by D. N. Hoxa
“I promise.”
“Who’s Mandy?” Red asked the second I ended the call. His voice took me by surprise and made me jump a bit, but I recovered quickly.
“A friend,” I said under my breath and turned to Amara to give her the phone back.
“You told her about Haworth?” Red asked as he walked behind me. I refused to meet his eyes. Of course he’d listened in on my conversation. I probably would have done the same thing.
“Told who?” Amara asked, narrowing her brows in confusion.
“It’s fine. She tried to find him, but all she got was that he’s a shareholder in some companies, and he has someone, probably his wife, do the dirty work for him.”
“Haworth doesn’t have a wife,” said Amara, suddenly a little paler, or it could have been just the lack of light.
“Look, I don’t know. Mandy said her name was Nadia Haworth, and she did transactions and signed papers on his behalf, that’s all.”
Amara froze in place. Red immediately stepped in front of her.
“You know who she is.” It wasn’t a question.
“His daughter,” she said with half a voice. “Nadia is his daughter.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I asked. If she knew who his daughter was, how come Amara couldn’t tell where he lived?
“What businesses?” Red asked me then, not interested in Amara’s answer.
“Import and export companies,” I said. “He’s got six of them.”
“Six?” He shook his head in confusion. “Why would he need so many?”
“Who else owns them?” Amara asked.
“I didn’t ask. Should I have?”
“Can she check on the other shareholders, too?” Red asked.
“No! God, no. I’ve already done enough to the poor girl. She stays out of this.”
“Why? What did you do?” Amara asked.
I bit my tongue and looked down at the ground. “I told her about us.” What a stupid, stupid thing to do. I probably gave Mandy nightmares for a lifetime.
“What do you mean?” she asked, but Red beat me to it.
“She’s human.”
“Who’s human?” Amara still didn’t understand, and I didn’t blame her.
“My friend. She’s human and I told her about us.”
Blinking slowly, Amara looked at me, at Red, and then back again. “Have you two lost your minds?”
“Humans can see her,” Red said through gritted teeth, then turned to me. “What were you thinking, Victoria?”
“I was thinking that you’re not my father and you don’t get to use that tone with me,” I reminded him.
“Wait, wait, what do you mean, humans can see her? See her, how?” Amara asked.
“They just can. I can talk to them, and they never forget me. It’s just a stupid thing.” One that shouldn’t have mattered much, but to her, it did.
“A stupid thing? Humans can see you and interact with you and remember you, and you’re telling me this just now?”
I shrugged. “We literally just met a few hours ago.” What did she expect, my whole life’s story?
“How is that possible?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’ll tell you the minute I know,” I mumbled. It was no fun to be so different from the rest of my kind, but I did want to know why, too.
“Is there…is there anything else?” Amara asked. “Something else that’s really freaky about you?” Jesus. Thanks a lot.
I rolled my eyes. “No, Amara. There’s nothing else.”
“I don’t mean it like it’s a bad thing or anything,” she said when she saw the look on my face. “I just…I just can’t figure you out.”
“I wouldn’t keep trying if I were you,” Red said, angry as hell. It was easier to talk to him and shout at him, I realized. Which was stupid, because of the two, Amara was way, way less dangerous. “You told a human about us. Do you have any idea what that could do to us? To history?”
“I trust Mandy. She’s my friend. She’s not going to tell anyone.” I knew it, my wolf knew it, and that was good enough for me. “And even if she did, who’d believe her? And if they believed her, where would they get proof? Humans can’t see any other paranormal except me.”
“It’s dangerous, Victoria. For her and for you.”
“Yeah, well, if I survive the night, I’ll worry about that.”
“It’s getting late,” Amara said, turning the screen of her phone on to check the time. It was almost one in the morning. “Do you want to call him again?”
“She said something about a list of properties,” Red said out of the blue.
“What?”
“Your friend. She said she had a list of properties that Haworth’s companies owned.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“Can she send it over?”
“Why?” I asked, but I already knew why. Mandy said that one of those properties wasn’t Hector’s. It was Nadia’s.
“There’s a list of properties?” Amara said.
“Give me your phone.” I needed to call Mandy again, no matter how much I hated this. But it was better. It was much better than involving a pack wolf in this. God, had I really been that desperate as to involve an innocent animal in this? What if the wolf died? How was I going to live with myself afterward?
When I dialed Mandy again, I half hoped she’d be asleep and wouldn’t pick up. She did after the first ring.
“Vicky?”
“I’m so sorry to call you again. Are you in bed yet?”
“About to, why?” she said, a little more alert than before.
“I need that list of properties. Can you forward it to my friend’s email? I’ll send you the address with a text.”
“Sure thing,” Mandy said. “What is your friend?”
I looked at Amara. “A witch.” And the witch didn’t like me telling humans about her.
“Cool,” Mandy breathed, then paused for a little while. Probably daydreaming about witches in whatever way Hollywood had pictured them to be. “Okay, send me the address. I’ll get right on it.” And she hung up.
