She shook her head. “No. I have no idea what’s happening,” she admitted. “This isn’t right, but I don’t sense anyone with darkness around us.” Her brow furrowed nervously. “If the vampires left, they wouldn’t leave Sike and me behind.”
Our options were rapidly narrowing. They’d either been taken by force or had needed to flee.
Louise, Roxy, and Colin were also nowhere to be seen. If they were gone, it seemed more likely that they had to leave. My team would never abandon us. I studied the floor and walls carefully, looking for signs of struggle, a note, anything that might tell the story of what had happened.
Bravi and Zach took point and led the way with Sike and Bryce flanking the back and Gina and me in the middle. With barely a sound, we moved deeper into the caverns.
Nothing had seemed amiss before we left. Was there anything suspicious I overlooked? We’d had the tense discussion before deciding on the hostage plan, but the only dissenters had been Oleah, Halla, and Vonn, none of whom were surprising. Vonn thoroughly creeped me out, especially with his suggestion of war, but disagreement didn’t equate to bloodlust. Bravi had zero trust in that vampire—as did I—after Vonn attacked the police team and compromised our mission to Jim’s home a few days ago, but it seemed highly improbable that he could have anything to do with everyone disappearing. I highly doubted that Halla or Oleah could take out the entire human team and various vampires. If they’d even tried, there would be signs of it all over the caves.
As one, our group dropped into fighting stances when Halla and Hart suddenly emerged from the shadows. My initial relief at recognizing them faded when I realized what they had in common.
Noncombatant vampires, unable to fight.
“I thought you might be Bureau soldiers,” Halla said. From her tone, she didn’t think we were much of an improvement.
“What happened here?” I demanded. “Where is everyone else?”
Her nostrils flared as she lifted her chin defiantly, taking offense at my tone. “I’ll tell you when I’m good and ready,” she snapped.
Hart pressed his lips together in refusal when I looked to him, returned to his haughty persona.
I balled my hand into a fist, fear morphing to frustration. “Things have just become far more complicated,” I said, keeping my tone tightly controlled. “Director Sloane has implied he is going to begin targeting the dissenters’ families. We don’t have the option of waiting a month anymore.” Why did they act like this? It was ridiculous.
“We don’t have time for this, Halla,” Bravi said brusquely. “Where are the others?”
Halla sneered at her, apparently unmoved by the new information I’d provided.
Quiet footsteps sounded, and the vampire mother approached us. Her long hair was the same naturally dark blue as Oleah’s—though I was pretty certain they weren’t related—and was tied back away from her sharp face. I’d hardly heard her speak in all the time our groups had been together, both back in the ski hideout, where she’d spent most of her time in the mountain caves with Jeth and the children, and here. She carried her large-eyed toddler in her arms protectively.
“Eskra,” Bravi said, turning to the woman after a final filthy glare at Halla and Hart. “What happened? Why are so many of the group missing?”
She moved the toddler to her hip, standing tall, her shoulders squared. “The others swore me to secrecy, but you risked your lives protecting my children and me when the Bureau attacked.” She gave Hart a pointed look. “It would serve you well to remember that too, Hart.”
Hart had the decency to look slightly shamefaced. Halla gave her a dirty look, but Eskra was unphased. I had to hide a smile. Someone was on our side, at least.
“Not long after you left on the redbills, Vonn returned from scouting without Dorian. He claimed they had been attacked when they drifted too close to the tear and that the Bureau captured Dorian. He rallied the rest of the vampires and demanded an immediate attack on the Bureau,” Eskra relayed. “They plan to attack tomorrow evening. Without your team. They left.”
Dorian was captured? How did Vonn escape if Dorian didn’t? I knew Dorian was weakened from not feeding for so long, but he was still easily equal to Vonn in strength and agility. Something felt off.
“Where did the other humans go?” I asked. Panic swelled as I vividly remembered Vonn’s desire for conflict. “If Vonn hurt my team, I’ll—”
“They went with him,” Eskra said.
I blinked. “Willingly?”
