by Donya Lynne
Tristan's frown deepened. "So, no one has heard from Micah, and no one has bothered to check on him. Except for you, Severin." Tristan addressed the long-haired new guy. "You haven't been here long enough to be in on this ass-chew, but the rest of you," Tristan's gaze flung back around the room, "should have known better."
Only Malek had enough conscience to look down as if ashamed. The rest just stared back. But then, Micah wasn't the most well-liked S.O.B. He didn't play nice with others and had a reputation for being not only the resident loose cannon and recluse, but also the resident dick. He ruffled more feathers than a wolf in a henhouse, always rubbing people the wrong way. Even Tristan struggled to hold his tongue around Micah. Most likely, just as with the dispatchers, the team had enjoyed the peace and quiet while Micah had been gone.
But it pissed Tristan off that no one had bothered looking the brother up. After this much time, someone should have pulled a Sherlock Holmes to track the fucker down to make sure he was safe.
"Fuck!" He threw the pen across the room and it ricocheted off the wall. Trace caught it with a snap of his hand, and the two exchanged glances.
"Sorry," Tristan said.
"Don't worry about it." Trace tossed the pen back.
Tristan blamed himself for losing track of Micah. He had been wrapped up in his own concerns about Josie and the baby, and before he'd known what was going on, two weeks had passed and he was behind the eight-ball.
"I want everyone pulling doubles until we find him. We're on lockdown and no one goes home until we do." A couple of groans broke through – Io and Arion, of course. Tristan glared at them. "You need to crash, use your dorm. You got a booty-call, cancel it. You've all sat back and done nothing while one of ours is suffering and missing. So, playtime is fucking over until he's home, you got me?"
Trace chewed on his matchstick and shifted uneasily. Everyone else nodded, even if Io's and Arion's nods were reluctant.
"We've got all this top-notch surveillance shit." Tristan waved his arm like an angry Vanna White. "We've found harder-to-find shit than one of our own. Surely we can tap into some of this fucking technology and find him!"
The pen went airborne again. Thwack! This time Trace let it fall to the floor. Tristan turned and paced.
Tristan didn't need this shit right now. He had been wound tight since finding out six weeks ago that Josie was pregnant. She was as badass as most of the males in the room, but even she had to bow down to biology, and the morning sickness had been terrifyingly bad for the last week. It worried Tristan, but that's how it was for a male whose mate was pregnant, even if he hadn't actually mated Josie, not in the vampire sense of the word, anyway. His biology hadn't fired up a bond with her, but that didn't mean he didn't love her or worry like hell about her being so sick. Now he had Micah to worry about on top of everything else.
He spun on his heels to face the others again. "Malek, I want you and Trace to hit the streets. Sniff his ass out. If he's alive, I want him back here yesterday."
"What if he's dead?" Arion said.
Trace stepped up and slapped Ari across the back of the head.
"Hey!" Arion turned and glared at Trace, grabbing his noggin.
Trace growled back, causing Ari to reconsider and turn back around.
"If he's dead, I still want him back here." Tristan hoped he wasn't. As much as Micah got on everyone's nerves, he and Micah went way back – since before Katarina's death – and Tristan thought of the pain-in-the-ass as a friend, even if Micah didn't necessarily reciprocate.
The mood sobered at the thought that Micah could have bitten it without their knowledge. They were so tightly bound to one another it often felt like they shared the same mind half the time, even if they didn't all get along. And with all the shared blood among them, surely they'd have felt it if Micah had died, right?
"Io, I want you to work the computers, try and dig into the records and find his new place. Shouldn't be too hard for a hacker like you."
Iobates half-grinned and fist-bumped Arion. "Fuckin' A." Tristan rolled his eyes. Io was a cocky cuss, but the best hacker Tristan had ever met.
Tristan looked over at the new guy, Severin. "Sev, I want you to go with Arion to Jackson's place. If Micah is staying where they lived together, then Jackson will know where to find him. That's probably our best shot."
