He unwrapped the cake and fed it to the dog in big white-frosted chunks.
The fool rewarded his bloodhound with cheap pastry? Somehow that made Shelton’s decision easier.
While Nosy chewed on his Little Debbie, Shelton slipped the small Smith & Wesson carry pistol from his pocket and took aim at the dog’s head, bracing his arms on his bent knees. Nosy the bloodhound hadn’t even scented Shelton sitting a few feet away, or didn’t consider him worth watching.
At the last second, he shifted his sights to the head of Nosy’s owner and pulled the trigger twice.
With the silencer, the greatest noise came from the unfortunate Billy Sue, or whatever the hell his name was, crashing atop a leafy bush, the crumpled Little Debbie package in his hand. Shelton sat in place a few seconds, waiting to see what the dog would do. He had no argument with the beast.
Nosy sat and looked mournfully at his owner until Shelton approached. He howled once and ran into the woods.
Smart dog.
Shelton dragged the body into a ditch near the spring Matthias had sent him to poison a couple of days earlier. He rifled through the man’s pockets, keeping a folding knife and the cash from his wallet. Credit cards were too easy to track down, so he left them and returned the wallet before covering the corpse with leaves. Maybe something would eat it before it was found.
Randa and Will were quiet on their walk back to the Omega hatch from the factory parking lot. Her dad wasn’t the only one with a lot to think about, and only two hours remained before dawn.
Being in that house had stirred a lot of memories, good and bad. She wanted a chance to talk to Robbie again, if her dad thought it would be OK. Maybe her other brothers. But she couldn’t live among them. To her surprise, she didn’t want to.
If Dad didn’t show up tomorrow night, or if he didn’t think her brothers should know, Randa would have to live with that. If he wanted them all to be a part of her life, she had to figure out how to live with that too.
Some part of her had expected to go into that house and reclaim some semblance of her old life. She hadn’t expected to go in and realize she no longer wanted it. She always thought she’d latched onto Aidan’s scathe because there was nowhere else for her to go.
Maybe that was the reason she’d joined them, but she stayed because she’d come to love them and consider them her family, albeit a kind of dysfunctional one. Aidan, with his serious strength and unbending moral code. Krys, with her soft heart and sharp sense of humor. Mirren, who, for all his curmudgeon act, had a heart as big as the man himself. Glory, with her joy for life and hardheaded practicality. Hannah, for the innocence she had somehow managed to hold on to. Cage and Melissa and Mark. All of them.
And Will, who’d faced down her father tonight with a ferocity she’d never seen in him. Who’d gone in there prepared to kill Rick Thomas if he’d needed to so she wouldn’t have to either make the decision or do something for which she couldn’t forgive herself. Who’d somehow taught her that she could be strong without being hard. And who’d let her tear at least a small chink out of the wall he’d built around himself.
She reached over and looped her arm through his as they walked.
He smiled down at her. “You OK?”
“Better than I expected to be. Part of me was afraid I’d want to stay.”
“So was I.” He stopped and turned to face her. “But?”
Randa stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss against his lips. “But I realized that I belong here.”
“That’s a conversation we need to continue inside.” He kissed her again, and they walked hand in hand toward the hatch.
“Go ahead and finish your conversation, kids. I was getting all choked up.”
Randa froze at the sight of the man in front of them; they’d both been so preoccupied with each other they’d let their vigilance slide. Even Will’s supersenses hadn’t alerted him.
The guy was vampire, very thin, medium height, with pale-blond hair, a series of healing cuts across his face and neck, and blue eyes fixed on Will.
Will had gone still. No, not just unmoving. He was paralyzed. Was this a starving vamp out in search of food or one of Matthias’s men?
“Good to see you, William. You’re looking as pretty as ever.” The man had a sarcastic drawl, and if he knew Will, he definitely wasn’t a random starving vampire.
“Who are you?” Randa didn’t like the look on Will’s face. His nostrils flared, and his jaw was clenched so tightly she expected to hear teeth cracking at any second.
