Outbreak: A Nightshades Novel

by Melissa F. Olson

  “No,” she admitted. “I just . . . I haven’t done this before, having humans in my life. I kept a distance for a reason. What if he kills you or Hadley or Chase or Ruiz? What if he decides to come at me sideways, and goes after, I don’t know, my mailman or Noelle or—”

  “I have a feeling Palmer’s not going to let Noelle out of his sight until our forty-eight hours are up,” Alex interrupted. “And I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to call them mail carriers now.”

  She swatted his arm, repositioning herself to face out the windshield. “You know what I mean.”

  “I know. But that’s why we’re going to meet up with the others and work the case,” Alex said, trying to sound confident. “If we really can’t find him, I will personally help you un-weld that bracelet, and you can run. Okay?”

  She didn’t look very reassured, but she nodded.

  “Lindy,” he said softly, and she looked over at him again. “Don’t give up on me.”

  She blinked hard for a moment, then she laid her hand on his cheek. “Okay.”

  Alex pushed the button to start the Prius, glancing at the console clock as it came on.

  “To the cabin?” Lindy asked.

  “One more stop first.”

  “Where to?”

  He shot her a lopsided smile. “The White House.”

  Chapter 14

  Abandoned basement in Little Italy

  Saturday afternoon

  “SLOANE.”

  Someone was touching his face. Sloane opened his eyes to see Reagan, her dark hair falling in her face. She smiled when she saw him open his eyes. “Hello,” she said.

  “What time is it?”

  She lifted his forearm and read the watch on his wrist. “About three p.m.”

  Three hours until sunset. “You should get more rest, love.”

  “I’m okay.” She did look much better than she had that morning, thanks to the cop’s blood that he had fed her before putting her in the Hummer. Her hair still hung in matted clumps, but her eyes weren’t so sunken now. “Thank you for saving us,” she said seriously.

  Sloane didn’t say that he almost hadn’t bothered with Cooper and Aidan. He had retrieved them because she would have been unhappy if he hadn’t. “You’re welcome.”

  Reagan sat up, putting her back against the wall. “God, I want a shower.”

  He smiled. “Can’t blame you there, love.” There weren’t any showers in this building, just an old bathroom with a rust-stained sink. But at least there was running water.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, then he couldn’t help but ask the question that had been plaguing him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were taking orders from Hector?”

  She puffed out her cheeks, released them. “You told so many stories about him, about the old days,” she said. “I realize now that you were trying to warn me, but he always just sounded . . . powerful. In control.” She gave a little head shake. “Shades need leadership, Sloane. I guess I told myself you were exaggerating his . . . bad qualities.”

  Sloane snorted.

  “I know,” she hurried to add. “I was stupid. But I just . . . worry. And I really did think Hector was trying to help.”

  And that’s why I love you, he thought, but didn’t say aloud. Sloane had never met another shade who cared so much about the well-being of all shades—well, except perhaps Hector, in his own twisted way. It didn’t seem possible to be selfish and community-minded at the same time, but Hector was the proof.

  “I feel so stupid now,” Reagan admitted. “He was just using me, as part of his little sibling rivalry mind game. I’m such an idiot.”

  Sloane couldn’t really blame Reagan for gravitating toward the eldest among them, but still. Reagan had told him they were coming to Chicago to look for information on her birth mother. She had lied to him. “Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to go work for him?” he asked. “I mean, I would have found out eventually, if things hadn’t gone pear-shaped with Sieglinde.”

  Reagan hung her head. “Yeah, but you would have tried to talk me out of it. Besides,” she added, “he told me over and over not to say anything.”

  Something about her phrasing raised a red flag in Sloane’s head. He had spent so much time with Reagan, helping her mentor new shades, get them on their feet. He was with her most of her waking hours.

  So . . . when would Hector have talked to her?

  “He called you? On the phone?”

  She turned her head and gave him a strange look. “No. He talked to me. In my head.”

  Sloane froze. Oh no. Very carefully, he said, “Rags . . . how did he say he was able to do that?”