Severin cleared his throat as he glanced at Arion, acknowledging the other male with a single nod.
"I'm handing off the rest of our workload to the other teams until we find him. I got word that the VanGruben clan made it to safety out of Sumatra after the earthquake, so we don't have to send a team there to search, and if anything comes across the scanners, I'm routing it to Stryker's team."
Nobody challenged him, which was good, because he was ready to nail someone to the wall. Literally.
He paced back behind his desk, raking his hands through his blond hair before stopping to press his fists down onto the industrial wood surface. If what Tristan feared was true, Micah was in bad shape. Tristan only hoped the fucker hadn't gone and done something stupid. Given how Micah had reacted when Katarina died, it wasn't a far stretch to imagine he was capable of killing himself now that he had lost a second mate.
Fuck! How had Tristan let this happen? At one time, he and Micah had been friends. They had joined All the King's Men – or just AKM – together, soon after King Bain created the enforcement agency, which had bases of operation in major cities all around the world. He and Micah had worked side-by-side on security details, policing the drecks to ensure the precarious truce between their races remained intact, and had performed a hundred other types of tasks and missions together. But they had drifted apart as Micah sank further into his self-imposed isolation, and when Tristan had been promoted, the rift between them made it so they hardly knew each other anymore. Even so, Micah was his responsibility, and Tristan still loved him like a brother.
"Go. Find him. Let me know as soon as you have a six on his place. I want to go there personally."
Trace stood to the side, watching him closely while everyone filtered out of the room. Only after everyone else had left did Trace push away from the wall and walk out the door. Tristan often wondered what went on inside Trace's head. As long as he went out and found Micah, he really didn't care right now.
CHAPTER FOUR
The guardian growled with frustration as he gazed up the luxury apartment building to the eighteenth floor balcony. He could feel Micah's inky black imprint, but that was all. Micah wasn't home.
Fucking meeting. If Tristan hadn't called them together, he could have gotten here earlier and followed Micah. All he could do now was follow the cold trail Micah had left behind and hope it was enough. But first, a quick stop inside Micah's apartment was in order. The guardian was curious to see what had been going on up there, and with Micah gone, this was the perfect opportunity.
The security guard looked up as the guardian entered the lobby.
"Excuse me," the guard said. "You have to sign in. You can't just go up."
"Really?" With a glance and a wave of his hand, the guardian gently compelled the guard to sit back down and forget he had ever been there. "Consider me signed in."
The guardian stepped into the elevator, rode up to the eighteenth floor, then unlocked Micah's door with his mind. Not all vampires could pull that trick off, but he was special.
Once inside, he closed the door behind him. Silence. The place felt like a tomb. He opened the fridge. No food. He opened the cupboard and found more of the same. What the fuck was Micah living on? He closed his eyes, reached out his senses, and got the answer. Pain. Micah was living on pain and suffering and not a whole lot else.
Shit, what was he going to do? He needed Micah. Or, rather, he would eventually. Even now, he felt himself losing his grip on his power. Micah could help him keep it under control. Well, he could if he didn't wind up dead first. And the guardian still had to gain Micah's trust. So much was at stake.
A q
uick peek inside the master bedroom found the massive four-poster in messy shambles. Clothes littered the floor. And what did he smell? Was that Micah's blood? He looked in the bathroom and found the mirror had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the floor and dried blood dotted the sink and marble tiles.
Damn! What kind of mind-fuck was Micah seeped in?
He had to find him.
Spinning on his heels, the guardian rushed out the door, re-locked it, took the elevator down, and shot past the guard and back out to the streets of Chicago. Micah's trail was weak. He had left a long time ago. Hopefully it wouldn't go cold before he found him.
* * *
The pitch black in the alley matched Micah's mood. It had been two weeks since Jackson had left him. Two weeks of giving less and less of a shit as each day came and went. Two weeks of pain and misery and slicing his forearms to relieve the ache in his chest.
