Blood Torn (Blackthorn Book 3) Read online

  Their move to Lowtown meant they didn’t have enough credits to be entitled to free health care anymore. And there was no way they could afford the long-term payments for the medical care her mother needed. Her father looked for work but failed to find anything legitimate. All the decent jobs went to those with the right cohorts. But being in with the right cohorts meant you didn’t own yourself anymore – let alone your house or your family. When they’d offered to take Lola as payment, it had been the final straw.

  Her father’s visits to Blackthorn had become more regular – his only source of income becoming a feeder. One night, he never came home. Less than two months later, Lola’s mother passed away in her arms – the two of them alone in the dingy, damp, run-down bedsit Sophia now stared at on the screen.

  Lola was one of the first to join The Alliance. She was determined, feisty and efficient in their cause. She wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

  Sophia felt her throat clog with suppressed tears, pleading that they wouldn’t surface.

  ‘I thought they’d got to you too, Phia. What happened? How are you still alive? Where have you been?’

  Even now her heart pounded with a mixture of anger and fear. If it hadn’t been for the serryn line jumping, she would have been dead just like her Alliance colleagues. That was the simple fact: her serrynity had been the only thing to save her. Her sister, Leila, knowingly or unknowingly, had saved her again. ‘Marid took me. I didn’t even get inside the club.’

  ‘Marid?’

  ‘He knows about us. He found out that I was after him.’ She hesitated. ‘He kept me for a couple of days before selling me on to two vampires. They were planning to question me about The Alliance. They must have been a part of this.’ Rone had said the two vampires had been working for someone else. Someone who clearly intended to make The Alliance suffer as much as possible. She looked back up at him. ‘But some of these have happened in the last twelve hours. I killed the ones who came after me, Dan, so how many are involved in this?’

  ‘You killed them?’

  She nodded. She couldn’t tell him about her serrynity. Not yet. She had too many things she needed to get her own head around first.

  ‘Did you get their names?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t get the chance.’

  ‘But why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you warn us? If you got away, where have you been?’

  Awkwardness coiled through her – a new sense of guilt, though why, she wasn’t sure. ‘The compound.’

  Wide-eyed, it was his turn to stare at her for a moment. ‘The compound?’

  ‘A couple of lycans found me. They took me back there.’

  The shock emanated from his face. ‘You’ve been with lycans?’ His frown deepened with concern. ‘You’ve been in the compound all this time?’

  ‘The last twenty-four hours.’

  ‘How the hell did you get out?’

  ‘By doing what we’re trained to do – making the most of what opportunities I had.’

  ‘Do they know about us too?’

  ‘One did – but he’s saying nothing. He’s the one who got me out.’

  ‘A lycan acting against the pack? Against Jask Tao’s pack? This doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘It’s complicated. What matters is I’m out.’

  ‘Did you meet him? Jask Tao?’

  She looked away at that point, resolving it was time she did get herself a coffee. ‘We had one or two encounters.’

  Daniel followed her to the kitchen.

  She flicked on the kettle and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. She scooped two spoonfuls of coffee from the oversized tub before resolving to scoop in another. She rested her palms on the worktop as she waited for the water to boil.

  Daniel pulled away from the doorway where he’d been watching her and placed his stained mug next to hers.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quietly for not thinking of him. She scooped a couple of spoonfuls into his mug too.

  ‘It’s okay. I know this must be a shock. Are you all right?’

  She shrugged, sending him a sideways glance before staring back down at the mugs.

  But she wasn’t okay. She was far from okay. The plan to take down the Dehains had failed because of her. And if this was down to Caleb, the fact he was still alive to wreak that retribution was down to her. Just as if Caleb had somehow got the information from Alisha – Alisha who, she was sure, wouldn’t have been in Blackthorn if it wasn’t for her – was also down to her. One way or another, The Alliance was dead because of her. Those were the facts.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’ Daniel asked with the irritatingly soft tone of a therapist.

