by D. Laine
He was changing. Like each of us had.
“Oh, my God,” I repeated with more enthusiasm, matching Robbie’s infectious grin.
Jake had been tagged. Because of me. Because of my blood now flowing in his veins. He would wake up in two days, stronger and better than ever. He—
“Oh . . .”
My face fell when it hit me. Jake would no longer be a vessel. He would be worthless to the Watchers now. That left Dylan.
Only Dylan.
By saving my brother, I had sealed Dylan’s fate.
22
DYLAN
I had one angry sister waiting for me after my shift ended. I walked into the apartment on rubbery legs and came face-to-face with Sadie. Motor-nose Ewing snored away on one of the mattresses, so it was no surprise she wasn’t asleep. I preferred to blame it on him. Better than blaming myself.
Her fist connecting with my bicep didn’t allow me to live in that bubble of denial for long. I felt the brunt of her fury in the soreness of my bruised muscle as well as in my head. She was pissed. Probably rightfully so.
“So that’s it, huh?” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “It’s you against the world, right?”
“Not hardly the whole world, but—”
“Oh, shut up, Dylan!”
I glanced at Ewing, but he didn’t even flinch. The man could sleep through a hurricane.
“You knew what you were doing,” she accused with a finger in my face. “Didn’t you?”
“He’s my best friend, Sadie. What did you expect me to do? Let him die?” I paused to make sure my words got through her stubborn skull. “Because then it would still be just me . . . against the world. This way Jake has a fighting chance.”
“You didn’t tell Thea,” she fired. “You didn’t tell anyone what you were doing.”
“Wasn’t this what you guys wanted all along?” I asked, exasperated. “To shoot us up with demon blood so we couldn’t host a Watcher?”
“That was what I wanted . . .” She trailed off meekly.
“What, Sadie? You wanted what?”
“I wanted you to do it. Specifically you. And now you’re the only one who isn’t tagged, and I know what that means, Dylan. I know what you’re planning.”
“I’m not planning anything,” I muttered.
“I know what the two of you talked about. I can read you, remember? I know what Jake said, what he suggested. And you just went off and changed everything.”
“I wasn’t going to let him do it anyway. Did you read that?”
“I think you might have,” Sadie said softly. “I think you love Thea that much. But now . . . Dylan, if we can’t find Lucifer’s vessel . . .”
“I know, Sadie.” My eyes squeezed shut. Partly from exhaustion. Partly from disbelief, because I still couldn’t believe how I had gotten myself into this mess. “I know it’s just me now, and I know what I need to do. The first step is going to be talking to Calvin.”
Sadie looked away, gnawing on the inside of her cheek like she did when she was stressed. I did it too, so I recognized the nervous tick. “Anything yet?”
“He’s still unconscious.”
I hadn’t even realized—not until Sadie pulled me aside and said something—that Calvin had been one of the survivors carried into the hospital this morning. There had been too much blood, and I had been worried about Jake. I later found out that he and two other Preppers had been approaching the fence when the fog rolled in, bringing a swarm of tags with it. He was the only survivor from his group. Two Duggies had died rescuing them. Two others were still critical. That didn’t include Jake and Robbie.
No one knew why they had come here, or what they wanted. The moment Calvin’s eyes opened, I intended to find out.
Sadie crumbled to the edge of the mattress like her legs could no longer support her weight. I sat beside her, chin in hand, mirroring her. We stared at each other so long we both started to grin. Some things never changed. We could never stay mad at each other for long.
“Did you see Robbie when you went in the hospital to check on Calvin?” Sadie asked.
“No.” I blew out a breath. “I’m trying to avoid that for as long as possible. I just talked to Doc. He thinks Jake’s dying, and I didn’t correct him. Might be a little hard to explain when he wakes up in two days.”
“By that, you do mean . . .”
I smirked. “Thea.”
“She’ll be alright. At least she’ll have her brother.” Sadie quickly looked away, but not before I glimpsed the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. She cleared her throat, pulled her shoulders back, and put on her mask. “So Robbie will be okay, right?”
“Yeah, she’ll be fine.” My heart thundered in my ears. If there was one thing that turned me into a pussy, it was the sight of a girl’s tears. Especially Thea’s and Sadie’s. I nudged her with my elbow to lighten the mood. “Did you know about her and Jake?”
“No. I suspected something, but not . . . that.” Silence hovered over us before Sadie added, “They’re good for each other. Like you and Thea.”
“Like you and Ewing?” I tossed back with a smirk.
“He’s not as bad as you think he is. If you took the time to know him, you might—”
“I sleep next to the guy every night. I wake up with his feet in my face every morning. I know him well enough by now to know I don’t like him.”
Sadie sighed loudly. “You can be such a stubborn ass.”
“You should have seen me before. This”—I jabbed a finger into my chest—“is mild.”
“Before what?”
I grinned broadly. “Thea.”
“Thank God she came along when she did, or I might not have recognized my once sweet and lovable brother.”
I snorted. “Did you have another sibling I’m not aware of?”
