Dark Vengeance Part 2 Read online

  He and Brandon had been staying in a small apartment above a motorcycle repair shop owned by Jackson’s friend, Valien Cadana. Valien was also now Brandon’s friend, Brandon supposed—considering Brandon and Valien’s younger sister Pilar were parejos—Brethren soul mates.

  From the moment Brandon had first laid eyes on Pilar, he’d felt a powerful, damn near maddening attraction, not as much love at first sight as it had been lust, pure and primal, completely unadulterated. Despite this, he and Pilar were able to resist their primal, natural urges to mate with each other—at least so far.

  Not that it makes any difference anymore, he thought with a pang of heartache. He and Pilar had both been wrenched from otherwise happy romantic relationships by the damnable allure of their Brethren natures. His attraction to Pilar had been the catalyst that had driven Lina away. He felt heartbroken now without her, as lost and purposeless as a makeshift raft cut loose of its moorings and left to the ebbing, flowing whims of the tide. That had undoubtedly been the reason he’d been dreaming of her.

  But as for the other man, the one with the bloody arm…

  Aaron.

  Brandon wasn’t even sure if that was his real name, but he had recognized his face from yet another incident in his past that haunted him—one that still left him sweat-soaked and trying to scream whenever he’d revisit it in his nightmares.

  He squatted beside the end of the couch, sifting through his meager duffel bag of belongings that had been stowed there. For at least the hundredth time since he’d moved with Jackson, he hunted vainly for his cell phone. He wanted to text his grandfather, not only because he wondered if Augustus might be able to make sense of the vivid nightmares that had been plaguing him lately, but also because Brandon wanted to reassure him he was alright. He relied on the contact list he’d programmed into his phone, and couldn’t remember Augustus’s number to use Jackson’s phone to contact him. Brandon had lost his phone somehow in the move, so it had been awhile since his last communication.

  He’s probably worried sick, Brandon thought. And then, his heart aching: I wonder if Lina is, too…if she’s tried to text me…

  The last place he really remembered having the phone was at Lina’s mother’s house, the night he’d left. But then again, he’d been so drunk that night, he could have dropped the phone anywhere: Duke’s Place, where he’d been doing tequila shots and shooting pool with Pilar, Jackson, and Jackson’s girlfriend; the parking lot; the back seat of the cab he’d used to get home—hell, even the Gulf of Mexico, for all he knew.

  He’d come to the following morning in the guest bedroom at Valien’s house, with the stale, lingering tang of lime juice and Jose Cuervo still in his mouth. One by one, memories from the night before had tumbled into place in his mind—how when he’d seen Téo Ruiz bothering Pilar, something possessive and furious had welled up in him, how he’d kissed Pilar in front of him, in front of Valien—in front of God and everybody in the middle of Duke’s Place.

  That kiss had nearly driven him crazy. In fact, much of the evening beyond that point seemed murky to him, dimly remembered, as if he’d been in a daze. One thing he recalled clearly, however, was trying to relieve the terrible, agonizing frustration that Pilar’s kiss had left within him by making love to Lina.

  You’re hurting me now, she’d told him, her eyes round and filled with something he’d never seen in them before, not at least in his regard—fear.

  She was afraid of me, he thought in dismay, dragging his fingers through his hair again. As a child, he had witnessed the Brethren adults in the throes of the bloodlust. These occasions had terrified him; even the sight of his own father with his fangs distended, his eyes black, his mouth forced unnaturally ajar had been enough to leave him cowering. It had helped to cement in his mind the determination that he’d never be like that, would never kill someone to feed, and would never allow himself to yield to that brutal, monstrous side of his nature.

  But I did that night, he realized. That’s what Lina saw, how she thought of me—why she was afraid of me. She saw me as a monster.

  He hadn’t said anything to Jackson about his involvement with Lina, who was Jackson’s younger sister. But, as with so many other aspects of his life that he’d thought were closely guarded secrets, it had turned out he hadn’t needed to. If Jackson hadn’t known with certainty before Brandon and Lina had arrived in Florida, then he’d at least had his suspicions. He’d not-so subtly voiced his opinion on the matter by steering Brandon time and again toward Pilar and encouraging the younger man to explore his feelings for her.

