by Lisa Ladew
Riot swallowed, memories flooding him. Gemma searched the vampire’s pockets. He traced her profile, remembering how stunned he’d been by her back then. Smart, kind, sweet, setting up study groups, helping others. He’d never attended, no way he would have been let in her house with his reputation, and the way he dressed the part.
Riot’s mind reeled with it, but he could see Gemma’s didn’t. She was rifling efficiently through the corpse’s clothes. Not sweet anymore. Riot used a rock to crush the vampire’s skull and grind it into the dirt.
Gemma sat back on her heels. “Not much here. A fat money clip but no wallet, a car key, and his phone.” She pressed a button and swiped the screen. “No security code or anything? Smartest vampire ever.”
Riot was nonplussed by her instant acceptance of vampires, and on alert as Gemma’s expression sharpened. She held up the vampire’s phone. “Why was he taking my picture?”
Riot made a bundle of the shoes and clothes, tying it up so it would be easy to lob into the first trash can he saw. “Bring me up to speed, here, Gemma. Where did you two lovebirds meet?”
Gemma continued to study the photos on the phone. "Mental hospital," she said.
A surprised laugh escaped Riot’s mouth and he bit it off. Switches weren’t charming, and the Gemma he’d known still wouldn’t want him, so best not to respond too much. He’d get her to Resperanza, then she would be someone else’s problem. Someone else could answer her questions.
Gemma looked up with a confused expression, then seemed to realize what she’d said. She smiled as brightly as she had as an innocent high-schooler, and just like that Riot was the same walled-off teenager he’d been. Don’t get too close. Don’t get her dirty.
Gemma didn’t notice. “No, I mean, I was visiting someone up at the hospital, in the psych ward, and this guy was in the parking lot when I came out. Looks like he started taking my picture the second I walked out the door.”
Riot ground his teeth. Had that bloodsucker been waiting for her? A surge of protective fury rose in his chest, drowning out everything else. “Is that where your car is?”
Gemma nodded and flashed her light in his face once more. Riot put his arm up again to block it. Before he could recover, Gemma had stepped close, practically right up against him, and gripped his forearm with the hand not holding the phone. “Riot, you’re bleeding. You need stitches.”
He gently pulled his arm away from Gemma, trying not to breathe as he did. Her scent was so close it brought the memory of her tart-sweet flavor right with it. He almost wanted to beg for another taste. “I’m good,” he said.
But Gemma looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Riot was all jumbled by it. She looked sincere.
Her forehead furrowed again, and she swung her light around. “Where’s my knife?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean my knife.”
She stopped, stock still, and blinked rapidly as she stared at nothing. “Right. Yeah.” But although her words agreed, Gemma’s voice said she wasn’t convinced.
Shit. Riot strode up the hill and directly to where he knew his knife had landed, snatching its blade from the dirt, wiping it on his pants leg before slipping it into the sheath at his waist. “Got it,” he called back to Gemma, and turned uphill. “I’ll walk you to your car.” And tell you where you need to go on the way.
Gemma wasn’t following. Riot turned to look. She was staring at the spot in the ground where his knife had been and worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. He turned to face her. “Gemma?”
She faced him. “Can I just hold it for a minute? I promise I’ll give it back. It’s just that I didn’t get a good look at it before and I’d really like to, you know… see it again.”
The vulnerable, hopeful look she gave Riot ripped at his chest, and he couldn’t refuse her, even if he didn’t quite understand. Riot pulled the knife out and flipped it, offering her the handle.
Gemma touched the composite handle reverently. Her lime-green glow flared around her at the touch. A sigh escaped her and she tilted her head as she brought the weapon closer to her phone’s light, illuminating every inch of the blade, studying it from every angle. “I love it.”
Riot frowned. “It’s just a knife,” he said. But his stomach dropped as understanding filled him. It can’t be her Resonant. Not this knife. Every switch supposedly had one, the weapon that made her the most powerful warrior she could be, but… not this knife.