“Stop.” She shoved my arm playfully. “I’m sure you can be sweet when you want to be. You were sweet, once upon a time.”
“Wonder what happened?” I asked bitterly, already knowing the answer to my own question.
That day happened. The Preppers happened. They took Sadie from me. They killed my parents. Though I had Jake and the other assassins, I had grown up with a chip on my shoulder. I had never known who was responsible for it. Until recently.
The leader of that group lay near death on a veterinary examination table a few hundred yards away. He may or may not be Lucifer’s vessel. He may or may not know who Lucifer’s vessel was. But we were going to have words. Eventually.
For now, I displaced some of my anger on my sister.
“How can you call yourself one of them?” I asked her, my voice tight.
“Who?” Her eyes widened with genuine surprise at the abrupt change of subject, and my mood.
“The Preppers,” I practically growled. “After what they did, how can you—”
“What did they do?” She sat up, crossing her legs under her as she turned to face me. “Aside from opposing the agency, of course, but the agency was corrupt. We didn’t have a choice—”
“Was that the excuse they gave you for murdering Mom and Dad?” My teeth clenched with the attempt to control the volume of my voice. “Our parents deserved bullets to the head for taking us to a corrupt agency? They didn’t know what was going on there. They were innocent, and the Preppers murdered them in cold blood.”
Sadie’s mouth hung open, whatever she had been about to say forgotten. She blinked at me once. Twice. Finally, she shook her head. “The Preppers didn’t kill anyone, Dylan.”
“They took you,” I reminded her. “Whoever took you killed them. I saw it.”
“But it wasn’t them,” she insisted. “The people that took me had masks on, so I never saw their faces. They left me. They abandoned all of us. The Preppers are nothing but a group of stolen boys and girls with no one but each other. Same way you had the assassins.”
“Calvin is older. He’s from another generation. He—”
“Was originally wit
h the agency, and willingly joined us once he realized what his brother was planning. He didn’t want any part of it. Because he was older, he took on the role of the father figure we all missed. He was the glue that held us together.” Sadie paused to hold my gaze. “He didn’t kill our parents.”
“So then who did? Who took you? Who else could have known what we were?”
“I don’t know, but they . . .” She trailed off and her face paled.
“What?”
“They were efficient and structured. They knew what they were doing. The way they carried themselves, the way they talked about this top secret serum that would save us from our destinies . . . ” Her eyes widened as she stared back at me, but I didn’t think she saw me. “I always thought they were military.”
My stomach hollowed as I stared at Sadie. “You didn’t think you should mention this when we decided to hole up with a bunch of fucking military guys?”
“I don’t know . . .” Her brow furrowed. “I haven’t thought about them in years. I guess I kind of forgot about them. All I’ve known was the Preppers and they aren’t bad. Not like you think.”
“What about Thea? Who kidnapped her? How did she end up somewhere else?” I pondered, not expecting an answer.
I knew her dad had been ex-military. Had he been a part of this somehow? And how deep did it run? How far had they gone to keep us from the truth?
Jake’s and Thea’s real parents had been killed in a fiery car accident somewhere in Tennessee. Jake had been pulled into Spence’s office and given the news a few years ago. Though his weren’t the only parents of assassins that met an early grave, I never smelled a conspiracy until now.
I wanted to blame the Preppers for all of it, but I couldn’t ignore Sadie’s claims. Nor could I ignore the nagging suspicion that the Duggies were involved more than I originally thought. Were they the masterminds responsible for assembling the Preppers?
I had thought that the Preppers had hoodwinked everyone, but what if they were puppets on a string controlled by an even more powerful force?
I HOVERED on the blurry line between sleep and alertness for a long damn time. I couldn’t seal the deal. Not when I knew the Watchers waited for me on the other side.
I barely registered the sound of footsteps over the hard floor, but seconds later, the sensation of a warm body sliding under the sheets beside me jarred me fully awake. In a really good way.
I rolled over, hooking Thea’s waist to pull her closer. She came easily and willingly and not at all like a girl pissed off at her boyfriend. The fact that she was here, and not still sitting on that stool beside Jake with a plastic tube stuck in her arm, confirmed my suspicions. The transfusion had worked exactly as I knew it would.
Jake would be okay.
Then I felt her shudder, and I heard a little sniffle. Fear seized me. My head snapped up, and I peered down at her. It wasn’t even dark yet, so I got an up close and clear view of her bloodshot eyes.
My throat tightened. “Jake?”
She nodded faintly. “He’s fine.”
My shoulders sagged with instant relief.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Her lips pressed together, signaling that I was not in the clear yet. Not even close. “You knew when you brought me to the hospital to give him my blood . . . you knew what that would do.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Her bottom lip trembled briefly. Then she tried to smile, and it was the saddest fucking thing I had ever seen.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I tried to reassure her. “Just guarantees that Jake lives.”
“It changes everything, Dylan,” Thea muttered. “Jake’s going to be so mad at you.”
“Maybe. Or maybe this will all be over by the time he wakes up and he’ll be too relieved to be mad.”
She blinked slowly. “What?”
