Breed of Innocence (The Breed Chronicles, #01)

by Jordan, Lanie

  “I’m sorry, Miss Hall, but that wasn’t a question. I’ve let her get away with her abuse when it’s been verbal, because most here can take care of themselves if they choose to, and they need to do so. Her physically attacking other Prospects—especially new ones—won’t be tolerated. What we do here is too important for that kind of behavior.” He said nothing for a minute, just stood in silence. “I’ll let you two go meet up with Miss Monroe. I’m glad to see you’re making some friends here, Jade.” His head bowed slightly. “Enjoy your afternoon.”

  “Thanks,” Linc and I said in unison. As Greene walked away, Linc started back down the hallway with me in tow. “You okay?”

  I made a face. “Yeah, I guess. I just feel bad for Celina.” I lifted my head up. “You think they’ll be able to help her?”

  “I think if anyone can, it’s them. It’s what they do.”

  “I hope so.”

  His arm went around my shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s go drop off our stuff and meet Tasha for some grub. I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “Usually.” He winked down at me. “And if you’re nice, I’ll show you some of the exercises you’ve missed for Combat and Tracking.”

  “Thanks.”

  Being offered homework help shouldn’t have cheered me up, yet it did. Maybe I couldn’t help Celina now, and maybe I hadn’t done much to help her before, but I would train and get better. I’d learn what to do and how to help.

  Because the next time I came in contact with a demon, I’d be ready for it.

  CHAPTER 09

  The next two weeks followed pretty much the same pattern as my first week. Monday through Thursday, Linc and I had our classes, and afterward, we studied and ate together. Mr. Sheldon was by far my favorite teacher. Instead of giving me a revised schedule of when my assignments and reports would be due, he just handed me a list of them and said to turn them in when I finished. Linc was sweet and tried helping with Demonology, but when he realized I’d almost caught up with him, he insisted I help him instead. It wasn’t a bad deal. I helped him with Demonology and he helped me with the other classes.

  On Fridays, we had our usual checkups with Doc. She drew blood every week, so I was silently calling her Vamp Doc. (I would have said it to her face, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to pick on someone who was surrounded by needles and other sharp implements.) She’d arranged it so Linc and I went at the same time. Doc claimed it was to torture Linc, but I had a feeling it was more for my benefit than hers. I was getting better with having my blood drawn, but they both knew I still didn’t really care for it.

  During the day on the weekends, we practiced our Combat, Tracking, and Weapons training. At night, we studied for our classes, and I’d spend at least an hour on work for my GED. Greene said I’d have my full five months on it, but I pushed harder than I probably needed to because I wanted it done before the start of P2 (assuming I passed P1).

  The people who served lunch seemed to like me, so I got extra servings of food when I wanted it and I didn’t even need Linc’s help, much to his dismay. It was hard to use extra food as leverage over me when I could get it myself.

  Last weekend had been the monthly trip to New Orlando, so I’d picked up some paint for my room, a pretty light blue, and suckered Linc into helping me paint.

  It was Saturday now, and since Linc had a report due on Monday, he was holed up in his room studying. I was on schedule (my own schedule) to complete Demonology before the end of summer, so I was headed back to my room to study more for my GED. I’d taken a few minute break to grab something from the café and was almost to the elevators when I spotted Greene.

  I’d been trying for the last week to get a hold of him, but he’d been very good at avoiding me and the North Tower, or he’d gone MIA again (possibly minus the M, since I was sure someone who wasn’t me knew where he went).

  “Director Greene?” I called out, running up to him. “Is Celina still—”

  His phone rang and he held up a finger as he answered it. He said a few words, paused for half a second, then hung up with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Miss Hall. I’ll have to get back to you,” he said, walking away before I could argue.

  I scowled after him. He’d promised to keep me updated on Celina and he hadn’t. One word. I just needed one word: yes or no. Simple question requiring little thought.

  I spun around and started to stomp away. I barely made it two feet before I stopped inches from running into Felecia. My entire body stiffened.

  After our last almost-encounter that day after Weapons, she hadn’t really tried anything else except her usual death glares. And then, early last week, she just stopped. Maybe because she knew it was pointless and I wasn’t going to respond to her, or because she’d called a non-verbal truce.

  Or, more likely, Greene had actually talked to her again and she decided I wasn’t worth the trouble.

  I couldn’t be sure, but I almost thought she said ‘hi’ to me yesterday. Or it could’ve just been in my general direction.

  Still, I took a small step back and braced myself as I said, “Sorry, didn’t see you.”

  “It’s fine,” she said in a very un-Felecia-like tone wearing a very un-Felecia-like smile. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you asking about a woman they brought in?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I spoke slowly, my tone weary. This was a trap. Somehow it had to be. “She was bitten by a demon the day I joined.”

  “I haven’t seen her, but I know where they’d keep her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, over in the South Tower.”

  And there went the warning bells. I wanted to sigh, and then kick myself for being so idiotically gullible. The South Tower was off limits. It was a no-fly zone. Do not pass go, do not collect your demon-hunting license.

  Felecia rolled her eyes. “I know you don’t trust me, and you don’t have any reason to.” She gave a careless one shouldered shrug. “I knew you were asking about her and figured you might want to know.”

