by K. A. Linde
“Thank you for getting this set up, Prisha,” Meghan said warmly. “It will only be for a night.”
Prisha waved her hand. “It’s all gone now, isn’t it? You’ll need the space.”
“We don’t want to compromise you,” Tye said. His features were drawn. “It’s enough that the bunker was destroyed. We won’t be able to get inside to see the full damage until the smoke has cleared.”
Reyna’s heart tugged again. The bunker was destroyed. She had spent the last month living there, in Elle’s rebellion bunker on the outskirts of the city. Elle had rescued her from Harrington and brought her into the fold. Her brothers had gotten onto the security team. Brian had just married his fiancée, Laura, before he had been captured on a raid. Drew and Laura had been at the bunker when she left to kill Harrington. A lot of good that had done.
She couldn’t even think about all the other people who had been in the bunker when Harrington had bombed it.
“How many are accounted for?” Prisha asked.
Tye shook his head. “We haven’t heard from any other safe houses. Communications are down. We probably won’t hear until tomorrow.”
Which meant they wouldn’t have word on Drew and Laura until tomorrow either. Reyna sighed.
Meghan put an arm around her shoulder. “Why don’t we get you into the shower and clean you up? Then I think you should rest. You can have the other bedroom.”
“I’m fine. I’ll just…take the couch,” Reyna said.
Meghan reached out to her, but Gabe grabbed her arm. “Let her go.”
Reyna glanced over at them and saw that Meghan had collapsed into Gabe’s shoulder, her own muffled tears just loud enough for Reyna to hear. Gabe escorted her from the room.
Reyna pulled Beckham’s jacket tighter around herself. She could see that the others were grieving as well, worried about what had happened to the rebellion. They were all suffering greatly for what Harrington had done. One error had cost them everything. Not just Beckham but the entire rebellion. All the people that they had known for years. She might have lost Beckham, but they had lost everything. Maybe they all needed to be alone tonight.
She curled up on the empty sofa, Beckham’s jacket her only blanket. It still smelled like him. What would it be like when it no longer held that smell? When his jacket was a lifeless as his body?
She choked on the sob that was stuck in her throat and the dam broke. Tears fell down her cheeks. They blurred her vision and superheated her skin. She felt like she was going to vomit. She couldn’t breathe. She was hyperventilating. Her chest hurt. There was a hole where previously Beckham had been.
She’d gotten away. She’d survived. She knew that there were important things left to accomplish. But right now all she felt was grief.
Beckham was really gone.
And she had to find a way to live with that.
* * *
—
Beep, beep, beep.
Reyna awoke in a burst of fear and desperation. For a second, she didn’t remember where she was. The sights and sounds were so foreign as to almost be familiar. It was as if she was put back into that prison cell beneath Visage, where she lived as a blood bag for that monster Harrington. She could distinctly remember lying there, an IV in her arm and the familiar sound of the heart-rate monitor beeping noisily, after she had been kidnapped.
Visage had appeared to the outside world as a benevolent company that had saved them in the midst of the great recession. Vampires came out of the darkness with the invention of the blood type cure, which was less a cure and more a Band-Aid. Vampires drank from specific humans that matched their blood type and it curbed their baser tendencies. It created “men” like Harrington and Rowland.
Reyna had only recently found out that much of what she had thought she had known was a lie. Some vampires were already predisposed to higher cognitive function. Harrington and the three vampire lords he’d recruited—Cassandra, Rowland, and Beckham—had engineered the recession for the purpose of starting Visage. To take over the world.
And they were winning.
Now only Harrington and Rowland remained. Beckham had killed Cassandra. And Beckham…
Reyna opened her eyes to dispel the lingering feeling of unease. She was in a quaint little house on the outskirts of the city. She wasn’t at Visage. She wasn’t still kidnapped. Everything was all right.
Except, it wasn’t.
Beckham was…dead.
She was alive and he was not.
“You’re up,” a voice said behind her.
Reyna shot to her feet and whirled around. She was still wrapped in Beckham’s jacket. Roger Washington stood in jeans and a high-neck sweater. She had never seen him look so…normal. He was the vampire doctor who had invented the blood type cure in the first place. He’d worked with Harrington for years before turning coat and helping out Elle. He was the one who had determined that she and Beckham were a perfect blood match. A once-in-a-lifetime pair whose blood matched the other’s actual blood composition, the equivalent to a soul mate.
“I’m up,” she said softly.
“I’m so thrilled that you made it out. I was asleep when you came in last night and missed everything,” Washington said.
Reyna sank back into the couch. “Do you have any word on what happened with the bunker?”
Washington shook his head and poured himself some coffee. He held the pot up to her in offering. She nodded. “Unfortunately I know no more than you do. Sydney sent me out of the bunker to separate all of Elle’s high command as a precaution, so I was already here when I got word.” He crossed the living room and handed her the coffee. She took a long sip and shuddered against the bitterness. “How did last night go?”
“It was a disaster.”
“I’m sorry for that, Reyna.”
