Chapter 33

Drew couldn’t sleep. As he tossed and turned, his brain tried to grab onto one thought that would take his mind to that something he had a sinking feeling he’d forgotten.

Finally, he gave up and jumped from the bed. It was three in the morning, and everyone else seemed to be asleep or doing whatever vampires did in the early hours of morning. He always thought that was strange. That the old myth turned out to be untrue disappointed him somehow.

Conner told him stories of when sunlight was a danger to them, but that problem had been solved ages ago. As long as they used the synthetic, sunlight didn’t hurt them. But silver, in a large enough doses, could. Now that this new mix was on the street, they were all worried.

He stopped at Michael’s door. For some reason, he was still awake. Drew heard him through the thick wooden door. He tapped twice then let himself in.

Michael sat in bed, laptop to his side and a glass of blood in his hand—working, of course. Drew took a seat in the overstuffed chair across from the bed. It had belonged to Michael’s mother, Conner had told him. He kept it here for safekeeping.

“Why are you up?” Michael hummed as he stared at the screen.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Drew replied. “Why are you up? Surfing porn?”

Michael glanced up at him then rolled his eyes. “Working, little brother.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Drew sighed. He swung his legs over the arm of the chair and sighed again. “Whatcha working on, big brother?”

“It’s sort of complicated,” he said back to the screen. “Dr. Carlisle’s research is fascinating.”

Drew rose from the chair and crossed the room. Once he was on the bed, Michael turned the computer toward him. All he saw were jumbled sections of numbers and equations, and they gave him a headache.

“What’s he trying to do?” he asked.

“I think he’s trying to create a hybrid,” Michael hummed with a look of delight and fear in his eyes.

“A what?”

“A cross between us and them.”

Drew felt his heart rate pick up speed. Michael must have heard it too because he looked up and grinned. “Is that even possible?”

“Not that I know, but I’m not a geneticist,” he shrugged. “Looks like he’s been at it for years, though.”

Michael took a long draw from the glass then set it on the nightstand. Drew wasn’t much for the smell of fresh blood, but he was used to it. Raph said, once he was turned, it would smell like a gourmet meal. He highly doubted it.

“Maybe that’s what that Tristan guy was talking about?” Drew smiled as the thought occurred to him. “Erin Sinclair was becoming a hybrid, but she couldn’t take the transformation.”

Michael rubbed his chin as he continued to stare at the screen. He nodded absently then closed the laptop. “Maybe. Raph and Sean are working on the formulas. We may have to ask the good doctor for some help. He’s gonna be pissed we didn’t tell him this already.”

“He probably failed and just abandoned the research,” Drew added. “I mean, he knew he could enhance abilities with the pills, so why mess that up by trying to create the impossible?”

He pushed from Michael’s bed, stretched, and yawned big. Michael did the same. As he turned to leave, all the thoughts in his head shut off. It was quiet and he felt calm and suddenly very sleepy.

“Turning in?” Michael asked as Drew headed for the door.

“Yeah, all that boring science stuff did the trick,” he yawned again. “I’m done.”

He closed the door and headed to his own room again. Inside, he turned off the light and crawled under his warm comforter. As he drifted off to sleep he thought he could hear the snow hit the roof high above his head. That’s stupid, he told himself as he pulled the cover over his head. He was in a deep sleep before the next snowflake fell.

 

Alex always felt the most alive in the early hours before sunrise. She had learned the smallest creatures made the loudest sounds. Worms pushed through earth and snow in search of food. Winter birds stretched wings that had covered them through the night to prepare for flight when the sun rose again. She stood at the window, glad that the snow had stopped, and waited for those first rays to appear.

Sebastian and Xavier had committed themselves to the fight, with her as their leader. David too. After San Francisco and New Orleans, they would return to Texas and begin to train for what came next—Tristan’s death.

She closed her eyes and focused. The traffic outside was still light. It was a holiday. Inside the hotel, on this floor, everyone was asleep except for Fallon. She walked from one end of the hall to the other in a sort of a quick step. Like a dancer, she balanced on her toes then dropped to her feet when she stopped. Alex could hear her groan and stretch.

