Chapter Fifteen
“You’re saying that you could actually feel Beckham’s emotions?” Washington asked. He rubbed his hands together and looked giddy. “Not just felt an increase in your own emotions but distinguished your emotions from his?”
“Yes,” Reyna said. “It was definitely different.”
“What triggered this?”
A blush crept up her neck and onto her cheeks.
“Oh,” Washington said. “I see.”
“Also blood,” Reyna added. “He drank my blood.”
“Good. He needs to. Where is he anyway?”
Reyna waved her hand. “Preparing. Do you have any theories about this? Do you think it’s the blood? Does it mean when he drinks my blood it’s amplified?”
“It’s possible. But of course many things are possible in this scenario.”
“Yeah. I mean, the first time he sensed me was when Penny was having her mayoral banquet. He hadn’t drank my blood in months at that time.”
“But you also weren’t that far away either.”
“True.”
“So, perhaps the blood does act as an amplifier. It also could be that your relationship itself amplifies the abilities you’re developing.”
“A blood amplifier,” she mused softly.
“I’ve been investigating your blood match and how you each react to the other.
It’s quite extraordinary. Most blood when combined is like a blood transfusion.
It either accepts the blood as the correct type or it rejects it.
As you know, the correct blood type between a human and a vampire is important because it allows us to retain human consciousness.
Some of us have the preternatural ability to do so already, but many of my kind were brutal murderers and the more who were made, the harder it was to conceal them.
” He tsked in frustration. “The interesting thing about your blood is that when the blood is combined, it neither accepts it nor rejects the other.”
“How is that possible?”
“The blood is perfectly matched but instead of assimilating, it links.”
“Links?” Reyna asked with a bewildered expression.
“Yes. One of your red blood cells attaches itself to one of his red blood cells. It creates entirely different blood.”
“But what does that mean? What are the implications of it?”
“I’ve only had it a short while. I’m still amazed that this is even happening.”
Now Reyna understood his giddiness. Washington discovered an entirely new form of blood and was on the way to a breakthrough in modern hematology.
“Do you think that our blood connecting in that way is part of the reason we can sense each other?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
Reyna’s head turned toward the door before Beckham walked through it. It was a little freaky knowing exactly where he was before she actually knew.
He tilted his head to the side. She nodded, then he disappeared once more.
“Extraordinary. You knew he was there before he entered, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I did.” She hopped up from the stool she’d been sitting on. “Thanks again.”
Reyna left Washington in the laboratory with his experiments.
Her mind was still filtering through all the information she’d learned.
A blood amplifier. That was intense. It meant Beckham was going to have to drink a lot more of her blood to test this out.
She didn’t think he’d be thrilled with that.
Reyna pulled on her heavy winter clothing and then met Beckham at the back door. Zoya was discussing something with him in a low tone.
“Everything all right?” Reyna asked.
“We’re ready to go,” Beckham said.
“Sir,” Zoya said.
“Just be careful.”
Zoya nodded her head once.
Reyna followed Beckham out into the cold. “Are you upset that they’re going to go check the camps?”
“No. My circle is perfectly capable.”
“But you don’t like that Jodie and Meghan and Tye are going with them?”
Beckham arched an eyebrow. “Just get in the car.”
“They’ll be fine. My circle is perfectly capable too. They’re just taking some pictures. Why are you so tense?”
Beckham faced her fully. She nearly ran into him. He caught her by the shoulders and then tilted her chin up. “Tense is in my nature. You should calm down.”
Reyna released a deep breath. “Okay.”
Beckham opened the door to the van and she climbed inside. The engine was already running and Gerard sat in the driver’s seat. Reyna crawled into the backseat and was surprised to find Gabe seated there already.
“Hey,” he said with a wink.
Beckham hopped into the passenger seat. “What is he doing here?” he asked Gerard.
“Making contact with someone I think can help,” Gabe said. “Plus, if I was in that house another fucking minute, I’d go insane.”
“Who is this contact?” Beckham asked.
Gabe shook his head. “It’s a guy who knows a guy. Last resort kind of person. He’s the one you go to if you want information, and we need more information on Harrington. If anyone knows, it’s him.”
“Okay, let’s get moving,” Reyna said. Beckham and Gabe didn’t get along, and they had places to be.
They pulled away from the mansion on the hill and down the road, which had been shoveled all the way to the gate and beyond. Reyna did not want to know whose unfortunate job that had been.
“We should move into the city. This driving an hour to do anything fucking blows,” Gabe grumbled. “You’re a bajillionaire, right, Beckham? Don’t you have somewhere we can hide out?”
“If I had a place like that, we would already be there,” he said calmly. He pulled out a phone and typed away at it. Just like old times.
Gabe grumbled under his breath. She heard a few choice curse words, but he dropped the subject.