Sorry. He was sorry. She knew that Washington couldn’t have changed the outcome. But it still rankled her.
“You don’t understand. Harrington won. Penelope is a vampire.” She hated even mentioning that double-crossing bitch. Penelope’s love for Beckham had turned her rotten and in the end she had doomed them all. “And Beckham…” She couldn’t force the words out. Her heart felt as if it were being ripped from her chest all over again. “He’s…he’s dead. Harrington killed him.”
“I…didn’t realize. Is there anything I can do?” he asked cautiously.
“No,” she said, letting her anger extinguish. It wasn’t his fault that Beckham was dead. The only blame belonged to Harrington.
Washington held his hand out as if he was going to try to comfort her, try to say something to make it better. But perhaps his years had shown him what could and could not be fixed. Because he let his hand drop and closed his mouth. He didn’t look at her with pity like the others. Only with deep understanding. And somehow that was worse.
Why did it have to be this way? It wasn’t fair. She knew life wasn’t fair. She had never expected it to be. Not when her parents had died when she was eight, or when her drunk, deranged uncle had abandoned them three years later, or even during the weary years living in the Warehouse District. It had been a tough life, but she had always had highlights. Her brothers and Beckham. Now she was utterly bereft.
“Hey, I thought I heard voices out here,” Meghan said, appearing from the hallway. Her red hair had clearly been poorly finger-combed into submission. There were dark circles under her eyes. She looked bedraggled and defeated. It was not a sight Reyna was used to seeing on her. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” Reyna said.
“Yes, Reyna was filling me in on what happened yesterday,” Washington said.
Meghan winced. “Sorry. We should have done that last night.”
“No need. I think I have the basics now. Would you like some coffee?”
“Please.” She looked toward Reyn
a. “How are you doing this morning?” Meghan asked. Worry creased between her eyes.
“I’m alive. So, what’s the plan?” Reyna asked, forcing her shoulders back.
Meghan opened, then closed her mouth. She looked a bit like a fish out of water.
When she didn’t say anything, Reyna froze. “Wait, we do have a plan, right?”
“We have a plan,” Gabe said. He appeared behind Meghan. His own dark red hair was frazzled as if someone’s hands had been in it all night. Looking between Meghan and Gabe, it wasn’t too hard to guess what last night’s grief had resulted in. “Tye went to switch out plates and get Prisha another vehicle. We need something secure before we can leave.”
“And where are we going to go? The bunker is gone. The plan was to get back to the bunker after all of this. Safe houses were Plan B in case we needed a quick escape. What the hell now?” Reyna snapped.
“Plan C,” Washington said.
Reyna arched an eyebrow.
“No one knows where all the safe houses are—that way if someone got kidnapped then they couldn’t out the entire operation. Well, I’m going to take you to a safe place outside of the city until this blows over,” Washington informed her.
Reyna let the news sink in. “We can’t just run away.”
“We’re not,” Gabe said. “We need a place to regroup and we can’t stay here.”
Reyna didn’t like the sound of that. She’d rather figure out a way to make the bastards pay. But as she was about to say as much, Tye and Prisha came through the back door in a rush.
“They’re casing the neighborhood,” Prisha said.
“Time to go,” Tye said.
“Shit,” Gabe spat.
“Prisha, you should head out,” Meghan said earnestly. “You don’t want to be found.”
“You will be safe?”
Meghan nodded. “Thank you again.”
Prisha kissed Meghan on the cheek, nodded at the rest of them, and then disappeared into the garage.
Gabe and Tye grabbed their remaining supplies before hustling the rest of them out of the house. An SUV with heavily tinted windows was parked where the van had sat last night. They all piled inside as Tye took the helm. Reyna tucked her legs up underneath her and waited for what felt like an eternity as the garage door opened behind them. Tye slowly backed them down the drive and out onto the main streets.
Reyna didn’t know what she was looking for. She expected something like the police waiting for them, but what she saw instead was a small army of black vehicles in all shapes and sizes. Reyna held her breath as they passed one of the cars and saw the little red V logo for Visage on the side. Her stomach flopped.
How had they found them? What gave them away? Would they know that they were in the SUV? Were they looking for the black van?
She didn’t know.
Meghan reached out and grabbed Reyna’s hand. They locked eyes and Reyna saw her own fear reflected back at her.
She held her breath as they drove past another Visage vehicle. A vampire got out of the front seat at that precise moment. The woman turned and stared at their SUV as it rolled by. For a second, Reyna swore the woman had X-ray vision and was able to see through the tint to the people behind it. She narrowed her eyes at the SUV. Reyna watched her hand move to the cellphone in her pocket. There was doubt on her face.
“Please don’t. Please no. Please, please, please,” Reyna whispered in the backseat.
Meghan clutched her hand until it was painful. But Reyna didn’t stop her and she didn’t take her eyes off the vampire, who took a step forward. Her hand tightened around the cellphone. She opened her mouth, but didn’t form words. She just stared as if she knew. She just knew.
