“Fair enough…unless we can’t trust him and we’re walking into a trap.”
“If we were walking into a trap, you would have been killed when Baran drove into the village.” I leveled my gaze. “You are a participant in this thing, but you’re not one of us. If you don’t trust Baran, you’re free to go. I’m done with my computer, so I can take over.” I pointed out the window at the endless barren landscape. “That looks like a good place for me to drop you off.”
“I’m staying with you and you know it.”
“Then keep out of my past.”
Exhaustion overcame me. I was tired of sparring with Antonio. I needed to save my energy for the facility, especially since we had no idea what nightmare we would find there.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, dozing for what seemed like a few minutes. The ringing of my cell phone woke me up, and when I opened my eyes, I was shocked. Based on the sun’s position in the sky, it had risen several hours ago. I reached for my phone, but Antonio already held it in his hand.
I snatched it from him, and my mouth dropped open when I checked caller ID. It was Hades.
“Hello.” I still sounded groggy from sleep.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, chuckling softly. “I’m trying to picture you in bed.”
“I’m in a truck cab with drool on the side of my face—” I swiped my cheek with the back of my free hand, “—so try again.”
“Are you in Iraq?”
I put a foot on the dashboard. “No.” I still didn’t trust Hades. Yes, he wanted me to go to the facility, but I didn’t trust his motives. Especially after the werewolves on the train warned us against them too. He was asking me to destroy what was essentially his life’s work, yet he hadn’t offered a reason that satisfied me. So let him think we were a day or more away, not that we were about to come knocking within hours.
He was silent for several seconds, and I wasn’t sure if he was about to call me out for lying or hang up. Finally, he said, “I thought you took this threat seriously.”
“I assure you that I do,” I said, sounding irritated. “But Iraq isn’t exactly an easy country to get into.”
“A resourceful girl like you should be able to find a way.”
“What do you want, Hades? Because I’m pretty damn sure you didn’t call to belittle me for my travel troubles.”
Antonio shot me a glance.
“I called to assist you in your quest, but if you won’t be there in time…”
I tensed. “In time for what?”
“The beginning of the end.”
“And what does that mean?”
“You will find out soon enough.”
“So if you called to assist me, start assisting.”
He paused. “I will send you a file that will help you take out the entire facility. Hit it where it is most vulnerable.”
“You mean blow it up?”
“What better way to destroy it all?” His voice lowered. “But it will be too late if you aren’t there by tonight.”
“I’ll do the best I can.” Which was basically the same as telling him I’d do better. Hello, possible trap.
“There will be a reward for you when you are done.”
“Oh…” I said in a dry tone. “A job well done is its own reward.”
But he’d already hung up.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, an email showed up on my phone with an attached file. I hooked up my hotspot to the laptop and downloaded the file, sucking in a breath when I realized it was a close-up view of a schematic.
“What is that?”
I consider hiding it from him, but I was a reporter, not a demolitions expert. He’d probably know how to approach this better than I did. “A way to blow up the facility.”
“No shit.”
“No shit,” I confirmed. It was a ventilation room, but its location was a complete mystery.
Then something hit it me. Hades’s file was titled APX…I’d seen that title on Derrick’s computer. Buried deep in a utilities folder.
I pulled up Derrick’s buried files, and found the schematics for the medical facility. After scrolling and zooming in, I placed the image Hades had sent me over the top.
“Bingo.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Derrick had known about this place for over a year.
“Where did you get the complete plans?”
“My friend.” It pissed me off that my voice cracked. “He gave his life to try to stop these people, and now I’ll probably have to give my life too.” My back stiffened. “He may have failed, but I won’t.”
“What makes you think your quest will have a different outcome from his, mi amor?” Antonio asked, giving me a quick glance. His dark brown eyes bore into mine, but instead of the accusation and belittlement I expected, I saw understanding and approval.
“Because I can hold a grudge. And I’m not dying until I get my revenge.”
He gave a slight nod. “Then we will get it together.”
CHAPTER 27
LEA
The day passed in absolute silence in the back of the truck. Ivan didn’t try to talk to me and I didn’t even look at him. Tension did not begin to describe all the unsaid words hovering in the air between us. I told myself I’d been right to push him away, even if it didn’t feel like it.
Besides, he’d been using me, making me think there was something between us when he really wanted revenge for his wife and his pack. A stab of jealousy I did not like arced through me.
Ivan turned and lifted an eyebrow, but I closed my eyes. I didn’t care what he smelled on me. For all he knew, I could be feeling jealous of the budding relationship between Rachel and Antonio.
Their voices reached me, the conversation lighter and starting to flow more easily. Of course, I wasn’t up there with them. And if I were being honest, I was a huge part of the reason those two didn’t get along. Okay, the whole reason.
“Madre de Dios,” I whispered. What a fucking mess.
