Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) (2 page)

His grin never faltered. “I want to come with you. Wherever you’re going, let me come.”

I put two fingers to my forehead. Stubborn-ass werewolves. Once they set their minds on something, that was it. “I could kill you where you stand, drain you down and throw your body in the back of your cab to rot. Without blinking.”

Ivan stretched his arms over his head and cracked his knuckles. His eyes never left mine. “You could try. There’s a reason I was able to break free of my pack.”

I strode past him. “If you follow me, I will kill you.”

He fell into stride behind me. “I don’t believe you. I think you like me.”

I grabbed my stake and spun, aiming for his chest. He caught my forearm, stopping me. “Go away, mutt.”

“I’ve heard it all, sweetheart. Everything and then some. You aren’t going to scare me off.”

Frustration snapped through me like the flickering of a lightning bolt. Brilliant, hot, and then gone with nothing more than a negative afterimage of what had been there. I did not have time for this shit.

I jerked my hand out of his. Or tried to. I jerked, he pulled and I was suddenly pressed against his chest, those chartreuse eyes staring down at me.

His eyes dipped to my mouth.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I bit out, then snapped my teeth at him for good measure. A thread of panic curled over me. He would not kiss me. He wouldn’t. He was a...and I was a...

He pulled his head back a few inches, though he didn’t let me go. “I don’t know your name, or at least not all of it.”

That made no sense. I hadn’t given him anything, either in the cab or out on the street.

Once more I jerked away from him, breaking free this time, turned my back and strode toward the news station. Rachel. I had to find her and get us both the hell out of here. The certainty that something was coming for her grew more and more. Which meant it was coming for us both.

Behind me, Ivan laughed softly, his footsteps telling me all I needed to know. The dumb-ass mutt wasn’t giving up.

“I’m not telling you my name,” I said over my shoulder.

He shrugged. “Then I’ll call you the only thing I know.”

Bitch. Bloodsucker. Vamp tramp. It wouldn’t have surprised me for any of those derogatory names to have flowed from his mouth, spilling out into the street between us. What he said, though, could not have shocked me more than if he’d ignored my order and planted his lips to mine.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you, Cazador.”

RACHEL

The camera lights went off and the crew stood around the studio, their mouths open as they stared at me in disbelief. I knew it was a lot to take in. I knew there would be skeptics—how could there not be? If I’d been home watching my report, I would have been skeptical too. I was hardwired that way. But I could tell some of them did believe. They were looking at me with the same expression I’d seen on my boss Don’s face when I’d approached him with the story.

Terror.

That was what had convinced him to give me airtime. Once I’d presented my evidence, he believed me. The issue was making everyone else believe. I had spent forty-eight hours working nearly around the clock with the news team to get the story right.

I was exhausted and proud, but I was also grieving. Derrick had lost his life to bring this story to light. I hoped I’d made him proud. But I had to admit, I was also sad about losing Lea. She’d promised to come back, and while she didn’t make promises lightly, she hadn’t given me a time frame. For someone who had lived hundreds of years, a few days was nothing. For that matter, I suspected a few months was nothing too.

If only I’d convinced her to let me go with her to get Stravinsky.

But now wasn’t the time to think about all that. I had to deal with the fallout of the report first.

One of the stage crew led me off camera as they set up for the next segment in another part of the stage. Kristin Schumacher, the Warner News five p.m. regular anchor, gave me a look that said she thought I’d lost it.

I headed down the hall to the green room, glaring at the people who snickered as I walked past. They wouldn’t be laughing when the monsters came for them.

Don waited for me outside the green room, shifting his weight from leg to leg. We hadn’t worked together much in person—most of the stories I’d sent him had been email attachments from the Middle East—but it didn’t take a genius to see he was pissed.

“This is not going over well.”

I walked past him into the green room to get my bag. “We knew we wouldn’t convince everyone.”

“I look like a fucking joke, Rachel.”

I grabbed the strap of my bag and looped it over my head. “We discussed this ad nauseam. Both of us knew it would be a hard sell. You saw the finished report. You showed it to your boss. You were totally on board. What happened?”

“Sponsors. That’s what happened. We’ve ticked off Hudson Electric and they’re a major sponsor.”

“And Hudson Electric is a subsidiary of Monroe Industries, which is in bed with Simmons Industries.” I shook my head, but I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. I’d dug through more of Derrick’s research. Simmons Industries had donated money to a
special
government project. “So what do they want?”

“They want us to issue a retraction. They want you to go on camera to admit you made it up.”

“You told them to go fuck themselves, right?”

He was ashen, his eyes wide.

I put my hand on my hip. “Oh, my God. You actually want me to issue a statement saying I faked this whole thing.”

“My job is on the line.”