“I’m Shelton Porterfield.” Shelton finally wrenched his gaze from Will and looked her over. “Looks like you two are close. Can’t believe Will hasn’t told you about that special summer we spent together. Maybe some memories are just so beautiful you want to keep them all for yourself. Right, William?”
Will’s body vibrated with tension, and Randa waited for him to react. This guy was obviously someone who knew Will well enough to push his buttons. Shelton. The name sounded familiar…Wasn’t Shelton the name of Matthias’s second-in-command? If he was standing ten feet from the Omega hatch, shouldn’t they be killing him? Shouldn’t he be killing them?
Her left hand still rested in Will’s. She pulled it free and raised the shotgun she’d been carrying in her right hand.
“You’d do better to let me to go on my way, girl. I can be of more help to you alive. See these stripes on my face? Matthias went too far this time, thanks to your buddy Cage Reynolds. Just ask William how far his daddy can take his punishments.”
Will moved so fast Randa couldn’t track it. One second he was standing beside her, radiating pent-up emotion. The next he was on the ground with Shelton pinned beneath him. His knife was in the man’s chest, angled below the rib cage and up into the heart. Shelton died with a look of utter surprise on his face, blue eyes wide, mouth dangling open.
Will’s arm lifted and fell, lifted and fell, stabbing repeatedly with a feral bellow that didn’t sound human or vampire. His lips were pulled back in a grimace.
The smell of blood filled the clearing and would draw other vampires if any were nearby.
Randa circled Will and approached him cautiously from the front. She’d seen men lose it, big army guys who were tough as old leather until one little thing had finally triggered the release of months of pent-up rage.
If she startled Will from behind, he might easily turn the knife on her.
“Will? We need to leave.” She knelt, not sure he could even see her. Should she go into Omega and get Aidan?
He never looked at her, but he stopped stabbing Shelton and climbed to his feet, straddling the prostrate man and staring down at the body, his face still and haunted. The knife fell from his hand, hitting the ground with a soft thud. Randa picked it up and used a handful of wet leaves to wipe it off.
“Leave him, Will. Let’s go into Omega.” She needed to get him away from that body before he lost it again.
She walked to the hatch, uncovered and unlocked it, and pulled it open. “Cage?” she called down. “You on watch?”
She hoped so. Something way out of her depth was going on here. Will had skated awfully close to the edge of a precipice she couldn’t identify, and somehow she knew it wouldn’t take much to push him over. Shelton might be dead, but Will was still locked in some kind of battle.
“I had started to worry about you lot.” Cage climbed up the ladder and spotted Shelton’s body before getting halfway out of the hatch. “Well, hello. That’s a sight I didn’t expect to see.”
Cage went to stand beside the body, looking from Will’s face to the knife in Randa’s hand, to the bloody mass of hamburger that had been Shelton’s chest. He put a hand on Will’s shoulder, and he flinched. “Go on down with Randa. I’ll take care of this.”
Will didn’t move. He didn’t look up. Randa met Cage’s gaze and shook her head.
“Will.” Cage stepped in front of him, also straddling Shelton’s body. He rested a hand on each of Will’s s
houlders and stepped close enough that Will was forced to look at him.
Cage’s voice dropped to such a soft timbre Randa struggled to hear. “It’s over now. You finally ended it. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Will’s face was a blank, his eyes more pale honey than deep amber.
“Go with Randa.” Cage nodded at her, and Randa took Will’s hand.
“Let’s go and see Aidan,” she said, mimicking Cage’s soft tone. “We need to tell him about my dad. Make plans for tomorrow night.”
That seemed to jolt Will out of whatever trance he’d been in. He gripped her hand almost to the point of pain and stepped away from Shelton. Randa mouthed a thank-you to Cage before following Will down the ladder into Omega.
Will moved on autopilot, walking when Randa walked and stopping when they spotted Aidan and Mirren sitting in the common room.