  Sophia exhaled tersely. The very prospect of it seemed ludicrous, and that’s what shocked her the most. Her instinctive response was to defend Jask, like being asked if a lifelong faithful partner was capable of infidelity. ‘No, he didn’t,’ she said, lifting the boiled kettle and pouring its contents into the mugs.

  Daniel moved closer and slid the powdered milk towards her. ‘You can talk to me.’

  She looked Daniel in the eye. ‘Trust me, Jask Tao has more to worry about than a scrag like me.’

  She scooped in the milk powder and stirred.

  But he would be looking for her.

  More than ever she was sat on a ticking bomb surrounded by landmines. Now it was whether she could be quick enough and efficient enough to get to her sisters before everything went off.

  ‘I need a phone,’ she said, remembering herself. ‘I need to call home.’

  ‘There aren’t any. I destroyed mine in case they caught up with me and traced the others. It was the first thing Abby told us to do.’

  ‘Then I need to get back out there,’ she said. She swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of hot coffee, burning her tongue, on her way back through to the lounge. ‘Are spare clothes still kept here?’

  ‘In the women’s dorm. Phia, we need to lie low for a few days. We’ll be okay here for a while. We can’t risk going out there.’

  It was a question she hadn’t thought to ask. ‘Why are you still here, Dan?’ she asked, heading down the hallway, taking a left. ‘Why haven’t you tried to get into Lowtown for yourself?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ He leaned against the doorframe as she flung open the wardrobe doors. ‘I wasn’t going to leave without you. Leave you here alone.’

  She looked back at him. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Dan. No attachments, remember?’

  ‘I’m still your friend, Phia. As little as you want them. As little as you think you need them. Besides, someone had to warn you in case you did reappear. I knew you’d come here if you failed to contact anyone.’

  ‘Yeah, well I’m not lying low anywhere.’ She rooted through the bags at the bottom and picked out underwear, checking the labels for the right sizes before tearing the price-tags off. ‘I need to get to a phone, then I’ll get back here and we’ll talk about what we’re going to do. We need to find out who’s responsible for this.’

  ‘What does it matter? It’s too late anyway.’

  ‘It’s never too late,’ she said. She slipped the knickers on under her tunic before tearing the fabric over her head to pull on and fasten the bra.

  ‘Phia…’

  ‘We can sort this. Whoever is responsible, be it Marid, Caleb or whoever, this doesn’t end here.’

  ‘Phia…’ Daniel said again, but he may as well have been white noise for all she tuned in.

  ‘They need to know who they’re dealing with…’

  ‘Phia, it was a vampire.’

  She reached for the combats. ‘That’s what I’m saying. And they’re not getting away with it.’

  ‘Phia…’ She’d barely registered his hesitation. ‘It was a vampire who paid us. A vampire paid us to do the Dehain job.’

  Her gaze snapped to his. She clutched the waistband of her combats, barely mid-hip. ‘What?’

  Daniel slumped onto the edge of the nearest bed. He lowered his h
ead for a moment, his forearms on his thighs.

  She fastened the top button and took a step towards him, the sweater loose in her hand. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘After you disappeared, Abby came to see me. She was in a really bad way.’ He looked back up at her. ‘The new equipment – all the stuff we used that night for the Dehains – it came via a sponsor, a sponsor who paid us a lot of money to go after them. That’s how they got to the top of the hit list so quick instead of being our crescendo along with Malloy. We were paid to take them out – by a vampire.’

  ‘No,’ she said. She yanked on the sweater and stormed into the bathroom.

  He followed behind her. ‘I knew how you’d feel about it. I didn’t want to say anything.’

  She brushed past the hospital-style mint green shower curtain, the mould on its base betraying the years it had been there. She opened the cupboard beside it and grabbed a new toothbrush, ripping open the packet as she marched across to the sink, the bitterness in her mouth, the dryness, too much to bear. She turned the creaking chrome tap, the spray spluttering before letting out an inconsistent flow of water.