Gemma shook her head then, just a tiny movement, and swallowed hard, blinking harder. She held the knife out flat on her palm, offering it to Riot with a sacrificial pain in her eyes. “Thank you.”
Ah, shit. Which was worse? Taking a Resonant from a switch who needed it? Or letting her have it and then spending the rest of his life fighting the piece of him that was forever tied to her? Guess I’m about to find out. “Keep it,” he said, removing the sheath from his belt. “Never know when you might need it.”
Shit, that was lame. He knew Gemma, and he knew the questions would start soon. She’d always had to know everything about everything.
He had to get her to someone who wouldn’t hesitate to answer them.
Chapter 6 - Headquarters?
Riot made his way up the hill to the hospital, pulling slightly away from Gemma, but sneaking backwards glances at her as they hiked back the way she’d come from. She peppered him with questions, not giving him a moment to answer even if he wanted to.
“Tell me everything, and start with what that thing really is. I mean, obviously that guy wasn’t normal, but… are you sure this isn’t one of those things where a medical condition gets this whole mythos around it, like hypertrichosis and werewolves?”
Riot laughed but didn’t stop walking. “You think the red light that came out of him when you stabbed him was a medical condition?”
He swore he could hear Gemma lining all the facts up in her mind like soldiers, just like she’d always done in class.
“No,” she said. She paused, then spoke quickly. “Aren’t I a little old to be Buffy?”
Riot snorted. “You’re not Buffy. You’re a switch.”
Gemma gasped and snapped her fingers “He called me that! He called me a ‘fucking switch’ right before he attacked me.”
Riot raised his eyebrows, giving her a backwards glance. “He attacked you?”
“I may have started it,” she said.
He faced forward and nodded. “That makes more sense. For switches, I mean. You get around a vampire and it’s…“ He considered, trying to come up with the least insulting way to describe the free-for-all that was the Undoing and the Prowl. “-it’s game-on,” he finally finished.
Gemma was a switch. How in the hell had that happened? And how had he never known back in high school? She hadn’t known he was a shifter, despite the fact that she’d seen him as his animal. But that was different.
But Gemma wasn’t human, even back then? He thought back, and decided no, he’d never seen her glow in high school, back before he would have known what it meant. And she damn sure hadn’t scented the way she did now, all sweet and tart and making his mouth water. That shit was new.
Gemma spoke, her voice soft, like she was considering his words heavily. “Game-on, huh? Yeah, I can see that.” Her voice trailed off and she gazed back at the forest as she walked.
Riot’s stomach lurched at the thought of Gemma being involved with The Cause. But it was out of his hands. She’d seen a vampire, she wouldn’t be stopped now.
He would take her to Resperanza, the sooner the better. She could use The Cause, and the Cause could use her. He knew she was brilliant, and tenacious, like a bulldog. That hadn’t changed since high school.
In prison, Riot had had a lot of spare time, and the prison library had had subscriptions to all kinds of magazines. But a half-dozen years ago, when Riot had been reading a news weekly and seen an explosive investigative piece on a Big Ten university sex scandal with a byline naming Gemma Jackson as its author, hi
s mind had been blown. It had taken him a week of computer privileges to track down every article she’d written, to discover that innocently curious Gemma Jackson had become an internationally-respected investigative journalist.
He’d followed her ever since, made her name a regular in his online searches, read about every blistering scandal she uncovered, hoping the whole time for a glimpse of the woman she’d become. But she kept her face a secret, didn’t party with the big names, never did on-camera interviews. Even her byline photo was just a picture of a bulldog. It made Riot laugh, but it hadn’t done shit to ease the longing.
He didn’t want to deliver Gemma to the Cause, but he had no reason not to, and it was all that made sense.
Riot stomped up the hill, irritated that he was questioning his decision at all. But guaranteed, once he got there, Flint was going to give him shit, and he didn’t want Gemma to see that. He didn’t want her to know what he’d been up to. He wasn’t proud of any of it.
Not for the first time, Riot wished he could go back all those years and take the other path, the one that could lead to a relationship with a woman like her.
Too fucking late now. For both of you.
