by K. A. Linde
And there was another one.
Jodie’s head snapped up to the staircase. “What the fuck? What the hell happened while we were gone?”
Reyna sighed and stood. She straightened her back. She could do this. She could survive it. “Brian.”
“Brian? You found him?” Jodie eyes lit up.
“Yeah.”
“That’s amazing! How did that happen?” Then she scrunched up her nose. “Is he okay? Why the screaming?”
“He’s…he’s not okay.”
Meghan and Tye rushed into the room, followed closely by Zoya and Katarina, who had her swords drawn.
“It’s okay,” Reyna said. She held her hands up to keep them from charging forward to put out the fire. “Everything’s…okay.”
Katarina whirled on her. “Where is the screaming coming from?”
“Upstairs. Beckham has…he has Brian up there.” A flicker of recognition lit up in Meghan and Tye’s eyes, but the expressions on the faces of Beckham’s circle remained questioning. “My brother. My brother is upstairs.”
“You found him?” Tye asked in relief. “How the hell did that happen?”
She didn’t want to deliver this news. Not to the people in front of her. Not to Drew or Laura. Not to anyone. But…she had to.
“He was turned,” she whispered.
All the air was sucked out of the room.
“No,” Meghan whispered.
Katarina slid her blades back into their holsters behind her shoulders. “Newborn?”
Reyna nodded. “And starving.”
“Someone has gone out for blood?” Zoya asked.
“Yes.”
“The boss has him chained up?” Katarina asked.
“Yeah. They…they purposely starved him. We’re not sure if he’s going to come back from the point of brutality. He went so long without blood, Beckham is concerned that even the blood type cure might not bring him back to what he was.”
Zoya and Katarina exchanged a glance. They’d been there when Beckham had used it as a form of torture. They knew the odds of Brian coming around.
“Why don’t you have a seat?” Zoya suggested.
“I have the best recipe for Russian tea,” Katarina offered as Zoya gently moved Reyna to the couch. As if she were a wild animal about to bolt.
“Russian tea?” Reyna asked in confusion.
“Vodka. Takes the edge off.”
“This isn’t good,” Jodie muttered.
“Jodie, come help me in the kitchen,” Katarina snapped. “Meghan and Tye, blankets and candles. It’s going to be a long night.”
* * *
—
Reyna fell asleep on the couch with her head against a pillow and her feet in Meghan’s lap. Having someone to take care of had finally seemed to snap Meghan out of the daze she’d been walking around in for the last couple weeks. She’d helped Zoya and Katarina nurse Reyna through the hours and hours of screaming and snarling.
Soft voices and the feel of fingers brushing her hair out of her face drew Reyna from her deep slumber. She felt half-awake and half-asleep. Somewhere in an in-between place.
“How’s she doing?” Beckham whispered low.
“As well as can be expected,” Katarina responded. “She is sleeping. That is best.”
“How much vodka did you give her to get her to do that?”
“Enough.” Katarina sighed. “Will the boy make it through?”
“He’s going to need more blood. He’s rabid. If I could just get him to drink, then maybe he’ll pull through.”
“Did you ever think that we’d be the ones trying to save a rogue vampire?” she asked with a tinge of humor in her voice.
“Only one,” he said fondly.
“You needed a good assassin. I was dying. And anyway, you’re not saving this boy for your own sake. You’re saving him for hers. Do you truly love her?”
Katarina sounded so confused by the question. Though not hesitant to ask it. She respected him but wasn’t afraid of him.
Reyna felt Beckham’s eyes on her. “I do.”
“What does it feel like?”
“To feel?”
“Yes.”
“Like indescribable pain…and wonder.” Beckham paused. “She’s a weakness. I’ve never allowed myself to have one before. She’s so…fragile.”
“She’s not that fragile. She has steel for a backbone and she’s as stubborn as you are. Stop treating her like she’s going to break. She needs your strength not your fear.”
Beckham growled low at the comment. “I have to protect her.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t want me to.”
“You’ll do your best.”
“I’d die a thousand deaths for her. No matter the cost…you protect her first.”
“Sir…”
“Her.”
Katarina sighed. “Okay.”
Beckham moved his fingers from Reyna’s hair and gently lifted her in his arms. She snuggled against his chest and promptly fell back asleep. Her brain convincing her that it had all been a dream.
Chapter 18
Days passed and Brian got no better.
Genevieve brought more and more blood. Beckham and his inner circle spent endless hours locked in the room with Brian. Reyna learned not to ask how it was going. The answer was always a grim look and a shake of the head. Not good.
“What do I do if he doesn’t recover?” Reyna asked Jodie one afternoon. They’d locked themselves in Washington’s lab. He hated having them there chatting while he was working, but he relented when it came to Brian.
“He’ll recover,” Jodie assured her.
“Washington, are you sure there’s nothing you can do?”
