He’d killed Shelton Porterfield tonight, but Shelton and Matthias had killed some part of him a long, long time ago. He’d been deluded to think he could come out of it whole.
After drying off and shaking as much water as he could from his hair, Will pulled on the clean pants, gathered his courage, and opened the door to the bedroom. Randa had returned to her previous spot, her face calm.
He sat on the other bed, facing her. “I owe you an explanation for what happened tonight.”
“Only if you want to talk about it. Only if you’re ready.”
He’d never be ready, but she needed to know. Hell, maybe he needed to say the words. “Shelton has been in charge of my dad’s Virginia estate for years. He was already bonded to him when my dad turned my mom and my sister and me.”
Randa picked at the light blanket that stretched across the bed. “What happened that summer, the one Shelton mentioned?”
Will kept his eyes on the floor, trying not to let the ghosts back in but failing. “Shelton likes—liked—young boys. By like, I mean…” He couldn’t say it.
“He likes to sexually abuse young boys.” Randa’s voice didn’t hold judgment or anger or disgust. Just calm. It helped Will go on.
“I’d been turned about a month and was twenty-two but looked younger. I was angry at everyone. At my dad for turning us. At my mom for going along with it so that Cathy and I would go along with it too. At Cathy for dying. At myself for helping her die.”
Will got up and paced the room. “I acted out. Fought my dad on everything, just to piss him off. I hadn’t…hadn’t learned how to read that well, so he said he couldn’t give me a place in his business in New York. That I was too stupid, even if he’d been able to trust me.”
Randa grabbed his wrist on one of his paces past her, and tugged until he sat beside her. “So Matthias sent you to Virginia.”
“Matthias sent me to Virginia.” Matthias had lured him there with the promise of some light work on the property and the chance to stay in a house removed from authority. “As soon as I got there, Shelton had me in silver cuffs and threw me in that silver-barred cell in the basement.”
Again, calm voice. Quiet. “How long did he keep you there?”
“Until I broke.” Like a pretty little girl, as Shelton had said. He’d still been able to cry then, and he’d cried. Begged. Until he’d been beaten enough, until he’d been violated enough, that he finally admitted it was his fault, that he was as useless as Matthias had always told him, that he deserved whatever Shelton did to him, that he wanted it.
“Did he rape you?”
“It wasn’t rape. I wasn’t a helpless kid.” That’s what Shelton kept reminding him. You’re an adult, William. You want this, or you’d find a way to leave. You just pretend to fight it because that makes it more exciting for both of us.
“Age has nothing to do with rape.” Randa shifted on the bed until she faced him, and laid a hand on his arm. He pulled away. He didn’t want her touching him.
Randa’s voice was soft. “Here’s what rape is. It’s when one person takes power over another person, against his or her will. The rapist might take that power physically, by restraint or force. Or he might take it emotionally, by telling lies and then convincing his victim he wanted it and it’s his or her fault.”
Will swallowed hard. He kept his eyes on the floor, but he didn’t avoid her this time when she took his hand. He needed her warmth.
He thought about her words. Shelton had taken his power. He’d used the whip, waited until Will healed a few hours later, then used it again. He’d withheld food, which right after transition was painful. He’d cuffed him facedown to the bed and left him for days before he came and took him, pants around his ankles and one of those goddamned blue shirts hanging open.
“Will, did Shelton rape you?”
He took a deep breath, let it out. Closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Randa’s voice was vicious. “Then I’m glad you killed the son of a bitch. If he could die twice, I’d go out there and do him myself.”
Will finally looked at her, and her fierce expression shocked him. He’d expected disgust or pity, and he’d rather disgust than have her feel sorry for him. But she looked like she wanted to put a serious beat-down on somebody. He couldn’t help but smile a little. “You look like a she-bear.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment and not that you’re insinuating that I’m big and hairy.”
