“On the other side of things… imagine if humans considered you so mentally and physically inferior that they used your species as a food source and didn’t feel any qualms about it. Imagine that they crippled your uncle and nearly killed him.” Zach leaned forward, his tone level.
In my mind, I saw my uncle’s beaming smile falter because of his pained limping. The image punched me in the gut.
“What I’m saying is, we’ve all got beef, you know?” Zach said, his face serious. “I’m not thrilled that I have to hang out with the guy who kidnapped my sister. We just need to work it out and set our crap aside.”
Zach leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, mirroring Dorian’s body language. Dorian studied him, expressionless. Then he raised his eyebrows and offered a nod in acknowledgement. Each had valid points—and their eyes met in unspoken understanding.
I opened my mouth to move the conversation on, but Clemmins interrupted.
"Next question." His voice broke my focus. "Everyone in the group tell a joke."
"What do you call a guy with a rubber toe?" My brother started us off with his worst, and I was already rolling my eyes before the punchline. "Roberto!"
Zach chortled, and Dorian looked confused.
"Okay." I jumped in. "So, an amnesiac walks into a bar. He goes up to a pretty lady and asks, 'Do I come here often?'"
Zach snorted even though he'd taught me that one. I took a quick glance around, and my ears told me that this rather dubious approach wasn’t totally off. Laughter filtered across from the other sides of the room. Roxy and Bravi, to my surprise, were making silly hand gestures at each other. Louise was trying to explain knock-knock jokes to Sike. Clemmins watched the groups, smiling even while his sharp eyes analyzed the scene. Dorian scanned the room as well, and I could see his body slowly relax, his broad shoulders leaning farther back into his chair, causing it to creak. I felt my body emulate his growing ease, a little wave of relief flowing through me.
"Dorian, you got one?" Zach asked him, his voice fully returned to its natural lighthearted timbre.
"I picked up a human joke a while back," Dorian responded carefully, the shadow of a smile playing on his lips. "What is a vampire's favorite fruit?"
We waited.
"A blood orange." He grinned at his feet.
"Wow," Zach said, through a wide-eyed laugh. Apparently, Dorian had redeemed his earlier lack of humor with his bravery.
"Interesting setting for that one," I replied.
This time, Dorian smirked at me, holding my eyes so long I felt a flush rise from my chest. I broke his gaze and cleared my throat in the quiet.
I noticed Zach's gaze bounce between me and Dorian. He cleared his throat, and it looked like he was about to say something, when Clemmins cut in.
"Okay, time to break," Clemmins called, rising slowly from his chair. "Vampires, please line up and file out to the hall. Guards will escort you back to your quarters. Soldiers, you have an hour to yourselves, then we have another activity session scheduled."
Dorian rose to his feet. "See you soon,” he said to us both. Then he turned directly to me, his tone softening. “I really look forward to it.”
My blushing reached my ears. “Me, too,” I replied gently. As he walked away, I almost wished Clemmins had a few more sheets of those ridiculous questions.
Zach leaned back in his chair, squinting inquisitively at me. I didn’t offer a response, instead focusing on calming my blush.
I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, but I could have sworn the other vampires left looking less dejected than when they entered, too. They seemed to carry themselves with more ease, like Dorian. My teammates definitely did. I was relieved that the discomfort of the activity hadn’t totally ruined everyone’s interactions.
Zach stayed by my side as we headed back to our side of the facility.
"That was… interesting," he remarked as we stepped out into the echoing, cement-walled main hallway.
"Yeah, a week ago I'd never have imagined answering psychological analysis questions with mutually embarrassed vampires," I replied, shaking my head. This stuff made workplace sensitivity training look so much less awkward in comparison.
"That’s not what I meant,” Zach said pointedly, and I turned to quirk a brow at him. “You and Dorian. You guys seem to get along… pretty well." His voice undulated with not-so-subtle insinuation.
I stopped, not wanting to be overheard by someone who didn’t understand Zach’s creative sense of humor. Like Roxy.