I remembered Colin and Roxy being angry, but I didn’t think they would go along with Vonn so easily. Especially if the new plan left out the other members of their human team. I took several paces away from the group, angry and still processing this second rapid turn of events. I wished I could’ve been here to talk reason into them. I glanced at the captain, who frowned thoughtfully at Eskra. Bryce would have some choice words for Roxy and Colin when we caught up with them.
Eskra nodded with a grave air. “Your friends were angered by the Bureau, I believe. I didn’t hear more of their reasoning or what happened. They excluded me completely from the plans after the initial discussion, since they had to leave me and the others behind.”
They had left vulnerable non-combatants to fend for themselves in our extremely precarious hideout. Lovely.
“Unbelievable,” Zach muttered. “I can’t believe he was able to get everyone on his side that fast.”
Eskra twisted her hands together, hesitating.
“What else?” I asked tightly, fearing the worst.
“I’m worried”—her voice caught in her throat—“I’m worried Vonn did something to Dorian.”
Bravi and I shared a horrified look.
Could Vonn have killed Dorian? He claimed he had been captured by the Bureau, which didn’t make sense to me. If that was the case, Vonn should’ve told the other vampires and staged an impromptu rescue mission. I shook my head in furious disbelief. This couldn’t be happening… yet it was. Not only was my dear uncle threatening his own brother to blackmail Zach and me into turning ourselves and our team in, but Dorian was missing, possibly dead, at the hands of Vonn.
My throat tightened with grief. I had wanted to help Dorian establish the vampires in a new home outside the Immortal Plane. I had wanted to explore how we could work with our pain and deepen our relationship. There were tender and passionate moments I still wanted for us. Vonn couldn’t have taken that away, right? I wasn’t ready to give Dorian up for dead.
“We have to stop them,” Bryce said, bulldozing past concern for Dorian. “They’re not in their right minds. Not with that Vonn leading them.”
After the devastation caused by Jim and Grayson’s deaths, there was no room left to process yet another loss. Moving on to the next plan of action was easier, in its own dark way. But I couldn’t and wouldn’t give up hope for Dorian.
“The Bureau has our parents,” Zach muttered. “We have to move. Now.”
Bravi drew herself up to her full height. It wasn’t much, but her stormy expression was. “Not without Dorian. We have to find him.”
Assuming he was alive. If we left and he was stranded somewhere, injured, then he might actually die. Or the Bureau could find him. Tears threatened to prick my eyes, but I blinked them back. I wouldn’t panic based on Eskra’s suspicions. We would find Dorian ourselves. Dead or alive.
God, I hope it’s the latter.
“She’s right,” I said. “We can’t leave without him. We can all go look for him.”
Bryce frowned. “What happens if we don’t find him?”
I wasn’t ready to think about that. “We’ll figure it out.” My mind was already racing to find solutions. “We’ll all come back as soon as possible if we don’t find him.”
“We should call it off by sunset,” Bryce warned. “We won’t be able to see anything after that.”
“Then we have until sunset,” Gina said firmly.
“Where did Vonn and Dorian go scouting earli
er?” Bravi asked Eskra.
She pointed. “They went north shortly after you left for your trip.”
Great. We had a general direction, but that still gave us a huge area to search.
Our group of humans, Bravi, and Sike gathered at the entrance, preparing to remount redbills.
“I never trusted Vonn,” Bravi growled. She was furious with herself, always protective of Dorian.
“You can’t beat yourself up over it,” I told her. “We may not have trusted him, but it’s fair to say none of us saw him pulling rank and starting a mutiny on this scale.” Inside, my emotions raged between anger and devastation. If we found Dorian dead…
I pushed the image of his lifeless body out of my mind.
Bravi craned her neck, staring fixedly at something in the distance. “There’s something coming.”
I followed her gaze, watching a speck in the sky grow with unnatural speed. Above us, a redbill descended rapidly. A potential fight brewed. We had no idea who was on the redbill. It could even be Vonn coming back to recruit Sike and Bravi.