“I’ve already told you that this is beyond the matters of medicine. Brian has undergone a severe form of torture. It has reduced him to a wild animal. You are attempting to tame the beast within. Under normal circumstances the correct type of blood is sufficient to regain strength and mental cognition. This is not a normal case. He may never be the same again. I’m sorry, Reyna.”
“I know,” she said.
Jodie turned the computer to her. “My pictures aren’t as pretty as yours, but Perspective is sure to make a splash now, huh?”
“Looks good,” Reyna said.
On the computer was the website that Beckham had designed for her when he had first given her a camera. He’d wanted her to have a secure place to put the images she had taken and Perspective had been born.
Reyna scrolled through the images. Most of them were of the secure compounds Harrington had built. It showed the around-the-clock guards and barbed-wire fencing to keep people in rather than out. Someone had gotten close enough to see the holding facility inside, where it looked like any other picture-perfect apartment building/office space. They’d talked to a few people about the place and everyone made it seem like a dream. Except that the people who went in never came out.
“We’re going to need to go in there,” Reyna said, glad to have something to take her mind off Brian. “Discreetly. We need pictures of the inside.”
“Yeah. One problem.”
“I know. If we send a human in, then they won’t ever come out. I’m working on it.”
“We could see if anyone wanted to volunteer.”
Reyna groaned. “I can’t ask someone to do that.”
“You wouldn’t be asking.”
“What we need is someone who Visage doesn’t know, who will slip us information somehow. But…I don’t know who that would be.”
“Or perhaps you could send in a vampire to feed,” Washington said from the corner.
“A vampire Harrington doesn’t know? Who the hell would that be?”
“Or one he does know…l
ike Penelope.”
Reyna cursed. “She double-crossed us!”
“What she did was horrible,” Washington agreed. “But I think given a second chance…she would make a different decision. It wouldn’t hurt to send someone persuasive to ask.”
“Beckham?” Reyna asked.
“She may be petty and opportunistic, but she has a soft spot for him.”
Jodie held her hands up to prevent Reyna from venting. “Let’s put bitchface Penny on the list. A backup, last resort, if the world is burning and she’s the only double-crossing slutbag left. Fair?”
“Fine,” Reyna said. Though she didn’t agree even a little bit.
The door to the basement cracked open. Philippé’s stoic face appeared at the top of the steps. He grunted and gestured upstairs. Reyna was on her feet running as fast as they would carry her. Her heart pounded in her chest as she came to a stop in front of Brian’s door.
Her eyes adjusted to the low lighting almost immediately. And there was Brian seated in the same chair, with chains wrapped around his body. He held a dark mug in his hand, looking normal, and not like the monster who had flung blood all over the room, stained and shredded his clothes, and cut chains so deep into his wrists and ankles that he was bleeding from the sores.
“Brian?” she whispered.
“Get out of here,” Brian said, his voice low and deadly. Not the voice of her overprotective, caring brother. The voice of a killer.
“It might be harder for him to face you than us,” Beckham warned her.
“Brian, it’s me, Rey,” she whispered.
“I know who you are,” he said into the mug. “I said…get out.”
Reyna’s eyes met Beckham’s. He gestured for her to take another step forward.
“Are you…are you feeling better?” she continued. “Drinking again?”
“I’ve been well fed,” he snarled.
“That’s good. You need to keep your strength up. You lost a lot of weight. I didn’t want to see you die.”
Brian’s eyes snapped up to hers. “I already died and now I’m in Hell.”
Reyna swallowed. “You’re not in Hell. You’re at Washington’s home. Beckham and I brought you here. Do you…do you remember us bringing you here?”
“I remember slaughtering all those people, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Reyna winced. “That wasn’t you.”
“Who was it, then? I was there. I drank their blood. I killed them. I am a murderer.”
“That was the beast…the beast within. They starved you on purpose and let the virus ravage your body. You weren’t in control of yourself.”
Beckham put his hand on her back. She sank into that embrace as if it was a life raft in the ocean.
“Just leave me,” Brian snarled. He bared his fangs at her threateningly. He threw his mug across the room. It smashed against the wall and splashed the blood all over the room and onto both Reyna and Beckham. Reyna screamed at the outburst and took a step back.
“I said get out of here!” Brian yelled at her. “I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
“No, I won’t accept that. I won’t abandon you. Drew and Laura are still alive! You’re going to be a father!”
“I’m nothing,” Brian said. He wrenched against his chains. His teeth snapped together. “Tell them I’m dead.”
Reyna swallowed back the tears that were threatening and then she turned and ran out of the room. She shouldn’t have come. He wasn’t ready yet. She should have waited until he was a hundred percent better. Until he wasn’t so savage still. But she just had been so excited to see any progress.
She threw open the door to the room she shared with Beckham and headed immediately to the walk-in shower. She stripped out of her blood-soaked clothes, dropping them onto the floor with a squelch. Then she turned the shower to the hottest setting and stepped into the spray. She scrubbed at her skin to get the blood off of her. No matter how hard she scrubbed—until she was pink and aching—still she felt dirty.
