out of the office area, trailed by a limping Aiden, who wobbled on his feet.
Snapping off the cover of a syringe, Chrissy squeezed between Jess and Vikki and jammed the needle into the side of Wendy’s neck. The woman’s struggles grew weaker and stilled.
“That’s every day this week,” Vikki whispered, leaning back.
“She’s not the only one,” Chrissy said. “Zoey, we’ve got ten Hunters who shouldn’t be out on missions. Their seizures are too frequent.”
Zoey released Wendy, her gaze on the unconscious Halfling’s face. Her breathing was ragged, her pulse hard and fast at the side of her neck. By the blood trickling down the side of her mouth, she’d probably snapped a tooth free.
“They’re getting worse.” Zoey’s nails bit into her thigh. She racked her brain, overwhelmed by the idea of the Hunters self-destructing – and she had no way to help them.
“What’s wrong with her?” Aiden had made it to them. He knelt near Wendy’s head.
“We don’t know,” Zoey said before she could stop herself.
“I’m doing everything I can.” Chrissy’s eyes filled with tears. “Zoey, I can’t find what’s wrong with them or you or …” She sucked in a shaky breath.
“Focus on them,” Zoey murmured. “You’re doing that, right, Chrissy? You can’t waste time on one person when we’ve got at least ten girls who can’t go a day without seizures.”
“But you’re … you’re you. I have to.”
“No, Chrissy. I’ll get you the money to do whatever the hell it is you need. Just focus on them. It’s not a request.”
Chrissy glanced at Vikki, who was unusually quiet, before nodding.
Aiden rested a hand on Wendy’s forehead. His pulse of sex magic made Zoey’s body warm from the inside out, her nipples growing hard in response and her lower belly burning.
To her surprise, Wendy’s breathing grew deep and regular almost instantly. Her features relaxed into peaceful slumber.
“What did you do?” Chrissy asked, the scientist side of her kicking in.
Aiden shrugged.
“Aiden, what exactly did you do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Cambions do this thing sometimes where they get overheated or over-stimulated if they’ve been away from the society for too long. It feels like this.” He motioned to Wendy. “As soon as they’re near incubuses, it fades, and they’re okay. I don’t know why.”
“I need your blood.” Chrissy bound to her feet and hurried towards the office.
“Uh … no offense, but I’ve seen you draw blood,” Aiden said. “I think I’ll pass.”
“It’s not a request!”
“Get ready to feel my pain, Aiden,” Zoey said. “V, let’s get her into sick bay. Jess, go to training.”
The lingering Halfling appeared torn between fear and concern. “Olivia wouldn’t let this happen,” she voiced quietly.
“What the fuck did you say?” Vikki snapped.
“Vikki.” Zoey nudged her friend. “Jess, Olivia would do worse. She’d kill Wendy for being weak. Out!”
Jess nodded, unconvinced, and obeyed.
Together, Zoey and Vikki carried Wendy to the sick bay. Another Halfling was unconscious in one bed, a third awake and quiet in another. Settling Wendy on the bed, they returned to Chrissy’s lab.
Vikki shook her head, face flushed once more. Aiden was standing uncertainly on his feet, testing his body. Doubting he was a threat, Zoey ignored him, worried about the Halflings. Their episodes were getting worse, more frequent and more intense.
�
�Those girls are right,” Vikki whispered to her. “We can’t live week-to-week. We can’t keep taking in everyone who needs a roof over their heads.”
“We’re not turning anyone away!” Zoey snapped. “They’re like us – no different. If they stay with Olivia, they’ll get killed.”
“Zoey, we have no money. What did Declan agree to give you for Aiden? A few weeks worth of supplies? Then what?” Vikki demanded.
“Declan will give me whatever I tell him to,” Zoey said.
“Just like that?”
“Yeah.”
Vikki’s eyes narrowed.
“Guilty conscience,” Zoey explained with a twisted smile.
“At some point, he’ll put a price tag on it,” Vikki warned. “It’s how the Enforcer boys work.”
“He hasn’t yet.” Zoey moved way, unsettled by the reminder. She’d begun to belief that some of the politics the Incubatti and Sucubatti went through were necessary to ensure a cash flow.
