Breed of Havoc (The Breed Chronicles #3)

by Lanie Jordan

  She grabbed her stuff and stared at me. After a minute, she sighed, shook her head, and let her things drop back to the table.

  Peter nodded. “Okay. Any last questions?”

  “Yeah.” One of the guys—David—raised his hand tentatively. “Why is Jade different? Why are her…abilities…better?”

  I frowned, wondering why people asked questions they had the answers to. Greene had told the Prospects in my Phase about the vampire bite, though I was sure it’d gotten around to everyone else, and Rachel had heard about my parents from Peter. I’d spent the last year figuring she’d told everyone who’d listen.

  “That’s private,” Peter said, his tone harsh. “And has no bearing on your treatments.” He shot me a look. “If you want to answer, you can, Jade. It’s up to you. And if she does answer, it doesn’t leave this room. Trust me, I’ll find out if it does.”

  What did I have to lose? Maybe they’d…understand things better. Maybe they’d hate me less. The real question was, did I want everyone at the CGE knowing the truth? Because despite Peter’s warning, someone would tell someone else and then everyone would know.

  Did it matter if they found out? Things honestly couldn’t get much worse, could they? I mean, people hated me already. Could adding one more reason change things that much? “I’ll tell them,” I decided. What did I care if the whole school knew anyway?

  “Your call.”

  “I’m not really sure where to begin,” I said, “but my parents were CGE agents. They had the treatments and those were…passed down to me, I guess.”

  “You’ve always been like this? Like, being able to hear really well?”

  I started to shake my head but stopped. “I’m not sure. I didn’t really notice until after I was bitten by the vampire.”

  David nodded. “So that rumor was true. You were bitten.”

  Leslie glowered. “Rachel told you she was.”

  “Rachel,” Peter said slowly, “shouldn’t have spread it around.”

  I wasn’t surprised she’d found out and I wasn’t surprised she’d told other people in return.

  “Well, no one believed her. Everything else, yeah, but not dying after being bitten by a vampire?” Tommy shook his head. “Nope. We didn’t buy that one.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I was bitten.”

  Tommy looked at me with awe. “And you survived.”

  A few people laughed.

  “She’s sitting right here, so yeah, I think she did,” Kristina said.

  Tommy smirked. “Smartasses. You know what I meant.” He looked at Peter and Adam. “She’s the first person to survive a bite then, isn’t she?”

  Peter nodded.

  “So your DNA—your parents having the treatments—is that why you survived? Is that what changed your first Phase?”

  I shrugged now. “Yeah, I guess. Just don’t ask me to explain why or how. No one really seems to know.” No one had asked me not to talk about the vampire-cure-finding thing, but still, I didn’t want to mention it without at least asking first. There was a reason Greene hadn’t told anyone, wasn’t there? I didn’t think it was just for my benefit.

  Katey, a red haired girl, said, “Is that why you’re pulled aside at the demon facility? Is that why you’re with Doc longer than anyone else?”

  I almost laughed. Of course they’d know about the appointments. I hadn’t exactly been sneaky about them, and it was hard to pretend to not know what they were talking about. The P3s had obviously seen Dr. Cherry leading me away from the others. Eric was the first one to notice that, and since he and Rachel were friends, of course he’d told her. “Yeah. They’re trying to figure out why I’m different.”

  “And your parents were hunters?” David asked. “That must’ve been cool.”

  I went cold all over. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know they were hunting demons?”

  “I didn’t. My dad died when I was young and my mom retired after that. She never told me about the CGE or hunting.” My fingers curled. “I didn’t—” I broke off and swallowed back a lump. “I didn’t find out about them being hunters until after I’d joined.”

  Until Greene had told me. I tried squashing down the ball of bitter resentment that formed in my stomach but it was useless. It was always useless.

  “What about—”

  “Was your dad—”

  “How do you—”

  “What did your mom—”

  “When did—”

  The questions bounced back and forth. Before someone could finish their sentence, someone else shouted another question until all I heard was ‘who’ or ‘when’ or ‘what’. My head started to spin.