“Good. We’ve been waiting for you.” Aidan was halfway to the conference room before Will realized he had to focus. He had to get the ghosts out of his head long enough to talk strategy. Their survival depended on it, and they’d only have a few hours after daysleep before it was time to meet the colonel in West Point. Randa wasn’t sure he’d show, but Will thought he would.
Randa kept looking at him as if she feared he’d lose it again and start stabbing everybody within reach, but he couldn’t look her in the eye, couldn’t reassure her. Not yet. He owed her an explanation, and after that, she wouldn’t want him to look at her.
Will glanced at Mirren on his way into the conference room, and the big guy grabbed the back of his sweater on the way in, staying behind him. Will had no choice but to stop inside the door while Mirren turned back to shut it. Everyone was still standing, but Will couldn’t sit as long as Mirren had hold of his sweater, pinning him in place.
“What happened?” Aidan finally walked to the far end of the table and sat, leaning back in his chair. Randa sat to his right, glanced at Mirren and Will with confusion on her face, and began talking.
“We got to my dad’s house at—”
Aidan gave her an apologetic smile. “Not yet. First, why is Will covered in blood? Vampire blood. I tried to contact you a half hour ago mentally and got a big black void.”
Will wet his lips and tried to make the words come out. “Shelton. Dead.”
“About goddamned time.” Mirren slapped Will on the back and took the chair to the other side of Aidan. “Where’d you find him?”
Will managed to sit in the chair next to Randa, but his mind still spun in a dozen directions at once. “He was outside the hatch.”
There. He’d spoken a complete sentence. Good for him.
Randa reached under the table and squeezed his leg. She didn’t let go when he tried to jerk away. She shouldn’t have been touching him. But then, she didn’t know the truth about him yet, did she? She still thought he was strong.
“When we got back to the hatch after visiting my dad, we stumbled on Shelton standing near the hatch to Omega.” Randa picked up the story, and Will closed his eyes, reliving it. “He was acting weird, sort of hinting that he’d had a falling-out with Matthias and wasn’t going to try to stop us. We couldn’t let him go back to Penton, though. So Will took him down.”
Will blinked at her attempt to cover for him. What was it she’d said her father always taught her? Own what you do. “I didn’t take him down. I murdered him. He didn’t even pull a weapon on us.” He looked at Aidan. “I stabbed him so many times I lost count. I couldn’t stop.”
Aidan steepled his hands in front of his face, elbows on the table, and didn’t speak aloud. His voice came through loud and clear in Will’s head. I know why you did it. I know what he did to you. I’m proud of you. Now, you have to let it go.
Will couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper. “How?”
Did he really know, or was he guessing? Will wanted to sink under the table. Cage must have put it together from that smart-ass comment he’d made a while back and gone blabbing to Aidan.
None of it was your fault. And Cage was right to tell me.
Will couldn’t look at him, but nodded.
“Now, Randa, let’s talk about your father.” Aidan moved on, and Randa gave a thorough replay of the meeting with her dad. When Will finally lifted his gaze, he found Mirren staring at him. The big guy gave him a solemn, slow nod before turning his attention back to Aidan. Did he know? Or did he just think Will had finally grown a pair of balls big enough to kill somebody who needed it?
“What’s your take on the colonel, Will?” Aidan’s subtext: Get your ass back in the game.
Will cleared his throat, forcing the whole Shelton issue to the back of his mind and mentally locking it down. He’d done it for decades, after all. What were a few minutes more?
“I think Colonel Thomas loves his daughter, enough so that he was able to be more open-minded and accepting than I expected.” Randa’s hand squeezed his knee under the table, and he hazarded a glance at her. Instead of the fear or doubt he deserved, her face showed only warmth. “I do believe he’ll show up tomorrow night. And I think he probably stayed up all night after we left—he’s probably still up—weighing different options.”
Aidan nodded. “We only have an hour until daysleep, but spend that time asking yourself some questions, all of you. We’ll have a little time to talk again tomorrow night before you go to pick him up.”
