by Elodie Colt
“Haylie Bryceland,” Jimmy answered for me.
“Shit.” I wanted to use a few other curse words but refrained. Could it get any more ironic?
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. If she’d been working that night at Joey’s, we would have found her twenty-four hours earlier and could have brought her to safety. So yes, we already found her, we just didn’t know it,” Jimmy clarified.
I only paid half attention to Jimmy’s words. The girl’s surname was familiar to me.
“Bryceland… Did I hear that name somewhere before?” I mumbled to myself.
“It’s a common surname, nothing unusual,” Cassie grunted, helpful as always.
I shook my head, scratching my chin as I racked my brain. “I don’t know. It seems strangely familiar to me.”
“Now that you’re bringing it up, the name does seem familiar,” Jimmy pondered.
“That’s it,” Josh blurted out, and everyone jumped in surprise. “Bryceland. Shawna Bryceland!” And with that, the second bombshell was dropped. I didn’t know how much more I could take. No. No, it couldn’t be… “Shawna Bryceland, the last Natural we found four years ago.”
Shawna Bryceland was the second Natural I lost. I thought about her every day, and the girl visited my every nightmare, but I hadn’t been able to remember her name. Maybe a result of a traumatic reaction. A dry laugh escaped me. “I can’t believe it.”
“Do you think they were related?” Sarah asked.
“Would be a big coincidence if not,” Jimmy mumbled. The situation was starting to get weirder by the second.
“Sisters?” Chris suggested.
Jimmy nodded slowly. “It would fit. Shawna Bryceland was sixteen when she was killed. I don’t know exactly how old Haylie is, but she must be under twenty-five. I still didn’t have a chance to talk to her.”
“All right, how do we proceed now?” I wanted to get this conversation finished. I was struggling with handling this information overload. I needed space and time to think.
“I called the bartender, Lauren, and she told me where Haylie lived. I’ve been guarding her apartment the last two days to see how she’s doing. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
“And how is she doing?” Sarah wanted to know.
“Bad,” Jimmy confessed.
“Great. If the girl gets in a rage or worse, then there won’t be many survivors,” Cassie interjected.
“She didn’t seem angry, she seemed devastated. She blames herself for Ricky’s death. She saw bloody murder out there, and if our guesses are true and Shawna was her sister, then I can understand her current state of mind.”
“I need fresh air,” I mumbled and turned on my heels.
“Dylan…” Chris came after me, but I put a hand out to stop him.
“I just need time to think. Alone.” And with that, I left the main quarters to escape the compound.
~~~
After half a pack of cigarettes, my throat was getting raw, but I smoked one after another nevertheless.
How the hell should I deal with this mess? We’d been looking for a Natural for so long. I should be grateful for finally finding one, but I just couldn’t bring myself to feel that way. If it weren’t for the girl, Ricky would still be alive.
I was itching to face her and look into the eyes that had been Ricky’s death sentence in the first place. When Jimmy brought her to the compound, they would be careful not to let me near her. She’d be guarded day and night. If I wanted to talk to her in private, tonight was probably the last chance.
I knew it was a bad idea. If the others got wind of me visiting her without Jimmy’s approval, I was screwed. But it was all I could think about since leaving the main quarters. I just had to go back to look for the address Jimmy got from Lauren.
With that plan set, I took off to head back. The area was silent. Everyone was asleep. I hoped Jimmy had retreated to his room, too.
I approached the office and risked a glance through the door. Phil seemed to be the only one in the control room. He was lolling in his office chair, legs stretched out in front of him, head hanging on his shoulder. He was asleep. Shit, that boy was damn useless for this job even if it came in handy in my current situation.
I silently opened the door and sneaked in the direction of Jimmy’s computer while Phil slept soundly. A Post-it was stuck to the corner of the monitor with the girl’s full name and address written on it. Well, that was easy.