He kissed her hand, the one she’d kept locked on his, and stood up. “Is it OK with you if I get the rest of my stuff tomorrow night?” He felt dawn approaching. Maybe fifteen minutes, but no more. He needed to find a spot to crash.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Randa stood up, grasped the hem of her T-shirt, and pulled it over her head. He paused at the sight of those breasts that fit perfectly into his palm, then dropped his gaze to a black lace bikini.
His mouth suddenly felt dry. “Where’d those come from?”
“Funny thing about superstores. You never know what you might find when you go in late at night looking for hair dye.”
Will closed his eyes. He’d just killed a man, in a brutal way. Yeah, maybe he deserved it, but there was still blood on his hands, not taken in self-defense. He’d just told her what had been done to him and his part in it. Maybe he had been raped, but it was going to take Will a while to get used to the idea of himself as a total victim. He’d spent too many years hearing Shelton’s words and believing them.
Her hands felt warm as they slid around his waist, her breasts pressed against him, her mouth planting open kisses on his collarbone. “Randa, I—”
“Shut up, Will.” She smiled up at him. “You thought telling me all that was going to make me hate you?”
He shrugged, realizing he’d probably sold her short. Again. “Or just be disgusted. How do you know all that stuff? I mean, were you ever…?”
“Raped?” She shook her head. “But I was a counselor at my division’s rape crisis center. Those victims were not children, either, Will. And they weren’t all women. You don’t disgust me. In fact, I think you’re the bravest, smartest guy I know. Not to mention sexy.”
She pulled him to the bed, and he lay beside her. He wished he could show her how much it meant to him that she didn’t judge him. Explain to her that it was going to take him a while to put all the baggage of his past behind him—maybe a long while. But he’d work at it, and not only for himself, but for them.
For now, Randa nestled in his arms with her head tucked under his chin, their legs tangled in what had fast become their favorite daysleep position, and it was enough.
Randa’s slow-beating vampire heart thumped at almost human levels as she and Will pulled into the lot of the West Point, Georgia, Walmart just before 8:00. The Penton leaders had talked through different options, but needed to hear what her father had to say.
Assuming he showed up. Part of her feared he wouldn’t show, and the other part feared he would.
“Shit.” Will stopped at the edge of the lot. “He didn’t come alone. Black SUV, far corner.”
There were clearly two figures sitting inside it. Both male, about the same size. “I think it’s Robbie.” Damn it, she should’ve known her brother wouldn’t accept being shut out.
“OK, we improvise. Tell me about Robbie.”
Randa took a deep breath, thinking of Robbie as a dossier subject, not a brother. “He goes by ‘Rob’ and left the army after his second tour was up so he could work with Dad. He’s a former Ranger, thirty-three, divorced, no kids. I thought he was engaged, or so his Facebook page said. Can be a loud-mouthed smart-ass.” She looked at Will. “You two have a lot in common.”
“Ha-ha.” Will’s eyes stayed on the SUV. “Go on.”
She thought of her big brother, of his relationships, what had gotten him in trouble the most. “He’s a risk-taker, a brawler, not as cold and calculating as Dad, but more creative. He owned a construction company and made
a lot of money before the economy tanked back in 2008. He saw it coming and sold the business before he lost his shirt. I think he was already doing”—she held up finger quotes—“security work for Dad when I got deployed, mostly because he seemed to have plenty of money but wouldn’t say exactly how he’d gotten it. My guess is Dad brought him in to lead the missions.”
“So you trust him?”
Of all her brothers except for Rory, she trusted Robbie the most, and he’d been the one to first accept that she had really survived Afghanistan, even though he’d missed the vampire reveal. “I do trust him, and if Dad decides to help us, he’d probably bring Robbie into it anyway. I say we go ahead with the plan.”
Will nodded. “Good enough for me.”
He shifted the truck into drive and approached the dark SUV slowly, stopping next to it. All four of them got out, and Randa approached Robbie with something akin to fear. She assumed Dad had told him but wasn’t sure what his reaction would be.
