Chapter Thirty-Three
Well, fuck, Harrington was stupid enough to let Bronwyn out.
The last time Reyna had come face-to-face with her, she’d been smartly locked away where she couldn’t hurt anyone but herself. She’d been uncontrollable. She was still the only other vampire who had ever bitten Reyna.
Reyna felt her muscles freeze as she stared up at Bronwyn from where she’d landed on the floor.
“Fuck,” Beckham spat into the earpiece.
Oh shit.
Beckham hadn’t seen his sister in fifteen years.
He’d mourned her death. He’d hated himself for what he’d done to her.
Now here she was. And his first look at her was through the camera attached to Reyna, on a tiny screen in an SUV.
She felt his emotions like a roller coaster through his controlled exterior.
He was wrath.
He was regret.
He was vengeance.
He was murder.
Reyna shuddered under the weight of his emotions. How much he wanted to rush in and murder Harrington for what he was doing to Bronwyn. For using her again. For letting her out. For hiding her from him.
“Don’t,” Reyna gasped. “Please don’t.”
She was speaking to Beckham through the earpiece, but it was Bronwyn who heard her.
“Oh my pet”—Bronwyn lifted Reyna’s chin up at a sharp angle—“we meet again.”
The same danger that Reyna had witnessed in her eyes the first time they met hadn’t lessened an ounce. Why wasn’t she contained? She was a danger to everyone around her.
A shudder ran through Bronwyn. “Don’t like the smell.”
She took a step back and snarled. Her head whipped to the side, and she grabbed onto a metal table, and her nails dug points into it as if it were aluminum.
“So wrong,” she spat. “Yellow and purple and the stars are listening.”
She teetered from foot to foot a second before grasping Reyna by the front of her T-shirt. Bronwyn glanced at it and grinned like a cat.
“L. L. L,” she singsonged. “All wrapped in a bow.”
Reyna had momentarily forgotten that they’d spray-painted the Elle logo onto her shirt, a cursive L in yellow with a circle around it. Her jacket had fallen open when she’d been dragged up the stairs and now it was visible.
“Bronwyn, please, I know that you’re in there.”
But she had retreated back into whatever place was trapped in her brain. “Up!” she shouted.
“Please,” Reyna begged.
Bronwyn flashed her fangs and then grabbed Reyna roughly by the shoulders.
She hoisted her off of her feet and then dropped her back down, jarring Reyna’s teeth.
Beckham cursed violently in her ear, a constant stream of profanity and anger.
She prayed that he didn’t react exactly how Harrington wanted him to.
That he didn’t come barreling in here and confront Bronwyn.
Bronwyn hummed a nursery rhyme to herself as she patted Reyna down. “Don’t need these,” she said as she discarded two knives strapped to Reyna’s forearms.
She found a third blade holstered down her back, then the two guns attached to her thighs, and a lock pick in her pocket. Bronwyn casually tossed the items into a container. Then continued her perusal.
“Oh bad toy. Bad, bad toy.” Bronwyn found the earpiece, popped it out of its place, and then smashed it under her foot. “No other toys allowed.”
Reyna blew out slowly. It was okay. She hadn’t thought that they’d let her keep the earpiece. It’d been nice while it lasted.
Then Bronwyn ran her hand over the video camera. It met the same fate. Finally she found another smaller knife in her boot and a tracker. Reyna winced at the loss of that. Not that she wasn’t a beacon already for Beckham, but they’d hoped that would be of value if they took her too far away.
Too late now.
She hated the loss of Beckham being able to hear and see what was happening to her, but at least they had each other. She tried to broadcast clearly to him that everything was okay. Or as okay as it could be. She could still sense that he was in the van, but for how long?
“Any other tricks up your pretty little sleeves?” Bronwyn asked. She made a predatory circle around Reyna. “I like the way the music sings in battle. It suddenly all makes sense. All the other noise is gone and I can finally hear.”
“This makes sense to you?”
Bronwyn tilted her head to the side. “Battle is what I’m built for. Can you hear it?”
Reyna tried to listen to what Bronwyn was talking about, but there was nothing different. Just the din noise in the background of fighting. Fighting that she needed to stop.
Bronwyn’s hands were in fists in front of her and they started to shake. Her head swiveled side to side as if she listened to a song only she could hear.
“You need help,” Reyna said. “We can…we can get you help.”
Bronwyn hummed louder.
“Beckham would help you.”
Her eyes snapped open. Something like lucidity came back in her black eyes. Her black bob swished around her chin at a haphazard angle. Her spine straightened to her considerable height. For a second—a small second—she almost looked human.
“Nooooo!” Bronwyn screamed. She put her hands on her head and shook back and forth. “No. Not then. Death and death and death. And say hi to mom. Cut and slice and burn. Murder. Turn it around. Show me how. Do it again. And again.”
She mumbled again and again until she crouched in on herself, all sanity forgotten. Reyna swallowed, torn between leaving Bronwyn behind and escaping now that she had the chance. There was no way to reach her, and it was hard to see her like this.
Reyna took a breath and then darted for the door. She almost had her hand on the handle when Bronwyn realized what was happening. Suddenly Bronwyn was upon her, dragging her back.
“Bad pet. Not how we act.”
Reyna cried out as pain lanced up her arm from Bronwyn’s grip. Blood seeped out of her veins as Bronwyn’s nails dug deep into her skin. Shit. Her blood. It was going to cause a frenzy if other vampires smelled it. It was so sickly sweet that it attracted them like moths to a flame.
Bronwyn stared down at the wound as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. Then she threw Reyna’s arms away from her.
“Rotten! Trash! Sick!” Bronwyn gagged as the smell of Reyna’s blood assaulted her. “Make it stop!”
