by K. A. Linde
“Because no one photographs humanity like you,” he said softly.
“I didn’t…” she started, but she could see he had already figured it out. Her shoulders slumped. So much for being anonymous.
“So…are you?”
Reyna bit her lip. “Well, I didn’t know about Elle or the underground rebels until you just told me, but it’s not like I entirely disagree with the sentiment. People are dying out here and no one cares. Visage has all the money and power, and they’re doing nothing to help anyone. They’re lining their own pockets and feeding their own. I believe in balance, but I’m not part of any…movement.” She sighed and looked around at the room, which was full of examples of the very problem she had just detailed. “I just want to help my family survive this. That’s all I care about.”
He nodded understanding. “Don’t we all.”
“Maybe we should try somewhere else,” she suggested, suddenly not wanting to be in the same place as she had been before in case someone was trying to figure out who the supposed Elle sympathizer was. The way Everett talked about it, she was sure that it wasn’t going to look good to Visage or Beckham if they thought she was one.
“I have an idea if you’re interested,” he said with a mischievous smile.
Her eyes lit up. “I like ideas.”
He laughed. “Your bodyguard might not like this one.”
“He’ll deal with it. Let’s go,” she said excitedly.
Once they were back in the car, Everett gave them an address almost clear across town. Much farther out than she had ever been. She waited for her bodyguard to recognize that it might be dangerous and refuse them, but he said nothing. She kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. But they drove all the way across the city without one word.
They hopped out of the car with her camera safe in her bag again, and Everett directed the driver where he could park. Her bodyguard followed behind them as they walked three blocks away from their drop site.
“Why didn’t you drop us off in front of the place?” she asked when they came upon a large warehouse. It reminded her of home.
“Driving up to this place in a Town Car is a good way to get knifed,” he whispered.
Reyna shivered against that assessment and followed close to Everett. They reached the front of the building and walked through a slate gray door.
An enormous man with bulging muscles stopped them before they could walk through a second door. “No guns. No fangs. No trouble. Ferrier House rules.”
The guy quickly checked them over, rifled through her bag, and then let them inside.
“Wait, buddy,” he said, stopping her bodyguard, “didn’t you hear me? No fangs.”
Her bodyguard gave him a terrifying look and then produced a card out of his wallet. The bouncer read it over once and then nodded his head.
“Fine, but if you make any trouble, we have authority to stop you at any cost,” he said menacingly.
“Noted.”
When they walked inside, Reyna had to keep her mouth from dropping open. Everett had said this place was going to be a little different than what she had been shooting, but this was…beyond anything she could have imagined. Much of the warehouse was open space, but at its center there was a giant fighting ring. Two people faced off in the ring, wearing nothing but tight-fitting shorts. All the while an enormous crowd cheered for their champion. A makeshift scoreboard hung from one wall, and there was a box for betting on the matches.
“What is this?” she asked. She was already itching to take her camera out.
“Ferrier House. It’s owned by some Irish mobster. But everyone just calls it Hell,” he said. “Because that’s where so many people who fight here end up.”
“Stick nearby,” her guard growled. “I don’t want things to get out of hand and have no exit strategy.”
“Okay,” she agreed, rolling her eyes. As if it wasn’t bad enough having a bodyguard in this kind of place, he wanted her to stay as close as possible. He could just keep up with her.
“Come on,” Everett said. He grabbed her arm and drew her through the thick crowd.
The people they passed were a mixed bag. Some looked like the homeless and destitute she had been photographing on the streets. Others were dressed up in suits, not quite as nice as Beckham’s but not horrible either, and they were cheering on the people in the pen just as hard as the others. Still there was another group of people who reminded her so much of her brothers. Not hopeless but not prospering. She could see in their eyes that this was the way to escape the captivity of their daily lives. She had seen it countless times in her brothers’ eyes, but with her waiting for them at home, they had never participated in anything like this. She hoped they stayed on the straight and narrow with her gone.
An ache crept into her heart, and she had to force it down. It was good to think of them. She never wanted to forget them, but it was difficult. She knew the money had to be helping, but she was terrified that their faces were fading from her mind.
She couldn’t think about that right now. It wasn’t any help.
Everett reached a spot in the middle of a group of people and a man approached him, asking for a bet. Everett handed over a five and bet on the man losing.
“As you wish,” he said. “For the lady?”
She shook her head. She didn’t have cash and a black card would surely draw attention. “No, thank you.”
When he was gone, she leaned over to Everett. “Why did you bet on the scrawny guy?”
“Watch.”