With the address in mind, I left the control room and shut the door with more force than necessary in hopes of waking Phil. I saw his shocked expression as he nearly fell out of his chair, but I was out of sight before he could spot me.
I returned to my room to get my jacket and left the compound to go in search of the girl who was responsible for all this mess.
The apartment looked like every other apartment on the street, but all the lights were off. Shit, I hadn’t thought about the possibility of her already being asleep. How could I have been so stupid?
What now? Break into her apartment and sneak up on her in her bedroom? I’d probably give her a heart attack—not that I cared about her health, but this wasn’t my style. Damn, what was I even doing here?
I decided to get a closer look. Maybe I could catch something through the windows. There was a little courtyard leading to the backside, so I headed there as it was only dimly lit by the street lights.
Just as I approached the porch, I heard quiet footsteps and something like keys jingling. I quickly hid in the shadows and watched a female figure coming up the steps.
Where did she suddenly come from? I should have seen her on the sidewalk, but I was positive the streets had been empty. Then I remembered what Jimmy had said about her moving on the rooftops. Although her hair was hidden behind a hood, I could see some windblown strands sticking out in front of her face. Gathering from her heaving chest, she was panting heavily.
So, this was the Natural. Damn, she didn’t have an ounce of imagination what burden lay on her shoulders. She was tall—I guessed about a little under six feet. Her clothes were completely black. It was obvious she wanted to blend in with the darkness. Her stance was careful, her steps deliberate as if she expected a creature to jump out of the shadows at any moment. Well, she wasn’t completely off base with that considering I intended to do exactly that.
She turned the keys inside the lock. When the door clicked open, I saw my opportunity. I left my hiding place and strode over to her taking the steps up to the porch.
“Are you Haylie Bryceland?” I asked her.
The girl let out a shriek of surprise and dropped the keys in the process. She quickly regained focus and grabbed a baseball bat hidden behind the doorframe. She was certainly quick to jump into action. I guess she had every right to be paranoid. She was smart, ready to defend herself, although she didn’t have proper training. Not that the baseball bat would help her against someone like me, but how should she know?
The girl didn’t answer, just stood there with her wooden weapon bracing herself for a fight she couldn’t possibly win. Impatience got the better of me, but I needed to be careful and avoid making a scene out here, so I repeated my question as calmly as I could, taking a few more steps up to the porch. I could tell she fought the urge to step back.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” At least, I tried to convince myself of that. “I just want to know if you are Haylie Bryceland.”
The upper half of her face was covered by her hood, but still, I should have been able to catch the Flare by now. However, her eyes hadn’t shown their natural flash yet which confused me. Her lower lip quivered—from the cold or from fear, I couldn’t tell.
“Why do you want to know that?” she asked in an oddly demanding voice. Not a good tactic to face one of her probably most dangerous predators. I didn’t have time for her stupid questions.
“Because I have every right to know. You are the reason he died, after all,” I growled in my most intimidating voice. I didn’t bother
to mention Ricky’s name. I wanted to know if she remembered it, and see what it triggered in her.
Her first reaction was to retreat and gasp—wrong move on her part because now I knew for a certainty that the girl in front of me was Haylie Bryceland—the third Natural I came across in my life, reminding me of Jenna and her sister, Shawna, who I both lost. And at last, the girl who was the reason Ricky was now lying dead under the earth. To say I felt furious at the moment might have been an understatement.
Her next reaction made me lose my cool for a moment, though. Relaxing her limbs, the baseball bat slipped from her fingers and crashed with a loud clunk onto the wooden panels.
“Ricky,” she whispered as if the name hurt her physically, her voice barely audible. Her hand moved slowly to her trembling lips. The yearning tone in which she’d said my brother’s name took me completely off guard.
With a growl and a wide step forward, my hand clutched her throat, and I slammed her into the wall. I was too fast for her to react in time. She gasped before trying desperately to remove my hand from her neck with both of hers. I cut off her air supply with enough pressure to prevent her from screaming, although I admit I was close to giving into the need to squeeze just a little bit tighter.