Red, angry cuts covered his forearms. His latest self-mutilation had failed to give him the relief he needed, and he hadn't even bothered licking over the wounds to heal them. He liked the way they looked scoring his flesh like claw marks.
With an acidic gaze, Micah prowled for the pain he desperately needed – pain that would put an end to his suffering. One way or another, it would all be over soon.
He exited the alley and looked left then right through a haze of fog that diffused the light from the neons. The creature he sought was near, but moving away, as if it knew it was being hunted and didn't want a confrontation.
Come now, don't be shy. Micah followed the trail, his pace quickening now that what he needed was so close.
Shoulders that had once been wide and thick, but which now only halfway supported clothes that hung off his thinning frame, rolled as he marched alongside the busy thoroughfare. The hour may have been late, but this was South Chicago, the part of the city where deals were made in the shadows until the wee hours of the morning, corner taverns entertained well past the legal hour, and nightlife took on a whole new meaning. More than just humans gravitated toward the South Side at this time of night, which was what Micah had counted on.
The trail led him to a run-down corner bar – a dive, but packed. As if the Angel of Death himself had entered, the patrons seemed to sense him more than see him as he stepped inside. Heads turned cautiously to give him the once-over around longnecks of Budweiser. A group of roughnecks playing pool unconsciously shrank back from him as he passed to take a vacant table in the corner.
Lately, he seemed to have this effect everywhere he went. Must have been his sparkling good mood.
His thick, black brows furrowed and his dark gaze raked the room, searching for the one he needed.
A waitress approached, fidgeting nervously. It was obvious she would rather be alone in the alley with Jack the Ripper than waiting on him.
"Th-Those are some ugly c-cuts there." She nodded toward his arms, trying to warm him up, pen poised over a tablet resting on a tray propped against her hip. When he didn't say anything, she smiled tightly and sighed. "What'll you have? Kitchen's about to close if you're hungry, but we've got plenty of booze."
"Fuck. Off." Micah said. He was in no mood for her, food, or a drink.
He didn't have to tell her twice. Scurrying away, her relief that she wouldn't have to go near him again washed over his raw senses like saltwater on an open sore, except that Micah was too numb to give a shit.
As he scanned the room, his gaze dug into the shadows. Where was he? The one who could end it all tonight.
A figure stirred in the shadows, a hood pulled over his head. The movement was subtle, but Micah zeroed in on it like a hawk to a field mouse.
Bursting from his chair, he barreled toward the man whose bulky sweatshirt belied his brawny form and the weapons he no doubt carried. No guns, but surely a knife or two, or maybe even a cop's nightstick. Most drecks carried nightsticks being they usually posed as cops. A nightstick would be perfect. Something to be beaten with that would cause him the pain he needed.
"You mother fucker. You've been dodging me all night. You and me, outside. Now!"
"Fuck you." Malevolent hatred shot back at Micah.
Unrest rippled through the bar, silencing most of the patrons as George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" rocked out from the jukebox. All eyes were on Micah and the man in the shadows, and everyone was poised to beat feet if guns came out – or draw their own guns, as the case may be, because it was a good bet a quarter of the customers were carrying, not to mention the bartender.
Micah grabbed the dreck by the collar, cotton fleece bunching in his fist as he pulled the guy up. "I need you to do me a favor, fucker. Consider this a freebie."
The dreck snarled, but nodded a wary acquiescence. Micah slowly released his sweatshirt and turned for the door, expecting the dreck to follow him.
There was no love lost between the drecks and vampires, who lived a tremulous, mistrusting co-existence with each other. Vampires and drecks were closely related, like second cousins to one another, really, with the vampires coming out higher up in the gene pool. And didn't that just make the drecks resent vampires even more? It was also why vampires got the job of policing them and maintaining the peace. Technically, vampires were stronger and more powerful.
Drecks looked like humans, just as much as the vampires did, but the vampires knew better. When the façade came off, most drecks made nasty shape-shifters.