Protecting people was her goal. Somehow, the Incubatti and Sucubatti managed to profit from the mission, a mystery Zoey hadn’t yet been able to unravel.
“And what happens when we have to sideline half the team because of the seizures?” Vikki continued. “We move at least every week. How do we keep our own people safe if they can’t hold a knife let alone fight off whoever is chasing us today?”
“I don’t know!” Zoey rested her hands on a table. “We need money, a plan … fuck! Life was so much simpler when we were just raiding nightclubs!”
“Simpler but less effective. We’ve already exceeded the past two years worth of kills and rescued over twenty women,” Vikki reminded her. “It comes at a price. We’re doing it, though, Zoey.”
I’m not a strategic thinker. Declan was able to see the big picture and had tried to explain it to her once. Zoey had no interest in it and struggled to piece together a strategy for the long-term when they were barely keeping their heads above water. It worked to keep their adversaries guessing. If she didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, no one else could either.
Vikki was right about needing a better plan to handle the ill Halflings, though. Zoey released a breath, grappling to figure out the massive puzzle before her. The thought of losing her own Hunters because she failed to help them infuriated her. There had to be a way to help them. Her eyes went to Chrissy, their only real hope of figuring out what was wrong. The exhausted human and her makeshift lab weren’t going to fix something requiring a team of scientists and real equipment.
They needed money. Lots of it.
Chrissy went to Aiden, who sat on his bed.
“To the best scientist-slash-doctor-slash human I’ve ever met,” Aiden said, raising a pretend glass to Chrissy.
“I haven’t slept in three days!” Chrissy snapped out of nowhere. Normally the calmest in the room, her outburst drew the attention of everyone. “Be still, Aiden.” She drew his blood with less grace than she usually did Zoey’s.
“Go sleep,” Zoey said.
“Not until you give me blood, Zoey. I will figure out what’s wrong with you Halflings if it kills me.” Chrissy’s jerky movements and short temper made Zoey flinch away.
“You get stabbed every night and are afraid of needles?” Aiden asked, chuckling. “Not that I blame you.”
“Yeah, well …” Zoey turned her head away when Chrissy tied a piece of rubber around her arm.
“I went to M.I.T. to build shit,” Chrissy said, snapping a needle into place on the syringe.
“You dropped out of M.I.T,” Zoey reminded her.
“She’s using the big one,” Aiden observed. “She must like me. I got the little one.”
Zoey braced herself.
Chrissy was not gentle, but she was quick. Zoey grimaced and held a cotton ball over the crook of her elbow. Chrissy wrapped a piece of gauze tape around it and left for the room next door, where she stored more worn out medical equipment they’d found in dumpsters.
“Off we go before she comes back with more needles,” Zoey said. “C’mon, Aiden. Exchange is at ten tonight.”
The incubus obeyed and trailed her and Vikki out of the warehouse to a black van. He climbed in back with Zoey while Vikki drove. Zoey sagged, tired already, and she hadn’t gotten through the most difficult time of her day. The moon seemed too bright, as cheerful as Aiden was, which agitated her even more.
In a matter of eight weeks, her dream of killing things had turned into a nightmare about how she was going to feed those who bought into her vision. Preoccupied with the ill Halflings and financial aspects, she paid no heed to where they drove. In the back of the van with Aiden, she sat, staring at the opposite wall, waiting for the answers to appear.
The incubus appeared exhausted. His body was healing and he dozed.
She had the urge to ask about Declan then the sudden idea to send Aiden back with her phone and get another one.
Not that it mattered. Declan found her anyway and with low funds, she didn’t need to toss another hundred dollars down the drain just to have him find her new number the moment she got a new phone.
Her cell vibrated. She tugged it out of her pocket.
Grant is legit, Declan replied.
She stared at his message, once again at a loss as to what to think about it and wishing there was more without knowing exactly what she wanted. It wasn’t an apology or explanation. That would infuriate her, because there was no way to make what he did right. But would it hurt him to try?