  I did want to know. I just didn’t know if I trusted her enough to believe anything that came out of her mouth. This was the same chick that, three weeks ago, tried kicking my ass over a stupid accident (something that still pissed me off). Now, all of a sudden, she was being nice and helpful?

  Then again, she had been decent this past week.

  She shrugged again and turned to leave.

  “Wait!” Idiot. You’re going to regret this. “Why do you think she’s there?”

  “That’s where they take victims of demon attacks, to the South Tower. They don’t want them over here with us because of possible infections or diseases or breakouts.”

  I’d never seen or heard anyone talk about where demon victims went, though I’d assumed they were either on the second floor (with the med rooms) or in the South Tower somewhere. So it was plausible enough, wasn’t it?

  “I can show you if you want.”

  “Isn’t it off-limits?” Those were words I never thought I’d hear myself say. I wasn’t necessarily the bad girl everyone seemed to think I was, but I wasn’t one to snitch on others, either. Live and let live and all that jazz.

  “And? I can get you in.” She fixed me with a look and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you want to see if she’s there or not? It’s not like I don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night than lead you around on a wild goose chase that could end up getting us both kicked out of here.”

  I thought about it for a minute. Was it worth it? It wasn’t just her ass on the line if we went over there and got caught—it was mine, too.

  “This offer isn’t going to last all night,” Felecia said, checking out her nails.

  Part of me knew I should say no, that I shouldn’t take the risk, but I had to know about Celina. Greene wasn’t giving me any answers and no one else had them. “I’m in. Let’s go.”

  I followed Felecia down and out through the front exit. The security guards at t
he desk waved, but they didn’t try to stop us or say anything. No questions about what we were doing or where we were going or when we’d be back. I didn’t know why, but I expected some kind of questioning. Didn’t we have a curfew or something? “Shouldn’t they have said something to us?” I asked after a moment.

  “Why would they?”

  “I don’t know. Because it’s almost ten and we’re going outside?” I’d never really tried going out at night before, not if there weren’t already a bunch of other people outside.

  Felecia just laughed. “They don’t care. As long as we don’t try to leave the property, they won’t say anything to us. We’re here to train to be demon hunters, Jade.” She laughed again. “I guess they figure if we can do that, we can be responsible enough to go outside at night.”

  She had a point, though I hated to admit it and didn’t, at least out loud. The guards and other agents looked out for us, but unless things got really heated, they didn’t say anything to anyone. “And we’re just going to walk into the South Tower like we belong there?”

  She stopped now and sneered. “Don’t be dense. The guards would stop us then. It’s off limits, remember? We’ll go in through a side exit.”

  I had to remind myself, over and over, that I was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Or mostly the right reasons. Checking on Celina was important to me, so despite the doubts I had about what I was doing, when Felecia started moving again, I followed.

  She inched around the side of the South Tower and moved quietly. A few feet from the side door, she stopped, put a finger over her lips, and whispered, “There should be a shift change any minute.”

  I raised an eyebrow but said nothing. That wasn’t something you just discovered by chance. Either she had done this before, or she’d kept a close enough eye on the building to know the routines. Maybe she had a room that faced this direction? I did, but I’d never bothered to look out it.

  Sure enough, within a few minutes, the guard blocking the door walked away, and we ran to it and went inside. We maneuvered to the front hall. The layout, I noticed, was almost identical to the North Tower, except there wasn’t a guard desk and there was absolutely no foot traffic.

  And everything looked new and spotless.

  For some reason, I expected something completely different. More security. Men and women in lab coats. Something that said, Hey, we do secret research here. The only thing that even hinted at it was the smell of disinfectant. It was a hundred times stronger here than Doc’s lab.

  Felecia moved toward the back stairs and started up. I stayed a few feet behind her as I followed. We stopped and listened before we reached each floor, until finally, we made our way to the fourth.

  Cliché or not, I felt like a thief breaking into someone’s house while they slept. Maybe I should’ve just waited until I managed to corner Greene into giving me an answer.

  I was still debating my wisdom when Felecia stopped, and I nearly ran into her because I wasn’t paying attention.

  “We’re here,” she said, turning to face me.

  “Here?” We were standing outside an unlabeled door. It didn’t scream room-with-demon-victim to me.

  “This is where I’ve heard they keep victims of demon attacks. I don’t know where exactly.”

  I eyed the door. “So you could be wrong.”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “Thanks, that’s reassuring.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t realize I had to hold your hand.”

  Without saying anything that would antagonize her (which really sounded good and was difficult not to do if I had to breathe), I peeked in through the small window. I saw…nothing. “Empty,” I said, moving to the next one.

  I found four more empty rooms before I found one with someone—or something—in it. They were curled up on a bed and covered head to toe with a blanket. “Found one,” I said, turning to look for Felecia. She was only a few doors down from me.

  “Is it a person or a demon?”

  “I—” I broke off, frowned. “I have no idea, actually.” Would they have given a blanket to a demon? Would a demon use one if it had been given one? There were a lot of demon species, and while I hadn’t read about all of them, I couldn’t remember reading about any demons that liked blankets. It was possible, wasn’t it? “They’re covered in a blanket, so I can’t tell.”

