by HK Savage
Now they were in Ryan’s room. Kenneth had gone to Michael’s for yet another of his incessant feedings. Curious he fed non-stop but didn’t get any stronger. Curiouser, Black wouldn’t answer when Michael asked about this odd phenomenon. The team was using these few minutes to catch Ryan up with what Michael had shared with Gabrielle. Well, not all of it. Some was private and Gabrielle knew that stayed between them.
“So that’s everything?” Ryan had both hands on the bathroom doorway, absorbing the information finally laid out in black and white. “Anything else you feel the need to share? Cause I’d like to know if I’m being hung out to get my ass shot off.” He glanced over. “No offense, Becs.” Sarcasm negated any goodwill that backhanded reassurance might have otherwise garnered.
Shocking, no tension in Michael’s head told him Black felt it was time to share, at least this bit. Small victory. It didn’t matter, Gabs was right, it was time they knew anyway. They’d been a unit longer than most humans served; their loyalties ran deep. Even his, despite the isolationist tendencies of his kind.
“Nobody’s happy,” Gabrielle replied crisply. “But it’s done, there’s no point being an ass about it.”
Ryan’s chest swelled, his mouth opened, then snapped shut and he appeared to swallow some foul tasting words.
Becca faux cleared her throat, cutting through tension much thicker than whatever she was pretending lay in her throat. “What about Kenneth? Should we tell him?”
“No.” Simultaneous. Unanimous.
From the way her shoulders slumped in relief, Becca was equally on board with not sharing her weakness with the little psychopath.
“What does this mean for the two of them?” Ryan jutted his chin her direction. “Black knows, right?”
Michael’s blood rose at the reminder of his Commanding Officer’s ridiculous competition, for lack of a better word. He opened his mouth, but Becca’s hand on his thigh stayed his response.
“He knows.” She spoke flatly, not bothering to try to hide who she figured would win. “He’s looking to cull the herd.”
“Why now? I don’t get why he’s calling the backup off the bench, you’re doing...great.” Ryan finished slowly, awareness catching up with him. “He’s known for a while, hasn’t he?”
Michael and Becca both nodded.
“He’s forcing the issue then. Doesn’t give a shit who dies, you, Kenneth, one of us, doesn’t fucking matter. He gets what he needs and fuck the rest of us.” The big man’s chest heaved, anger so close to the surface of late ruling him. The air around him shifted as his change neared. The lunar cycle being near full moon was not helping.
Michael’s mouth opened but Gabrielle spoke in the tense silence. “Easy, Hallbeck. It doesn’t do us any good if we start fighting amongst ourselves.” She let her gaze fall on the others. “We have to work together like we always do. Especially when Kenneth is around. He’s like a rabid dog. He knows the stakes here too. Even if he doesn’t know the full extent, he knows the price of failure in Black’s ranks. He got lucky once just getting turned out to age, it’s not going to happen again.”
“Is that what he would do with me?”
All eyes turned to Becca.
“What are you asking?” Ryan bristled.
Michael thought he would burst into a million fires, tension in his head reminded him of his responsibility as the monster within him clawed to get out. “Becca,” his torment was impossible to disguise.
She pulled away from him to stand, keeping her eyes on Ryan as she answered. “If I were to turn. Would he put me out to age if,” she swallowed, “If it didn’t go so well at first?”
Mind and body working together to destroy him, Michael was incapable of speech.
Gabrielle’s jaw dropped. “You’d turn?”
Clearly struggling with weakness and the gravity of the whole fucked up situation, Becca sniffed and nodded. “It’s starting to look like there isn’t much choice. Maybe I’ll get lucky and everything will be fine.” She let out a bitter laugh. “It happens, right?”
“Depends who turns you.” Ryan sank heavily to the mattress across from them looking utterly defeated. The big man had grown close to their human in the months they’d been together. It didn’t hurt the extra time they spent when Becca was learning to control her head jumping trick for Black to use on command. Ryan had proven easy for her to leap into and they’d tried a few different times plus they ran together sometimes when off duty. They all had tight bonds, it was inevitable given they worked and lived together.
“What do you mean, it depends who turns me?” The hope he heard thread its way into her voice sliced through him.
“Control is the hardest part, especially at first.” Ryan looked to Michael as if asking permission. Michael made no effort to speak. Couldn’t. Images of his Becca with her throat torn out flashed before his eyes. Sickened him. Turning was a brutal process. There was no romancing it. The sheer volume of blood that had to be exchanged meant large, messy wounds. The sharing they’d done to date was nothing to what they were discussing as calmly as she’d order a six pack of tacos.
“But control is easier if I’m close to my sire?”
“Yep, your sire has some control over you always, but it’s really strong at the beginning, when their blood is still fresh in your system.” Ryan put a hand on Becca’s knee which had begun to jiggle with nerves. “A good sire will take you in hand, teach you what you need to know. If he cares about you, he’ll try like hell to keep you out of trouble.” His eyes flicked sideways, catching Michael’s. Doubt and hope flared within them too.Fucking hell, not him too!The wolves knew how terrible the change was, how Ryan could put false hope in Becca’s heart made him want to tear it out and feed it to him.