Three minutes later, Amara opened the PDF file on her phone. Eleven properties were listed together with their exact locations, their owners and there were even phone numbers on the last column. The property before the last was listed under Nadia Haworth’s name.
“These sound…human,” Amara said, going over the names of others who co-owned the rest of the properties with Haworth.
“No, that can’t be,” I said, shaking my head. “Unless…unless he’s like me?” What were the fucking odds?
“Did your friend do a background check on these people?” Red asked.
“No. I didn’t ask her to. She was just looking for Haworth.” Maybe I should have. These people were obviously his associates. Maybe we could get to him through them.
“Guys, these are definitely human,” Amara said, sounded especially terrified. “Think about it. Why else wouldn’t the ECU have already figured all of this out?”
My jaw fell all the way to the ground.
“Fuck,” Red whispered.
“You’re right,” I said. “The only reason Mandy found this data was because she ran Haworth’s name through human databases.”
“So he’s like you,” Amara concluded. Goose bumps all over my arms. Could Hector Haworth really be like me?
“I’m calling my father,” I said and grabbed the phone from Amara’s hands. I needed to tell him to go back home and take the wolf back, if he even managed to get one out at all. But again, he didn’t answer. That left a bad taste on my tongue, but I texted him.
Go back home and return the wolf to his place. I’m going in alone. I hoped to God he’d see it before he reached Jersey City.
“Nadia’s property is in Queens. How long until we get there?” I asked the others.
“About an hour or so,” said Amara, but Red shook his head.
“It’s already one in the morning. The sun rises in four ho
urs. That’s not nearly enough time to do this tonight,” he said.
“Sure it is. An hour to get there leaves us another three to find Haworth and kill him.” Plenty of time to get rid of him for good, so that I could take Izzy far away.
“Besides, we probably won’t find anything there. It won’t hurt to check. It’s just an hour,” said Amara.
I looked at her in surprise. She’d been with Red on this, too. She’d insisted that we waited for me to train and get my wolf under control back at the Lair. What changed now?
“We’re not prepared for this,” Red said. “We have no weapons, no protection, and the wolf could come out at any second!”
“That’s not a bad thing. If she comes out, she’ll kill those assholes. She’s good at killing,” I said. He’d seen the wolf in action himself.
“Come on, Red. There’s no better time than the present,” Amara said with a grin.
I couldn’t help myself. “Don’t get me wrong, but why the change of heart?”
Surprised, she shrugged. “We didn’t have such concrete evidence before. This is a solid lead and I want to follow it.”
“We’re going to get ourselves killed,” said Red through gritted teeth, his dark eyes widening with panic. I had no idea why he was so afraid. I’d seen him fight, too. I doubted any of Haworth’s men could take him down—or all of them together for that matter.
“We’re going to find Haworth,” I promised him. “And we’re going to get back what he stole from you.”
“And we’re going to kill him,” Amara said.
“And then my sister will be free. It’s what we set out to do in the first place, Red. That hasn’t changed. You stalked me because you wanted to find him. Maybe I didn’t, but we have a location. A potential location. Don’t you want to find out if he’s there?”
“Tough up, vamp. We’re going to be fine,” Amara said. “I’ve got weapons I can loan you. And my protection spells are better than most.”
Red looked furious as he turned away from us, lowered his head and intertwined his fingers behind his neck. A string of curse words left his lips in a rush, but we let him take his time. Impatience was wearing me down, but I believed Red would come through. He wanted to find Haworth as much as we did; otherwise he’d have never come after me in the first place.
Finally, he faced us again. “On one condition. I get to lead this operation.”
Operation? I grinned. “Knock yourself out, Mr. Dead Guy.”
15
It was hard to believe that Amara owned all these things. The bag she’d opened in the backseat was full of knives, daggers, swords, guns, and even a rifle. I stared uncomfortably as she told Red everything she had in there. She’d made us go all the way to Manhattan and to the apartment she shared with another witch to get this, but now that I could see all the weapons, I was a hundred percent sure that I couldn’t use any of them. I couldn’t shoot a gun. I couldn’t throw a knife. I didn’t know how to hold a sword, and how could people even hold the weight of an automatic rifle? It looked really heavy.
The closer we got to Queens the more anxious I became. Red was right, I’d known that all along. I wasn’t prepared for this. All I had to count on was my wolf, and though she was awake and alert, watching everything through my eyes, I had no idea if she’d come out to fight for me. For us because this was her body, too.
And if she didn’t, I was going to die. The problem is, I was having more trouble coming to terms with that than I originally thought.
But it was okay, I told myself. Even if I didn’t make it, Amara and Red would be there. They would kill Haworth. Together, they were unstoppable. He was a vampire and she a witch who knew how to handle all kinds of strange-looking weapons. And that was the whole point. With Haworth dead, Izzy was going to be free to walk away from those people.
In the end, that’s all that mattered.
Red and Amara were trying to go over some things. I tried to participate in the conversation, but my heart wasn’t in it. They talked about who went in first and if it would be a good idea for the other to go around back, or just stay behind in case things got messy, and come in when the others least expected it.