Her palms were damp at the idea of seeing him again. Her body always responded to him when he was within sight, and she wasn’t about to let her physical need overwhelm her mental pain. No, he wasn’t going to get off that easily by seducing her body without winning over mind.
They reached the rendezvous point – a small park east of Greenbelt, Maryland – and the van rolled to a halt. Vikki always parked facing the street in case something went wrong.
“Shit,” she mumbled from the front seat.
“What?” Zoey asked immediately, leery of an ambush.
“I think Bio-Mom wants Aiden as much as the Enforcers do.”
Zoey’s stomach sank. She didn’t want anything to do with either society’s security chief.
“I’ll deal with it,” she said. She leaned forward and opened the side door of the van. “Wait here.”
Hopping out, she assessed the park. Three of the Enforcers – including the man who made her heart flip in her chest – stood on one side, waiting, while Olivia and a handful of her IAB members stood closer to the van. She sensed Declan but didn’t dare look at him. Olivia had come only to start trouble; there was no other reason for her to be there after Zoey told her she was outbid.
Tall, polished and beautiful, Olivia smiled at Zoey the moment she set foot out of the van and started forward.
Zoey walked a short distance from the van. She rested one palm on the hilt of her knife and waited for Olivia to reach her.
“Zoey,” Olivia said. “Always a pleasure.” She held out a hand.
Zoey ignored it. Olivia’s magic was strong, but Zoey’s connection to Declan provided a buffer. Olivia was no longer able to influence her the way she once was.
“I’ve wanted to talk to you in person for some time,” Olivia said. She dropped her hand, her smile still in place despite the snub. “You made a deal with the Enforcers for Aiden?”
Zoey crossed her arms with a nod.
“What if I could give you something they couldn’t?” Olivia continued.
“There’s nothing you have that I want, except money, and you got outbid,” Zoey replied.
She heard the van door close behind her and glanced over her shoulder. Vikki stood beside Aiden, both of whom were watching the exchange. Ginny slid into the driver’s seat, ready to drive.
“Nothing at all? Maybe an end to the blackouts? A cure to your Halflings’ … issues?”
Zoey’s gaze narrowed. It took all her strength not to take the bait and admit that yes, ther
e were issues and yes, she was out of her league. Olivia knew about them, which meant either she was causing them, or Zoey’s theory about a mole was correct.
Olivia made an attempt at looking sympathetic. “Really, Zoey. All I want is to help my daughters succeed. We have the same purpose, an end to the Cambions.”
“Then why the fuck are you working with them?”
“I’m sure you know by now how political your situation is. Imagine mine.”
“I’ll never give you the means to control me again or buy in to your delusion about killing off my kind when we’re no longer of use to you.”
“Your kind,” Olivia repeated, amused. “There are only five of you worth saving after decades of genetic experiments.”
Zoey bit her tongue, ready to snap the woman’s neck.
“Still not willing to talk?” Olivia asked.
“Fuck you, Olivia.”
“The technology I used to create you, and the solution to your dying Halflings, can be yours, if you work with me. They can just as easily fall into the wrong hands, if you insist on defying me and the Sucubatti.” Olivia’s voice was nearly a whisper. “I’ll do whatever it takes to convince you of where you belong, Zoey. I gave you some time and space to think about it in the hopes you’d see what I’m offering.”
Zoey stared at her, not trusting herself to respond. In the far reaches of her mind, a light bulb went on, one triggered by the acknowledgment that Olivia had the ability to save the Halflings.
There was a way that didn’t require building Chrissy a lab. All Zoey had to do was infiltrate the IAB and take it. Which was easier? Building a lab or breaking into Olivia’s? Zoey knew which was probably going to be cheaper.
“Turn over Aiden to me, and I’ll help you stop the blackouts,” Olivia offered.
“You know that won’t happen. I don’t trust anything you say, Olivia, and I never will.” Zoey motioned for Vikki to follow and started forward. “We’re done here.”
Olivia caught her arm. “Zoey, don’t be a fool. You swore to help the innocent. Every deal you make with the Incubatti makes them stronger. Declan, the Enforcers and their Council still support what the Cambions are doing. Murdering innocents. Think about it.”