Reyna stared blankly at the wall. She had never felt more defeated. Drew was out there somewhere. She didn’t know where Brian was or what had happened to any of the other guys that were out on the mission. All she knew was that it had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
“Gabe, get Tony in here. Now,” Sydney snapped, immediately launching into action.
Gabe flew out of his seat, rushing for the tech guy. He gave her a passing look of sympathy before leaving the room. But she hardly noticed.
“I’m going to find Meghan. If we have injured…” Washington said, trailing off.
“Go,” Sydney barked.
He hurried toward the door, but stopped to put his hand on Reyna’s arm. “You should take a seat. I will have Meghan bring you water. You’re in shock.”
She shook him off and turned away. Shock. Yes. That was the correct word. She knew it for truth and yet couldn’t seem to process anything past that.
To Sydney’s credit she didn’t try to console Reyna. Perhaps she knew that she was past that. Or that she had caused this. Or maybe…she just didn’t care.
People flitted in and out of the room. Coming and going. Tony tried to fix the radio, listen in to microphones he’d attached to people, fixed earpieces. Nothing worked. All the cameras were down. All the radios were out. It was like an electromagnetic pulse had gone off inside the camp they were infiltrating.
Or it was a technological black hole.
Tony’s head jerked up finally. “Someone just pulled into the parking lot.”
Gabe was out of the room in a second. Reyna’s heart raced, wondering who was there. What could possibly have happened.
“It’s Tye,” Tony confirmed. “He just scanned in.”
Reyna deflated. Tye. Thank God. She was so relieved for her friend. He had helped her escape. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if…
She didn’t even know what would happen. Caught? Captured? Killed?
She shuddered at that thought.
Tye burst into the room. Gabe was holding him up and he looked like utter shit. He was favoring his right ankle. His clothes were covered in black soot. He coughed and collapsed into a chair. Meghan was at his side in an instant.
“Oh my God, Tye,” she gasped. Her hands were fluttering over him. All of her calm demeanor had dissolved upon seeing him in such condition.
“I’m okay, Meghan. It’s just my ankle. And I inhaled something.” He coughed again violently. “Knocked most of us out, but I covered my face with my jacket and got far enough away.”
“Tell us what happened,” Sydney said, only slightly gentler than her normal command.
Reyna took a wary step forward. Her eyes were wide with terror and barely concealed hope.
“It was a decoy,” he gasped. He clutched his lungs. Meghan brought him a glass of water. He took a long drink, draining the entire glass before continuing. “They knew we were coming the entire time. I don’t know how they did, but they did. We showed up at the lands. We crossed the property line. I should have known it was too easy to get past the guards on duty. Too easy to get over their fence and inside the perimeter. All my training for shit.” He shook his head in exasperation and ran a hand back through his spiky black hair. “We split up. Carpenter took one team. I took another. Xavier took the third.”
“Carpenter,” she whispered.
“Brian,” Tye said with a grimace.
Reyna hadn’t known that he was leading a team. It made her even more sick.
“My team had only just made it inside when we noticed that none of our comms were working. That was my first sign. But when we got inside, it was empty.”
“Empty?” Sydney asked.
“Just a warehouse. I mean, it had shit in it. But like building supplies. Guarded and all that shit for some building supplies. They’d set us up. And then the smoke rained down.” He coughed again, trying to expel whatever toxins they’d hit him with. “I called a retreat. Tried to warn the other teams, but there was no way.”
“What happened to your team?” Meghan whispered.
He shook his head. “We scattered.”
“You had a rendezvous point, right?” Gabe asked.
Tye nodded. “No one showed.”
“Fuck,” Gabe spat.
Meghan covered her mouth. Reyna’s eyes welled with tears. Washington sat back hard in his chair.
“I don’t know if anyone else got out.”
“Drew did,” Reyna said softly. Tye’s eyes snapped to her. “He was able to radio us right before everything went out.”
“Anyone else?”
“We don’t know,” Sydney answered for her.
There was a long silence in the room as the possibilities swept over them. An ambush. All communication down. Tye and Drew the only people accounted for. It would be an incredible loss to their cause.
“We should get that leg looked at,” Meghan said.
“I’m fine,” Tye said.
Meghan glared at him. “You need medical attention. We have a long night ahead of us. I don’t want you to do more damage to yourself than necessary.”
He sighed and then relented. “Fine.”
“Gabe, help me get him upstairs.”
The trio retreated, leaving the bomb that Tye had just dropped in the room. Reyna’s heart was in her throat as she realized that she’d have to wait longer to get more information about her brothers.