I, on the other hand, found myself craving the company of my wolf. She was an asshole, yes, a murdering asshole, but she was me. She was comfort. She was home, a part of me just as much as my limbs—and this was not something I admitted easily. I closed my eyes to try and communicate with her in my mind, to connect with her in a way that she’d know when I was in danger. She’d know when it was time to come out and attack.
Instead, the second I closed my eyes, something tugged at my stomach, and I was thrown back in time.
The sky was silver, the clouds angry but still far away. The smell of grass and dirt was all around me. Somebody was screaming and they weren’t too far. I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. All I could do was wait.
The footsteps echoed in my head, and when I turned to the side, I saw a woman running for me with her arms wide open. She was coming from the back of a small, one-story house. Fear spread all over me, grabbing me by the throat. Making me…growl.
I tried to move my head again, but instead, I began to walk backward. On all fours.
This wasn’t me. This was my wolf. Whatever stupid dream I was having, I was inside the wolf. Another scream reached my ears, making all the hair in my body stand to attention.
And then something else moved from right behind me. That something sounded like a cry of a little baby.
The woman was coming, running for us, screaming, and all my instincts told me she should be stopped.
But before I could do anything about it, something touched me on the shoulder and my eyes opened with a jolt.
I nearly smashed my nose on the dashboard of Red’s car.
“What the hell?” said Amara. “I just touched you.”
I was breathing heavily like I’d been running for the past hour. It was dark outside, only the lights of the streets illuminating the way, but in my head, I could still see the sky was silver. I could still see that house and that woman. My wolf stirred uncomfortably. Had she had the same dream, too?
“Victoria?” Red asked, looking at me every few seconds.
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’m okay. Just a bad dream.”
“You fell asleep?” Amara asked, completely shocked.
“I must have,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes to get those images out of my head for good.
“Well, if you’re awake now, you should have these,” she said and practically threw two guns on my lap.
I shivered. “What are you doing?” I asked, panicked.
“Guns. They shoot bullets and protect you,” she said. “Have you ever shot one before?”
“No.” But now I wished I had. I could have taught myself how to shoot at least. I’d been wrapped up in such a tight bubble for the past five years, it was like it had never occurred to me that I’d ever be in danger again. Not after I ran away from home and my wolf no longer appeared to go out and kill people. I’d been so deep into blissful ignorance that I hadn’t even thought of trying to learn to defend myself.
Now, I was paying the price. In my world, if you couldn’t protect yourself, chances were you weren’t going to live long. I couldn’t just keep hiding in the human world forever and focus on my job. No, this was the real world, and I was never going to let myself forget it again.
“So, what, you just want to walk in there and hope for the best?” Amara said with a laugh.
“Pretty much, yeah,” I said, a bit pissed off. She’d hit right at home. “But, if that doesn’t work out, I shift into this really big, nasty wolf that can kill people by literally biting their heads off.”
Amara sighed. “How the hell did a girl like you end up with all the cool stuff? The awesome wolf, the humans, the Reaper—it’s not fair,” she said, but I was pretty positive she was kidding. “Speaking of which…” Again she threw something in my lap. It wa
s the not-yoyo, aka the Reaper String. I flinched at the sight of it. “In case some witch tries to spell you.”
“I’m going to ask you one last time,” Red said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
He was worried. Afraid even, and it was hard to swallow that a vampire who could move like Red could be afraid of anything.
“I am.” I wasn’t, but the time to change my mind had passed. We were already in Queens.
The property was located in Fort Totten, right at the very edge of it, according to the map on Amara’s phone. It was surrounded by large trees by the looks of it, and it was the only property within over a one-mile radius.
It was only after we passed Clearview that things went to hell.
“We’re being followed,” said Red, not exactly angry or panicked. He just sounded…different.
Both Amara and I turned in our seats to look at the cars behind us. There were three of them, but I couldn’t tell what kind from the headlights. Were they the same as the black trucks who’d found me in Manhattan?
“What do we do?” I asked, already freaking out. Maybe I didn’t know how to shoot, but I was going to get one of Amara’s guns anyway.
“We’re going to try to—”
But Red didn’t get to finish his sentence. The first gunshot pierced the night air and went straight for the back window. Amara and I lowered our heads and hid behind our seats with a scream.
“Fucking pricks!” she then shouted, and before the people chasing us began to shoot again, she grabbed the rifle and positioned it on top of the backseat.
The sound of guns firing made my head ring. My wolf howled, irritated by it, and I thought that was a good sign. Maybe she’d come out when I needed her to, after all. Because these people meant business.
“Stay down!” Red shouted, and he tried to drive as fast as he could, but it wasn’t long before Amara ran out of ammunition, and she had to reload. The people chasing us took the opportunity to shoot at the car twice as much. They must have gotten a tire because the car suddenly screeched, a nasty sound that made my teeth chatter, and then Red lost control of it. He let go of the wheel completely, and while the car spun, he grabbed me by the shoulders and somehow managed to bring me all the way to his lap.