The questions were the ones Will had considered himself, plus a few others. Would it be better to reveal the vampire world to the public at large, to a limited group of officials that included military and political figures, or only to the colonel and enough men to help Penton out of its current crisis?
How much, if anything, should their allies on the Tribunal be told?
If the Tribunal suspected the Penton scathe was about to make their whole society public, would they retaliate fast and end up killing Colonel Thomas and his men as well as everyone who’d ever been involved with Penton?
What was the endgame?
Will lagged behind after the meeting. Randa paused in the doorway and smiled at him before disappearing into the hall, headed for the room they still shared. He had to figure out what to tell her. Or maybe he should just come clean and accept that they’d had a great thing together while it lasted.
He owed her an explanation for what she’d seen tonight. And then he owed her the respect of walking away and not trying to force himself on her. Once he let her see who and what he really was, she’d be glad to see him go. All the empty rooms had been taken up by sick people, but maybe he could sleep in the silver cell.
Finally, he hoisted himself out of the chair and walked into the hallway.
“Good, I’d hoped to run into you.” Cage was reentering Omega from the exit tunnel.
Will sighed. “You told Aidan.” He was too tired of the whole drama to be angry. Hell, he should have told Aidan himself. Instead, he’d only hinted that his hatred for Matthias went deeper than what had happened with his mom and Cathy. “It’s OK. He needed to know.”
“How are you?” Cage put a hand on his arm, but when Will tensed, he removed it.
How did he expect Will to feel? He’d just turned into a slathering sociopath in front of the one person in the world besides Aidan and Mirren who he wanted to think well of him. “Just terrific. I’m going to try to explain to Randa why I turned into a nutjob, and then I’m going in search of a place to bed down for the day.”
He brushed past Cage, but the vampire grabbed his arm. “You didn’t ask for it, but I’m going to give you a little advice. Tell her the truth—all of it, even the stuff you’ve never told another soul. It’ll be good for both of you. And let her decide how she responds to it. Don’t decide for her.”
Fucking shrink. Will jerked his arm away and walked down the hall toward his room. Their room.
He took a deep breath outside the door, knocked softly, and turned the knob. Randa sat on the bed in her army T-shirt, her legs bare. “Thought you’d want to wash some
of that blood off.” She pointed to a couple of gallon jugs of water she’d set next to the bathroom door.
Well, he wouldn’t pass on an opportunity to procrastinate. He nodded, pulling the blood-soaked sweater over his head, balling it up, looking around to throw it…where?
Randa stood up and held out her hand. “Here, I’ll take it to the trash room.”
“No, I…” He didn’t want her tainted with Shelton’s blood. She’d already had to get Cage to clean up the mess he’d made outside. He couldn’t let her take this too.
She pulled it out of his hands. “Go ahead and clean up.” The door closed behind her with a soft click, and Will was alone.
He shed the rest of his clothes, pulled out some clean jogging pants, and went into the small bathroom. Since the vampires weren’t susceptible to the poisoned spring water, they probably could have continued using the water supply and saving the bottled water for the humans to drink and cook with, but there was a fear they’d somehow pass it on to the humans who fed from them, that it might somehow live on their skin or in their clothing.
They’d never had hot water in Omega, though, but instead of chilling him as it usually did, tonight the bottled water helped clear his head of the fog he’d been trapped in since he saw Shelton in that clearing.
The shirt had been what pushed him over the edge. Shelton had been wearing a blue silk shirt under his jacket tonight—not just blue, but a clear cerulean, wet and clinging to his body as if he’d been sweating. The man always liked wearing that shade. He thought it made him look handsome with his blue eyes. Thought it made him look safe to the boys he’d…
Shit. Will stuck his head under a cold stream of water—more like a trickle since he didn’t want to waste any—and let it wash the thoughts away.
Finally, he dumped the rest of the second bottle over his head. There couldn’t be more than forty-five minutes left before dawn, and he wanted to talk to Randa before daysleep. That way, they could start fresh tomorrow night, coworkers again, partners in work only. If she still trusted him.
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