On one side of Alex’s room was Sebastian’s. He slept off and on, like she did through the night. Xavier, on the other side, slept through the night like a baby. He got up once to use the bathroom. When she pulled back her thoughts, her phone vibrated on the table.

A message from Becker. He wanted to meet when they returned to Texas. Any place she wanted, his message said. Just let him know when she was home. At the end, “The Cause needs you.”

“What cause?” she hummed out loud to the empty room. “What are you into now Becker?”

She stopped her solo conversation when a noise got her attention. It came from the bedroom. The window opened, then she heard heavy boots on thick carpet. Alex slipped her bare feet into the boots she’d abandoned hours ago. In a tank and track pants, she crouched behind the loveseat and peered around it at the bedroom door.

Two muffled shots from a silencer reached her sensitive ears, then the whispered curse when the person realized that she wasn’t in the bed. The bedroom door eased open and she saw the muzzle of the gun first. With a blink of her eyes, the lamps went out before a figure came into view. In the muted darkness, that figure moved with caution toward the center of the room.

Gun held at chest level and close to the body, the masked figure swept the room twice before the mask was removed. His face was flushed from the heat inside and being covered by a wool mask. Alex thought he looked familiar now, more so than when she barely paid attention to him last night when Fallon introduced him and the other.

Alex crept back behind the small loveseat and to the other end to get behind him. When he turned to go back through the bedroom, she took him in a full nelson before he knew what was going on. He squeezed off more rounds into the ceiling then dropped the gun. They were about the same height, roughly. He bent at the waist to try shaking her loose, but she was stronger. Her feet were in the air long enough for him to spin them around and knock over everything on the desk and one of the lamps with a loud crash.

Alex hoped someone heard the noise. Suddenly, he slipped from her hold and slammed an elbow in her chest. She slammed into the wall. As she dropped to the floor, Sebastian and Xavier forced the door open, followed closely by Fallon and the other guard.

The young man took two giant leaps and was up and over the couch and through the French doors to the balcony before anyone caught up. Alex ran out on the balcony and followed him over the edge. A second building sat four feet below. He made the jump with very little effort. Alex almost missed the edge as she landed and rolled through the snow to a stop.

Like a shot, she was on her feet and close behind her would-be assassin. Sebastian and Fallon made the jump. Xavier and the other guard took the old-fashioned way down to try cutting him off.

A narrow set of stairs took Alex into a donut shop. She could hear the young man crash into everything in his path as she gave chase. At the front of the store, he jumped through the plate glass window. She followed as shards of glass pelted her bare arms.

He slipped and stumbled down the snow-covered sidewalks of New York. Central Park West had probably never seen anything like this before. Alex ran at full speed; her boots seemed to have more traction than his. When she caught him by the hood of his jacket, she jerked him back with all her strength. His feet came straight up and his head slammed the pavement first. If not for the snow, it would have most likely cracked like an egg.

Behind her, Sebastian and Fallon rushed in their direction. In the distance, Xavier and the other guard did too. Alex grabbed the young man by the front of his jacket and slammed him on someone’s Mercedes. The alarm blared.

“You missed,” she hissed at him, her breath wispy in the morning air.

He didn’t speak, but he head-butted her and that sent stars through her head. When her vision cleared, he was up and over the car like he had wings. She jumped to its roof and onto his back as he slipped again in the street. A yellow cab came to a screeching halt as they tumbled away from its tires.

With a flurry of kicks, which she blocked, he sent Alex back a few feet and onto the hood of the cab as the driver cursed them both.

“Crazy fucking kids,” he yelled and waved his fist out of the window. “What the hell!”

She heard Sebastian apologize, and then Fallon, Xavier, and the other guard surrounded them. Alex slid off the hood as the young man unzipped his jacket and shook it off. He grinned at them as the sun broke through a cloud over head.

“For The Cause,” he smiled at her.

As the rays stabbed through the clouds, light splashed over them. The young man’s skin began to darken then turn to ash as the light grew stronger. He caught fire and screamed until he disappeared into ash that turned the snow underneath him black and inky.

“Holy Christ,” they heard the driver howl. “Holy . . . did you see that?”

Fallon stepped up to the stunned driver and flashed her badge. As she dealt with him, Sebastian and Xavier stood by Alex’s side.