The rest of the drive was mercifully silent. Gerard dropped Gabe off first, a few blocks away from his club, Five Points, which was a human night club and fighting ring. It also dealt in drugs and had for a while been a black-market blood bank. Being head of the Irish mob had its perks.
Beckham slid his phone into his pocket, relief evident now that Gabe was gone.
She wondered if she could sense that in him. She let it come to her in the way that feeling his presence came to her: gentle and effortless. There he was, sitting right in front of her. His emotions were locked down, but ringed with fading annoyance. She was right. He still didn’t trust Gabe.
Reyna got lost in the feeling. She knew how Beckham felt about her. Believed him when he said he loved her. This was what he never unleashed. It felt like she was swimming in even the smallest emotional feeling.
A hand brushed against her knee. Her eyes jerked open. She’d been so lost in his emotions that she hadn’t even sensed him tuning in to her.
“Don’t do that,” he said harshly.
Reyna retreated.
“Not here.”
Reyna nodded. She put her own emotions away and locked them up in a filing cabinet like Beckham did. It was better to hold on to Beckham’s calm and confidence.
Gerard parked the car on a slushy street. The city had plowed and de-iced the roads. Businesses were open. Things were returning to normal. It felt so distant from the country, where they’d been residing.
Beckham nodded his head at Gerard before slipping out of the front seat and helping her out of the back. They left Gerard with the idling car. Reyna linked arms with Beckham as they walked down the street.
“I didn’t think I’d miss the city,” she told him. “I always hated it after my uncle abandoned us.”
“It’s easier to be anonymous in the city.”
“As if you’ve ever been anonymous.”
He cracked one of his rare smiles. “I can blend into the darkness, Little One.”
Reyna rolled her eyes at him and walked with him down the rest of the alley. He knocked on a side door. When nothing happened, he tried the handle and crushed the lock on his way inside.
“Wait,” Beckham said, holding his hand up to her when she moved to follow him.
She stilled with her foot about to cross the threshold, and then she smelled it.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Blood.”
The tangy rusty smell permeated the air. Even before she was all the way into the safe house, she could smell its pungent aroma. This was one of the larger safe houses. They’d been hoping to find upward of fifty people in this place. Reyna was terrified to see what waited for them.
Still, she couldn’t just stand there. She steeled herself and hung on to Beckham’s strong will. Then she walked forward, pulling the door closed behind her.
Bodies lay sprawled on the floor. So many bodies. Piled on top of one another and haphazardly arranged. As if someone had killed them, then thrown them aside like trash, again. In comparison, the other murders had been almost civil. Throats slit for a quick death and cryptic messages.
This was grotesque. Deep puncture wounds in their necks and arms and wrists. As if multiple vampires had been let loose in a feeding frenzy.
Reyna covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
Beckham didn’t say anything. He strode into the room and observed what had happened.
Reyna felt like her feet were buried in cement.
Staring at all the dead bodies made her feel queasy.
She would never get used to the blood and death.
These had been people. Living, breathing people and vampires had mutilated them.
They had no care for the lives they were living. Humans were food. Nothing more.
She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and see what Beckham was seeing. With a quick scan of the room, she took in the number of bodies vaguely and the way they were arranged. She focused on the sheer number of bite marks.
“This is either a newborn or starved vampire. Or both,” Beckham said, pointing out a young woman with eight visible bite marks on her.
“How…how can you tell?”
“Most vampires go for the throat. It’s the easiest and most effective spot. Newly made and starved vampires have no conscience whatsoever. They’re merely eating machines. They ravage prey until their system is full of blood. Then they begin to return to themselves.”
“How horrible.”
“Newborns usually snap out of it in a few weeks once they’ve eaten enough, especially if there are other vampires around. But starving vampires can be strung along like this—”
A scream pierced the air and Beckham stopped abruptly. Reyna’s head snapped to the back stairs. She darted after Beckham, who moved at vamp super speed. She had made it to the top stair when she saw Beckham struggling with a stray vampire.
She looked beyond it and saw a group of Elle members protecting the children behind them with a human barricade. Her heart went out to them. How long had they been enduring this? Watching the others die one by one and not knowing how long it could hold the vampire off.
“It’s okay. We’re going to get you out of here,” Reyna reassured them.
Whimpers and cries were heard, as relief flooded their systems. A few broke into tears as the fear relented. The children collapsed into waiting arms. A few whispered thank-yous were spoken.
Finally, Beckham restrained the vampire and Reyna reluctantly glanced away from the poor children.
Beckham had his hands on either side of the vampire’s face, prepared to snap the neck of the foul beast who had murdered so many, who had clearly been sent here by Harrington to finish off his dirty work.
But when she made eye contact with the vampire, she gasped.
“Beckham, no!”
His eyes locked on hers in confusion. The vampire snarled angrily, trying to break Beckham’s hold.
“What?” Beckham demanded.
“It’s…it’s Brian.”