“I’ve got a lot more questions,” Gemma said. “And you aren’t answering the ones I’ve already asked.”
Riot sighed. “Let me show you something. Then you can get the answers for yourself.”
“Just how I like it,” Gemma nodded, leading the way once they got close to the streetlights, leaving Riot scenting the air for fresh vampires. None. A pair of dainty red heels lay a few feet from the curb, and Gemma neatly flipped each one right-side-up with her toes before slipping her feet inside and clicking her way across the parking lot.
Riot smiled, watching her go. Gemma the girl had been sweet and perfect, but Gemma the woman was wickedly sexy.
Gemma used her phone to unlock her car. Riot palmed the money clip and car key from the vampire’s stuff and jogged over to throw the rest in a trash can near the hospital entrance. He’d check out the car key later, and the money, well… he’d make good use of it.
When he returned to the car Gemma was shoving a laptop bag from the passenger seat into the back where a suitcase rested. “Sorry. I didn’t get a chance to check-in to my hotel yet.”
Riot folded himself into the compact car, his long legs nearly pressed against the glove compartment, thinking about how he was going to get back to his motorcycle once he got Gemma dropped off with the switches. Bryce might give him a ride back.
Riot led her to the road, directing her over the gorge, towards the little mountain town of Five Hills. To her credit, she didn’t ask questions, not right away. He could see her gears working as she processed it all in her mind. It couldn’t be easy.
After a short drive up the mountain, Riot pointed out the private, winding terracotta driveway she should take. Riot turned in his seat to watch her reaction. Resperanza was weird, but it was impressive, and Gemma was gorgeous. He loved looking at her.
Gemma’s expression turned curious as she drove, a little wrinkle of thought gathering between her eyebrows. He knew exactly the minute the house came into view, just by watching her. Gemma’s eyes popped wide, her full lips following a second later, and an expression of such delight broke over her face that Riot couldn’t help but grin.
He spoke quickly, the answer to what she’d wanted to know pulled from him by her beauty. “You’re a switch, a vampire-killing witch. A Breath switch who glows green, and killing vampires is your job. So yeah, Buffy, kind of, but you’re not alone. There are two more switches who live in this house.”
Gemma looked at him, a short glance then back at the driveway, and again, she kept her characteristic questions to herself. Shocked into silence, he thought, or maybe she was savoring the moment? Something in her demeanor made him think she understood that her life would be forever changed from that moment on, even though she didn’t know how.
Riot pointed for her to bypass the front entrance and follow the driveway as it curved down and around the side of the grand hacienda with its peachy-pink stucco walls and terracotta tile roof, to the garage doors.
One garage door was open, the stall empty. Riot directed her to it. The car’s headlights swept over the back wall, where foreign symbols had been painted.
Gemma hit the brakes so hard Riot’s whole upper body lurched against the seatbelt. “What?” he hollered, thinking she’d run something over.
But Gemma was staring hard at the wall, hands curled and tight on the steering wheel, foot jammed on the brake pedal. She licked her lips and cleared her throat, pointing at the figures on the wall. “My name in Japanese.”
Riot did a double-take, from her to the symbols. “I guess that’s your spot, then.”
Gemma considered for a moment, then looked at him steadily, wheels and gears turning behind her eyes. He looked back, the weight of the Cause on his shoulders. Sorry, Gemma. He hoped this was what she wanted… or would want, once she knew what it was all about.
She laughed abruptly, and her expression morphed to one of delight. For just a moment, she looked like an explorer about to embark on a grand adventure, no self-doubt or normal human guardedness. Like she’d known this was coming, or had been looking forward to something just like this. Riot wondered if that could be true.
Gemma eased into her spot, her eyes going so wide she looked more spooked than delighted. Riot watched her gaze bounce around the garage, from the blue Mini to Flint’s SUV to Jameson’s truck, to the picture painted on the wall in front of each. A bear paw print for Flint, a bat for Cora’s Mini, and even a pumpkin in the space where Goldie’s car would eventually return. Against his will, Riot’s eyes slid far to the side, to the last spot in the enormous multi-door garage, and the three slash-marks against the wall in front of it.
