Chapter Thirty-Five
Telling Laura about Brian destroyed any lingering happy feelings.
Drew had been the one to utter the words, but Reyna had held Laura’s hand.
She’d been there when Laura fainted and collapsed backward.
When Laura came to, Reyna sat with her while she sobbed and held her arms around her stomach, their child growing inside of her, oblivious to what might happen to their father.
She would have sat there all day if she wasn’t required to report to Sydney’s meeting.
“I’ll stay with her,” Drew promised, taking Reyna’s seat.
Not that Laura was responding to anyone. Still, he took her hand in his.
Reyna dragged her defeated body upstairs and found Meghan pacing back and forth in front of the closed door. “What’s going on?”
“There you are!” she cried.
“I’m not late.”
“It’s not that. Have you seen Jodie?”
“No? I thought she was with you.”
“I’ve searched high and low. She wasn’t in our room when I went to sleep. She didn’t sleep in her bed. All of her clothes are gone. I don’t know what to do.” Meghan bit her lip. “Reyna, I think she left.”
Her heart sank at the words. She thought that she had gotten through to Jodie. She knew their time in Visage was remarkably different, but they were each other’s rock. The only ones who really knew what the other had endured. And she had just left?
“How is that possible?” Reyna asked.
“I think she snuck out behind the security team last night. I don’t know any other way she could have gotten out.”
“She told me she wanted to leave,” Reyna said with despair. “I thought I’d convinced her to stay.”
“This isn’t your fault, but—I don’t know how to find her.”
Reyna considered where her brave friend would disappear to. “She went to find June,” Reyna answered.
“Oh,” Meghan said, releasing her breath in a huff as if it made sense.
“Of course she did. We found an old address for her cousin right before the raid. We were going to check it out to make sure it was safe and to see if she still lived there, but we couldn’t spare the resources yet. And now…” Meghan shook her head.
“I know. Now we’re screwed.” Reyna frowned. “We have to go after her.”
“We’re needed here, and she doesn’t trust anyone else.” Meghan ran a hand through her braids. “Hell, she doesn’t trust me. I did everything I could.” A tear came into Meghan’s eye. “I don’t want her to get hurt out there.”
“We’ll have to find a way to get her back.”
“I know,” Meghan said, defeated. “I’ll talk to Sydney after the meeting, but with the huge defeat…I don’t know who we can spare.”
Reyna took her hand and squeezed. “We’ll find our girl, okay?”
Meghan nodded, straightening back to the operative Reyna had first met.
Neither of them wanted to abandon their friend, but Jodie had chosen to leave at the worst possible moment.
Who did they have that they could spare in the midst of this utter chaos and the moment when they were finally taking the fight to Visage and Harrington?
…
The plan came together over the next several days as they prepared for Penelope’s party.
In endless meetings, they hammered out all the details.
Every contingency. Every exit. Every single way things could go horribly wrong and blow up in her face.
When she wasn’t in meetings, she was on the treadmill or in the firing range with Gabe.
He’d given her a crash course in how to use a firearm.
She was far from a pro in less than a week, but at least she could handle the weapon.
She would never be faster or stronger than a vampire, but a gun could level the playing field a bit.
“It’s not going to kill them,” Gabe reminded her, adjusting her stance again. “But you’ll slow the fucker down.”
She fired again and again. She missed as often as she hit the target, but her accuracy was slowly improving.
“Aim for the biggest sections. Torso is going to be your best bet. Don’t try to get fancy. You want to keep them from reaching you or disable them enough to get away.” He corrected her arm. “Try again.”
So she did until everything ached.
“Good,” he said with a genuine smile. “Much better.”
Meghan popped her head into the firing range. “Gabe…”
Gabe grinned at Meghan. “Hey babe.”
Meghan rolled her eyes. “I need Reyna.”
“Guess that’s all the time we have,” he said, patting her back.
Reyna swallowed. “I’m not good enough.”
“Worst-case scenario only. If all goes as planned, you won’t even need this.” Gabe released the clip and broke the gun down. “I’ll be there. Try not to think about anything else.”
She nodded. “Okay. Okay.”
“Now go get pretty.”
“I’m already pretty,” she teased as she hurried toward Meghan.
They took the elevator to a room outfitted to look like a dressing room. There was a dresser full of makeup and hair products and brushes and every color of lipstick imaginable. Two garment bags hung against the far wall.
“Whoa,” Reyna whispered.
