by Dakota Rebel
I pulled the door open and walked into the warehouse. The light from outside had started to fade, and the windows of the building were filthy. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness so that I could move without worrying about running into something…or someone.
I looked around and saw a freight elevator across the room. I got into it, pulling the rickety grate closed before pressing the button for the second floor. It clanked and rattled so hard I gripped the railing tight, terrified I would plummet straight down and break every bone in my body.
When it finally shuddered to a stop, I opened the grate and stepped into Jarrod’s living room. He sat on a sofa with Reagan next to him. They were both looking at something, and Reagan was laughing.
“What’s going on?” I walked into the room, heading for them.
Jarrod got to his feet and met me halfway. I looked around him to see Reagan, but she was still looking toward the floor. Jarrod turned my face with his finger and kissed me lightly on the lips.
“She’s fine. I didn’t mean to scare you. She’s just a little freaked out. I guess she came home with Skip last night and ended up staying over. But, well, Skip dies at dawn, and I don’t think she was aware of what that meant. I woke up this afternoon to find her huddled on the floor of the living room crying.”
I started to walk around him, but he stopped me with a hand to my chest.
“Please don’t yell at her. She’s had a really hard day already. She’s terrified you’re going to be pissed at her for coming here. But you have to remember, she’s eighteen now. She’s going to make some mistakes, but that’s life. I think she and Skip might actually care about each other.”
“So he fucks my little sister, dies on her, and you’re going to defend him?”
Reagan turned to look at me. The laughter she had shared with Jarrod was gone completely from her face. She’d turned pale at the volume of my voice. I didn’t want to scare her more than she already had been, but I couldn’t just let it be okay that she’d gone home with a vampire.
“Mitch,” Jarrod said softly. “Please.”
Him and that fucking “please”. His eyes were wide, but he didn’t look scared. He looked worried. About what, I wasn’t sure. Worried I would kick her ass in his living room? Or worried I would wait until Skip woke up so I could beat his ass instead? To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d actually do about any of it. Yeah, I was pissed. She knew better. She’d been brought up in a household that preached the evils of all vampires. Since we’d been able to understand words, our father had cemented in our heads that vampires were nothing more than monsters. It was what had made me want to become a hunter in the first place. Even as the Army preached that they weren’t all bad and that we couldn’t kill them all on sight, I had always believed what Dad had taught me…until recently.
I knew it was ridiculous to be angry at her for doing the exact same thing I was doing, but it didn’t stop me from being mad anyway. I looked at my feet, shaking my head. I didn’t have a leg to stand on with her. And I think we all knew it.
“Reagan, we should go. Mom is going to be worried sick.”
“Mom thinks I’m staying with Donna for the week,” she said softly, not moving. “I told her we’re studying for finals and that her mom had said I could stay there since we don’t have school this week.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. If she had told Mom she would be gone for a week, that meant she had planned on crashing with Skip for several days. This was not a spur of the moment decision. I counted to twenty instead, waiting until my eye stopped twitching behind the lid before opening them again.
When I did, Reagan stood next to Jarrod in front of me. She looked scared, but not enough for the rage I was swallowing at the moment. I wanted to grab her by her hair and drag her out of that place caveman-style. But I knew that would make it worse.
“Reagan, we’re going home. You can stay with me until it’s time for you to go back to Mom’s. I am not going to attack you, so you can wipe the look off your face. But we’re leaving. Now.”
She nodded before turning to Jarrod and giving him a quick hug. She walked to the elevator, waiting for me to follow.
“I’ll call you later,” I said, kissing Jarrod on the cheek.
“Mitch, don’t be too hard on her. Remember, you’re fucking a vampire, too.”
“Thanks. That’s what I needed to hear right now.” I shook my head and started walking away, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me around to face him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I just meant that she’s a teenager. Even if she’s legally allowed to do more things now, she’s still young. She’s going to make mistakes. But I don’t think her coming here last night was recklessness. I think she has a crush on Skip. Hell, it might even be more than that.” He held up a hand before I argued. “Whatever it is, she thinks she has feelings for him. And if it helps, Skip isn’t the kind of guy who uses women. If he’s spending this much time with her, I think it means he really cares for her, too.”
I sighed. It didn’t make me feel better. Not even a little. Even if Jarrod was right about Skip and Reagan having “feelings” for each other, I couldn’t help feeling Skip had brought home my sister to get back at me for fucking Jarrod. Whatever his motive, the whole thing had to end. It was bad enough that I was fucking a vampire who might or might not have killed a slew of men over the past few years. I didn’t need my sister wrapped up in any of it.
I met Reagan in the elevator and pulled down the grate. I watched Jarrod through the slats until the elevator descended too far to see him. Damn him, he was still adorable.
* * * *
Reagan and I didn’t talk at all on the way back to my apartment. I glanced over at her a few times, but she stared out the window, her face turned completely away from me. When we got inside the apartment, I pulled a Chinese food menu out of a kitchen drawer and ordered our usual. I hung up the phone then went into the living room to check on her.