“And then it’s, what, a few months before the changeling can be trusted?”
He had to wonder how much thought she’d been giving this decision. What was he thinking? She was more likely to die faster or be mad and one of them would be forced to put her down, like one was going to have to end Kenneth regardless of who completed this mission. The question of why nagged at him. Black did nothing without a reason, he wouldn’t be putting Becca and Kenneth both on this op unless he had an ulterior motive.
“We’re not discussing this right now.” The others looked at him. “It’s not on the table so get it out of your heads.” Becca’s eyes bored into the side of his face. He refused to meet them, knowing what he would see there. “We have a mission to complete and already one unpredictable vampire, we do not need two.”
Uncomfortable silence. The sound of Ryan scratching his head.
A knock on the door. Gabrielle sighed heavily knowing who was joining their less than merry little band.
“Hey loyal Blackovites, get started without me?” Despite the lighthearted delivery, Kenneth’s words were filled with the sharp bite of recrimination. “Must have lost my invitation.”
“You’re the one who can’t stop eating all the time. We figured you’d be joining us shortly so we were just shooting the shit.” Ryan did an admirable job of not looking like he wanted to wring the little vampire’s neck for once.
“It’s not my fault that stuff tastes like shit and packs zero punch, it’s about as satisfying as rice cakes.”
“Sort of like you,” Ryan grumbled.
Getting no love, Kenneth gritted his teeth, lips thinned, but he seemed to accept the situation and move on. “So, there’s someone out to get us, heroin in Afghanistan where there shouldn’t be, money coming into DC from nefarious sources, and our ally in Washington just got blown up on Pennsylvania Avenue, heroin planted in his ride. What’s our next move?”
“Surprisingly succinct.” Gabrielle tipped her head and shrugged.
“I’m warped, not stupid.” Kenneth’s blatant self assessment sucked the sound out of the room for a few heavy seconds. Then Ryan laughed.
“Maybe you’re not.”
Some of the tension fled. Michael compartmentalized his r
aging vampire and fears for his love’s future. His team had a mission and he had a job to do.
“Admiral Black said the setup in Afghanistan ties back to someone here. The death of Senator Jordan makes for a solid argument to support that theory. What he was going to tell us remains unknown, he refused to share over the phone. That and the military involvement in Afghanistan points to someone with CIA, NSA, or who is extremely high up and is throwing serious weight around to get what he wants.
At this point, I think we use Becca and Kenneth to listen to some potential suspects. The House is between sessions so we’ve got a much easier job on our hands.” Heads were nodding, tight expressions told him his unit was on board. So far. At once nervous and angry, not entirely convinced he hadn’t been played for a fool, Michael shared what Black told him over the phone, instigating his meltdown.
“Senator Jordan was Army then Spec Ops before going civilian.” He couldn’t help his gaze traveling to Becca. If she knew what was coming she was damn good at hiding it. As far as he knew, she had no idea her father’s service record other than Army. His move up to Spec Ops would have been a quiet one; some of the guys who made that move didn’t tell their families to avoid freaking the shit out of them. Everyone knew the boys at the top traveled light and took big risks. They were the best but that carried a heavy burden both physically and mentally.
“Black’s digging uncovered some information that might get us a line on what the senator was about to tell us.” She shifted her hips. Subtle, but clearly knew where this was going. Michael’s pride stung. His vampire gnashed his teeth. How much did she know? “Ed Sauter served in Jordan’s unit.”
A collective pause in breath. All faces turned to Becca who swallowed and pushed her shoulders back, not saying a word in her defense. Pride or guilt, he couldn’t be sure. The desire to hug and throttle her weighed equally in his mind.
“Did they keep in touch?” Gabrielle crossed her arms.
“My dad traveled on training missions until he got hurt then he slowed down and eventually retired from the Army six years ago. He never said anything about being an operator and he never mentioned Senator Jordan other than they were both in Vietnam at the same time. He made it sound like it was no big deal, just a few weeks of overlap, so I didn’t think it was anything worth mentioning.”
Patient, Gabrielle focused on Michael. She knew there was more coming. It took a lot more than that for their typically in control leader to completely lose his shit. By now she was guessing this was the cause. Smart woman, he always thought she would make a great agent. Espionage came naturally to the woman, she kept more secrets than the Vatican.
“We have phone calls to the Sauter residence originating from the senator’s home phone.”
A gasp from Becca, her mouth dropped open. She was a great fucking actor or this was news to her. His anger wavered.
“The calls were brief but we’ve got a follow up call to a local taxi service placed after each contact with Sauter.”
“Thinking meets?” Gabrielle asked.