  “Because they’re royalty,” she said, as if she didn’t understand why Sloane was pretending to be ignorant. “Hector and Sieglinde can speak to all shades. They just choose not to, because it’d be too taxing.”

  Sloane’s heart wrenched. He forgot sometimes how young she was, and how she’d spent so many of her years with little to no contact with their kind. Reagan had woken up as a shade with no memory of how it happened, or who had attacked and transmuted her. And most of the shades Reagan met were like her, lost and abandoned.

  “Reagan, love. No they can’t.” He kept his voice as gentle as he could, knowing how much this was going to hurt her. “I’m so sorry, I thought you knew. The only person who can speak in our mind is the one who transmuted us.”

  She pulled away, searching his face. “What did you just say?”

  “Only our direct elder can speak to us through that link,” he tried to explain. “My elder, Regina, used to give me orders and directions that way, before she died. It’s part of how we’re supposed to adapt to shade life. So if Hector could speak to you mentally . . .” He trailed off.

  “It was him,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “He was the one. Why would he . . .”

  “He must have been watching you, since you were human,” Sloane guessed. “He saw something in you, and figured you’d be a good . . . alternate. In case he needed one.”

  She stood up, shade-fast, and began pacing around the room. All right, it was less of a pace and more of a furious clomp.

  “He . . . he tricked me . . .” she ranted, yanking at her hair. “He lied, and-and-he—” Sloane had never seen her this upset. A big part of him wanted to stand, to try to hold her, but that wasn’t what she needed right now.

  So he let her curse and mutter, in an ever-widening circle around the room. Sloane didn’t intervene until she spun around and punched a concrete wall.

  “Rags!” He jumped up and raced over to her, cradling her hand. The skin on her knuckles had split, and he could swear he’d heard a couple of bones in her fingers fracture. She was staring down at it in grim fascination. The concrete, meanwhile, had cracked and dented.

  When she finally met his eyes, the look in them was frightening. “I need you to call whatever contacts you have,” she said in a perfectly calm voice. “You might need to mesmerize one of the BPI employees. We need to find Sieglinde.”

  He blinked at her for a moment. “Why?”

  “Because we are switching fucking sides.”

  Chapter 15

  Interstate 80 again

  Late Saturday afternoon

  IN THE EXCITEMENT OF getting away from the brownstone, Lindy had forgotten all about Chase’s cryptic instructions to meet later. “I’m assuming you don’t mean the actual White House, in DC,” she replied.

  “A little yes, but mostly no,” Alex said cheerfully. “Back when Chase and I were just out of the academy, we took a road trip across the country to visit Chase’s sister at the University of Wisconsin. We stopped in Chicago for a couple of days, and walked around downtown. Navy Pier, the Loop, all that tourist stuff.”

  “Okay . . .” Lindy had wandered around that area a few times herself, but there were plenty of white buildings there.

  “The Chicago-Tribune building has this thing where they’ve inserted stones from famous buildin
gs and monuments into the exterior walls,” he explained. “There’s a piece from the Berlin Wall, from the House of Parliament—”

  “And one from the White House,” Lindy supplied, getting it.

  “Yeah. Chase and I joked that if we got separated, or if one of us went home with a girl, we would meet the next morning at the White House.” He shrugged. “I had forgotten about it until he said that this morning.”

  They fought tourist traffic into the Loop, where Alex paid a ridiculous amount of money to park Noelle’s Prius in a garage near Tribune Tower. Lindy was surprised at how full the garage was, but a lot of people probably came into the city from the suburbs for dinner and a show.

  When they finally found a parking spot, Alex turned to her and said seriously, “Lindy . . . I think you should drink some of my blood.”

  Lindy had to smile. He was just so solemn about it. “I can make it to tonight. I’ll . . . find someone.”

  “But I’m right here,” Alex insisted. “And I don’t mind.”

  She gave him a skeptical look, but Alex just said, “Really. It’d be easier than worrying about you.”