  Lina’s a great girl and all, he’d said. I mean, she’s my sister and I love her, but our dad wasn’t around when we were growing up. Mama worked all the time and me… My deafness got worse the older I got, and I had a hard time in school. I got picked on a lot. Lina had to be the tough one, looking out for me, standing up for me.

  His shoulders had hunched, as if this admission had shamed him. She’s always been a fighter, always taking care of other people. With a forlorn look, he’d added, I keep hoping she’ll find someone to take care of her for a change. You know what I mean?

  Brandon had played innocent, but deep inside, he’d felt a pang of shame. Because I can’t take care of her, he thought. Look at me, for Christ’s sake—I’m sleeping on the couch at Jackie’s apartment because I got kicked out of his mom’s house. I’ve got exactly three hundred dollars to my name—money Augustus gave to me. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a home. Hell, I don’t even have a driver’s license.

  A heavy hand fell against Brandon’s shoulder, jerking him abruptly from his memories, and he blinked in bewildered surprise up at Jackson.

  I have to go, Jackson signed at him. He wore a strange expression on his face, strained and upset.

  What’s going on? Brandon signed.

  I don’t know, Jackson replied, his mouth turned down in a grim frown. But I just got a message from Valien. He’s on his way to the hospital, asked me to meet him there. He said it’s important.

  Even though Jackson offered no more than this in reply, Brandon knew Valien’s summon undoubtedly had something to do with Téo Madera Ruiz. There had never been any love lost between him and Téo, much less many kind words, but Téo had cared about Pilar, and she had cared about him, too—even though he’d bugged the shit out of her on more than one occasion—and Brandon had always tried to give the guy a little credit, if only for that reason. Pilar had been distraught following his brutal attack by Tejano Minoza Cervantes—an assault that had also left two of her cousins dead—and Brandon knew if anything else happened to him, she’d be devastated.

  Give me a minute, let me change clothes, he said. I’ll go with you.

  He paused as Jackson again clapped him on the shoulder. “I think it’d be best if I go alone,” Jackson told him aloud.

  Brandon’s shoulders hunched in unhappy resignation. He couldn’t argue, even though he wanted to, because he knew Jackson was right. Valien was his friend, true, as was Pilar, but he’d also had two physical altercations with Téo in the days leading up to his death, and had, at least in the eyes of some of Téo’s family and friends, stolen Pilar’s affections from him. He doubted his presence at the hospital would be appreciated.

  “You hang out here,” Jackson said. “I’ll be back as soon as I find out anything.”

  Brandon nodded, watching as his friend zipped up his leather riding jacket and pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses from an inside pocket. “I’ll be back,” Jackson told him again.

  I’ll be here, Brandon thought in glum reply, as he sat back down on the couch.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lina Jones stared at what remained of Hanson’s Pharmacy. No more than thirty feet away from where she stood, the linoleum-tiled floor had collapsed in upon itself, creating a gaping hole the approximate size of a cargo van in the middle of the shop. Water from broken pipes had flooded the rubble-filled crater, spraying forth like a geyser in a national park before being cl
amped shut only moments earlier. What remained of the drug store’s ruined interior was now little more than a shallow, murky pond in which boxes, bottles, magazines, and other assorted flotsam bobbed and floated. There were three fire engines outside, a half-dozen marked police cruisers and a handful of utility company trucks. The entire circumference had been marked with bright yellow barrier tape.

  Despite this, and despite the countless firemen and uniformed police officers rushing in and out, Lina found herself idiotically distracted as she walked past a listing shelf. She’d been wading behind her partner, Detective Elías Velasco of the Bayshore Police Department, toward the crater—a sink hole, Elías had told her; a not-entirely uncommon occurrence in that part of Florida—when the shelf, and its display of pink and blue boxes had caught her eye.

  Results five days sooner, one of the packages promised, while another asserted that No other brand is more accurate! Her gaze lingered on another box, one that guaranteed Easy to read +/- results, and her hand stole unconsciously toward her lower abdomen.