His spot. Still there, as if to say he was welcome to claim it anytime he felt like it. Riot particularly liked the way the slash marks, black with jagged edges, didn’t look like a flat picture, the way the others did. It looked three-dimensional, almost real. Fuck yeah, I like it. Just not enough to stay.
The engine of Gemma’s car ticked in the silence. Neither of them said a word. Shit, Riot thought, racking his brain for something to say. Anything.
Nothing came. And then the chance was taken from him. The door to the house opened and Goldie, Flint, and Cora spilled out into the garage. Goldie made a point to smile at Riot, nod at him. He pushed his hair back and grimaced in return. Maybe she was sweet, but she was still a switch.
Flint stood beside Goldie. The big bear’s face was all screwed up, like he couldn’t decide which expression to wear. What’s it gonna be, Yogi? Scare the new switch with your usual grumpy mug or try out one of those newfangled smiles you’ve been sporting since Goldie showed up? He laughed to himself as Flint seemed to settle with half a smirk.
Gemma was all smiles, not bothered by any of it. A true extrovert, she looked like she was ready to bounce out of the car and run up to them all. She gave a little wave of her hand out the window. “Hi. I killed a vampire.”
Cora and Goldie’s eyebrows went up, but Flint’s slammed down hard as he snarled. “Where?”
Riot shook his head. Gemma spoke quickly, not bothered. “In the woods behind the hospital.” She gestured to the wall. “How did my name get up there?”
Goldie and Cora exchanged a glance. “Resperanza knew you were coming, she just didn’t tell us,” Cora said.
“Resperanza,” Gemma breathed, getting out of the car. Riot followed.
Goldie waved her hand at the symbols on the wall. “She puts one up for each of us. Look.” She held out her hand to Gemma and Gemma took it with no hesitation. Riot watched them go.
Cora sidled up next to Riot, keeping her voice low. “What does she know?”
Riot shook his head and looked around. How had he gotten back in this situation? He quit the Cause, remember? But he answered Cora’s question. “She Undid a vampire. I told her what she is
.”
Cora studied him. “Did you tell her what you are?”
Riot swallowed. Shit. They tell her about shifters, she’s never going to smile at me again. The thought tore into Riot’s guts like it always had, ever since he’d found out the whole truth about Gemma’s past and learned to dread her, more than anyone else, finding out what he was. Riot knew it had to happen, but he didn’t want to be around to see it. To see the fear in Gemma’s eyes. Fear of him.
He spoke low to Cora. “Maybe give her a day or two. She’s scared of animals. Predators.” Me.
Cora grimaced. “That could be a problem.”
Riot shrugged and looked away. You have no idea. “She’s tough, though. And smart. Couple of days, she might figure it out herself. It will be easier on her if she does.” That was true. Also, he wouldn’t be at Resperanza when it happened.
Cora examined him. Riot turned back to Cora with a blank face. “We good?”
Cora watched him for another beat, then blinked, her expression clearing. “You sure what you told me is all she knows?”
Riot ground his teeth. “Switches and bloodsuckers, and then I brought her here. That’s all.” He knew Cora wanted more, but the rest belonged to him.
Flint’s growled, making everyone look at him.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Yogi,” Riot growled. “She’s here, isn’t she?”
Goldie stepped in, giving Flint then Riot a sweet-but-firm glance. “Just where she needs to be. Thanks, Riot.”
Riot put his hands up in front of him. “All I did was throw her the knife.” He gestured at the blade strapped to Gemma’s waist.
Goldie nodded. Then actually winked at him. “Yep, we got it. Only the knife.” Riot was confused until he got a good look at Gemma in the light. Her hair was wild, leaves stuck in her black curls, dirt all over her clothes, and him, bleeding and dirty, too. We look like we rolled on the forest floor and had ourselves a nice little picnic, that’s what we look like. Riot stifled a groan. Turned so no one could see his face. Coughed into his hand.