“And so is mine. We discussed this. We knew we’d face people who wouldn’t believe it. You told me you had my back. I guess you forgot to add the caveat that you would only support me until the flames got too hot. Then you’d just throw me into the fire to save yourself.”

“Rachel. I’m sorry.” He sounded nervous, like he wasn’t just worried about his job.

“You want me to do this—to throw away my career—so you can save face? Why on earth would I do that?”

“They’ll discredit your father,” he said quietly.

I took a step back. “
What?
”

“Your father was involved in an embezzlement case a couple of years before he died in the bank robbery shootout. They’ll release a report stating he planted evidence to get the conviction. The guy will walk and your father’s memory will be tarnished.”

My father had been a detective on the Dayton, Ohio police force—much loved by the community. Hundreds of people had shown up to his funeral, but while it’d helped to know our father was so well regarded, my four brothers and I had still suffered. Our mother had died years before him, so his death meant we were alone in the world.

My reaction had been to run off to college soon after his death, then immediately to Iraq to cover the war, but my eldest brother Michael had dealt with his grief by creating a charity in our father’s honor. The program helped match troubled youth with mentors who put them back on the path to becoming productive members of society. If Dad’s reputation were smeared, it would destroy everything.

“Those goddamned bastards.”

“You have twenty-four hours to issue a statement of your own.”

“Let me guess…Kristen is out there in front of the camera discrediting me right now.”

He had to decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it for some other idiot who believes you.” I shoulder-checked him as I stomped out the door and headed for the elevator bank.

Why was I so surprised? There was big money backing the Asclepius Project. It made sense they would go after me. Whoever was in charge of the mess knew exactly how to get me in line. Had my ex-boyfriend Sean filled them in? He’d always accused me of hero-worshipping my father and trying to live up to his expectations. Sean had always known exactly how to manipulate me like a puppet master with a puppet.

But I wasn’t going to do it. Sometimes standing up for what you believed in meant making sacrifices. This whole mess was a giant powder keg waiting to blow. Stravinsky and the military were nearly ready to unleash a weapon of mass destruction unlike any the world had ever seen. They weren’t going to kill people. They were going to turn them into mindless monsters to attack everyone in their path. There was no way I was issuing a retraction when there were thousands of innocent lives on the line.

Standing up for what was right, no matter how much it hurt, was the best way to honor my father’s legacy. I couldn’t back down.

But my brothers had no idea what was coming, and I had to warn them. While I waited for the elevator, I pulled out my phone and called Michael.

“You’ve stirred up a big pile of shit,” he shouted in my ear as soon as he answered the phone. I heard the hum of voices around him.

“You saw the report?”

“Saw it?” he barked. The background voices quieted. “Everyone came to Vincent’s bar to watch. Half the damn neighborhood saw it.”

I cringed. At five on a weeknight? The neighborhood where I grew up was full of blue-collar people and über conservative. “So you’re catching a lot of flak, huh?”

“You have no idea the shit we’re getting.”

I pushed out a breath. “Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.” I ran my hand over my head, grabbing my ponytail out of habit. “There’s big money behind this whole thing. They want me to denounce my story or they’re going after Dad.”

“Dad? How can they go after him if he’s been dead for years?”

I told him what Don had said. My brother was silent for several seconds.

“Is it true?” he asked quietly. “Are they really doing those experiments?”

I leaned my back against the wall. “Yeah.”

“And there really are vampires. You’ve seen them?”

I’d said that in the report, but I understood his need to hear confirmation from me. “Yeah. I’ve worked side by side with one. Lea. She helped expose this whole thing.”

“Then don’t you dare back down, Rachel Sambrook. You stand up and fight like your brothers taught you.”

A lump filled my throat. “Thanks, Michael.”

“You would have made Dad proud.” His voice broke.

I took another breath to steady my voice. “I really wish Dad had told me that. Just once.”

He released a soft chuckle. “You think he told any of us kids that to our faces? He worried we’d get swelled heads. But he used to tell everyone who’d listen his Rachel was going to grow up and face the monsters when she became a journalist. She was going to report corruption and save the world. So, no bullshit cover-ups. I’m telling you now, Rach—” his voice lowered, “—go fight those bastards. Your brothers have your back, and I will personally kick the ass of anyone who tries to discredit you.”

“I don’t know what to say, Michael. Thanks.”

I heard someone calling his name. “Gotta go, Rach. When this is all done, don’t be a stranger. Come home to visit. And you might want to bring a guy with you to appease Nana. She reminds all of us that you aren’t getting any younger.”

I laughed, suddenly homesick. “Yeah. I’ll see what I can do.” I hadn’t been home since my college graduation. Maybe it was time.

“Go fight the monsters.”