by Dakota Rebel
“You can sleep in my room,” I mumbled. “I can’t move any further tonight.”
She leaned over me and kissed my forehead. My eyes were closed, but I could tell she stood there staring at me. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, she was leaning over me with a strange look on her face.
“What?”
“Are you wearing makeup?”
Fuck. “Goodnight, Reagan.”
“Night, Mitch.”
Chapter Two
I shook Reagan awake at six o’clock the next morning. I had woken completely free of a hangover and said a silent prayer of thanks for that amazing feat.
“Wake up, lazy ass. You have to go to school today. Mom will have my hide if I let you stay home. My ears still bleed occasionally from the last time I let you skip after you stayed over.”
She groaned but finally rolled out of bed. She stumbled hazy-eyed toward the bathroom. When I heard the shower start, I was pretty sure she was really awake and going to school. I dropped a twenty on her backpack before heading to the gym. She needed to eat, and there was nothing at my place. I don’t know how to cook. So unless she was going to drink beer for breakfast, which she was not above doing, she would need to pick up something on her way to school.
I spent two hours at the gym next door to my loft, an hour with weights and an hour on the track. I try to spend at least an hour a day running. Lycanthropes are fast little bastards and a bitch to keep up with without hurting yourself. My talent for running has also come in handy on the few occasions I’ve had to run for my life. So as much as I hate doing it, I run, often.
Another thing I’m not fond of is coming home to find my seventeen-year-old sister watching television an hour after school has already started. And yet…
“Reagan, what the fuck are you doing here?” She had fast-food wrappers and two cups of coffee sitting next where she was sprawled with my remotes on the couch.
“I got you coffee. Thanks for breakfast. I was starving. Your change is on the table. And you got a package. I threw it in on your desk.”
“Stay the fuck out of my office.”
I watched her sipping her own coffee, acting oblivious to my anger. I blew out a sigh and took my coffee from beside hers. Little bitch. She knew how to get to me. I couldn’t be too mad. I had ditched more school than she could ever conceive of, and at least, I knew where she was. I had done some pretty horrible things when I was supposed to be in class. So since she wasn’t sniffing, snorting or boozing it up at nine o’clock in the morning, I guessed I could let her hang out and watch talk shows all day.
I took my coffee into the bathroom with me, sipping it between showering, shaving and going into the bedroom to dress. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a blue tank top I liked to think brought out my eyes to full advantage. Petty? Maybe. But I’m a gay guy, I’m allowed to be.
I turned sideways to check my abs in the mirror. Nice and flat. I raised the shirt a little, admiring the smooth muscle rippling down my stomach. I’d only started lifting weights about a year ago, but it certainly had its perks. My arms were getting nicely toned, too. I’d grown up stick thin, so muscles were new for me, and they didn’t suck.
“Damn, bro,” Reagan said when I walked back into the living room. “You look like you’re going cruising.”
“Actually, I was thinking about giving you a ride to school. What time does your football team practice?” I smiled when she rolled her eyes. “Really, Reagan, why are you still here? Mom is going to throw the biggest bitch fit when she finds out I let you skip school again.”
“Don’t worry. She’s not going to find out. She called the school and excused me for today.”
I had to laugh at that. I’d pretended to be Dad on several occasions when I was in high school. She was way too much like me for her own good.
“I’ll be in my office. Stay the fuck out.”
She stuck out her tongue at me but turned her attention back to the television. I hoped she’d listen. I had a feeling I knew what was in the package she’d thrown in there.
The Army hadn’t issued a contract to me since my…incident. Due to the fact that I’d cashed the bonus check and bought a new toy, they probably figured I was ready to go back to work.
I closed the door behind me and sighed at the familiar manila envelope sitting on my desk. I sat then turned it over, checking for the red wax seal on the back. A large Victorian V was emblazoned in the wax. A vampire kill. Nothing like jumping right back on the horse again.
I popped the seal on the package and spilled its contents onto the desk. Photos, maps, a few CDs and a smaller envelope tumbled out in front of me.
I flipped over the CDs in my hand. The pictures on the covers looked like a bunch of seventeen-year-old, drama-class rejects. A band name boldly announced them as Heartstrings. They all wore way too much eye makeup and dressed in black dress shirts with black pants and the requisite black trench coats. I couldn’t help thinking that the gay mafia would vomit in their mouths if they saw these boys. I know the sight of their “look at us, aren’t we hot vampires” image turned my stomach a little—much more so than the crime scene photos showing the cute one with white-blond hair standing over bloody, mangled corpses.
The pictures were gruesome, but my eyes didn’t want to focus on the victims. No, they kept travelling to the smooth line of flesh between the man’s jaw and collar bone. His eyes looked so familiar, even in the darkness of the photos. There was something about him that made me feel as if I knew him. There was something familiar about that skin, and that hair and those eyes.
I picked up one of the CDs again and realized that the adorable man in the massacre photos seemed to be the leader of the band. Not a good sign. I flipped through the papers spread on the desk and scanned them until I found a band list.