  “Hey.” Elías’s voice brought her out of her reverie, and she blinked, startled, feeling the warm bloom of embarrassed color in her cheeks as she turned to meet his gaze.

  He was Cuban-American, tall with naturally tanned skin, dark eyes and coal-black hair swept back from his face. As he did most days, he wore a button-down shirt with long sleeves and a tie, despite the stifling humidity and heat of Florida in mid-summer. Like Lina, who wore her hair down in a tumble of haphazard ringlets to her shoulders—when she really wished she could pull the mess back in a ponytail or bun—he did so to keep his scars hidden.

  From where they fed from us.

  “You still with me?” With a smile that belied the hint of momentary worry in his eyes, Elías waved his hand in front of her face.

  “Yeah.” She brushed past him, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the shelf of home pregnancy tests as possible, lest he do the same math she’d been doing lately. Sloshing boldly forward, she paused at the yellow plastic tape and looked down the sinkhole. Brown water continued pouring over the sides. Greeting cards, gift bags and assorted pint-sized stuffed animals floated like dead fish all around it.

  “How far down does it go?” she asked, as Elías came to stand beside her.

  He shrugged, slipping a handkerchief from an inner jacket pocket and using it to mop at his sweat-glossed brow. “No way to tell. Not until they get all the water pumped out. And maybe not, even then.”

  The hole had happened fast. According to eye-witness accounts, it had opened up in a matter of moments. Thankfully, anyone in the pharmacy standing near the site at the time had managed to scramble or leap out of the way. Elías told her others weren’t always so lucky.

  “There was a guy last year, about an hour or so south of here—a sinkhole opened up under his bedroom,” he’d said. “Took him down with his bed, his bureau, his TV—everything. They never found his body for all the rubble.”

  “So what happens now?” she asked, with a glance in his direction.

  “We cordon off the area. Probably clear out this entire half of the block. At least until they get a geologist out here…or a seismologist…someone to take a look at it.”

  Lina’s eyes widened in dubious surprise. “That’s it?”

  He chuckled. “Pretty much. Not much else we can do. The problem’s underground. Way underground.” He held his hand out, palm turned down. “All these buildings are on top of a pretty thick, solid foundation of earth, right? But underneath that…” He slipped his other hand beneath the first, mirroring its position. “It’s softer stone. More porous. Lots of caves. And it’s what’s holding the stronger stuff up. So when it gives way…” Abruptly, Elías dropped his lower hand. With melodramatic flare, he let his other palm go swooping downward with it. “…the top goes, too.”

  “Along with anything built over it,” Lina murmured, her gaze traveling back to the jagged hole in the middle of the pharmacy floor.

  “You got it. A sinkhole.”

  He hooked her gently by the elbow and steered her around so they could start making their way to what she presumed was safer, more stable ground.

  “So you’ve got sinkholes in Florida,” she remarked, sparing one last glance toward the display of pregnancy tests. With a frown and a furrow to her brows, she quickly looked away. “And…let’s see. Fire ants, too.”

  “Yup.”

  “You’ve got hurricanes…” She held up her hand, ticking off on her fingers. “Scorpions, alligators…”

  “And crocodiles,” Elías interjected helpfully.

  “Barracuda,” she continued, and now she had to hold up her other hand to continue keeping count. “Snakehead fish, jellyfish, sharks and Burmese pythons.”

  “You forgot wild boars, panthers and black bear.”

  “Tell me again, Elías, why in the hell anyone would want to live here?” Lina asked, making him laugh.

  “That’s easy.” He clapped his hand against her shoulder. “No snow.”

  Before venturing into the flooded pharmacy, they’d donned rubber boots on loan from some firefighters parked near Elías’s gunmetal-grey Dodge Charger. As they leaned together against the trunk to wrestle their way out of them, Lina’s cellphone began to ring. She carried it in the hip pocket of her slacks and paused, leaving her boots on as she reached for it.