  Lindy sighed. “Fine.” She hated to admit it, but she needed to feed soon or she was going to be useless.

  Now that she’d agreed, though, she could hear Alex’s pulse pick up. “Okay, how do . . . how does this work?”

  “Usually,” she intoned, “I would romance you with a bottle of wine, get your shirt off, mesmerize you to believe you’re having an orgasm, then bite your neck with my two perfect canines.”

  “Really?”

  Lindy laughed. “No.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said, injured.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Alex put his hand in hers, and she turned it over, looking at his veins. She glanced around. The parking garage was deserted. They’d parked as far from any cameras as possible, but still.

  “Okay.” Lindy leaned over and kissed him, putting their still-joined hands in his lap. “If anyone asks,” she said very seriously, “I’m just giving you a blow job.”

  While he was still laughing, she bent her head and bit into the back of his hand where it lay on his leg. It would hurt, since she couldn’t mesmerize him, but only a little. And the shade saliva would still help him heal quickly.

  * * *

  Alex had wanted Lindy to stay in the car while he met Chase, to minimize the amount of time she spent in the sun, but she insisted on coming with him. Most of the downtown businesses weren’t operating, but there were plenty of tourists on the streets. The two of them held hands and walked casually, like they were out for a stroll, though Alex kept a close eye on the crowd. He wasn’t about to put anything past Hector at this point.

  They reached the White House stone a few minutes before four, and stopped awkwardly on the sidewalk to wait. People milled past them, and Alex pulled out the burner phone and pretended to take a selfie with the White House stone, just to have something to do.

  After ten minutes Alex began to worry. What if Chase was still in custody? It had seemed like Palmer was willing to play ball, but could he have kept Chase in questioning just to spite them? Did he decide to use Chase as bait for Hector?

  Lindy squeezed his hand, understanding his concern, but there was nothing to do but wait.

  At 4:19, though, Alex heard a familiar voice calling his name, and turned to see Chase rushing along the sidewalk toward them. His hair was damp, and his clothes looked fresh.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he hurried up. “I had to take a shower. It was dire.”

  Alex embraced him, squeezing hard with relief. “Good to see you, brother,” he said, then pulled back to look at Chase. There were wrinkles in his clothing, like they’d just come out of a package. Alex noticed a tag on one sleeve and yanked it free.

  “Oh, thanks.” Chase glanced down at himself, looking for other tags. “I didn’t want to go back to my place, since Hector obviously knows it, so I hit a Banana Republic and stopped at my gym to clean up.”

  “You look good. Better than yesterday.”

  Alex glanced at Lindy, who just said, “Hey, Chase? Hop on one foot.”

  Chase looked puzzled. “Why—oh. Nah. I’m good.”

  She smiled at him then. “All right, then. How’s my cat?”

  “Sarah is looking after her,” he replied. Sarah Greer was the very capable office manager for the BPI pod. “She called me to check in, and really wanted to do something to help.”

  “Thank you,” Lindy said.

  “Can we—” Chase began, but then a man in sunglasses and a ball cap came toward them in a straight line, from behind Lindy. Both Alex and Chase rested a hand on their weapons. She followed their gazes and turned around just as the man touched the tip of his ball cap, his eyes on her. This was Sloane, the asshole who worked for Reagan. Alex had seen a photo.

  “Afternoon, my lady. Gents.”

  Lindy reacted well before either BPI agent. She grabbed the lapels of Sloane’s jacket and whirled him into the side of Tribune Tower, his head smacking the wall with a sickening crack only inches from the chunk of White House.

  “How did you find us?” she demanded.

  “Easy, my lady, easy.” Sloane raised his hands, as though whether or not he was armed would make a difference.

  “My lady?” Alex muttered, but the people around them were stopping to look. “It’s fine,” Alex said loudly, but his scarred face didn’t seem to comfort the onlookers.

  Sloane made a show of smiling and moving his head to show he wasn’t hurt. “Just a disagreement,” he called.