"Well,” I replied flatly, turning to face him fully, “we've had more time to get to know each other, due to the circumstances."
If he was smart about this, my brother would read between the lines. Drop it, dumbass.
"Oh. I suppose so."
Nope. Zach was wearing his condescending older brother look. His I-know-what's-really-going-on-here look.
“I guess it doesn’t mean anything that he didn’t crack a smile once during the ‘activities,’” he went on. “Except when he was looking at you.”
My stomach did a little flip. Dorian had to have smiled other times during the exercise, right? Zach was obviously exaggerating. I rolled my eyes. Was he seriously suggesting I was flirting with a vampire?
"Believe it or not, Dorian is a lot like you and me,” I replied tartly. “He wants what’s best for everyone. And we’re friendly because we both want this alliance to work. That cooperation has got to start somewhere." Honestly. Zach could push my buttons like no one else on Earth. As if. He knew better than anyone that I’d never had the time, or real interest, for dating—and I didn’t intend for that to change, especially over a vampire. He must’ve wet his Cheerios with booze that morning.
"Okay, that’s a totally fair point," my brother replied, nodding, his tone evening out.
I eyed him. "I think that if you got to know each other more, you and Dorian would get along,” I said, firmly changing the subject.
"You’re probably right. Guy has good jokes." Zach gave one last smile and then walked to his quarters.
I shook my head and headed back to my bunk to try and take a power nap, pushing Zach firmly out of my head. I hoped I would be able to sleep. My mind was already busy, dissecting everything the vampires had said to me, analyzing and categorizing and wondering whether all this hokey teambuilding could really make a significant difference.
* * *
After the day’s activities ended and evening fell, I found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor of the communal area, staring at Rhome across the chess board I'd scrounged up. He watched seriously as I demonstrated the different ways his rook could take my pawn. Dorian sat nearby with Bravi, Sike, and Roxy—Bravi explaining to Roxy in intimidating detail what it was like to ride a redbill. As I knocked over a piece and Rhome nodded intently, Louise found a way to join their conversation, pulling her chair next to Sike.
“Sike, what’s your favorite part about flying?” Louise asked him. I wondered if she’d had too much coffee that day; she was so assertive. I mean, she was always matter-of-fact, but she wasn’t usually the type to approach someone who was basically a stranger and start an unannounced game of Twenty Questions with them.
“Well, I’ll just have to show you sometime,” Sike replied, turning in his seat to face her. “My bird and I have this fantastic spinning trick we’re working on.”
Everything felt… well, almost comfortable amongst the sixteen or so evenly split humans and vampires.
The two groups had been scheduled for “free activity time” together in the meeting room, and I’d taken advantage of it to make good on my promise to Rhome. On the other hand, not everybody took the opportunity at face value. Some soldiers clustered together in a corner, chatting in low voices. Some of the more aloof vampires did the same, like the young brunette named Rayne, talking only to their peers. The older gentleman vampire named Thoth sat by himself, reading a National Geographic magazine. Kane and Halla just sat silently near the door, obviously
waiting to go back to their quarters.
I watched Thoth for a moment, and then quietly asked Rhome how vampires learned to read in English.
“Vampires have a universal understanding of languages, kind of like the way we have a natural understanding of how to communicate with redbills,” Rhome answered quietly, his eyes fixed on the chessboard. “To be honest, from being able to inherently speak languages, putting alphabets together and understanding them comes easily to us. We read lots of things… well, mostly whatever we can get our hands on these days.” He cleared his throat after he finished his soft-spoken thought, then took my pawn with his rook in a way that I hadn’t realized he could. I raised my eyebrows and gave him two thumbs up. He smiled, his canines glinting.
These creatures are intimidatingly intelligent.
"Well, isn't this a lovely picture," Captain Bryce chirped, walking in just as I finished my rook tutorial. He took in the room and nodded contentedly. "Clemmins says things went decently well today. I have to agree, from what I saw." He'd been in the surveillance room most of the day—I'd only spotted him after lunch when he invited a Bureau staffing manager into his office.