  “Guys,” Peter said, “give her a chance—”

  “Jade, what about—”

  They had questions. I had questions. Everyone had questions but I didn’t have any answers. Not for them, not for me. The bitterness burst free like a dam. It flooded my system until I could taste it, until I could feel it pulsing through my veins.

  I jumped up from my seat hard and fast. The chair flew back and hit the ground, making everyone at the table jump. “I have to go. I’m sorry,” I said, and then I ran out of the room. I didn’t go far, only out to the catwalk.

  Voices buzzed in my head and I couldn’t block them out no matter how hard I tried.

  Where’s she going?

  What’s she doing?

  Did we upset her?

  Her family’s gone, you idiots. Of course she doesn’t want to talk about them…

  Closing my eyes, I tried harder to block out the voices. The last one I heard was Kristina asking Peter if she should come find me and Peter telling her no. Adam and Peter knew where I was or could find me if they needed to. I wasn’t hiding. I just needed…away. From the questions, the stares.

  My hands shook and my jaw ached from having it clenched so hard. I wanted to hit something. Or someone. I wanted to yell or scream or weep. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or why I wanted to do it, either.

  Why did everything have to be so weird? I was hot one minute, cold the next. Furious over the stupidest things, blasé about the more complicated stuff. I could handle people talking shit to or about me, but I completely breakdown when they’re nice?

  What the hell was with me lately?

  I felt like a lit fuse on an infinite cycle, stuck between burning out and exploding. The anger was there, lurking below the surface, waiting. And the anger wasn’t even entirely toward the P4s. It was for Dr. Cherry, Greene, my mom, and even my dad a little. The people who kept secrets from me. The people who kept me in the dark.

  Even Linc. Not because he’d done anything wrong, but because he kept telling me how normal things were, how normal I was. I didn’t feel normal, and not my usual I’m-not-normal feelings. This was something completely different. Something darker and dangerous.

  Something that scared me.

  CHAPTER 12

  No one said anything about what happened at the Mentor Meeting the following week. By the cautious looks everyone shot me, it was obvious they wanted to, though. I suspected Adam or Peter—or maybe even Kristina—had told them not to say anything. That meeting was one of the shortest, but by the next week, things were back to normal. People continued to ask me questions, but, thankfully, they avoided talking about my parents.

  Tasha’s birthday was, surprisingly, more stressful. Chris hadn’t been allowed into New Orlando to take her out to dinner like he’d planned, so he felt guilty. She told him not to worry about it, but he felt bad all around because none of us had been into New Orlando since he’d been barred from going. (We’d all agreed not to go again until Chris could.) When that didn’t work, Linc mocked Chris and told him he’d definitely expect dinner for his birthday, which was a week after Tasha’s.

  I didn’t know if it was Linc’s words that made Chris feel better or Tasha telling him they were even since she’d broken his arm, but he stopped looking so guilty after that. And I wasn’t
sure how it happened, but we all ended up agreeing to some kind of double-date thing the first time Chris was allowed into New Orlando again (whenever that would be).

  Two days after Linc’s birthday, Greene canceled my first Mentor Meeting of March because Linc and I had been scheduled for a priority C&C. At four in the afternoon, he sent us down to the Weapons Room. Adam and Dale were there waiting, along with a few other agents I’d seen around.

  Standing at the middle console, Adam motioned us in and pointed to the screen in front of him. “This is where we’re going,” he said, jumping right in as we moved closer to him. “Residential area, not too heavily populated. Since it’s Sunday, it should be even quieter by the time we get there.”

  “What demon or demons are we after?” I asked.

  Adam grinned. “Apparently ones who should—we’re hoping—like you a little more than they’ll like us. Serptera demons.”

  Linc glanced at me. “Was that the tentacle one?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “That was the Octogator and its definitely on the Foe List since it tried strangling me. The Serptera, aka Batcoon, was the one that had bat wings.”