  ‘Phia…’

  Toothbrush loaded with paste, she brushed too vigorously for her gums. She spat out blood before continuing.

  ‘Phia, Abby told me. That’s why she was so stressed that night when she knew it had gone wrong.’

  She spat out another mouthful. ‘No. There is no way,’ she said, pointing the toothbrush at him before resuming brushing again. ‘That’s fucking absurd. We hunt them. We don’t fucking work for them.’

  ‘They made Abby an offer she couldn’t refuse. We kill vampires, but it doesn’t mean we can’t take funding from them. The end result is the same–’

  ‘No!’ Sophia snapped, chucking her toothbrush aside in the sink, rubbing the back of her hand across her mouth as she turned to face him. ‘I do not work for vampires. I did not sign up to work for vampires. They do not pull my strings. I do not do their dirty work for them.’

  She grabbed the threadbare towel and wiped her mouth properly before marching past him back into the dorm.

  ‘We did. And we failed,’ Daniel said. ‘And they know it. And now they know us. And they’re hunting and tracking us down like wild animals. I’m only telling you this because I cannot let you step outside those doors. We don’t know what kind of influence they have, only that they don’t want to risk even one of us leaking word back to Caleb Dehain that this was an inside assassination. They will be hunting every corner of Blackthorn and Lowtown for us to make sure that doesn’t happen. So we have to stay here.’

  ‘And what if the vampire was Caleb himself, huh? Maybe Caleb was the sponsor. Maybe there wasn’t a third party in all this. Maybe he set us up – one giant double bluff. It would be perfect: using his own brother as a honeytrap to bring us out into the open. That’s why he turned the girl down that night – he already knew. And maybe he had someone on hand to cure Jake–’

  Discomfort wrenched through her.

  A witch skilful enough to do it. The most powerful witch there was. A serryn.

  But she pushed the thought out of her head – the ramblings of a panicked mind.

  There was no way Leila was in Blackthorn too. No way both of her sisters were with the Dehains.

  ‘Phia, you know that makes no sense.’

  No, it didn’t. And that’s what she’d cling too.

  ‘Neither does some vampire who wants Caleb Dehain dead hiring a group of human vigilantes instead of doing it themselves. Who would waste that amount of money, take that kind of risk?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  As much as she wanted to deny his words, she couldn’t deny the look in his eyes.

  ‘Well, we’re not going to sit on our arses in here whilst we wonder. You said it yourself – they’re coming for us. There’s only one way to stop that: get to them first.’ She headed back out into the living space. ‘What the fuck was Abby thinking?’

  ‘About keeping our heads above water,’ he declared, following her. ‘About getting the job done.’

  ‘Paid by vampires?’

  ‘One who wanted Caleb dead too. The way Abby saw it, it was a mutual and lucrative cause.’

  ‘But we’ve both seen that equipment. Who’s got access to technology and resources like that here unless they’re top of the food chain?’ She stared at the floor, hands on her hips, before she snapped her attention back up to him. ‘I’m making that call. Then we’re tracking down who did this. Someone out there’s got to know.’

  ‘No one is going to talk to you, Phia.’

  ‘I’ll make them.’

  ‘And where the hell do you start? All you’ll do is draw attention to yourself.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Well I do. I didn’t risk my life sitting here on my arse waiting for you when I could have been long gone across the border.’

  ‘And that’s my fault because…?’

  He glared at her. ‘You ungrateful…’

  ‘What?’ she asked, slamming her hands on her hips. ‘Say it, Dan – selfish, unappreciative, stupid, impetuous. I’ve heard it all before. A hundred times. I know it. You know it. We all know it. And it changes nothing. The Alliance may be gone, but I’m not.’

  ‘Listen to yourself – waging a one-woman war. We lost. We tried and we failed. We’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Alive for what? What do we have? Stuck in this place, in Blackthorn – at best Lowtown. We fight to the bitter end on this, Dan. I’m taking down whoever did this. They want us to hide and there’s no way I’m giving them that.’

