“Okay,” she said, nodding and backing away. “Well, thanks for telling me. I’m just going to go up now and—”
Ty sighed. Then he proved he wasn’t lying. He opened his mouth and showed Ana his fangs.
An hour later, a pale Ana sat in a chair in the Belladonna library.
She’d seen Ty’s fangs. In her dreams and in real life. As much as she wanted to deny it, she was beginning to believe what he was telling her.
Vampires existed. And the U.S. government knew about them.
So what the hell was Belladonna’s agenda and why were they trying to get into a cult that the FBI was refusing to infiltrate? Was it really to bring a woman and her daughter back home? She knew now that there had to be more to it than that.
Across from her sat Barrett, Justine, and Collette. Peter and Ty stood next to Carly’s intercom.
“Did you—did you all know?” Ana whispered. Because it sure seemed like they had. The rapport they’d managed to form seemed to be a thing of the past. None of the other women would look at her.
Justine appeared bored, staring out the window, tapping her short fingernails against the crystal goblet of red wine she held in her hands. Barrett sat prim and proper, her knees and feet together, hands folded in her lap, staring at a spot of nothing across the room. The epitome of class. As always, Collette looked composed and slightly sympathetic, but she kept her gaze on Carly’s intercom.
Carly spoke first. “Collette has been aware for some time. I just recently spoke with Justine and Barrett. Neither of them knew about real-life vampires until then.”
“And Peter?” she asked, turning to him. But he simply stared back at her, letting Carly answer for him.
“Ty and Peter are both recently turned vampires.”
Of course he was, she thought. And here she’d thought Peter was relatively harmless.
Ana stood suddenly, kicking the antique chair behind her, reveling in the sound of it crashing to the hardwood floor. “And none of you care? None of you are freaked out?”
“Oh, calm down, Ana,” Barrett said. “It’s not like the world is ending. We’ve simply been informed of a separate species living among us.”
“Yeah, one that sucks human blood to survive.”
“Personally, I don’t care who or what I’m battling against,” Barrett said. “I simply want what Carly’s promised me. And I’ll do whatever Belladonna needs me to do in order to get what I want.”
“Whatever it takes?” Ana snapped. “Be careful what you say. Or have you forgotten that I’m being asked to fuck, hurt, or kill someone to get what I want. No, to get them what they want,” she said, pointing at Ty and Peter. “They’ve kept things from us up to now. What makes you think they’re not keeping more?”
For the first time since Ana had met her, Barrett looked uncomfortable. When Ana turned her glare on the company around her, Justine and Collette looked affected, too. Peter and Ty, however, did not. She supposed that was their badass superagent training coming out.
Ana turned to Ty. “Exactly how many vampires are there?”
“Many. They live among humans secretly. As far as we know, they always have.”
“You—you said you were turned. Not born. So some are? Born, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Do all vampires look human?”
“Yes. They disguise their unique external traits. Their silver hair. Their black eyes.”
“Do you have those?”
“I dye my hair. Wear contacts. Same as Peter.”
“What else can you do?” she asked.
A flicker of something flashed across his face, but he answered readily enough. “I can move faster than any human. We thrive off human blood but we can survive off the blood of animals. When we’re done feeding, we lick the puncture site and it heals. We—at least Peter and I—can go out in the sunlight but for a limited time. And we can’t lie.”
“Vampires can’t lie,” she repeated, then quickly asked, “What happened to you? You said you were turned. How?”
“The three of us—Carly, Peter, and I—were all recruited by the FBI around the same time. They, however, had security clearance that I didn’t. Apparently, when the FBI learned about vampires, they immediately sought to exploit the discovery. They found vampires willing to turn humans for them. I knew none of this. Not until Peter, my sister, Naomi, and another agent and I were attacked. I was turned. So was Peter. My sister didn’t make it. We don’t believe the other agent did, either.”
He said it with no grief in his voice or in his eyes. He could just as easily have been saying I can’t find the tomatoes I bought at the store.
But she knew better. His sister’s death bothered him. A lot. He just didn’t feel safe revealing how much it hurt him. Totally understandable. But would he feel the same way if just the two of them were here?
Unlikely, she thought sadly.
“Who did it?” she asked.
“Can’t you guess?”
“The Rogues you told me about.”
He nodded. “We’re looking for evidence of why, of exactly who’s involved and what they’re involved in. When we have that information, we’ll shut them down.”
“And protect the FBI in the process,” she added.
No one replied, but they didn’t have to. As a former gang member, Ana knew all about blowback. If one person in a gang messed up, it reflected on the gang as a whole. And once it was lost, street cred wasn’t something easily earned back.
She remembered when she’d first talked to Carly and had speculated that the FBI didn’t want another Waco on their hands. It was obviously a lot more serious than that. Imagine how much credibility the FBI would lose if it came out that they had been playing with vampires they couldn’t control. So yes, this was about the FBI wanting to cover its ass. But for Ty it was about something far more personal. He wanted revenge. For himself and for his sister. She’d bet her life on it.
Feeling her own chest swelling with emotion, she forced herself to keep asking questions. “And Carly?”
“Peter and I worked in the Turning Program together,” Carly responded. “That’s how he knew to contact me after he and Ty managed to escape.”
“Do you and the FBI know how to kill vampires?”
Her question immediately caused a tense silence to fill the room. She suddenly felt the need to apologize, as if she’d somehow insulted Ty and Peter, but that wasn’t the case at all. If vampires couldn’t be killed, then the FBI’s chances of hunting down the Rogues were less than zero. More to the point, how were ordinary humans like her supposed to protect themselves from … them?
“We’re compiling information about the vampires, but no, we don’t know how to kill vampires, born or turned. Not yet,” Carly admitted. “We don’t even know how the Rogues turn humans. Ty and Peter had already been turned by the time they regained consciousness. And when the Rogues were working for the FBI, they always insisted the actual turning process be performed in private.”
“Is that the type of intel you’re hoping to get from Salvation’s Crossing?” Ana asked. “And if so, what makes you think anyone inside has it?”
“If we somehow got that information, it would be a miracle, but it’s not one we’re counting on. We want inside Salvation’s Crossing for a specific purpose. We believe Salvation’s Crossing is in league with Rogues who are selling illegal immigrants as blood slaves.”
Ana frowned. “Does that include Ramona Montes and her daughter, Becky?”
“According to our intel, they’re on site, serving some specific purpose.”
“And exactly where does Miguel fit into all this? Are you trying to tell me that he—or for that matter, my sister—know these Rogues and what they’re doing?” She glanced at Ty, wanting to see his expression, but her stomach dropped when he refused to look at her.