It would hurt when I had to walk away from both of them. Ivan was already treating me like the monster I was, and while my friendship with Rachel wasn’t over yet, the end was coming. This was better though, and with all my years of experience, I knew it. But a part of me mourned the loss of my friends. That was the problem with allowing myself to recapture a piece of my humanity. The pain was too hard to bear.
As the sun faded, the truck slowed to a stop and the engine cut out. Ivan was gone in a flash, not even pausing to look at me before he leapt from the back.
I followed, slower, thinking about the challenges that lay before us. Rachel and Antonio slid out of opposite sides of the truck. While I’d put distance between Ivan and me, it looked as though Rachel had eased up on the Cazador.
Good and bad. I approached her while I scanned the area around us. “Nice to see you two getting along.”
“How can you possibly know that?” She frowned at me and I shrugged.
“Tension has a feel to it. It’s eased.” I winked at her. “And I could hear you talking from the back.”
She snorted. “Some friend you are. Me and Antonio have come to...an understanding at best.”
Ivan stared out over the sand dunes. “Rachel, which direction are we headed?”
Rachel grabbed a map from the front seat and unfurled it with a flap. She pointed to a spot on the map. “We’re going here.” Then she opened the laptop, and an image of the facility popped up on the screen. A giant square block with spokes reaching out into the desert. The thing looked like an angular octopus.
“These are the entrance tunnels.” She jabbed a finger at the long spokes. “But they are heavily guarded and it looks like there’s a lot of cameras and additional security Derrick couldn’t quite pin down.”
Ivan nodded. “I’m going to check it out.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “They’re going to be watching for us. Stravinsky is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
“And you think I can’t get close without being caught? That I’m too much of a dumb mutt to manage even this small task?” he snapped at me, a low growl following his words.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel suck in a sharp breath. “So I make nice with dickhead here, and you go and piss off the werewolf?”
Ivan spun and was gone in a spray of sand and snarls.
“You can’t just let him go like that.” Rachel grabbed my arm, but I shrugged her off.
“I can’t stop him, Rachel. As you pointed out, he’s a werewolf. The fact that he’s played nice for this long is a fucking miracle.”
Her blue eyes narrowed. “Because he’s got it bad for you. What the hell did you say to him?”
Antonio laughed softly and we turned to him in unison. “We’re thinking about breaking into a facility filled with monsters that could tear us apart in a matter of seconds and you’re worried about the love life of a werewolf and a vampire?”
Rachel snarled as if she were a wolf herself. “Ivan is more a part of this team than you are, and if he gets killed, we are down a man.”
“He’s doing it on purpose, Rachel. Some boys only know how to seek attention by hurting the one they desire.” I pulled her back until she stood beside me. “He’ll figure out how stupid that is one day, but by then, we’ll be gone from his life and he’ll have lost his chance.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him, wondering if he got the double meaning. Not only his chance at Rachel, but his shot at taking my heart.
His dark eyes glittered in the dusky light and his chest rose and fell as he struggled to collect himself. “How long do we wait for the dog—wolf—to come back?”
Trainable. That was a good thing if he could keep it up, but I doubted this was anything more than a bid to keep Rachel and me happy.
“We give him an hour,” I said, my eyes drifting in the direction Ivan had gone as I sniffed his scent on the breeze. “Then I will go after him.”
“Now, wait a minute—” Rachel spluttered.
I held up a hand. “I will not go into the facility without you. If Ivan is retrievable, I will bring him back. If he’s been taken, I won’t go after him. Either way, I will come back for you.”
And so the waiting began.
Antonio went through the boxes in the back of the truck systematically, laying the weapons out, side by side. I knew the exact moment he found the box of silver stakes.
A long, low chuckle rumbled from him. “Rachel, I like your style more and more.” He held up two stakes, tucked one into the back of his pants and swirled the other around in a circle on his palm.
Rachel looked up from where she sat, surprise in her eyes. “I didn’t ask Baran for those.”
Well, damn.
“Then who put them in there?” Antonio asked the question before I could.
My eyes shot to Rachel’s. “There is only one person it could be, and he’s been leading you on from the beginning.”
“Hades.” She breathed his name. “But that means he knows we’re already in Iraq...oh fuck. Ivan.”
I pointed at her. “I won’t be long.” I glanced at Antonio. “If I don’t come back—”
“In this we are in agreement, vampire. Rachel comes first.” When our eyes met, he nodded, and Rachel let out a pissed-off squawk not unlike that of a cat I’d seen dunked into a pond once.
“You two fuckers can’t just order me around. I’m coming with you, Lea. I’ll follow you if you make me.”
I paused, thinking about how much more dangerous that would be for her. Because I didn’t doubt her—she’d find a way around the Cazador to come after me. “You’re right, you have a stake in this. So let’s make our lives count for something.”
I strode to the back of the truck and opened one of the last boxes of weaponry. I stuffed several of the explosives into a bag I slung over my shoulder, then took a good length of rope and looped it around my waist. Back in the bunker in New York, there had been more than one moment when a bit of rope would have come in handy.