With my other hand, I yanked off the hood roughly only to see short, bright blonde hair. With my better-developed eyesight, I immediately recognized it was a wig. Why was she wearing one?
I grabbed her chin to look into her eyes, but they were not the color I expected to shine back at me. No, it was something between gray and blue and looked completely unnatural. On a closer look, I could see the rim of contact lenses.
She’d camouflaged herself. It didn’t help her fending me off, but it would certainly help her avoiding attention from the Hunters out there. Smart move.
“I know what eye color you are hiding behind those,” I spat at her. I was careful not to use the word ‘jaylior’—you never knew where Catchers were mingling around. So, this was why I couldn’t see the Flare—the lenses were disrupting the natural light reflection.
My assumption made her shut her eyes and yank her head to the side—at least she tried, but my grip didn’t allow her any movement. I grabbed her wig and roughly pulled it off her head. She cried out when it got stuck in a hair clip, but I didn’t give a shit. Dark brown hair lay underneath.
“Look at me!” I hissed at her, and she reluctantly opened her eyes for me. Well, I couldn’t remove the contact lenses myself, but maybe it was better if I didn’t see myself reflected in those eyes. It would only remind me of all the horrible things that had happened in my life.
“Pl… please, he… the black guy told me to run. I didn’t want to, I swear. I wanted to help save him, but I couldn’t,” she croaked around my chokehold as a tear escaped her eyes.
For a second, I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I realized she’d misunderstood. The girl thought I was confronting her because she’d run away when Jimmy had told her to. Maybe she thought I was a cop looking for Ricky’s killer which seemed more likely because Lauren must have told her that a police officer—Jimmy—had called demanding her address.
But if she thought I was from the police, why not deny it? Why confess? She could pretend to be innocent. No one would sentence her for burning a big hole in Ricky’s chest, someone who was in no relation to her.
“Did he say anything to you?” I growled at her. Jimmy had said that Ricky had still been alive when Sarah got to him. Maybe he’d had some last words.
“Yes,” she whimpered, and when she didn’t elaborate, I slammed her head into the wall a second time. Not much, just enough to leave a bruise. I wouldn’t be so stupid as to give her a concussion, especially before the Awakening—something I hoped wouldn’t occur soon.
“You’re testing my patience, girl. Tell me.” I pressed my body with legs spread wide into hers, caging her in completely. Her feet were already dangling above the ground as she frantically tried to loosen my grip.
“He… he said ‘come with us,’ so I promised him I would, but I don’t know what he meant, I—”
Before she could explain any further, I clamped my other hand over her mouth to silence her. Her eyes widened, probably afraid I’d strangle her. Oh, how much I wanted to give into that.
My senses kicked into overdrive when the feeling of being watched crept over me— Hunters. They were already here. How had they found her so quickly?
The girl must have felt my sudden tension and stopped struggling. I whirled around to see eyes flashing.
Three pairs of them.
The Hunters had found her and ironically, I was the only one present to protect her. I tried to see the bright side. If I weren’t here at this moment, a signal would go off in the control room—as Jimmy surely had installed a camera to guard her apartment from the outside—which Phil wouldn’t notice as long as he was asleep. The Hunters would then kill her. The dark side was that my plan to keep my visit here a secret was ruined.
The three Hunters looked forlorn as they realized the girl wasn’t alone. They hadn’t even bothered to cover their faces. I recognized two of them. One was a Watcher and one a Tracer—the ideal combination for tracking someone down. The Natural never had a chance of staying incognito.
The ability of the third one I could only guess. They turned to each other, nodded once and ran in my direction with new determination in their eyes.
“Damn,” I cursed and whipped my head back at the girl still struggling to breathe through my grip. “I’ll deal with this. Get in and stay there,” I growled, opening the door and shoving her through. She stumbled and coughed, but I turned away from her to face the enemy.