Reyna tensed. Ready to sound the alarm if need be.
Then something distracted the vampire. She glanced down at her cellphone, frowned, and brought it to her ear. She took one last look at the SUV before turning away as it sped past her.
Reyna released her breath. They drove the rest of the way out of the neighborhood in silence. They weren’t in the clear yet. But at least they were away from the worst of it.
If only the same were true for their morale as they drove through the remains of their broken rebellion from the city.
Chapter 3
They weren’t pursued.
Reyna couldn’t believe it.
She was sure that someone would look at their vehicle and assume it was holding rebels. But no, they drove out of the neighborhood and onto the open roads without a hassle. Tye was listening to the police scanner and narrowly missed a roadblock or two, but once they were on the interstate, the coast was clear.
With tension hanging heavy in the SUV, it was a silent hour before Washington finally directed them off of the main roads and onto a long bumpy drive. Once they moved from under a copse of tress, they came upon a large iron gate.
Reyna’s eyebrows rose and she leaned forward to get a better look at it. The gate was straight out of some Victorian period piece. As if it should be a dark and stormy night with lightning announcing their entrance instead of a bitter cold but sunny New Year’s Day.
Tye punched in a passcode and the gates creaked apart slowly. Very slowly.
They inched forward onto the grounds. Everyone was rubbernecking, trying to figure out where the hell Washington had brought them.
After a couple more minutes, they got their answer. A circular drive ended right before a three-story stone mansion. They passed what must have once been lush gardens, but were now overgrown and ignored. Would they have running water? Electricity? The house had clearly been built long before those things existed.
“What is this place?” Reyna asked as they came to a halt.
“Yeah. I’ve never seen this in any records,” Meghan said.
“It’s not in any records,” Washington said. “It’s my home.”
“Does Harrington know about it?” Reyna asked, terror suddenly lancing through her.
“Yes, but he would never in a million years suspect that I would come back here. I haven’t stepped foot in it in fifteen years.”
“Why?”
He glanced back at her. “Because my wife was killed here.”
Then he opened the door and slid out of the SUV. They looked at one another in confusion and sorrow before following him. Reyna’s feet hit the gravel drive and she stared up at the imposing structure. Vines covered much of the entrance. The stonework, which must have once been beautiful, had deteriorated against the press of the elements. Reyna could see at least one window that was broken, and a tree had fallen into the roof on one corner of the building.
“We left for this,” Gabe voiced what everyone was thinking. They might have had no choice, but some run-down old mansion didn’t seem like the salvation they’d been looking for.
Tye stretched his lean muscles out. “Looks like a piece of shit.”
“I can hear you,” Washington said. He had ambled up to the entrance and was prying the the front door open.
“We know,” Gabe said with a grin. “Doesn’t change the appearance of this place.”
“I’ll have you know that I have had this home since just after the turn of the nineteenth century,” Washington said, turning his nose up at them. “It has come a long way since 1805.”
Reyna’s mouth fell open. She sometimes forgot how old vampires could be. Beckham was so young for a vampire and yet he still was sixty-seven. The thought hit her like a sucker punch to the stomach. Past tense. He’d been so young. He had been sixty-seven. He was no longer.
She squeezed her eyes shut and rode out the pain until it subsided. It was easier in the moments when she didn’t have to think about the immediate consequences of him being gone. It was hard to wrap her brain around the fact that he wasn’t about to walk up the drive with his usual stoic look an
d burning broody passion.
“Hey,” Meghan said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
Reyna didn’t want to think or talk about her feelings. “Let’s just get inside.”
She followed Washington into the cavernous interior of his wicked turn-of-the-nineteenth-century mansion. The foyer had vaulted ceilings that reached up to an impossible height. It was dark inside and when Washington reached for the lights, only a few flickered on, casting the entire place with an eerie glow.
“Creepy,” Reyna whispered.
“You can say that again,” Gabe said behind her.
“I thought you were bringing us to a rebel operation,” Tye said. “If you haven’t been here in fifteen years, what are we going to do here?”
“I have not been here, but I have a colleague who has been maintaining the premises since I joined Elle. It will suffice for the time being. Now, follow me,” Washington said.
Gabe and Meghan exchanged a look before pulling out their cellphones to use as flashlights. With the entrance fully illuminated, they could see the layers of dirt that said no one had stepped foot in here for years. It certainly didn’t look maintained.
Washington pulled open an enormous wooden door that led from the historic foyer into a gorgeous and stately living area. The furniture was carefully preserved beneath sheets and the windows were covered to keep the light out, presumably to save the antique artwork lining the walls. Reyna felt as if she had stepped back in time.
They toured the mansion, finding thirteen bedrooms on the second floor. The third floor was one big suite. Though the tree falling in clearly disrupted that. When Washington showed them the basement, Reyna was expecting a dark dungeon or prison or something equally medieval. But no…the basement was a fully finished medical lab with all the equipment he’d had back at the bunker. Plus, a store of firearms, communication devices, and pretty much everything else they would need to pick up where they’d left off.