“Makes sense,” the blond Brother murmured as he walked around, his enormous shitkickers crushing anything he happened to step on. Spoons, baggies, scales. Hell, she was pretty sure, given his size, he could ruin a table. “It’s a perfect commerce system if you want to stay under the radar. Unregulated by humans with endless demand and a great profit margin.”
“Plus if you’re a vampire,” another of the Brothers said, “and you’re picked up for distributing? Take the cop’s memories and you’re home free.”
“So that’s how they fed everyone.” Nyx went over to the other side of the space where there was no debris at all. Instead, the floor was marked with tire tracks and oil stains. “And kept the prison going.”
“Do the wholesale deals out of the country,” someone murmured. “Import the shit here. Process it with the prisoners and get it out onto the streets. It’s a money-making machine.”
Nyx glanced back at her grandfather. As their eyes met, he shook his head sadly.
Guess Janelle had found her fortune, Nyx thought.
“There’s a lot of blood right here,” she said, pointing to the stained concrete she was standing on. “They were moving people and supplies out in big trucks. They also had an ambulance that looked really legit.”
Walking forward, she sighted the road that disappeared out of the area. But she wasn’t going to worry about all that. Old news, as it were. The trucks were gone, what guards and prisoners had been still alive as well.
They weren’t why she was here anyway.
Doubling back into the processing area, she went down the side wall to another door. As she cranked the handle, she wouldn’t have been surprised if it was locked—
The thing opened wide, and the scent of spilled blood was so strong, she recoiled, arching back.
She didn’t have to call anyone over. The fighters and her grandfather came immediately, the smell getting their attention.
Stepping through, she saw dead guards down on the floor—which was a surprise. But maybe it meant Jack was alive and had fought back?
“Jack!” she called out as her heart started to pound.
As her voice echoed, the blond-haired Brother took her arm and squeezed. “Shh. None of that. We don’t know who’s in here.”
Except ultimately, the noise alert risk was immaterial. No one was alive. As she went down the finished hall, she had to step over limbs, torsos, and heads. When she came to a door, she opened it. Inside, there was a sparsely furnished bedroom, and as she looked to the bed, she frowned.
Hustling across, she picked her backpack up off the floor.
It was unzipped, and the weapons and ammo were gone. The toothbrush and the water bottle were still inside, though.
But it wasn’t like she was ever using that Oral-B again.
She let the pack drop to the mattress. She had no desire to take it with her. Too many bad memories. And on that sad note, she stared at the messy fitted sheet and breathed in deep. Underneath the scent of spilled blood, there was a heavy undertone.
Of sandalwood. And Jack’s scent.
It had happened here. Jack had been chained down . . . here.
As it became hard to breathe, she wheeled around. The Brothers were talking. Her grandfather was checking out some medical stuff left on a table.
She couldn’t stand to be inside the room for one more second.
Stumbling back out into the hall, she looked to the left and quickly walked in that direction.
“Hey, wait up,” the blond Brother said.
Dimly, in the recesses of her mind, she tried to remember what he’d said his name was. She couldn’t recall it—or any of the others’, though she knew for a fact they’d all been introduced before they’d left the Audience House. The goateed male. The one with the skull trim and the facial scar. The one with the amazing multi-colored hair.
And the blond one with Jack’s eyes, who was catching up to her.
Just as she arrived at the cell that was nicely furnished.
Its entry panel was wide open, the iron bars with their steel mesh having swung free of the jambs. Inside, around the hotel-homey setup of furniture, there was blood . . . everywhere.
As she breathed in, she tried to sort through and see if it was Jack’s. Had the Command somehow survived the collapse? Found her way back here?
Had they fought?
Nyx’s heart started to skip beats and she backed out of the cell. Blindly turning away, she started walking without really tracking where she was going—
Her body stopped before she was aware of anything registering in her mind.
And then she saw it. Down on the floor.
A tangle of long red hair.
Which was matted with blood and . . . something else. Something terrifying.
A sudden surge of paranoia made her eyes skip around at the other bodies. But they were all uniformed. None were in prison clothes. So none were Jack.