Moreover, most drecks – including the group this guy belonged to if the scent was right – loved killing vampires, even if there was some fucked up truce between them that prevented it. Which meant that this lucky fucker was about to get an early gift from Santa Claus.
"You been keeping out of trouble, Apostle?" Micah knew the names of every dreck in the city, and he knew this one was particularly fond of giving pain. "Or should I call you Officer John Apostle?"
"Okay, you know me, so who the fuck are you?" Apostle replied.
"Just think of me as the guy who needs a favor."
"Fuck that. Give me a name or I'll bleed you right here, blood sucker."
Micah scoffed. Apostle had balls. If he didn't need the dreck's services so badly, he would enjoy showing him how wrong he was about that bleeding business. "Okay, asshole. Call me Micah."
Apostle eyed him warily. "What do you want, Micah? And this had better be good."
"Got any friends nearby?" Micah growled the question over his shoulder as he led John Apostle away from the bar.
"A couple." The dreck followed cautiously.
"Call them."
"Not until you tell me what you want." Apostle's voice was edged with malice.
Micah spun around and came nose-to-nose with the shifter. "I'm about to be your fairy godmother, asshole. Now, call your friends."
Dark curiosity passed between them as the dreck considered Micah's words. "What do you mean?" he said, but he took out his phone. His gaze never left Micah's.
"You like to kill vampires, right? Well…" Micah stepped back, arms extended to the sides, presenting himself for the sacrifice. "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy birthday. Oh, that's right, you fuckers don't do birthdays."
"We don't do holidays, either, but, in this case, I think I might make an exception." John Apostle's tone rose with interest as he appraised Micah. "Why? I mean, not that I give a shit, but I thought you guys could just walk into the sun if you wanted to pull a Kevorkian. Why do you need me?"
"You're better than the sun for what I need."
"Is this some kind of trick?" Apostle eyed him suspiciously as he dialed.
Micah issued the shifter a cold, dead stare, but he wasn't so far gone to lack understanding of the dreck's suspicion. Of course this would look like trickery to one who was accustomed to the precarious relationship between their races – a relationship in which the vampire usually sought to do the ass-kicking rather than ask for one.
"My reasons are personal, dreck. But I can assure you this is no trick. I'm done. Checked out." Micah to
ok out a cigarette and lit it. He figured now was as good a time as any to take up a bad habit, seeing as he wasn't going to live past the hour.
Apostle's eyes narrowed. "So, you want us to kill you?"
Micah nodded, squinting as he dragged off the cig. He blew out a stream of smoke, scrutinizing the shifter. He didn't want to go on like this. The nightmare of his life grew more agonizing day-by-day. Hour-by-hour, actually. Not even the brutal cutting was doing it for him, anymore. He was out of control. He didn't want to live. But he wanted one thing before he died.
"I need you and your friends to grant me one favor."
Apostle tilted his head with suspicious curiosity. "Killing you isn't enough?" When Micah only stared back at him, he sighed. "Fine. What?"
"I want you to beat the living shit out of me before you kill me. You got me?"
One eyebrow cocked on Apostle's face as his mouth quirked into a satisfied smirk. "No problem."
* * *
Samantha shut the door to her dressing room and took off her mask then hung it on the wall. Another shift at the Black Garter was over. Thank God.
She wasn't wearing much, just red lace panties which she quickly peeled off and threw in the laundry, then she got dressed to go home. Tips had been good tonight, and she was that much closer to being completely free. She grabbed her bag, opened the door, shut off the light, and waved to Ted and Jose, the bouncers, as she slipped out the back.
Sam's skin crawled as she left the gentlemen's club and crossed the parking lot. She just wanted to get home and shower, as she did after every shift. She didn't have sex with the men – only danced for them. But some still touched. The only way she could endure the degradation was to remind herself that she only needed to do this a couple more years and she would be able to buy herself a new identity and a new life.