Jarrod Axlerod, vampire, sixty-four years old, lead singer of Heartstrings. His brother, Skip Axlerod, also a vampire, fifty-one years old, lead guitarist. Christian Jaquea, thirty-four years old, werewolf, drummer. And Timothy Sparks, vampire forty-two years old, bass guitar.
After another quick look through the pictures, I was relieved to find only one of the band members was featured in them. I would have been pissed if I had to take out the immortal bunch and their dog. One vampire in the public eye would be hard enough to kill. An entire band would probably be the end of my career in the hunting business, maybe even the breathing business. I was good, but I wasn’t sure anyone was that good.
I opened the smaller envelope that had tumbled out and found two tickets to Friday night’s concert at The State in downtown Detroit. That gave me two nights to read up on the hit before starting actual recon.
I quickly scanned the brief and discovered the Army knew dick about Jarrod Axlerod. If they hadn’t included pictures, I wouldn’t have believed he’d killed anyone. There were witnesses who said they had been with him while the murders in question had taken place. But it’s hard to argue with a full-color photo of the killer with blood on his hands.
Still, I couldn’t help noticing that not a single one of them showed blood on his mouth. I searched for bite radius findings in the report and didn’t find any. It wasn’t like the powers-that-be to send out such an incomplete report. It almost seemed as if they’d based their entire findings on the photos. Yeah, they were incriminating, but if you knew anything about vampires, you’d know that if these vics had been bled through a bite as the coroner’s reports all indicated they had, there should have been blood on Jarrod’s mouth, his clothes or somewhere other than just his hands. Additionally, vampires rarely left behind the amount of blood showing in the pictures. They weren’t such a wasteful bunch. The circumstances were too weird.
I picked up one of the photos again, studying it closer. I had definitely seen his face before. For a minute, I thought it was probably because the band was pretty famous, but as I rifled through the rest of the photos, a sick realization dawned on me. I had seen that face before, but I had seen it behind a stark-white m
ask at Torque.
I rummaged through the desk drawer until I came up with a bottle of white-out. I grabbed one of the pictures and carefully drew a mask over his eyes. When I finished, I stared into the face of a serial killer whose cock had been in my mouth twelve hours earlier.
I swept my arm across the desk, knocking the pictures, CDs and papers into the top drawer before walking out of the room. My hands shook as I headed to the kitchen for a beer. I popped off the cap and took a big pull from the bottle. Leaning against the counter, I tried to breathe deeply and not pass out.
It had to be a sick joke. Someone had found out I’d been with a vampire and decided it would be funny to play a trick on me. I knew that didn’t make any sense, but neither did blowing a murderer in the backroom of a club. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known at the time.
I dumped the rest of the beer down the drain and grabbed my car keys.
“I’m going to run over to Torque to get my car. Don’t get into anything,” I said on my way out the door.
It looked as if it were about to rain, but I hoped the fresh air would clear my head a little. I tried not to think about the previous night, but as I turned the corner and saw the Torque sign still lit up against the gray sky, I couldn’t help remembering how amazing it had been. I’d gone to the Masked Ball wanting anonymous sex and debauchery. I’d gotten it, and then some.
I climbed into my car, which was thankfully right where I’d left it with all the windows intact, and turned the ignition. I leaned back my head, staring at the roof for a minute, then screamed my frustration into the deserted garage. The whole situation was fucked, and so was I.
* * * *
I walked into the apartment, throwing my keys into the tray on the counter. Reagan sat on the couch, the TV still on, but she didn’t seem to be paying it any attention. It took me a minute to realize she was staring at me and had been since I’d walked in the door.
“What?”
“Don’t get mad,” she said. She scooted to the edge of the couch and propped her elbows on her knees.
“That sounds promising. What did you do?” I crossed my arms across my chest and stared at her.
“Well, I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to get all pissy before I even say anything.”
“Then don’t start conversations with the words ‘don’t get mad’. It’s going to make me instantly defensive. You wouldn’t say that if you hadn’t done something to piss me off.”
“I wasn’t snooping, honest.” Her eyes had gone wide with the excitement that only comes from confessing. “But I had to get the phone out of your office—”
“You’re not allowed in there. That’s the one rule I have when you come here, Reagan.”
“I know that.” She waved her hand at me as if it didn’t matter. “But you’re the dumbass who left the cordless in there, so it’s your fault anyway. Now, shut up. I’m trying to tell you something. I needed to call Donna and make sure she got my homework assignments for me. But when I found my birthday present in there, well, I didn’t even remember to do that. I was way too excited.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. Reagan’s birthday was still days away, and I hadn’t started shopping for her, let alone actually buying her anything. She must have noticed the confusion on my face because she instantly withdrew into herself. Her arms crossed, and her smile faded as quickly as it had jumped onto her face.
“Sorry, I just assumed they were for me. I didn’t even know that you liked them. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” Tears shone in her eyes, though I knew she’d rather die than let them fall in front of me. I was completely confused by the sight of them.
“Reagan, what did you see in my office?”
“Well,” she took a deep breath, “the phone was on your desk, and when I picked it up, I saw the envelope sitting there and wondered what it was because you never seem to do anything normal, and when I saw who it was, I thought Mom told you how bad I wanted to go and—”
My heart was in my throat. I held up a hand to stop her babbling. “Reagan, focus. What envelope?”