Bravi dropped into a fighting position as the redbill came down to join ours. Zach and Gina backed her up. Bryce and I tried desperately to make out the figures on the bird’s back.
I felt a flicker of recognition. “It’s not Vonn.”
“Guys!” Laini cried out. “It’s us. We come in peace!” Louise popped her head out from behind Laini.
My body relaxed an inch, but I couldn’t let them off the hook that easily. “Eskra told us you left with Vonn to attack the Bureau. Is that true?” I demanded.
Laini and Louise shared a guilty look. “I’m sorry,” Laini said softly. “Louise and I were able to talk quickly while it was all happening. Neither of us liked the plan, but we stayed quiet. We thought if we objected, we might disappear like Dorian.”
Louise glanced hesitantly at Sike, who openly stared at her. His mouth opened, but no words came out. There was a sense of relief around him. She winced and averted her gaze a moment after. Was she worried he was disappointed in her decision?
The sun beat down on us. My mouth was dry from stress.
“You escaped?” Bravi asked with a note of skepticism.
I was glad she was here with me. I wanted to trust Laini and Louise, but what if they had come back to lure us into a trap?
“Yes. We ditched them at the last minute,” Louise explained, almost tripping over her words to get them out as fast as possible. “We knew we had to risk it to warn you guys about their plan.”
“Go ahead,” Bryce said. “We’re all ears.”
Laini began, “Vonn’s team—”
“Team War,” Bravi muttered. She seemed annoyed that Laini had gone with them at all. Was it because Bravi never would have accepted the Dorian excuse without going to see for herself?
“Team War is on a quest to attack the Bureau. They were nice enough to leave the children behind,” Laini said sarcastically. “Vonn rallied the vampires and made quick work of convincing everyone.”
“Did Colin and Roxy say anything in particular?” I asked, wanting to know their reasons. Although our compromise was strained, it seemed logical enough for everyone to be on board.
Louise clicked her tongue, hesitating. “No. They weren’t happy with your plan of kidnapping the board members and using them as hostages,” she explained and took a sharp breath. “I think they wanted something more… drastic.”
“Did Vonn suggest an alternative?” I asked, suspecting where this was going. My tongue felt too heavy for my mouth. Dread came over me as Laini grimaced.
“He did. He’s got charisma, that’s for sure,” she admitted. “He started spouting off on all these tangents about ideological reasoning. He preached about how he wants to use the vampire method of cleansing darkness on the human world to preserve the natural order of darkness and light and balance. Naturally, he believes we should start with the Bureau and said Dorian had lost his way, had forgotten his purpose as a vampire if he was willing to use weak tactics to maintain peace with an organization that only promised to be hostile.” Her mouth twisted in disapproval, and Louise took over.
“Their reasoning was that since the CIA was clearly in bed with the Bureau, there’s no reason to keep prisoners,” Louise said. “Vonn insisted there was no justice system that would bring the Bureau to task. That it was the vampires’ responsibility to restore balance on this plane.”
I shook my head. Of course, he would say that. His version of justice meant sinking his fangs into necks and taking what he wanted. He’d fully bought into the idea that vampires cleansing souls was like an act of divinity.
“They want revenge and justice,” Louise went on. “Humans and vampires.”
Colin and Roxy’s enraged faces came to mind. So they hadn’t been satisfied with our proposal, after all.
“They’ll kill anybody who tries to stop them,” Laini said. “That much was clear. Dark or not, you don’t want to get in their way. At this point, it’s war.”
Cold horror washed over us. Zach held his head in his hands. I put a hand on his back to comfort him. What if Alan had our parents held captive in the Bureau HQ building under guarded surveillance? They could become innocent casualties along with the hundreds of others in the buildings.
“We’ll figure this out,” I promised him. “We’re going to get our parents back safe and sound. We always find our way back.” When we were younger, Zach and I would often play until the late hours at night. He helped me back in the dark when I got scared. I wanted to lead him to safety the same way.
“Except now, we’re fighting more than the Bureau,” he whispered desperately. “We’re fighting each other.”