I leaned down as if I had a secret to tell her. Eyes locked, I grinned and said, “Calvin’s here.”
Her eyes widened, and I had to leap out of the way before she inadvertently broke my nose with her flailing arms as she sat up. “What do you mean, Calvin is here?”
“That’s what happened yesterday,” I explained. “He and a few Preppers were approaching the fence when they were attacked. He’s alive, but barely. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him yet. But I will.”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “What if it’s him?”
“I doubt it’s him now, considering he was attacked by tags, but I’m sure he knows who the vessel is.”
Thea nodded thoughtfully. “Lucifer tried to silence him.”
Exactly what I suspected. “Probably, yeah.”
“So he has to know who the vessel is,” she whispered excitedly. “This is huge.”
“I know.” Matching her smile, I tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “This could be over soon.”
She threw herself on me with a little squeal, and her mouth immediately found mine. Too soon, she pulled away to glance over her shoulder. Ewing still snored from his spot. Sadie appeared to sleep peacefully beside him, but she could have been faking it. There was no way she could sleep with that god-awful noise.
“Want to go to that house?” Thea asked.
“What house?”
“You know . . . our house.”
“We have a house?”
She gave me a look full of meaning. “From last night.”
Had that only been last night? It felt like an eternity ago, after everything that had happened since.
I liked the way she called it ours, and we both knew what would happen if we went back there. I knew I was in deep when I didn’t jump immediately at the chance. Instead, I used something I had rarely used when it came to women and sex: reason.
“We can go there”—I took a long, hard look at her sunken in cheeks and heavy eyelids—“after you get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Bullshit. You’re exhausted.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, I am,” I admitted with a sigh.
“Are you going to sleep? Because if you are, I’ll stay awake. I’ll watch for signs of trouble. I’ll wake you if you start talking in your sleep.”
I almost took her up on that offer. Almost. Then she blinked once, hard and long, like it took tremendous effort to peel her eyes open again. She would never be able to do it. I knew she would try, but I couldn’t ask her to do that.
“How about we both sleep?” I suggested.
“Really? You—”
“I’ll manage.” I gave her the most reassuring smile I could.
I hoped it worked, because I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth: That I was approaching the point that I didn’t care anymore. That the Watchers had nearly broken me, and if I didn’t get some rest soon, I wouldn’t be able to resist them when they came.
As she snuggled into my side and gave in to her own call for sleep, I didn’t tell her that I feared they waited for me now.
23
DYLAN
I don’t wait long. I don’t know where I am, but I know I am not alone.
The air thickens around me, bubbling with a now-familiar energy that dances across my skin like a palpable touch. The hairs on my arms rise in greeting as I turn to face the shadow lurking behind me.
“Lucifer is close,” it hisses. “His vessel is even closer. The time to strike is now.”
The air crackles and fizzes around me, and I sniff at the scent of burning ozone—same I smelled when I last saw Maria. I can nearly hear the echo of her voice in my head. Her last words to me as clear now as the day she spoke them.
‘He’s near.’
‘Help me.’
My skin tingles from the tiny tremors that vibrate the surface, and I am so in tune with my body that I feel the blood flowing through my veins. It pulls me forward like a magnetic river, drawing me to the Watcher that waits in the dark.
I sense Maria. And though I know that cannot be, I take another step closer to her. The W
atcher’s call strengthens. The vibrations intensify with each step until I am quivering without control. My head empties of all thoughts, emotions, and instincts. I am a shell.
A bright white light surges from the shadows, drawing closer. I watch helplessly as my hand extends, reaching out to meet the light. Heat consumes me, inviting me closer, as the light travels up my arm like the tendrils of a squid.
A strong tremble grips my entire body, forcing me to retreat a step. The light abruptly recedes and wanes before vanishing. Darkness swells in its place. With it comes a voice.
The call of my name urges me to retreat another step. Then another.
The voice grows louder. More urgent.
It’s familiar.
It’s Thea.
I go to her.
I OPENED my eyes in time to see a palm heading straight for my face. Too late—and too slow—to deflect it, I took the impact like a man trained to tolerate various methods of torture. But no man was trained to withstand an angry girlfriend.
“What the fuck? Thea!” My forearms blocked another slap intended for my face. “What did I do now?”
“Oh, my God. Dylan?” Her hands grasped my wrists and pulled them apart. She peered down at me with wide, panicked eyes. “Are you alright?”
“Umm.” My cheek stung like a son of a bitch. Other than that, I felt fine. More confused than anything.
“You’re . . . you? Right?” Her brows pinched together. “Quick. Say something only Dylan would say.”
My mouth dropped open as I lowered my hands to my sides. She watched every movement carefully, like one wrong move would prompt her to hit me again. At times, I had probably deserved it. But I was confident I hadn’t done anything this time. I was pretty sure I had just been asleep so—
“What a minute.” My shoulders rose off the mattress. “What happened?”
She eyed me warily. “You were . . . mumbling again. And moving. And . . .”
“What happened, Thea?”
“Your arm was lit up. It was so bright I could hardly look at it. I tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t . . .” Her shoulders sagged and her head dropped.