So, she did. She knew nothing about fighting, but watching the movements of the two men was like a choreographed dance. The bigger of the two had the upper hand in height, weight, and strength. He was all bulk and threw it around with a prowess that clearly had been established over many matches. The smaller guy was quick on his feet though. He dodged and blocked, striking out at the bigger guy when he least expected it. Despite this, it was pretty clear that the bigger guy was going to win any minute.
Reyna slowly extracted her camera from her bag and stared at the pair through the zoomed-in lens of her camera. She snapped picture after continuous picture of the fight, trying to see what Everett saw.
Then it happened in a flash.
The smaller guy smirked. That was all Reyna needed. She took that picture and knew it was going to be a brilliant one for her collection. The guy was toying with his opponent. He wanted to make it look like he was going to lose, keep the odds against him, so when he was victorious it was even more exceptional.
“He’s playing cat and mouse,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Everett agreed. “You can tell in his footwork.”
“No. In his eyes and in his smile.”
She zoomed back out and took a picture of the crowd, the venue, the sense of desperation in the room. She was focused in on one woman’s angry cries when everyone roared their disapproval. Her eyes flew to the stage and the bigger guy was laid out flat on his stomach, blood pouring from his face. The other guy hadn’t stopped. He just kept pummeling until they hauled him off.
The crowd surged forward, and Reyna almost lost grip of her camera. She stuffed it back into her bag as Everett clamped his hand down on her elbow.
“What’s going on?” she cried.
“People lost a lot of money. We have to get you out of here.”
Her eyes searched for her bodyguard, but he was too far away. She made up her mind to get to safety with Everett and let him drag her through the mob. She lost sight of the guard, lost sight of everything, just held on to Everett for dear life. Fights broke out all around them. People angry that they had lost more of their precious little income to a gambling debt. The noise grew unbearable and suddenly guards rushed down with batons, Tasers, and guns to keep the crowd in line.
She and Everett burst through an unguard
ed door that she had assumed went outside, but it led to a flight of stairs. Everett didn’t hesitate as he took the stairs two at a time. She had no choice but to follow him. She was breathing hard when they finally got to a landing with a long hallway.
“Where are we?”
“I think this is just office space,” Everett said. “Let’s find a room to wait this out.”
“My guard is going to be freaking out,” she said.
Everett shrugged. “Isn’t it a little freeing?” He smiled back at her, and she couldn’t stop from laughing. She had been afraid running through the crowd and now she released all her nerves.
“Yeah. It kind of is.” She pushed open the first door. “How about this one?”
She stepped in the first room and fumbled for the light. Her mouth dropped open.
“What the hell?”
Chapter 21
“Whoa!” Everett said, following her into the room.
“What is all of this?” Reyna mused aloud.
The room was stark white and as clean as the Visage hospital she had first been tested in. One wall was full of gray containers stacked waist-high, filled with packets of blood. The other wall had blood hooked up to some kind of strange system. A blood packet dripped into another packet and then into a third packet from the ceiling to the floor. The room hummed softly with the machinery directing the operations.
“I heard rumors of this, but I didn’t think it was true,” he whispered.
“Thought what was true?”
He turned to look at Reyna with a drawn expression on his face. “Black market blood banks.”
Her mouth dropped open. “That’s a thing?”
She lifted her camera back out of the bag. She would surely never remember what this room looked like exactly if she didn’t take a picture. She wouldn’t post them. Not knowing that people were watching her images now. She would keep these for herself.
“A rumor. I didn’t think it was possible that they would be doing this.”
“They who?” she asked, suddenly scared. She pulled her camera down to look at him.
“Anyone. Visage has a monopoly on blood for vampires. These people must be against them to have all this blood. This could be an Elle operation.”
Reyna paled. “Then we should leave. I don’t want to be part of anything, even if by accident. Someone could be watching.”
Her eyes searched the room for some kind of recording device, but it was difficult to see anything through the rows of blood drips. She didn’t like being here anyway. It gave her the creeps. Blood meant needles.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” she said.
“All right. Let’s find our way back out.”
Reyna stashed her camera again and they backtracked into the hallway. A man in a white coat and two nurses came out of an adjoining room.
“Hey!” the man yelled. “You two aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Sorry, we got turned around,” Everett said, trying to be placating.
“Security!”
“Let’s go.” Everett grabbed her arm again and dashed down the stairs.
A man followed after them, down the first flight of stairs, and then a second. She was panting by the time they reached the base level and Everett shouldered open the door. She was disoriented when the door deposited them out on the streets. Where were they? They were supposed to be back in the warehouse.
But she didn’t have time to think, she just followed Everett. The guy behind them did not look happy that they had accidentally broken into the blood bank. She didn’t know if Everett knew where he was running to or if he was winding them through the backstreets aimlessly until they lost the guy. But eventually, he yanked her hard into a tiny alcove and covered her mouth with his hand.