Michael nodded once. “I am. They date back to Sauter’s last mission, which was within a stone’s throw from where we encountered some well armed goat herders.”
“Could have just been catching up, in sunny Afghanistan, but they picked up from once a month to every few days in the last six months. Whatever was going on, whatever the senator uncovered, it’s possible Ed Sauter has some answers.” He waited a beat, tuned completely in to Becca, felt like the world’s biggest asshole for what he was going to say next.
“Sauter is en route to DC as we speak, he’ll be here for a dinner meeting with top brass about some info on a mission he ran in Syria a few years back. We figure Ryan and Gabs are faces he doesn’t know.”
A bomb could have dropped and nobody would have given half a fuck at that moment. All eyes were on Becca. No one spoke. It was her turn.
But when she did, she aimed her response at him. And her words leveled him. “After you tell him about us, about me,” her voice cracked, “After you tell him about monsters and what the senator died protecting, are you going to kill him? Or will we find a use for him too so he can be spared? My whole family can be under Black’s thumb?”
Her brother, Kyle, turned out to be a savant at computers when he went from victim to ally on a mission last winter in Wisconsin. His life was in danger once he knew of their existence, but because he could be called upon when needed and proved to be a valuable asset, he’d been spared. The same couldn’t be said for her father. What would Becca lose onthismission? If she failed Black’s macabre all out op turned hunger games style competition, what wouldhelose?
He didn’t want any more lies between them. As much as he knew it would hurt, he told the truth.
“I don’t know, Becca. We’ll have to see where the information takes us.”
A small, broken sound garbled in her chest and Michael’s dead heart lurched.
“Hey,” Ryan sidled up to her and put a big hand on her delicate shoulder. “Maybe we won’t have to resort to letting him in on the big secret. Maybe we can get what we need with a little old fashioned deceit and bluffing. That’s how it’s done here.”
Becca offered him an indulgent smile, wiping wetness from her long dark lashes. “We’ll see.”
The same words in the same tone his mother used when his sister’s cat fell off the roof and lay yowling in pain on the street and she asked if it would be alright.
“We’ll put him on some blankets, see how he does in the night.”
Later that night, Michael saw his father get the shovel out of the shed. He was gone a while, long enough to bury a dead cat far enough away his little girl wouldn’t see the grave when she woke. At breakfast they told her he’d passed in the night. Not a lie, but they’d known the cat’s fate before steel met skull. Like now, Becca knew how this game was played. They would try to keep Ed in the dark about the existence of monsters. But if it came down to it, the lives of many were worth more than the life of one. It was the oath they all gave once upon a time, even Ed gave it, lived by it most of his life. Their contract with Uncle Sam was one with the possibility they wouldn’t get out alive. But to die for a secret felt wrong. Even if that secret kept thousands safe.
Chapter 20
“He’s here.” Gabs turned from the window, the last rays of daylight casting her in a soft glow. “I’ll do the talking.”
“Or the not talking?”
“Don’t pout, Ryan, it’s ugly.”
“Please don’t hurt him,” Becca rose from her seat on the bed’s edge.
“It’s highly possible we won’t need to go down that road.” Michael spoke to all of them, eyes catching Gabrielle’s and holding. “Normal humans won’t naturally go to the impossible. If the senator and Ed’s paths crossed without any indication of paranormal influence then we don’t need to tell him anything that would place him in the crosshairs.”
Ryan and Gabrielle each dipped their heads in a solemn nod. This was family, they understood the potential pitfalls of this interview.
Michael, standing beside the door, reached for the knob and turned it. “Becca, we have to go. If he sees us there may be questions.”
“What about him?” Becca pointed at the wild card in the room. “I don’t want him anywhere near my father.”
Kenneth grinned and winked. “Don’t worry, I’ll behave. I won’t touch him any more than I have to.”
“Keep your hands off my dad, you crazy fu-”
An arm wrapped around her middle before she made it two steps. “Get yourself under control, Becca or I’ll be forced to lock you down.” Michael’s tone shut down her argument though her body hummed with tension. “This is why he’s here, he can tell us what Ed won’t. If he saw something, knows something he won’t give us, Kenneth can take it.”
A pained whimper escaped her though she did not fight further.
Kenneth giggled.
“We’ll be next door if you need anything.”
Michael’s voice dropped an octave. “You will control yourself or this will be your last mission. I will retire you permanently myself.”
“Don’t worry about me, Captain. I’d worry about that one, seems pretty unstable to me.” Dark lips twisted in a smirk.
A low growl rumbled the hard body two inches behind her but nothing more was said. The door opened, they walked out, it closed behind them.
Back in their room, Becca went to her side, Michael to his. He pulled a handful of files out of his bag and tossed them on the bed between them. Grabbing one he cracked it and began to study. When she failed to follow suit he looked up and gave her a brief study.
“I can hear everything they say in there, if it sounds like it’s going south I’m in there. You have my word.”
“He’ll recognize you. There will be questions about our involvement.”