Reyna clamped down on the wound. She couldn’t exactly ask Beckham to heal this. They couldn’t show their hand to Harrington. But fuck, it was going to drive Bronwyn mad. Fuck it. She’d have to wait. She’d have to endure a little longer.
Bronwyn had stopped shrieking and was staring at Reyna from a crouch on the ground. “You hear them too.”
“Yes,” Reyna lied.
“I was built for an army. Battle is my lullaby. Murder is my fairy tale,” Bronwyn muttered.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I haven’t had an army in a long time. No battles. No murder. Just voices. So many voices.”
“I’m sorry.” Reyna’s heart broke for the girl that Beckham had shattered into so many pieces she could only find herself surrounded by violence and death.
“Why are they so loud around you? They should be quiet. I can hear the battle cries below. The sweet scent of destruction on the wind.”
“I remind you of him,” Reyna said.
“No,” Bronwyn said. She straightened again and stared at her. “No.”
“You can smell Beckham on me. You can hear his voice in me. You can feel your brother when you are near me. The voices are louder because of him. He did this to you.”
“Stop,” Bronwyn commanded.
“He did and he’s so sorry. He wants to help. He still loves you.”
“I said stop!” Bronwyn counted loudly as if it would drown out the memories that Reyna brought back to her.
“You can’t change the past, but you two can have a future.”
Bronwyn ceased counting. Her eyes slid to her like a viper ready to strike. Then she sprang toward Reyna. She grasped her by the throat, crashing her body back against the table she’d indented earlier. Bronwyn held her aloft with her feet dangling off the ground.
Reyna gasped and choked. She struggled to free herself from Bronwyn’s solid grip, but it was useless. She couldn’t budge her. As she kicked and clawed at Bronwyn’s hands, she realized that she might die. That she might have finally underestimated Harrington’s ferocity.
“Bronwyn!” Beckham snapped from the doorway.
Time slowed to a standstill. Bronwyn released Reyna, letting her fall into a heap on the ground. Reyna gasped for breath, coughing as air filled her lungs again. Her awareness of him registered and healing flooded in. Her wound knitting back together in a rush.
Bronwyn faced her brother. Every movement rigid and deliberate. “Beckham,” she said softly. A child’s voice. One who hadn’t seen her brother in fifteen long years. And hadn’t seen beyond the monster within him in much much longer.
“I’m here, Bronwyn. I’m finally here.”
“You let them take me,” she accused.
“I believed you were dead.” He took a step toward Reyna. “You were my second, my sister. Do you think I would not have torn apart the world to get you back?”
“You left me to rot.”
Another step closer to Reyna. He circled Bronwyn, getting Reyna out of danger.
“I mourned you.”
Bronwyn laughed. A discordant, high-pitched squeal.
“Fifteen long years and I missed you every day.”
“You do not feel,” Bronwyn accused.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Stop.”
“What I did to you, it was wrong. I’m so sorry. You are still my sister.”
“No!” Bronwyn assessed the situation as Beckham finally put himself directly in front of Reyna. “You are not a person,” Bronwyn said, tilting her head sideways. “And she is not leaving.”
“Your quarrel is with me,” Beckham said instead. “One last battle for the ages, B?”
“The girl stays.”
“Nonnegotiable.”
Reyna glanced between Beckham and Bronwyn. When Reyna had first met Bronwyn, it had been such a blur. She hadn’t even known until weeks later that she was Beckham’s sister. Now seeing them so close together, it was obvious.
“Reyna, go. Now,” Beckham barked.
“But what about you?”
“I will take care of this. Be ready.”
Reyna gritted her teeth, took one last look at the stalemate between siblings, and sprinted toward the door.
She hated leaving Beckham behind, but what could she do?
He was supposed to be in a van a mile away.
She’d been so fucking freaked out by Bronwyn she hadn’t even felt him moving closer toward her.
And then he’d healed her, which meant he could be weakened. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No, she couldn’t think about that. Beckham could handle himself.
Reyna didn’t stop sprinting. She knew where she was going.
She’d studied the map well enough to have a mental guide for which way to go.
It would be easier with Beckham directing her, but she’d done her homework.
Still worse the way to Harrington’s office was empty of people.
He wanted her to find him. But there was no backing down.
Not with battles raging behind her. She had to finish this.
That was the only way. Cut off the serpent’s head to scatter his army.
When she reached the last hallway, she skidded to a stop.
“Bonjour, ma cherie,” Roland said. His thick French accent sweeping over the words as his eyes did the same to her battered body.
Reyna put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
“Did you believe you could stroll through these walls unnoticed? Barge in here and save the day?”
She had no response for him. She wanted to spit in his face. He was waiting for her. He had clearly double-crossed them. But at the end of the day, it didn’t change anything. She still had to see Harrington.
“You’ve played your part. Now your fight is up. Surrender and he may be merciful.”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” she said sarcastically. “Has that ever actually worked on someone?”
“Or I could kill you right here.”
“Now we’re talking.” She stood up and began to stride toward him. “You’re standing between me and that door. Either get out of my way or do something about it.”
“You have no weapon. Beckham is occupied. It is just you—a weak, defenseless human—against two of the most powerful vampires in known existence. What do you seek to gain from walking into that room?”
“Justice,” she spat in his face. She would not back down. She would not walk away. She could speak Roland’s language. She knew what made him tick. “Now open the damn door.”
He laughed seductively. “I love when you order me around.”
“Liar.”
“Oh yes, I’d prefer to rip your throat out to shut your loud mouth, but watching you walk to your own death will do just fine.”
Then Roland turned the knob on the door and held it open for her.
“After you.”