“Come here, fang-face.” He grinned, and Randa heard Will behind her, laughing. Great, now she’d have two smart-asses to deal with. But she hugged her brother, relieved he wasn’t afraid of her. “Let me see ’em.”
She laughed. “You better watch out. You didn’t get the pandemic vaccine—I can bite you.” Not that she would. Getting her brother all orgasmic was every bit as squicky as her doing it to her dad.
He frowned. “You can tell that? How—by smell?”
She nodded, looking at the ground, avoiding his eye. It really sounded freakish—their whole lives sounded freakish.
“Well, how seriously cool is that?” Robbie stepped around Randa and held out his hand to Will. “Sorry, we weren’t properly introduced last night, William. Robert Thomas.”
There was a long pause as Will sized up his new potential ally. Finally, he smiled. “Actually, it’s William Ludlam—Will. Sorry, but we were being cautious last night.”
This whole time, Rick Thomas had stood back, leaning against the rear door of the SUV, watching them all. “It’s understandable,” he said. “You’re trying to decide whether or not to trust us, same as we’re trying to decide about you.”
Randa hugged him. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. I hate that I’ve brought this to your doorstep.”
He kissed her forehead. “If changing the human world as we know it is the price of getting my daughter back, well, what the hell.”
Dad made a joke? She looked up at him, and damned if he wasn’t smiling.
The smile faded quickly. “The more I thought about this last night, the bigger it got. That’s why I wanted Rob here. Whatever we decide to do is going to be complicated—the more minds working on it, the better.”
Fifteen minutes later, Will and Randa pulled the pickup into the automotive-plant parking lot, the black SUV following close behind. When they got out of the vehicles, she saw both her dad and brother checking firearms and was sure Will had seen it as well. But she shouldn’t have expected them to come unarmed, just as they shouldn’t have been surprised to know she and Will carried guns and knives. Trust didn’t come easily.
“Stop.” They’d been walking silently, but Will halted inside the tree line about a hundred yards from the hatch clearing. He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. He kept his voice low. “Two vampires—neither of them ours—plus a dog just ahead, between us and the hatch. No humans.”
Which was weird. Search dogs usually had human handlers.
Both her dad and brother were looking at Will with renewed interest. “Son, maybe you better tell us how to kill a vampire,” Rick said.
Damn. Randa hadn’t thought about it, but her dad was right. If they were going to ask him for help and expect him to fight, they also had to equip him to kill. Even if it meant telling him their vulnerabilities.
Will looked at her father long and hard before giving a curt nod. “With a gun, the only way to truly kill a vampire is to shatter the heart with a large-caliber bullet at close range—think raw meat—or do the same thing to the brain. If you can remove the heart, even better. With a blade, you need to be sure to pierce the heart, and the blade has to be silver or silver coated. Otherwise, we heal too fast for it to be lethal. Oh, and beheading works quite well. And sunlight.”
Robbie’s eyes had grown wider with each new detail. “Holy shit. What happened to the wooden stake?”
Will raised an eyebrow. “It works in theory, but it’s pretty slow, and chances are, any vampire worth his fangs would tear your head off before you got it all the way in.”
“Good to know.” Robbie’s voice was subdued.
Randa pulled her pistol from the flat holster that fit inside the waistband of her cargo pants—impractical with something tight like jeans, but otherwise handy. Will, Robbie, and her dad retrieved guns from ankles, inside jackets, and beneath a shirt. Randa fought back a grim smile. The family who hunts vampires together stays together?
They fanned out and approached the clearing in a semicircle. The two vampires were both males and weren’t familiar. The dog, a bloodhound, sniffed around the area where Will had killed Shelton. About two feet from the Omega entrance. They could trip over the hatch if they stepped in the right spot.
Randa looked at Will, pointed her forefinger from herself to the vampire on the left, and then held up three fingers. They’d worked out their signals during the early days when Aidan had forced them to patrol together. To her dad and Robbie, she used her flat palm toward them: Stay. They both nodded, although if her father frowned any harder, his eyebrows and mouth would meet.