  “Oh, yeah. The one that got the short end of the stick since it has wings but can’t fly.” He shot me a quick grin. “The one you said was cute.”

  “I said they weren’t ugly. There’s a difference.” Though I probably had said they were cute—in a demony sort of way. They were related to the Sercoon, so they had the same big, monkey eyes.

  He smirked. “Close enough.”

  I kicked him in the shin and looked to Adam and Dale as Linc clutched his leg and hobbled up and down. “So, tell us what we’re doing before Linc makes the hunted list.”

  After a quick laugh, Adam and Dale laid out the plan. Basically, it would be the same thing we’d done last Phase, except this hunt would be a little trickier. Not only were the demons in a residential area, they had made their nest inside a small church. The people discovered the demons were there when they growled, moaned, and trashed the attic (where they were living).

  The other hunters went out to the van as Adam and Dale loaded us up with our weapons vests and gear. “You guys clear on the plan?”

  “Don’t get dead,” Linc replied.

  I nodded. “And don’t get anyone else dead.”

  Dale, who’d given us those instructions, smiled approvingly.

  “We’ll have more of a plan once we get there and recon the area.” Adam turned off the wall monitor as he talked. “The man who spotted the demons said they were too busy trashing the place to notice him. They were also too active to pin-point their location in the attic. He had to push the door open to get in, so it’s possible they’ve blocked it and we’ll lose the element of surprise.”

  “Will we still go in?” I asked. Sometimes they canceled hunts once they were in play because they discovered something they hadn’t factored into their plan.

  This time, it was Dale who spoke. “Yes. Churches are on the list of priority places, along with schools and homes. If we need it, we’ll call for backup. There’ll be a team nearby if we do.”

  “You should be all we need.”

  Frowning, Linc glanced at Adam, then me. “Is Jade bait?”

  “Of course I’m not.” Was I? “Am I?”

  “Not bait…exactly.” Adam’s cheeked flushed with color.

  Dale chuckled. “We’re hoping the demons will scent you and be curious enough to come out and walk themselves into our trap.”

  “I thought hunters didn’t ‘hope’ for things to happen?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Isn’t that an unwritten rule? Up there with ‘there’s no such thing as coincidence in the demon hunting world’?”

  Adam’s blush deepened. Dale just shrugged and grinned. “You’d be right, normally. But now we’ve got ourselves a secret weapon. A demon—”

  “If you call me a demon whisperer, my weapon isn’t going to be all that secret, but it will be used on you.” When Adam laughed, I glared at him. “And then it’ll be used on you, for giving me that stupid name.”

  He cleared his throat. “So, we ready to go?”

  Linc tried—and failed—to turn his laugh into a cough. “Ready here.”

  “Ready.” I shot Linc a sidelong glance as the others moved out. “He’s lucky I don’t have any Knock-Out gloves this time, cause I’d’ve used them on him.”

  “Better him than me.”

  I grinned as the others chuckled in the hall. “They think I’m kidding.”

  Linc laughed again. “C’mon,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me toward the door. “Let’s go hunt some demons. We’ll worry about hunting hunters tomorrow.”

  “Deal.”

  *~*~*

  The ride out was long and bumpy, even with the pillow I’d bought for my head. (A pillow I was mean and didn’t share with anyone but Linc.) By the time we got to the church, the sun had completely set and the sky was dark.

  We all jumped out of the back and stretched before checking our weapons vests and coms.

  Adam sent the other two agents—Robinson and Martinez—to secure the area. He pointed to the church. “No one’s been inside since this afternoon when they found the demons, so we don’t know if any have come or gone.” He paused. “It’s not ideal intel, but these aren’t hunters who are trained to keep a lookout. They have a few cops patrolling the area, but if too many of them wait outside, people will start to talk and that would’ve caused panic.”

  “And an escaping demon wouldn’t have?”