  ‘You’re not going out there alone. Not like this.’

  ‘I’m better alone.’

  ‘With whoever this is looking for you? With Jask Tao looking for you? Maybe Caleb too if he does know about all this?’

  ‘Is the kit still here?’ she asked, marching down to the kitchen.

  ‘Did you not hear what I said? You’re getting nowhere out there.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She ploughed through the cupboards before finding the box masked as a first-aid kit. She carried it back through to the living space and placed it down on the coffee table. Sitting, she pulled out the packets of syringes they used to fill with garlic and silver – a concoction that would slow down their vampire victims or a useful tool to get them to talk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  Sophia wrapped the bandage around and around her arm before pulling it tight. She took the lid off the syringe with her teeth before slipping it into the crook in her arm.

  ‘What the fuck, Phia?’

  Sophia drew back the blood, sticking the cap back on the syringe before reaching for another. ‘There’s one simple reason I got away from those vampires – I poisoned the bastards.’ Sophia glanced up into wide eyes. ‘Nutshell,’ she said, returning her attention to the next needle she slipped it into the crook of her arm, ‘is that my sister was a serryn. I emphasise the word was. The line’s capable of jumping.’ She glanced up at him again. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to explain the rest.’ She looked back down to check how much blood she was taking. ‘Let’s just say her timing was perfect or I would be dead by now. Just like the others.’

  The silence between them was unavoidable.

  ‘A serryn,’ he finally said. ‘Your sister’s a serryn? You never said.’

  ‘No disclosures, remember?’ She swapped the syringe for another. ‘No background information.’

  ‘But a serryn? You know what that could have meant to our cause. The power it would have given us.’

  ‘And if I knew, maybe I would have. But I didn’t have a clue. Trust me, no one’s more stunned than me. But if it’s jumped, then something is wrong. Very wrong. And that’s why I’m getting back out there.’

  She placed the lid on the third syringe before reaching for the fourth. Once she’d finished, she unpackaged some plasters to cover the pinprick wounds.

  ‘One way or anoth
er, what has happened to my sisters could be down to me,’ she added. ‘I’m not turning my back on them.’ She gathered up the syringes and stood, despite how light-headed she felt. ‘You stay here. But if you do decide to head out, and any of them come after you, you stick one of these in them,’ she said, handing him two of the syringes. ‘You’ll watch them sizzle like a steak on a barbecue before they implode if you stick it in hard and fast enough.’ She tucked two of her own in the thigh pocket of her combats.

  ‘Does Jask know what you are?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll come back for you when I’ve contacted them.’ She headed back into the kitchen and opened the tallest cupboard. She took out two of the handguns. She checked the ammo before sliding one into the back of her combats, the other in the loop on the thigh of her trousers. ‘And they’d better be alive and kicking,’ she said, as she swept past him to the main door, ‘or all hell is going to break loose in Blackthorn by the time I’ve finished.’

  But Daniel slammed his syringe-holding hand to the door, grabbed her arm with the other. ‘Have you not listened to anything I’ve said? If you are what you say you are, it’s even more important we keep you alive.’

  ‘Don’t make this into a fight between us. I don’t have the time.’ She stared deep into his eyes as she yanked her arm from his grip. ‘I have to do this, Dan. Try and stop me and I’ll kick your arse, and you know it.’

  He stared right back, a steely silence between them that squeezed the air from her lungs.

  ‘Then I’m coming with you,’ he said.

  ‘No. You’ll slow me down.’

  His eyes narrowed in indignation. ‘Since when? I’ll keep you in check. We both know how much you need that.’ He held her gaze for a few moments. ‘I mean it, Phia.’ He stepped back into the kitchen, picked a handgun of his own. ‘We’re a team, right?’ He tucked the gun and syringes into his pockets, then faced her.