The guard rounded the corner and ran right past them. After a few minutes when they were sure that he was gone, Everett released her.
“This way,” he said. He opened a side door and they went up two flights of stairs.
“Where are we? I’m so lost,” she admitted, still panting from exertion.
He opened the first door on the right. “Home sweet home.”
They walked into a small apartment, and he quickly closed the door.
“This is where you live?”
He nodded, color touching his cheeks. “It’s not much, but it’s mine.”
It really wasn’t much. With his impeccable appearance at work and the nice car he drove, she thought he would have lived in a slightly nicer area of town. Reyna didn’t know how far they had run, but it couldn’t have been that far away.
“Do you live here by yourself?”
“Yeah. Just me and Hopper,” he said as a dog promptly hopped out of the bedroom and ran right into Everett. A smile split his face, and he picked up the tiny puffball of a dog and let it lick his face.
“Oh my goodness, how cute!” she cooed.
“Here. He loves everyone.”
Everett handed her the dog, and she plopped down onto his couch. Hopper nuzzled her and forced her to pet him the whole time. After the previous incident, it was actually really relaxing. She couldn’t believe that they had gone to an underground fighting ring, found a black market blood bank, and were chased by some scary-looking security guard.
“When you said we were going somewhere exciting…I didn’t expect all this.”
He sighed and sank down next to her. “Me either. I never would have taken you there if I had thought all of that was going to happen.”
“What do you think they’re doing with that blood?” she asked.
“Selling it?” he guessed. “I think the more important question is—where are they getting it from?”
Reyna shuddered. “Ew. I don’t want to think about that.”
“And you shouldn’t. You should forget everything that just happened. You don’t need to be mixed up with anything like that. You have your own life.”
“What about you?”
He cracked a smile. “I’m too smart to get mixed up with anything. I don’t share my friends’ belief that all vampires are bad, by the sheer virtue of them being vampires.”
“Right. Just like all humans aren’t good, because they’re humans.”
“Right.”
They sat like that on the couch until Reyna’s breathing evened out. She felt like she could pass out right then and there from exhaustion. It all hit her at once.
“I like your place,” she murmured drowsily.
He laughed. “I’m sure it’s nothing compared to where you are.”
“This feels more like home,” she told him. “I grew up in the Warehouse District.”
Everett cringed. “Really? I heard it’s awful out there.”
“It’s awful everywhere. But at least at home I had my brothers. They made it all worthwhile.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re still there.” Tears sprang to her eyes unbidden and she quickly swiped them off her face. “I miss them a lot. It feels like an eternity since I left.”
“But you’ll get to go home to them soon, right? Isn’t that how the program works? One month and then you switch?”
Reyna closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “That’s how it normally works, but they rolled out a new program. Better pay, better benefits, and you live with the Sponsor permanently.”
“What?” Everett asked in shock. “Can they do that?”
“They’re already doing it. I’ll be with Beckham until…well, I don’t know until when. Indefinitely.”
Everett was stunned into silence, which was the only reason Reyna heard her phone vibrating in her giant purse. She fished it out of the bag and sighed when she saw that Beckham was calling.
“Ugh! It’s Beckham. Sorry.”
“It’s my f
ault really. We shouldn’t have ditched your guard.”
“I shouldn’t have to have one,” she muttered irritably.
“Take the bedroom,” he offered, pointing behind him.
“Thanks.” She walked into the bedroom and answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Reyna!” he said, sounding out of breath. “Where are you? What happened? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You lost your guard.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I know it’s against the rules, but there weren’t really a lot of options.”
“God dammit. This is why I didn’t want you in places where anything could happen.” He actually sounded worried…not pissed like she thought he would be.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”
“Where are you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. I just got to the warehouse. The fighting bosses were not pleased to see me,” he told her.
He had driven all the way out to the warehouses for…her?
“Just tell me where the hell you are! Last time this happened you almost died.”
“I’m at Everett’s place,” she finally admitted. She hadn’t wanted to tell him since she was still pissed at him. She knew he wouldn’t approve. He didn’t really approve of anything she did.
“You’re at another guy’s apartment?”
Her anger flared up all over again. “Yes!” she said defiantly. “Don’t you go to Penny’s place?” She drawled out his nickname for the woman.
“That’s none of your business.”
“And neither is this!”
“Your whereabouts are my business. Send me the address so I can have a car swing by and get you.”
“What if I don’t?”
He said some choice words under his breath. “I have ways of finding out where he lives. Don’t make me use them.”
“Empty threats,” she muttered.
“Don’t test me.”
The life was draining from her again. This afternoon had been more eventful than she had anticipated and all she wanted to do was curl into a ball on her bed and go to sleep.