She suspected not many people had issued a “stay” command to Colonel Rick Thomas.
Will held up one finger, and she raised her gun in a shooting stance. He raised a second finger within his own stance, and she aimed. From her peripheral vision, she saw the third finger go up, and they fired simultaneously.
Will’s vampire dropped, missing sizable portions of skull, but the other vampire shifted at the last second and took a hit to the shoulder. He disappeared before Randa could get another shot off. Damn it. The guy would run straight to Matthias.
“Go after him or go in Omega?”
Will shook his head. “He’s probably halfway to Penton by now. We have to consider ourselves compromised. Let’s go down.”
Robbie stopped next to the dead vampire. “Shit. His blood’s pink. Why is it pink?”
“Our blood is more magenta than crimson. The hungrier we are, the lighter the blood. This guy was starving.” Randa knelt and clicked her tongue to call the dog. He came from beneath a bush, slow and wary. When she held her hand out, though, he slinked to her. They couldn’t leave him out here to pinpoint the hatch, but she wasn’t about to let them kill him.
Mirren and Aidan would have a cow, but she was taking him underground.
While she’d been luring the dog, Will and Robbie had been dragging the dead vampire away from the Omega hatch. No point in making it any easier for them.
“All right, let’s get moving.” Will knelt in the leaf-covered clearing and felt for the tiny loop to pull up the hatch. Beneath it was the real hatch of locked steel. He unlocked it and pulled it open.
“Cage? You there?”
A deep rumble of a voice answered. “Me, junior.”
Oh boy. Mirren was the welcoming committee. Randa hoped her dad and Robbie were truly ready for this.
“We’re coming down—there’s four of us, plus a big ugly dog, so don’t get trigger-happy.” Will turned and flashed a brilliant smile at her dad and Robbie—the heart-stopping smile that showed his dimples and would have made her weak in the knees if she hadn’t had a mental image of her dad and Mirren, face-to-face.
“Get ready, Dad,” she said. “You’re about to meet your vampire equivalent.”
Will wasn’t sure what he thought about Colonel Rick Thomas. He’d laughed when Randa called Mirren his vampire equivalent, but it wasn’t too far off the mark. The colonel wasn’t as big as Mirren, but he’d mastered that same abilit
y to mask emotion and reduce people to blithering idiots with a single look.
They’d given each other a cool assessment when they met, and it had warmed up to something Will might liken to, oh, the Arctic Circle. If they’d been bulls, they’d have been butting each other with their horns and seeing which one could paw at the ground and stir up the most dirt.
If there hadn’t been so much at stake, it would have been funny.
Aidan and Mirren had done a good job of not only telling the scathe members and fams that new humans would be in their midst, but also getting most of them to stay in their rooms. A few sat in the common room. Some were still in the medical ward with Krys, but once they’d put them all on bottled water, they seemed to be holding their own. A couple were in serious condition, but none had died yet. Thank God Matthias didn’t know much about poisons and Krys had been sharp enough to catch it early.
Now they’d all gathered in the conference room, which Will had begun thinking of as the war room. It’s what they were planning, after all. Or maybe he should call it the coup room.
First, they had to report on the vampires up top and explain why they’d come in carrying a dog. Mirren had threatened to shoot it, until Glory got between him and the mutt, and then Hannah had taken over.
Watching her with the dog, pulling its ears and scratching its belly, Will wondered why none of them had thought to get Hannah a pet before. It didn’t seem very vampire-like, but she wasn’t your ordinary vampire.
“I think we have to assume Matthias knows where the hatch is, or will very soon,” Aidan said. “The exit room on that side is not as vulnerable to something like a grenade as the one beneath the church because of the steel superstructure, but it’s going to make it impossible to go in and out safely. I think you can safely say we’re trapped. They can just sit out there and pick us off.”
On their tour of the facility, they’d filled in the colonel and Rob on the cave-in, the attack, and how they’d ended up in the stupid position of having only one exit. “How long can you survive down here without leaving?” Rick had asked.
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