She sat on the couch looking out the balcony door. Her face was red and blotchy as if she’d been crying. I knelt on the floor in front of her and almost fell over at the force with which she threw herself into my arms.
“Mitch, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…I like him so much. And he really seems to like me, too. I knew he was a vampire, but I didn’t realize what that meant. Not really.” She sniffed softly. “Do they all do that? I mean, do they really die when the sun comes up?”
“Yes sweetie. They all do it. It’s scary the first couple times you see it.” I ran a hand over her hair, letting her cling to me and cry as much as she wanted to. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. We were laying in bed talking, he had his arm over me then he was just…gone. His body was so cold and hard. It was awful.” She pulled away from me, wiping away her tears with the palms of her hands. “Do you know what that’s like?”
I sighed. I wasn’t fond of over-sharing with her, but I wanted to keep her talking to me, so I knew that I would have to tell her some of it.
“I do know what it’s like. And it is really unnerving. Especially after you’ve…been with them like that.” It was so juvenile, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words aloud. “Jarrod is the first vampire I’ve ever slept next to, so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. I had an advantage because I’ve hunted them and found them dead for the day. I knew it could happen. It must have been really scary for you to experience it like that.”
She nodded. She had stopped crying and her breathing slowed back to normal.
We both jumped at the knock on the door. She let out a shaky laugh as I got up to pay for the food. I brought the bags back to the couch then we pulled out cartons and chopsticks. I turned on the television, and we watched old cartoons while we swapped containers of noodles and rice back and forth.
I didn’t press her, mostly because I was terrified she would give details I never wanted to hear, but
also, because I knew that she was too much like me. I had to let her come to me in her own time. If I pushed her, she would kick like a mule and I’d lose her.
Halfway through our second hour of cartoons, she finally caved.
“What does it feel like to be in love?”
Fuck. Not what I was hoping for. I took a deep breath and turned to look at her.
“I’m not entirely sure.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t do that. I really don’t. I’ve never been in love before, and despite what you think, I don’t know if I’m in love now. I like Jarrod a lot, and I think about him all the time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I love him.”
“He loves you,” she said softly. “We talked for a while before he called you. He did a pretty good job of calming me down. We talked about the band and stuff, but then I asked him what his intentions were for you.”
I smiled. It was just such a Reagan thing to say.
“He said that he loves you, and he will wait as long as it takes for you to realize that you’re in love with him, too.”
“Well, I’m glad the two of you have my life all planned out. Are we going to get married and spend happily forever after together?”
She stuck out her tongue at me. “We didn’t really get that far into it. He started asking me about Skip, and what happened—not like the personal stuff or anything. He just asked if I was okay and if I needed anything. So I asked him to call you.”
“I’m glad that you did. I don’t want you to ever be afraid to tell me anything. You know you can come to me whenever you need to. I will always be here for you. That’s love, honey. That’s the best I can explain it. I love you, and that’s all that matters. You know that, right?”
She nodded, moving to hug me again. I held her until she pulled away, even though I wasn’t quite ready to let go of her. She got up and went to the closet to get her bedding. I helped her make up the sofa, handed her the remote and kissed her forehead.
“I’ll be right down the hall if you need me, okay?”
“Okay. Night, Mitch.”
“Night, kiddo.”
I went into my room and sat on the bed with my phone in my hand. I wanted to call Jarrod, wanted to talk to him about Skip and what was going on between him and my sister. But I couldn’t force myself to dial. I was surprisingly tired since I’d only been up for a few hours. I knew that Reagan would be up for a while but had just wanted to be alone. So it looked as if I was stuck in my room for the night.
I finally broke down and called the number Skip had given me for Jarrod. But the call went straight to his voicemail. I left a brief message with my phone number and clicked the phone closed. I got up to go into the bathroom and heard Reagan talking softly on her cell phone in the living room.
“No really, Skip, I’m fine. I promise. I don’t think Mitch is that pissed. I think he was just worried. Of course, I want to see you again. Don’t be silly.”
I felt bad for eavesdropping but not bad enough to stop. I stood as still as possible, not wanting her to see me in the hallway.
“Really? That would be awesome! You’re so sweet. Yeah, I’ll have Mitch bring me over. What time?”
I bristled at the thought of taking her anywhere Skip would be. I shut my bedroom door and headed down the hall. Reagan was hanging up the phone when I got to the living room. She watched me walk into the kitchen, and she was still staring when I came back out with a bottle of water.
“Don’t be mad,” she said.
I laughed. “‘Cause that went so well for us the last time you said it to me. What now?”
“Skip is going to throw me a birthday party.”
“You’re birthday was days ago.” I leaned against the wall and drained half the bottle.
“I know, but he didn’t really know me then, and since you so rudely interrupted us at Torque, he wants to make it up to me. The whole band is going to be there, and he said I can invite any of my friends I want to.”
“Uh-huh. Reagan, this is a really bad idea. I already told you I don’t want you hanging out with them. Why this guy? Why this vampire? Can’t you pick someone else to hang around?”