“If it goes badly, you’ll know. I’ll make a big bang to draw them to the far side of the facility. That will allow you time to get in, set the rest of the explosives and get out. Do you understand? We can’t do this together, not if we all want a chance to survive. If it’s quiet, that means I’m coming back to you and we can try another route in.”
I already knew it wouldn’t go easy. Hades knew we were here, and it didn’t look like he was on our side. At least not in the way he’d led us to believe.
Rachel touched my arm. “Be careful, Lea.”
Antonio grunted but said nothing. For just a moment, I considered giving Rachel some of my blood to boost her strength. She must have seen it in my eyes because she shook her head.
I nodded. “You be careful, too.”
Explosives tucked away, I headed after Ivan, following his scent and watching for any booby traps along the way. The first arm of the facility rose out of the sand like the lurching monster it had resembled on paper. Ivan’s scent pulled me around to the far side, away from Rachel and the entrance she would likely end up using, so at the very least, that was good.
When I got within a few hundred yards, I lay in the sand and watched for movement. Ivan’s scent curled around me and beckoned me forward. The idiot had gone right down to the edge of the building. I could see cameras every ten feet or so, and there were guards circling the facility at three-minute intervals. But I had to give Ivan credit where it was due: it looked like he’d made it all the way down the sand dune without getting caught.
“Stupid mutt.”
The sound of a footfall on the sand was the only warning I got. I rolled to my back and had a silver stake out even as Calvin dropped down beside me. He raised an eyebrow.
“Still pissed? Usually you hold it together better than this.”
He could help me, I knew it. He knew it. Time to put aside any anger and our past issues.
“One last time, Calvin. Will you help me end this?” I weighted my words with the power and strength I’d taken from Ivan.
Calvin’s eyelids drooped and his voice slurred. “I only ever wanted to help you, Lea.”
Ooops. Maybe a little too heavy on the suggestion there.
“Calvin—”
“I loved you once.” He leaned toward me and I froze. Caught between the old desire and my new reality. I didn’t love him. Not like that. Maybe I never had. Maybe my feelings for him had just been my first attempt to regain my humanity.
I turned my face away and pulled back. “No. What’s done is done. We aren’t going back to that. Help me, Calvin. One last time and then I will end it for you. If that’s still what you want.”
His eyes cleared and he shook his head. “Your wolf got taken, but I can get you in there. I have access.” He flicked a badge on his chest. A damn badge.
Because he was one of them. Even if it wasn’t his choice.
“Wait here for me. I’m going back for Rachel.”
“No time. If they took him as a wild wolf, they’ll drop him into the tanks right off the bat. He’ll be fighting for his life already against werewolves that have been twisted, made stronger and less vulnerable to injury. For all I know it could be too late for him already.” Calvin stood and brushed sand off his shirt. “You coming?”
This might be my only chance to get in. My only chance to save Ivan. Fuck. I glanced back the way I’d come.
Rachel was going to kill me.
“Yes, I’m coming.”
CHAPTER 28
RACHEL
I let out a long groan. Vampires and werewolves were about as reliable as a drunk surgeon as far as I was concerned.
“She’s been gone for thirty minutes. What do you want to do?” Antonio asked.
I let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
He shifted his weight. “I hesitate to suggest this, but it needs to be said.”
I glanced at him, giving him a look that
told him to proceed carefully. If he recognized I wouldn’t like what he was about to say, it couldn’t be good.
“She might have abandoned the mission.”
I snorted and shook my head. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she leave? We’re about to enter a facility that’s holding vampires as prisoners and our goal is to kill them all.”
“No.” I enunciated the word slowly and distinctly. “My goal is to get as much evidence as possible of what they are doing in there and then destroy their work by blowing up the facility.”
“And blowing up the vampires inside.”
I held up my hands. “Can vampires die in an explosion?”
“They will be weak and defenseless after their bodies burn. If they don’t feed, they will be slow to recover. And the young ones will die. The monsters will burn.”
I put my hands on my hips. “So what’s your plan? We burn them up and then you stake them in the back?”
“You bet your very sweet ass.”
So we were back to the whole egotistical pig thing. That truce hadn’t lasted long. And then the truth plowed into me so hard, I took a half-step backward.
I was so, so stupid.
Antonio had been in a lot of coincidental places. He worked for Victor—who had helped finance the facility on Rikers Island. He’d tailed me after my meeting with Hades. Then he’d picked us up after our train adventure.
I looked him in the eye. “Why is there a case full of silver stakes in the back of this truck?”
His eyes hooded with suspicion; he didn’t like where I was going with this. “How the hell would I know?”
“How did Baran manage to get the truck and supplies that weren’t my own belongings to us so quickly?”
“He was your man, Rachel. You tell me.”
I gritted my teeth. “Try again.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “The bloodsucker claims it was the work of your mysterious Hades.”
“How did Hades know we were already here?”
Irritation washed over his face. “How the hell would I know?”
Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) Page 16