  With a last round of odd looks, the crowd began moving again. Lindy hadn’t let go of his jacket. “How?” she said fiercely. She was glaring at Sloane with such intensity that Alex half-expected the other shade to burst into flames.

  “Reagan called the FBI office pretending to be your secretary,” Sloane rushed to say. “No one knew where you were, but they said Chase Eddy was just about to leave the interview rooms. I followed him here.”

  Alex glanced at Chase, who flushed. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

  “Don’t sweat it, mate,” Sloane said to him. “I’ve been doing this a while.”

  “Is Reagan with you?” Lindy asked. She still hadn’t released Sloane.

  “No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  Slowly, Lindy uncurled her fingers from Sloane’s jacket. The other shade eased himself away from the wall, as though he were still expecting an attack. When none came, he brushed at his jacket and straightened his Cubs cap, trying a smile.

  Lindy just glared at him. “What about?”

  “Er, can we talk somewhere a bit more private?” Sloane said. “There’s apologizing to do, and some arse-kissing.”

  “What does that mean?” Alex asked.

  “It means,” Sloane said, smiling, “Reagan and I, we find ourselves suddenly and deeply invested in helping you lot kill Hector.”

  Chapter 16

  Downtown Chicago

  Saturday late afternoon

  THEY FOUND A CLUSTER of public benches, and Sloane began to talk. And talk. Eventually, Alex was satisfied that he was telling the truth. He could tell Lindy still had her doubts, but they were short on ideas, and their forty-eight hours were ticking down quickly. She agreed to give collaboration a shot.

  Chase went to rent a car—Lindy didn’t think Hector had much pull with credit card companies; he was more of a hands-on asshole—and the three of them met up with a contrite, and nearly silent, Reagan. By the time everyone was headed for the rental cabin, it was just after sunset.

  Alex drove, with a watchful eye on Lindy, who sat sideways in the passenger seat so she could glare daggers at Reagan in the back. Sloane occasionally tried to crack a joke, but the tension in the small car was impenetrable, and even he eventually gave up. Alex found himself wishing he could have ridden with Chase—but then Lindy might have killed one of the other shades. She was obviously still pissed about Reag
an shooting her with meth.

  “What did you do with Aidan and Cooper?” Lindy asked Reagan.

  The young woman had been staring at her hands, but now she straightened her shoulders and met Lindy’s stare. “I left them some money and instructions to get to a friend in St. Louis,” she said. “He’ll look after them when . . . until this is over.”

  Sloane was looking at Reagan now too. “You didn’t tell them goodbye?”

  The young shade shook her head. “Coop would have tried to help, and Aidan probably would have tagged along. This isn’t their fight.” She hesitated for just a moment, then added, “And they’d both be a liability.”

  Lindy didn’t respond, but the answer seemed to satisfy her. They rode silently for the rest of the way.

  * * *

  At the cabin, Lindy waited in the car with the other two shades while Alex went in first, to warn Hadley and Ruiz. He found his two young agents collapsed at kitchen chairs, looking exhausted.

  “Did you bring food?” Ruiz said hopefully.

  Alex dropped a Culver’s bag on the small kitchen table, and Ruiz had his cheeseburger unwrapped and in his mouth with terrifying speed. Before Alex could tell them about Sloane and Reagan, Hadley burst out, “We’ve got nothing, boss. If we had access to recognition software or some fingerprint samples, that might be one thing, but this whole thing is just dead ends.” She waved at the wall with a look of disapproval, as though it had personally failed to meet her expectations. Lindy had talked them through some of it on the phone, but unfortunately she hadn’t kept in contact with any of Hector’s associates. Alex understood why, but this would have been a hell of a lot easier if they could just track down even one henchman.

  “Did you try the Dark Net?” he asked.

  “Yes, and I used the login stuff Lindy texted,” Hadley replied. After popping three French fries in her mouth, she seemed to have forgotten the food. “There hasn’t been any chatter since our first clash with Hector at that dental clinic. It’s like a bunch of prairie dogs who ran into their holes.”