“Because I like this guy, and he just happens to be a vampire. I didn’t go out searching for one. Come on, Mitch. You can take me then you’ll be there to chaperone all night. You can watch me to your heart’s content. Please. I never ask you for anything.”
“You ask me for shit all the time. What the hell are you talking about?” I laughed again. She was pulling out every trick she knew to get me to let her do this. She was right. It wouldn’t be as bad if I was there to keep an eye on things.
“Okay. Fine. Then this isn’t anything new. Please?”
“Fuck. You guys and your pouty little ‘pleases’.” I threw my hands up. She looked confused until she realized she had won.
“See, I told you that you were the best fucking brother ever.” She lay back on the couch, her fingers flying over the keys of her phone, probably shooting off text messages to her friends.
I went back down the hall, finally going to the bathroom. I climbed into the shower, letting the hot water relax me. Hopefully, it would be enough for me to get some sleep during the night. I couldn’t let myself get on a vampire schedule. I didn’t know what was happening with Jarrod, but my life had been turned inside out by both of the Axlerods.
I glanced at my stomach and groaned in realization that I hadn’t been to the gym in a while. I would have to get up early and go. I turned off the water, wrapped a towel around my waist and went into the bedroom again.
I crawled into bed, setting my alarm for the ass crack of dawn—okay, ten a.m. After about two hours of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.
Chapter Ten
I managed to make it to the gym and worked out harder than I had in a long time. When I got back to the apartment, Reagan was sipping coffee from the shop down the street. She pointed to another cup on the end table. I kissed the top of her head and grabbed my cup.
“Why don’t they understand the word coffee over there?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I think I need to find a new coffee place.”
I took a quick shower and got dressed. When I got back out to the living room, Donna had joined Reagan on the sofa. They were giggling and surrounded by bags.
“What’s going on now?”
“Donna and I need to get ready for my party,” Reagan said as if it should be obvious.
Fuck. I had agreed to go to that stupid party at the Axlerods’. I watched Reagan and Donna poring through bags of black cloth and considered asking if it would be a costume party then thought better of it. It wouldn’t do to piss off Reagan before the party. She would just take off on me, and I wanted her attached to me for the whole night.
I left them alone to do their thing while I went into my office. The top drawer of my desk was still a jumbled pile of the Axlerod case. I pulled out everything and pawed through it again. The only thing that had changed was that one of the photos had a sticky note on it, in my father’s handwriting, that said, why is he still alive?
Great. I had to figure this out. Someone had obviously set up Jarrod. I was convinced he hadn’t actually committed the crimes in question, but proving it could be difficult.
Everything I needed was in the photos, but I didn’t know what to look for. It still struck me as odd that someone had gotten the photos, some of them with Jarrod staring straight toward the camera. Yet he didn’t seem to know they had been taken. It was bizarre. I thought about Skip but immediately dismissed him as a suspect.
He was obviously in love with Jarrod. It wouldn’t make any sense for him to set up Jarrod. But I didn’t know who else it could have been. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Skip had done the actual murders, but that might have just been my own feelings toward him bleeding all over the case.
I would have come up with something before my father called the feds and had me pulled
from the case. They would just turn the Army contract over to some trigger-happy cowboy who would dust Jarrod without a second thought. I had no idea what I could do to convince Dad to give me a chance.
I tossed everything back in the drawer yet again, swearing as I slammed it shut and locked it. That stupid case file wouldn’t get me anywhere. I glanced at the clock and groaned. The party would start at sundown. Of course. I grabbed the phone and walked to the living room.
“What the fuck?” I looked around the room in horror. I had only been in the office for a couple hours, and the girls had destroyed the living room. There were clothes everywhere, empty Chinese food cartons on the floor, half a dozen empty water bottles strewn around, and Reagan was on the floor with a rag, furiously scrubbing at the carpet.
“It’s just nail polish, Mitch. It’s coming up.”
I looked at my floor and saw that the polish was indeed coming off, along with some of the black dye from the actual carpet.
“Stop! Just stop! Are you using nail polish remover on my carpet?”
“Yes,” she said softly. She finally looked down to see the bleached-out spot she’d created. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t bother counting to ten. It wouldn’t have helped. Somehow, I managed to sound calm when I finally spoke again. “I want everything cleaned up and put away by time I get back from the store. I mean it, ladies. If there is one crumb on the table, one stray shoe in the hallway, neither of you will be going anywhere tonight.”
I grabbed my keys and walked out the door. I got into my car then drove to Armani for some retail therapy.
I wanted to look good when Jarrod saw me at the party, and I hadn’t bought myself clothes in a while, having spent a fortune on the Mustang. With two teenage girls at home getting ready for a vampire party, I needed a break anyway.
I was practically mauled by three salesmen as soon as I walked in the door. I put up a hand, said I was just looking and let them follow me around for a good twenty minutes. I admired an overpriced shirt when one of them came closer again. I let him find my size, lead me to the dressing room and talk to me while I tried it on. I never answered him, finding it incredibly rude that he would feel it was okay to have a conversation with me while I undressed behind a curtain. When I came out he took the shirt from me and offered to ring me up.