  Adam shrugged. “They’re not prepared for this kind of job, Linc. The town’s the size of the CGE, for crying out loud. But the locals did set up a large perimeter around the general area and were prepared—mostly—to try to capture the demons if they left the church.”

  The town was bigger than the CGE (barely) with two traffic lights and more four-way stop signs than I wanted to count. The police station was next to the post office, which was probably the bigger of the two buildings.

  Dale made a sound. “We can’t rely on their intel, but we’ve got instincts and training instead. Use both.” Pulling out his tablet, he brought up a blueprint of the building. “We’ve got three exits: here, here, and here,” he said, indicating spots on the map. “There’s a window in the attic, but as you can see, it’s too small for demons—or us—to fit through. So, that leaves us with one simple plan. We’re going to set up a Pop ‘n Drop net. If things go according to the plan, we’ll trap and tranq the demons and be done in time for dinner.”

  Adam pointed to the attic door. “That’s your job, Jade. We want you to put out the P&D net just outside the door, where the demons can get your scent. If there’s movement, you fall back. Linc, you’ll be here, behind me and Dale, keeping an eye out for any surprises, like other visitors showing up.”

  “What happens if the demons stay inside?”

  “If they don’t respond to you after a few minutes, we’ll send Adam outside and see if he can’t shoot something through the attic window. That ought to scare them out. We’re hoping it doesn’t come to that, though. A trapped demon is a vicious demon, and these ones have nowhere to go but down and straight through us.”

  Adam double-checked his vest and pulled out a netting gun. He looked it over, then put it back in its place. “We’re first line of defense, you two are second.”

  Dale fixed us with a hard look. “So run if we say run and jump if we say jump.”

  Linc and I nodded.

  Adam looked around the side of the van, toward the church where a few people waited. “The guy who found the demons already knew about them, so that works in our favor. He’s part of a Demon-Watch program in the area. A few of the others know, but for the most part, the rest are oblivious. They think it’s some homeless, drug addicts up there. That’s why we parked so close to the doors, so we can get the demons out unseen.”

  “And what are we supposed to be?” Linc asked.

  Dale smirked and flashed a ba
dge. “Cops. You two are trainees here for a ride-along. The state police know what we’re doing and they’re keeping the locals out of the way. If anyone asks, they’ll cover for us.” He clapped one hand on my shoulder and the other on Linc’s. “You two good?”

  “We’re good,” I answered for us when Linc nodded.

  Dale and Adam moved ahead with Linc and I trailing behind. I studied the newish-looking church. It was white and small—two stories, or three if you counted the attic. There were only a few lights on that made the stained-glass windows shine with different colors. It was a little foggy, so the lights shone brighter and made the mist rainbow-colored.

  A dog, or maybe a wolf, howled in the distance.

  Picture perfect, with a side of eerie. Even the moon was creepy looking, with clouds floating over it and a circle around it.

  My stomach tightened and my palms went sweaty. On the drive here, I was fine. But as soon as a hunt started, the nervousness set in. Like now.

  “Wonder if the priest—reverend, or whatever—knows about demons,” Linc whispered. “I mean, our kind of demons. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

  Dale opened the door and went inside first, followed by Adam. They did a quick sweep of the first floor, and then Adam motioned us inside. He shook his head at Linc. “And to answer your question, yes the priest knows about demons.”

  “Think he’d want to try an—”

  “No, he didn’t try an exorcism.”

  “You watch too many movies,” I said quietly.

  “This way,” Dale said, leading us to the back of the church, between the pews.

  They did another quick scan of the area. “Weapons out, coms on,” Adam said. As we did what he asked, he added, “Jade, normally we’d check the floor first but these things have a great sense of smell. If they smell us first, they might try to escape. We want you to go up and set the trap.” He held up a three-inch wide bar, and when I tried to reach for it, pulled it away. His eyes were hard. “Without getting yourself killed.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “This is a Pop ‘n Drop net.”