He looked around the room and set his hands on his belt. "And that's a good thing," he announced. "Because tomorrow is our first fieldtrip."
Chapter Nineteen
The night passed peacefully, and, despite our extra-early bugle call, lively voices filled the halls the next morning. We’d been given twenty minutes to get ready and eat breakfast. I didn’t usually need a ton of time to get myself ready for the day, but that was even difficult for me to work with. And then, at five thirty a.m., we convened with the vampires in the main meeting room.
By the time my team found their chairs in the room, the vampires were already seated, the same group we’d done exercises with the day before. I waved good morning to everyone, and I was happy to see the white-blonde female vampire, Harlowe, wave back. A few of them looked groggy, like Bravi, who was probably still adjusting to waking up to a screaming bugle. I noticed several vampires missing, including Halla… again. Of course, she was injured, so it made sense that she wouldn’t be going out on “field trips” just yet—she was probably with the children. But I couldn’t imagine she was disappointed to stay behind, either. Kane, on the other hand, had decided to suffer us again. He sat crouched in a chair at the back.
The captains filed in after my group and talked amongst themselves at the front of the room for half a minute. Then Finley took a seat, surveying the room with an expressionless face, while Bryce and Clemmins remained standing. Bryce called us to order.
"Good morning, teams," he said, his tone unusually chipper. "Right to it. We have an op today. We’ve received intelligence that a cluster of bills has gathered in the Franklin Mountains in Texas. This is an imminent threat to the city of El Paso."
My eyes roamed in search of Dorian, and I spotted him listening expressionlessly on the other side of the room.
"Our teams will be working together to eliminate that threat,” Bryce continued. “All of you have been cleared by the medic for this op, although some will need to take it easy." He eyed Sike, who feigned awkwardness and tried to hide his very obviously wrapped arm, which pulled some giggles from the room. "We will travel via aircraft to the location. The vampires will take the lead in persuading the flock to leave the area. Vampires, we trust that you can discuss and organize amongst yourselves how best to achieve this."
I heard whispering and glanced back. Bravi and Rhome had leaned toward Dorian and appeared to be questioning him about something.
"We had special tags made for this operation and the ones that follow. These bands"—Bryce raised what looked like a bright yellow plastic bracelet—"will need to be placed around the ankles of each redbill that is… safely contained, for tracking purposes. We need to know which ones we've interacted with so that we can monitor their behavior post-op."
The three vampires were still whispering, and now Kreya leaned into their conversation as well. I strained unsuccessfully to hear their words. What are they talking about? Captain Finley eyed them.
"Captain Bryce, please forgive our interruption." Dorian finally spoke up, clearly and calmly. "We request to ride our redbills to the location."
Bryce’s face grew stern, and he frowned at him, then exchanged a look with the other captains. “Mr. Clave.” He cleared his throat. “It is clearly stated in the regulations of this trial period that vampires must be monitored at all times. If you are riding man-eating storks, we obviously can't supervise properly.”
By now the rest of the soldiers on my team had also pivoted in their seats, their eyes glued to Dorian in a mix of curiosity and confusion. I was perplexed by Dorian’s request. Maybe I’ll see Dorian get his head bitten off by Bryce for the first time today.
“We understand and honor the requirements of the trial period," Dorian responded, his voice clear and unintimidated. "But we believe the other flock of redbills will be easier to persuade if we arrive with some of their own kind, demonstrating our trustworthiness.”
Captain Clemmins raised an eyebrow and looked at Bryce. "Interesting thought," he muttered.
Dorian’s point was valid. And to be fair, the vampires knew a lot more about the inner workings of redbills than we did, regardless of how many missions we’d been on in the past. To me, treading lightly and carefully in the beginning was logical.
Finley stood up and placed her hands on her hips, a few red curls falling out of their tight bun. “Out of the question. Captain Bryce has already told you that it's unacceptable by the terms of our agreement. Not to mention dangerous to everyone else.”