Everything is going to pieces. Roxy and Colin had officially sided with Team War for the moment, which did nothing for my budding anger. I understood their sense of betrayal and their rage over Grayson’s death, but that was no excuse to kill anyone in their path. Had they truly thought about what their revenge would entail?
“Did they discuss their plan before you left?” Bryce asked. His gaze turned sharp with concern.
Louise nodded. “It’s a doozy. They plan to set off a targeted explosion in the board meeting room. They want to throw the board members into chaos and injure anyone in the area. After that, they plan to storm the compromised building and finish off the board members one by one.” She grimaced. “Vonn seemed particularly excited about that part.”
“They plan to send several vampires to set up the explosives,” Laini added. “The planned time of the attack is halfway through the meeting. In the meantime, they’ll hide out somewhere safe and gather supplies to make the bomb. Close to Chicago but not too close. They wanted to throw the rest of the goody-two-shoes team off their tail.”
A bomb? It was an utterly disgusting and devastating plan. Potentially wounding or killing dozens of innocent people in the building to take out a dozen or so people in one room?
“Goody-two-shoes?” I echoed with a raised eyebrow. Not only was Team War illogical, but they were also annoying.
“Their words, not mine,” Laini said with a shrug.
“I think it’s completely idiotic,” Louise announced with a huff. “Team War thinks they can send a message to the CIA and the rest of the Bureau to stop hunting vampires and dissenters. But they won’t stop, especially after this. It’ll only make the Bureau more determined to catch us, and this time they’ll have the whole of the organization and probably the public on their side.” She paused, frustration lining her face. “Roxy and Colin… I couldn’t calm them down. They’re furious about Grayson, and they want revenge. They didn’t flinch when Vonn discussed murdering the board members.” She shook her head. “He whipped everyone up into a frenzy. It was a classic mob mentality.”
“Roxy and Colin are seeing red and not reason,” Bryce commented. He dragged a hand through his hair with a weary sigh. “They’re trying to mourn with revenge.” From the sound of his voice, he’d seen this before.
>
“We can’t get justice like this,” I said. “As harsh as it sounds, nothing is going to bring Grayson, Jim, or anybody else back from the dead. We need to move forward in a way that best protects the living.”
Louise frowned as she evaluated our group. “Roxy is supposed to make the explosives and guide the team into the HQ compound. It’s going to take a short while for Team War to assemble the supplies,” she said, reluctant to inform us of our former teammate’s part in this.
“I think that gives us time to stop them,” Laini said. “If we can find Dorian and get there fast enough.”
Her observation pulled me back to our most pressing task. The sun was already starting to lower, the pale sky stained at the edges with a darker blue, threatening to fade to purple.
I took over, assigning groups to scout. “Be fast but thorough,” I said firmly. “We’ve got to find Dorian, and we’re running out of time.”
I prayed he was alive. It was all I could do as we climbed atop the redbills.
Chapter Thirty
Team War planned to launch their attack in less than twenty-four hours. In that span of time, we needed to find Dorian and successfully plan a counterattack that would somehow still achieve our goal of stopping the Bureau.
I sat behind Bravi on her redbill, heading true north. Bryce, Louise, and Laini took the northwestern section while Sike, Gina, and Zach took the northeast. We only had Eskra’s vague memory to go off of, but it was better than nothing.
The late afternoon light helped with the search, covering the canyons in a warm glow. Still, shadows began to grow longer and darker. I worried Dorian might be hidden in some far-flung crevice where we wouldn’t find him.
Eskra thought Vonn had done something to Dorian. Something potentially deadly. I reached into my pants pocket to feel the reassuring presence of Dorian’s stone. It was warm to the touch, which gave me a strange sense of comfort. He wasn’t with me, but part of his story was. Right now, I treasured the odd little stone more than I could say.
“Your nervous leg-jiggling is going to knock me off the redbill, Lyra,” Bravi informed me, irritated. Her stormy mood had only intensified since we left.
Darklight 2: Darkthirst Page 40