The third Hunter was neither a Racer nor a Fighter, I realized much to my benefit. This meant my ability was the strongest as the others were only in charge of passive powers.
I cracked my neck before the first came at me. Finally, some punching bags that would kick back. I could already feel my Fighter blood boiling in anticipation.
I dodged all of their punches with ease. I kicked the first in the stomach with enough force to make him tumble over the porch railing and land in the flower bed below with a dull thud. I sidetracked another punch from the second and was fast enough to swing back with a well-placed chin hook. His head snapped back, and I used the chance to swipe his feet away. With a loud crack, he landed on the ground, and I drove my foot swiftly into his face. I didn’t look back to see if anything was broken as I dealt with the third attacker, but I was positive he was knocked out for the moment.
As soon as I focused on the third opponent, I saw the baseball bat aimed at me. It would have smashed my head if I hadn’t been fast enough to grip its end at the last moment, using my other arm to drive my elbow into the Hunter’s throat. He immediately dropped the bat and grabbed his throat in a desperate attempt to get air.
In that exact moment, I heard a low fizzle, then a dull thump followed by gurgling noises. I whipped around to see that the one who’d landed in the flower bed was tumbling down a second time with something protruding from his chest. It was an arrow.
I whirled around, searching for the archer until I noticed the girl leaning out of a window from the upper floor with a crossbow in her hands. I stared back at the man’s body on the ground. She must have shot him soon after he’d gotten back to his feet. And damn, had she hit the target—straight through the heart.
I shook my head to remind myself who my enemy was. However, that was exactly the problem, it seemed. I didn’t know the answer to that question at all.
A Hunter suddenly managed to sneak into the apartment. Shit, he was going to go after her! Oh, that bastard wouldn’t get far. If anyone laid hands on her, it would be me—I’d make sure of that.
Leaving the last one writhing and moaning on the porch, I stormed back just in time to see the Hunter running upstairs and the girl hurrying downstairs—directly into the arms of the enemy. What the hell was she doing?
I dashed for
ward to get to him before he could get to her, but as soon as she realized her way was blocked, she spun sideways. Clamping her hand on the staircase railing, she swung her legs over it. My heart stopped for a second when I saw her plummet, but she landed smoothly on the table below using the momentum to bounce to the floor.
The Hunter wanted to repeat the move to get to her faster, but the girl quickly grabbed the table leg and pulled the object away. This way he miscalculated the maneuver—his landing base not available anymore—and inelegantly tumbled to the floor.
I was already on my way to help her, but she seemed to have everything under control. A loud crash echoed through the hallway as she threw a nearby vase on her attacker’s head. Porcelain pieces flew everywhere, and the Hunter swayed sideways barely able to keep conscious. She hadn’t hit the right spot to lead to death, so I stopped next to her to break the guy’s neck in one swift move.
“Behind you!” she warned, but I was too distracted to see it coming.
Something crashed into my back, sending me forward. I landed hard on my stomach, but before I’d even finished my sliding tour on the floor, I spun around and kicked my attacker in the knee before aiming at his ribs. The Hunter tumbled backward, but I was already back on my feet, grabbing him from behind and clamping a hand over his nose and mouth. It wasn’t my favorite technique for taking a life, but I wanted to get this over with as quietly as possible. Annoyed neighbors meant police, and I couldn’t have that now. When the body in my arms finally went slack, I let it slump to the floor.
The girl was still standing in the same spot as before. She stared at the crumpled body at my feet, frozen like a statue. Fuck, I couldn’t handle a breakdown now, especially not from her. Her mental condition was not my concern.
Against my expectations, she blinked a few times, swallowing back the tears that had already started to glisten in her eyes, and turned her gaze back to me. The shocked expression was gone, replaced by fury and hurt and the million questions she wanted answered. It was the same expression I saw when staring back at my reflection in the mirror—all the more reason to hate her.