“We’re going to need to interrogate Everett,” Sydney said. “He set us up for this. We need to know all the information he has. I’m going to give Gabe the go for whatever methods prove fruitful.”
Reyna’s head snapped to her. “Everett didn’t know.”
“He clearly did. He told you it was a trap.”
“He pieced it together when I told him that they had gone there. He didn’t know before then. Why would he tell me it was an ambush? He wouldn’t want me to know that he was involved.”
“He wants you to trust him. So providing you with key information once it was already past time that it could be of value is an easy way to do so.”
“I really don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
“Either he was manipulated or he manipulated us,” Sydney said evenly. “Either way, we will find out tonight.”
It was nearly dawn when Gabe returned to the conference room.
Reyna had finally sat down. Her head resting on her hands. Her eyes drooping from lack of sleep. And yet she wasn’t tired. Just exhausted.
“Either he’s trained to sustain this,” Gabe said, flexing his fist and revealing the split knuckles, “or he really didn’t know what he was leading us into.”
Reyna smiled faintly. She’d been right. But as soon as it was there, it disappeared. Everett’s involvement didn’t change anything. Her brothers were still unaccounted for. Everyone else was gone other than Tye, who Meghan had ordered into a chair at the table when he wouldn’t cease pacing.
“Lower level access requested,” Tony said in the same tone he’d been using all day.
“What?” Reyna gasped. Her head popped up.
“Hold. Let me get that camera up.”
He typed furiously on his computer. Everyone crowded in around him, hoping to get the first glimpse. The computer flickered and then the monitor revealed a person.
Reyna’s breath released in a whoosh. Her legs gave out and she clutched at the table. “Drew.”
“Should I grant him access?” Tony asked Sydney.
“Gabe, go and meet him, then yes,” Sydney said.
Reyna darted to her feet. “I’m going with him.”
“You will remain here while we assess Drew and make sure there are no more threats,” Sydney said
“You want a threat?” Reyna snarled. “Just try to keep me from my brother.”
Then without a backward glance she stormed from the room. Gabe dashed after her. He put a hand on her shoulder to move into place beside her. But neither of them let up. They raced down the stairs. Their breathing in tandem with their movements. He was faster, but he didn’t let her get behind as they finally hit the lower level floor where Drew had come in.
Gabe spoke into a radio. “We’re here.”
“Access: three, two, one,” Tony counted down.
The door slid open.
Drew collapsed forward onto the floor. Reyna ran to him, cradling his head in her arms. She pushed his fine hair out of his eyes.
“Drew,” she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re alive. You’re okay now. You’re here.”
She barely noticed Gabe check the underground garage entrance before manually shutting and locking the door back up.
“He’s alone,” he said.
“Drew, it’s Rey. I’m here.”
“Rey,” he muttered, coughing up the same stuff that Tye had inhaled.
“Yeah, big brother, it’s me. I’m here. You’re safe.”
“Hey man,” Gabe said, leaning forward. “How did you get here? Did you see anyone else?”
Drew pushed himself up onto his elbows. His eyes were red and hazy. “I…I walked and…I’m alone.” He coughed again. It was so hard that she thought he might cough up his lung. “Where is everyone else?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Gabe said.
Drew groaned and rolled in on himself.
“Hey, hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Reyna asked.
“Shoulder.”
Reyna looked down at this shoulder and cursed. “He’s been shot. We need to get him upstairs. He needs medical attention.”
“No,” Drew managed. “No, I need…Laura.”
“Laura?” Reyna gasped. Horror sank in. “Why?”
“Rey, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “Don’t be sorry.”
“Brian.”
Gabe radioed back to the conference room. “We need medical here. Carpenter has been shot in the shoulder. Plus smoke inhalation.”
“Laura,” Drew repeated. “I have to tell Laura.”
He struggled to his feet, but Gabe put his hand on his good shoulder, pushing him back down to the ground. “Hold it there, buddy. You can tell her when you’re patched up.”
“I have to tell her,” he repeated, slipping in and out of conscious as he collapsed back onto the floor.
“Tell her what?” Reyna asked.
“They got Brian,” he whispered. “They captured Brian.”
Then Drew passed out.
Drew was rushed to the medical wing with Meghan and Washington both suiting up to remove the bullet from his shoulder. Reyna sat in the waiting room with Gabe as it all happened. She knew that she should tell Laura. That she should get Jodie. That anything else should probably matter at that moment. But…it didn’t.
All that mattered was that Drew was in surgery.