  Brushing me aside, Felecia looked into the room herself. “Well, I don’t see why they’d give a demon a blanket, so I’d say it’s a fair guess that’s not what’s in there.”

  That was my first thought, but how the hell was I to know how they treated demons? Maybe they got cold, too. Even serial killers had rights when they were in prison, didn’t they? Food, water, bathroom—some resemblance of comfort. Maybe there was a Geneva Convention for demons.

  She tried the door. It was locked.

  “I can’t imagine they’d lock a human in there, either,” I pointed out. Last I’d heard, Celina had been really sick. If that were still the case, then wouldn’t she be in a medical room? Wouldn’t she have a doctor or someone looking after her? At the very least, wouldn’t she have some kind of machines monitoring her? “I don’t think that’s Celina in there.”

  “Well, someone is.” She shot me a last glare and started to tap on the window. I winced. She was going to give whoever was in there a heart attack. When she took a step back, my eyes went to her face. She looked…weird. I glanced at the window and felt my eyes widen. My breath caught.

  It wasn’t a person. It was a demon.

  And it wasn’t happy.

  I would have stepped back, but my feet wouldn’t follow the simple command. It was as if someone had put superglue on the bottoms of my shoes, preventing my escape.

  The demon started to approach the door.

  Run! Run, Jade!

  My legs wobbled, but my feet still wouldn’t move.

  One large fist met metal as the demon started to bang on the door and its face became visible. Celina’s demon. It was the one that had attacked her.

  He—the demon—hit the door again and I jumped back.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It can’t escape. If the demon moves around too much, sensors will detect it, fog will release, and then it’s nighty-night demon. Just watch.”

  A few seconds passed and the inside of the room started to fill with smoke-like fog. The demon banged on the door twice more, then his hand slid down the window until it—and he—was out of sight.

  Behind me, Felecia started laughing. “The look on your face was absolutely priceless,” she said.

  “Bite me,” I muttered.

  “This just gets better every year.”

  Coldness spread over me. “What gets better?”

  “The looks of utter terror.” Her smile was gone now, replaced by a look I would have expected earlier; a sneer. “Idiot newbies.”

  My hands curled into fists. “This was a prank?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “You wouldn’t be laughing if that demon had attacked you,” I said coldly. The thing in that room was a monster. A vicious one. It’d probably been chance that I’d found the one room with the one demon I’d actually recognize, but still, Felecia’s idea of a prank was lost on me. It wasn’t funny at all.

  “Oh, come on. How was I supposed to know it was the demon that attacked that lady—”

  “Would it have mattered?” I said, cutting her off. “Would that have stopped you?” Her silence said it all. It wouldn’t have changed a thing. “You’ve been here how much longer than me? Two years, right?”

  She gave a jerky nod.

  “And how many demons do you think the CGE has captured that haven’t killed anyone, that haven’t ruined someone’s life? How many do you think—”

  I didn’t realize I’d taken a step toward her until she took a step back. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It was a harmless joke.”

  “Harmless?” I laughed, but the sound held no humor. “Harmless? Don�
�t we all come from the same background? Haven’t we all lost someone to demons, or are you the exception?” I narrowed my eyes. “Or is it okay because that particular demon didn’t attack you or your family?”

  Her eyes flashed. “What’s your problem? It was a simple joke. Get over it.”

  I just shook my head, my gaze locking onto the window again. Most of the fog was gone now. I looked back to Felecia. Her lips were curled in a part snarl, part smirk. “You just don’t care, do you?” I said. She didn’t. I’d said it before, but I hadn’t really believed it.

  Shaking my head again, I turned and walked away. I only made it two steps before she got in my face. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  I shouldered my way past her. “Just because you lack a conscience, it doesn’t mean the rest of us do.” Her hand went to my arm and I spun away.

  She shoved me, making me stumble forward. “I’m not letting you run to Greene.”

  I caught myself and looked up. “Who the hell said anything about going to Greene?”

  “I know your type. You’ll run to Greene, confess your sins and my sins, and get us both kicked out.”

  I had briefly considered doing just that but thought better of it. I liked it here—save my current company—and didn’t want to leave. Getting her in trouble would have been nice. Unfortunately, it would have gotten me in trouble too. I’d been stupid enough to fall for her trap, but I didn’t deserve to be kicked out because she was a few stakes short of a demon hunter.

  “Maybe I will,” I lied.

  “You little bitch!” She lunged at me, sending us both crashing into the wall.

  The air rushed out of my lungs as she grabbed my shirt and yanked me forward. She sent me skidding down the hall. My head bounced off the ground like a ball and black spots swirled in my vision.

  Her footsteps pounded on the ground as she ran up to me. Looming over me, she knelt down and punched me in the face. I threw my arms up, managing to block the next two hits, which only pissed her off and had her changing her attack. Since my face was covered, she sent her fists into my stomach and ribs. I managed one shot to the side of her head. There wasn’t a lot of force behind it, but enough that she lost her footing, giving me room and time to get to my feet. As she stepped toward me again, I jabbed her in the stomach.