Beckham appeared at the shower door. He removed his many layers of clothes and then entered the shower.
“I can’t get clean,” she gasped.
“Let me.” He took the loofah from her hand and ran it gently down her back, over her shoulders, and down her arms.
“Becks…”
“I know.”
She threw her arms around him and finally the tears fell hard and uncontrollably. Her body shook with the force of it. Heat flooded her chest and cheeks as her sobs took over. Her wet hair clung to her face. She felt ravaged from the inside out.
All the while, he stroked her back and held her firmly against him.
“Is he ever going to want to look at me again?” she blubbered through the tears.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh God,” she said. “What will I tell Drew and Laura?”
He tucked the wet hair back from her face. “The truth.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can. They love him as much as you and will want to know.”
“It’ll break them.”
“No. It will help you all to share the pain.” Beckham tilted her face up to his. “Share it with me. I can handle it.”
Her eyes, bloodshot, stared up into his as her emotions exploded outward. He clutched her harder as the pain hit him fresh. But in the process, she felt his resolve to help her. To love and care for her. And for the first time, she wondered if maybe she hadn’t dreamed his conversation with Katarina.
“Grieve for the dead, not the living,” Beckham said. “This is not the end. It is just the beginning.”
* * *
—
The next day, Gabe finally called to be picked up. And as much as Reyna wanted to stay behind, it had been five days since they’d found Brian. Drew and Laura had the right to know that she’d found him.
They met Gabe a couple blocks away from Ferrier House. He hopped into the backseat and slammed the door shut.
“How was Hell?” Reyna asked, using the nickname for his nightclub.
“Some fuck is trying to take over and all hell broke loose when I was gone. I had to put a few people to fucking ground while I was there. Jesus Christ, you’d think it’d be easy enough to just intimidate the fuckers. But no, they want to come at me like I’m fucking new here,” Gabe barked.
Beckham cleared his throat. Reyna’s eyes were round as saucers.
“It’s fine,” Gabe said with a laugh and a wink. Typical Gabe. “It’s back under control.”
“Did you say you…put people to ground?” Reyna asked.
Gabe shrugged a shoulder. “All in a day’s work. Didn’t think I was all rainbows and sunshine, did you, sweetheart?”
“Going to find out how much of rainbows and sunshine I am if you call her sweetheart again,” Beckham threatened.
Gabe ignored him. “Yeah, well, motherfucking contact won’t respond. I keep getting rebuffed. I mean, it was a last resort to try to reach out to him anyway, but the dude could have had the decency to tell me to fuck off properly.”
“We weren’t expecting a miracle,” Beckham said. He almost sounded satisfied that Gabe had failed.
“How’s Brian?” Gabe asked.
Reyna winced.
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she whispered.
“He’s coming around,” Beckham said. “Just not too happy with himself.”
“I bet. He was a do-gooder type. Can’t see him being okay with killing all those people.”
“It gets easier with time,” Beckham said.
“Sure does,” Gabe said.
Reyna realized that she was in a car between two mass murderers. Neither of them in the least affected by the majority of what they’d done, and somehow killing pe
ople was the only thing she’d actually heard them agree on. Go figure.
* * *
—
“Are you sure we have to do this?” Reyna asked Beckham later when they were standing outside the anti-vamp cult room where the rest of Elle was staying. Beckham just glanced at her. “Okay. We do.”
She was not looking forward to it. Not even a little bit.
Beckham opened the door and ushered her inside. Gabe was waiting in the car. They’d promised him they wouldn’t be long.
The room they entered was massive, at least two stories up and round, with hallways branching out from it. It was full of people watching TV and hanging out. It reminded her so much of the rec room at Elle that her heart panged.
“I didn’t know you were coming by,” Everett said, approaching from a hallway.
Beckham tensed next to her.
“And you brought…him. You know this isn’t a vamp-friendly place.”
“Try to make me leave,” Beckham said threateningly.
“Let’s not,” Reyna said, holding up her hands. “We’re not here to argue with you. I need to talk to Drew and Laura.”
“By all means.” Everett gestured his arm. “But your escort stays here.”
“If you think I’m going to leave her alone with you…”
Reyna blew out a strangled breath. “It’s fine. You’ll know if I’m not okay.”
Their eyes met and she opened herself up to him. Let him feel the turmoil. She knew he could sense her no matter where she went. She wasn’t worried about being in this place. Just frustrated that he couldn’t be here for this.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Beckham said to Everett. “If you’re capable of that.”
Everett shot him a smug look and then directed Reyna down the first hallway on the left. The halls were narrow, with peeling white paint and muted tile. The dim lighting didn’t help with the overall feel of the place. It certainly wasn’t as nice as the old bunker, but it did the job. That was all that mattered.
“You don’t have to antagonize him,” she said.
“Why not? It’s fun.”