I met Bryce’s eyes, raised a hand, and waited. He gestured for me to speak. My throat tensed a little with nerves, but I cleared my throat, found my confidence, and briefly caught Dorian’s crystalline blue eyes before speaking.
“With respect, Captains,” I started, “the vampires understand these creatures better than we do. Their thoughts should be taken into account when strategizing. Why don’t we compromise? Each vampire can ride a redbill accompanied by a soldier. It might even be safer this way. A Bureau aircraft on its own might antagonize the wild bills. Besides, the vampires will need to have soldiers with comms close by to ensure we all know what’s going on.”
Finley’s jaw clenched visibly. “Lieutenant Sloane, you have a very interesting definition of ‘safer.’”
Bryce held up a hand, still frowning. “Just hold it. Finley, Clemmins… outside, please.”
The captains walked into the hallway and shut the door behind them. The security guards at the door held their eyes steady on the vampires.
“Ballsy. I like it,” I heard Roxy mutter under her breath.
I smiled at my feet. When I looked up, into Dorian’s eyes, he gave a deliberate nod of thanks. Laini smiled softly, and even Rayne gave me a long, considering look.
Captains Bryce and Clemmins re-entered first, and Finley followed, wearing a frown and tightly crossed arms.
“Mr. Clave,” Clemmins began. “Is Lieutenant Sloane’s proposal acceptable to you?”
I raised my eyebrows and turned back to Dorian. I watched the vampires with anticipation, hoping that they’d found my suggestion helpful. He murmured something to the others, then, after a few moments, faced the captains again.
"We accept,” he said. “We will communicate with each soldier on safe practices and what to expect during flight.”
"Right." Bryce clapped a hand on his chest and energetically drummed his fingers against his uniform. "Vampires, you will also be tagged during this operation. In case you get… lost, we'll be happy to track you down. Remember that your cooperation is necessary for your cause to be considered."
"That will not be an issue, Captain," Dorian replied, without expression.
"Good. We stipulate that your redbills will not fly faster than the Bureau aircraft that will escort us with more soldiers, guards, and artillery."
"That’s fine.
However, we hope to resolve this peacefully, Captain," Dorian said.
"Don't we all," Bryce replied sternly, but his eyes gleamed with excitement. Thinking back to the enthusiasm he’d shown when describing vampires the other night, before Dorian burst onto the scene, I figured he must be beyond thrilled at the thought of getting to see the vampires and redbills both in action right off the bat. It’d probably been a secret dream of his for years. "But if you're about to ask us to go unarmed, you can save your breath."
Dorian paused, and I noticed his slender hands tighten over the back of Bravi’s seat in front of him. "I ask that you please allow us to handle the creatures as we deem fit, and only use weaponry as a last resort," he replied. His words may have been deferential, but his tone was anything but.
All around me, soldiers' eyes widened. If Dorian had been a soldier, Bryce would have had his head mounted to a wall by now for sure. Dorian’s vampirism was certainly saving him here.
"We will do what we need to do in order to keep our soldiers safe,” Bryce growled. “Is that understood?"
"Yes, Captain." Dorian nodded curtly. "I simply ask that weapons be avoided if possible. As part of our compromise."
Clemmins cleared his throat. "We hear you, Mr. Clave. Thank you. Bryce, why don’t we continue the brief?"
Dorian leaned back in his chair, pushing his dark hair back from his forehead, but I couldn’t tell from his face whether he was satisfied with the interaction or not. The vampires remained silent for the remainder of the meeting. Part of me worried that Bryce had pushed some unnecessary buttons, but I reminded myself that the vampires knew the stipulations before agreeing to the trial. This could hardly be unexpected.
We went directly to the tarmac at the end of the meeting, and I felt tension build up in my chest that we were actually doing this. I was equal parts excited and anxious. While the soldiers hung back near the aircraft to prepare with Bryce, the vampires walked across the pavement with security guards to where they planned to "summon" their birds. Some soldiers looked uneasy with the plan—especially Gina, who had started biting her nails. Sure, I was nervous, but my previous flying experience probably took some of the edge off.
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