  Her mother, Latisha, had left town unexpectedly the day before, having learned that her sister, Livinia, had suffered a heart attack. Livinia lived in Alabama, and had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Providence Hospital in Mobile. Latisha had been beside herself with worry; Livinia was the youngest of the siblings—five sisters and two brothers, with Latisha the oldest—and had always been coddled. To Lina and her brother Jackson, she was “Aunt Baby Sis,” and no one Lina knew called her by her given name unless it had been some kind of formal or legal reference.

  Expecting an update from Latisha on Baby Sis’s condition, Lina was surprised instead to see an unfamiliar number on her caller I.D. When she saw the incoming call’s area code—859—she felt reflexive excitement, momentary hope.

  Because that’s a Kentucky area code. Brandon’s area code.

  But it wasn’t Brandon’s number, because she had him preprogrammed into her iPhone. Besides, he hadn’t contacted her even once; not even a simple “hello” or “I miss you” that might have eased some of her pain or given her even a modicum of hope that he was still thinking about her. Hesitantly, she answered the line. “Hello?”

  “Good morning, Angelina.”

  Augustus Noble.

  Like a soft caress, the voice on the other end of the line sent a sudden shiver through her, the visceral resonance leaving the hairs along the nape of her neck stirring. Ordinarily, she might have found the sensation pleasant, sensuous even, but in that instance—with that caller—she reflexively frowned instead, her entire body tensing as if she’d just discovered a live eel squirming across the top of her bare foot.

  “What do you want?” To hell with niceties. She had nothing nice to say to the man. In fact, since she pretty much considered him to be the singlehanded reason she and his grandson, Brandon—with whom she was still deeply, heartbreakingly in love—had broken up, she didn’t want to say anything to Augustus Noble at all. Except maybe fuck you.

  “Do you really think this is what’s best for Brandon? That you’re what’s best?” Augustus had asked her before she and Brandon had left California for their ill-fated visit to Florida. His words still echoed almost constantly in her mind, tearing at her heart, as if with the same viciously hooked fangs that Augustus and the Brethren—including Brandon—used to feed from their prey.

  “He needs to be with his own kind.”

  “I’ve been unable to get a hold of Brandon for several days now,” Augustus told her, his tone mild, as if her cold reception had been fully anticipated, and did not bother him in the slightest. “My texts have gone unanswered.”

  M
aybe he finally wised up and realized you’re full of shit, Lina thought with a smirk. Maybe he finally sees this so-called kinder, gentler version of yourself you’ve been pawning off on him is nothing but bullshit, a trick to keep him in the fold, just another male heir in your Brethren bloodline head-count.

  She wanted to say this out loud, but didn’t, and the momentary silence was enough to prompt August to continue speaking, albeit in a more begrudging tone.

  “I was hoping you could assist me in contacting him,” he said.

  “Gosh,” Lina said, a faux-friendly gush, the corner of her mouth hooked in what could probably be best described as wicked triumph. “I’d sure love to help you with that, Augustus, but you see, I don’t know where he is either. I broke up with Brandon…” Her tone changed from forced good cheer to sudden, sharp acidity: “As I’m sure you’re aware.”

  Another prolonged silence. Then Augustus said, “I am not, no.”

  That caught Lina by genuine surprise, so much so that her victorious smile withered. Surely Brandon had told Augustus about their falling out. Lately, it seemed like he’d confided in his grandfather every time he took a shit.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, Angelina,” Augustus said.

  She laughed at that, a sudden, bitter bark. “Yeah. I’ll bet.”

  “I am.” She could have sworn he sounded nearly wounded by her scoff. “I’m sorry to learn of anything that would cause Brandon pain…or you.”

  Lina laughed again. “Spare me. You’re probably dusting off a bottle of Dom Perignon as we speak.”

  “I have never felt any ill-will or regard toward you.”

  “Except you don’t think I’m good enough for your grandson.”

  “I have questioned your compatibility as a species with Brandon,” Augustus corrected. “The matter of your worth has never arisen.”

  He sounded so cool, so detached, so goddamn aloof. It infuriated her, left her shaking, her free hand balled into a tightly clamped fist, her brows furrowed. She wanted to reach through the phone and throttle him, grab him by the long sheaf of his ivory-colored hair and ram his head repeatedly, face first, into something concrete.