“The one with the Heartstrings tickets in it.”
I don’t know what she saw in my face when she said that, but she looked as scared as I felt. I just barely managed to keep myself from running into my office. I threw open the door, walking straight to the desk with Reagan in my heels. The desk was clear except the small envelope containing the tickets.
“Was this the only thing that was here?”
“Yes.” She sounded offended. “I don’t steal from you, Mitch.”
“I know that, sweetie. I didn’t mean it like that.” I let out a breath that was half laughter. I’d been so scared I’d left out the large envelope, that she’d seen the photos or the report on Jarrod Axlerod. My body almost trembled as it released the unused adrenaline that had flooded my system at the thought.
“Mitch, are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry to freak you out, kiddo.” I pulled her into a hug. She let me hold her for a few seconds before wiggling away.
“Don’t call me that.” She crossed her arms and pretended to be angry about it. But I think she secretly liked it.
“So, you like this band, huh?”
“Smooth.” She laughed. “Yeah, I like them. Why the hell did you freak out so bad? What’s in here that you don’t want me to see?”
“Gee, Reagan, I don’t think the Army would appreciate me letting seventeen-year-old civilians paw through classified documents. Though, if you want, we can call Dad and ask him, then you can feel free to have full access to my entire life.”
She deflated a little, which made me feel bad and yet superior all at the same time. But fuck, she could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. She recovered quickly though, as per teenage usual.
“So, who are you taking to the concert? I mean, if you didn’t buy the tickets for my birthday, then you had obviously planned on someone using the second ticket. Who is he?”
I thought quickly. “Actually smartass, I won them, which was why I forgot they were in here. And I would take you, but the tickets state ‘no flash photography and no nosey brats’. So, that sucks for you.”
“Ha-ha, shut up. Who are you taking?” She wasn’t going to let this go. It was a terrible idea to take my little sister on a recon mission. Just awful. But it wasn’t as if I planned to kill him at the show. And this was a ready-made birthday present she would obviously love. Fuck it.
“Happy birthday, Reagan.” I cringed as the most inhuman sound I’d ever heard emanated from her mouth. Only teenage girls have the ability to scream, squeal and shriek at the same time. It was blood curdling.
“Thank you so much, Mitch.” She threw her arms around me, kissing my cheek and squeezing me hard. “You rock. You are the best fucking brother ever.”
“Gee, thanks.” I unlatched her from my neck. “Now, go do something quiet. I need to work for a while.”
“Yeah, you could stand to do some more crunches. Your abs feel a little soft. I’ll go watch TV.”
“Bitch.”
She laughed but left me alone in the office. I sank into my office chair and sighed. I knew she was kidding, but I couldn’t help running a hand across my stomach anyway. They weren’t soft, not even a little.
I pulled Jarrod Axlerod’s file out of my drawer. I left the pictures and everything else hidden in case Reagan barged in, which she was sure to do at least a few times. And I wasn’t disappointed. After about an hour, she walked in complaining that she was hungry and I didn’t have anything but beer and bottled water in my fridge.
“Isn’t my change still on the table? Go get yourself something.”
“Don’t you eat? Ever?” She sat on the corner of my desk, swinging her legs and staring at me. “You’re not going to get fat, Mitch. You can afford to keep food here.”
I shoved her off the desk. “Fine, let’s go. What do you want?”
“I want a cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake.”
“You know, your ass isn’t going stay tiny forever. If you keep eating like that, it’s going to catch up to you eventually.”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “Have you ever seen our mother?”
It was true. Mom was incredibly thin and fit. “Have you ever seen Mom eat garbage like that?”
She didn’t seem to like that answer much. She stalked out of the room but left the door open. I was stuck taking her to lunch. It would serve her right if I just drove her home. Maybe, if I were a little more strict with her, she would stop acting like such a spoiled brat. Then again, I’d always been that way, too, so there was probably no hope for her at all.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, I was home again with a pissed off teenager not speaking to me. Perfect. She was eating her drive-thru burger and fries, but she wasn’t happy about it. She had expected me to take her somewhere and drop a fortune on her for lunch. I’d told her, as politely as possible, to fuck off. I had work to do, and she wasn’t going to disrupt my entire day.
I locked the door to my office so I could pull out the crime scene photos. I tried again to pay attention to the victims in the pictures, but I couldn’t stop staring at Jarrod Axlerod. Couldn’t stop thinking back to the way his hands had felt on my body. How fantastic he’d tasted.
I blew out a sigh and threw the pictures back in the desk. And since the report wasn’t giving up anything new, I decided to just give up on all of it. This would be a strict stake and run. Digging into the whys and hows wasn’t necessary. The army was supposed to have done that anyway. All I had to do was kill him. And that’s what I would do, no matter how fucked up the situation had become. That wasn’t the Army’s problem. It was mine. And I would just have to make it through with the minimal amount of bullshit.
I was surprised to see it was after four o’clock when I finally checked my watch. Reagan had been quiet for hours. That had to be a record for her. I walked out into the living room to check on her and found her sitting cross-legged on the couch with my cordless phone pressed to her ear.