And that Brian was gone.
Gone.
Her heart broke. Shattered into a million pieces and scattered all over the floor. Gone was such a simple word. A word that didn’t mean half of what she was feeling.
When she’d joined Visage, she’d done it for her brothers. All of this had been for them. And in the end, she was safe and they were fucked. What the hell had she done? What the hell had she brought them into?
She didn’t know how long she sat there when suddenly Beckham was there. Tears fell from her eyes as he picked her up and crushed her to him. She put her arms around his neck and his wrapped around her waist. She stayed like that, letting him hold her, giving him all her grief.
His lips landed on her hair. “Oh Little One.”
“Brian,” she choked out.
“I heard.”
“It’s my fault.”
“No.”
“If I hadn’t joined Visage, they wouldn’t be here.”
“No,” Beckham repeated more firmly. He pulled back to look down into her red-rimmed eyes. “Do not place the blame on anyone but the person who deserves it—William Harrington.”
“Can we kill him now?”
“Yes.” The murdering vampire who had single-handedly taken over a kingdom stood before her. And she was glad for it. She would need him to win this war.
“Good.”
His thumbs stroked across her cheeks, wiping away her tears. “Don’t let them break you.”
“Only you,” she whispered.
His lips were tender against hers. A direct contrast to his normal behavior. It settled her in a way nothing else had been able to.
“There is a meeting. It will not begin without you.”
“Will you wait with me?”
“To the end of time.”
Meghan came out of surgery. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her hands shook as she adjusted the bun on the top of her head.
“He’s fine,” she told Reyna. “He told us the same information that Tye did. I think he inhaled more smoke than Tye though. We gave him a sedative so that he’d sleep. He’ll have to wait a few hours to tell Laura.”
“Thank you,” Reyna said, hugging Meghan. “For everything.”
“Of course.” She ran a hand over her face. “What a night.”
“Becks said there’s a meeting.”
She nodded. “I should check in with Jodie first. She’s been cagey lately.”
“Yeah. I know. Let me know how she is.” Meghan stumbled forward a step and Reyna caught her. “Hey, maybe you should get some sleep. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead on your feet.”
“Everyone else is still awake. I can make it.”
“When did you last sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not a vampire. Leave patients to Washington, okay?”
“Maybe just a few hours,” she said reluctantly before departing.
Reyna walked into the room. She played with Drew’s hair where he slept on a cot in the corner. She kissed his forehead. “We’re going to get Brian back, Drew. We’re going to kill the monster who did this. We’re going to fix everything. I promise.”
Vengeance filled her cold heart. Savage and wild. Eager to devour anything that got in her way.
Beckham saw the look on her face and offered her his hand. She took it, drinking in his strength as a beacon to ground her. The anger and Beckham were the only things keeping her afloat right now. If she gave up either, she didn’t know where she’d be.
They returned to the conference room where this had all started. Sydney remained at the head of the table. Tony had his computer up in front of him, typing away frantically still. Gabe had returned and Tye sat with a bandaged ankle next to him.
To Reyna’s surprise and distaste, Penelope was also in attendance. Her eyes drifted down to where Beckham still held Reyna’s hand. She pursed her lips, then looked away.
Washington followed Beckham and Reyna into the room.
“As many of you know,” Sydney began, “early this evening we sent a scouting team to look into the reported farming camp. That all went wrong. It was an ambush. They knew we were coming. They planted the information for us to find. Which means we are no closer to locating the actual farming camps, we don’t know what the plans are to utilize these camps, and we have no idea how it will be implemented.”
“What do we know?” Penelope asked curtly.
Sydney shot furious eyes at her. “That nearly a dozen of our top soldiers were either taken or killed at this decoy camp. They are MIA. And they clearly wanted us to know about this. They sent Everett to us knowing he would reveal the information.”
“Then how do we know that there actually is a feeding camp?” Penelope asked. “Perhaps it was all just a lie to make us look a fool.”
“It’s not,” Beckham said. “I found correspondence at Visage with coded information about it. Once I knew what I was looking for, I could find it. They’re doing this. I don’t know when or where.”
“Which means Harrington no longer trusts you,” Sydney said. “Which means you’re out.”
Everyone was silent at the realization that their top double agent was out of the game. But it didn’t faze Reyna.
She stood and slapped her hands on the table. “Then there’s only thing we can do. Only one thing we must do. We must stop the farms any way that we can. We cannot let them happen.”
“And what do you propose?” Penelope asked with a sneer.
“We create chaos. We kill Harrington.”