“Yeah. I have a slight hair and makeup obsession.” Meghan pointed at the chair. “Now, sit. I have to make you presentable for tonight.” Meghan tossed her a button-up shirt. “Put that on so you don’t mess up your hair when you change after.”
Several hours later, both Meghan and Reyna were presentable for Penelope’s New Year’s Eve ball.
Reyna wore a black sequined halter dress with a full tulle skirt from the waist down that had pockets allowing her access to the thigh holsters that held a handgun on each leg.
Her dark hair was down around her shoulders in supermodel waves, and Meghan had mastered a cat eye and smoky makeup that transformed her face.
Meghan looked like a movie star in a slinky gold glitter dress that sparkled with every movement.
Her long red box braids were in an elaborate updo, and her light-brown skin glittered with a matching gold shimmer.
Tony came in for the final touches. They each had an earpiece, a microphone, a hidden camera in their bodice, and a diamond-encrusted ID bracelet that doubled as a tracking device. Spy 101.
“One last thing,” Meghan said. She handed Reyna a box. Inside was a delicate black lace mask with sewn-in beads and glittery sequins.
“Wow,” she whispered.
Reyna let Meghan secure it to her face. When she looked in the full-length mirror, she hardly recognized herself. She looked like some dark ethereal creature.
Death. She was death, come to claim her next victim.
Meghan nodded her approval. “Killer. Ready?”
Reyna turned away from the mirror and smiled grimly. She was ready.
A knock on the door surprised them both. Washington stood on the other side.
He seemed out of breath. “I had to come tell you that I have results for you.”
Meghan glanced between them. “We only have a few minutes, Reyna. I’m going to make sure everything else is set up. Find me after this.”
“I will.” She turned back to Washington. “What results?”
“It’s a scientific breakthrough! I realized I’ve seen blood like yours once before. Very early on when I was first studying blood type matches. Actually, the very idea for the cure came to me because I found a perfect blood match.”
Reyna tilted her head to the side. “A blood type match? Aren’t there millions of them?”
“Yes. But this was a blood match.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A blood type is exactly what everyone already knows, but a blood match is a snowflake. It’s a fingerprint. It doesn’t have to match the blood type—it matches the blood composition itself. It is an extremely rare, one-to-one match between two people’s blood.”
Her heart stopped beating. “What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the reason Beckham can sense your blood has nothing to do with him drinking it. William shouldn’t be able to sense you, because there is only one perfect blood match for you.”
Reyna held up her hand. “Hold on. Harrington can’t sense me?”
“As far as I know, no. Though you should still be on your guard tonight. There might be more to your blood than I know,” Washington warned with a stern look. “But the fact that you and Beckham found each other is truly incredible.”
“Wait, so…Beckham is my…blood match?”
“A once-in-a-lifetime match. I never even considered looking for it again, because it’s so uncommon.”
“What does that even mean? I thought he was O negative. I thought I was Rh null. And when he bit me the first time…he reacted strongly,” she said to put it mildly.
“Well, he would react strongly. It had to be the best blood he’d ever tasted in his life.”
“So…because we’re matched, he couldn’t resist. It didn’t make him go feral?”
“Assuredly not. He should be able to drink your blood with no negative side effects. And I suspect with many positive ones.” Washington’s smile widened. “I believe the concept is very similar to a soulmate.”
“A soulmate,” she said, the breath rushing out of her. The word sounded impossible. A fairy tale. And yet, Washington wasn’t one for fancy. He was a scientific man, and if he was using the term, then he meant it.
“Yes. Your one true match. Beckham claims to be able to sense you at a great distance. Have you ever been able to sense him?”
“I don’t think so.” Though…had she ever tried? She’d always had an awareness of Beckham. The knowledge of him. The feeling of him. They had clicked. Even from day one, through her terror. “Though…I don’t know. Maybe.”
“We’ll do more testing later. I simply wanted to bring you the good news.”
“Thank you, Washington,” she said and meant it.
“And I apologize about what happened with Jodie. I heard about her leaving and fear that might have been partially my doing. I can’t change my past with her or William, but I do wish that it hadn’t scared her away.”
“Me too,” Reyna said with a hitch in her throat.
“Let me wish you luck. Be careful out there.”
“I will.”
She turned back to the door with her head in a daze as the realization of what Washington had said washed over her again. Soulmate.
“And Reyna?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t underestimate William.”