Blood Cure (Blood Type 3)

“Everything all right?” Reyna asked.

“We’re ready to go,” Beckham said.

“Sir,” Zoya said.

“Just be careful.”

Zoya nodded her head once.

Reyna followed Beckham out into the cold. “Are you upset that they’re going to go check the camps?”

“No. My circle is perfectly capable.”

“But you don’t like that Jodie and Meghan and Tye are going with them?”

Beckham arched an eyebrow. “Just get in the car.”

“They’ll be fine. My circle is perfectly capable too. They’re just taking some pictures. Why are you so tense?”

Beckham turned and faced her fully. She nearly ran into him. He caught her by the shoulders and then tilted her chin up. “Tense is in my nature. You should calm down.”

Reyna released a deep breath. “Okay.”

Beckham opened the door to the van and nodded his head. She rolled her eyes at him then climbed inside. The engine was already running and Gerard sat in the driver’s seat. Reyna crawled into the backseat and was surprised to find Gabe seated there already.

“Hey,” he said with a wink.

Beckham hopped into the passenger seat. “What is he doing here?” he asked Gerard.

“Making contact with someone I think can help,” Gabe said. “Plus, if I was in that house another fucking minute I’d go insane.”

“Who is this contact?” Beckham asked.

Gabe shook his head. “It’s a guy who knows a guy. Last resort kind of person. He’s the one you go to if you want information, and we need more information on Harrington. If anyone knows, it’s him.”

“Okay, let’s get moving,” Reyna said. She knew that Beckham and Gabe didn’t get along, and they just needed to get into the city.

They pulled away from the mansion on the hill and down the road, which had been shoveled all the way to the gate and beyond. Reyna did not want to know whose unfortunate job that had been.

“We should move into the city. This driving an hour to do anything fucking blows,” Gabe grumbled. “You’re a bajillionaire, right, Beckham? Don’t you have somewhere we can hide out?”

“If I had a place like that, we would already be there,” he said calmly. He pulled out a cellphone and started typing away at it. Just like old times.

Gabe grumbled under his breath. She heard a few choice curse words, but he dropped the subject.

The rest of the drive was mercifully silent. Gerard dropped Gabe off first, a few blocks away from his club, Ferrier House, which was a human nightclub and fighting ring. It also dealt in drugs and had for a while been a black market blood bank. Being head of the Irish mob had its perks.

Beckham slid his phone into his pocket, relief evident now that Gabe was gone.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. She wondered if she could sense that in him. She let it come to her in the way that feeling his presence came to her: gentle and effortless. There he was, sitting right in front of her. His emotions were locked down, but ringed with fading annoyance. She was right. He still didn’t trust Gabe.

Reyna got lost in the feeling. She knew how Beckham felt about her. Believed him when he said he loved her. This was what he never unleashed. It felt like she was swimming in even the smallest emotional feeling.

A hand brushed against her knee. Her eyes jerked open. She’d been so lost in his emotions that she hadn’t even sensed him tuning in to her.

“Don’t do that,” he said harshly.

Reyna retreated.

“Not here.”

Reyna nodded. She put her own emotions away and locked them up in a filing cabinet like Beckham did. It was better to hold on to Beckham’s calm and confidence.

Gerard parked the car on a slushy street. The city had plowed and de-iced the roads. Businesses were open. Things were returning to normal. It felt so distant from the country, where they’d been residing.

Beckham nodded his head at Gerard before slipping out of the front seat and helping her out of the back. They left Gerard with the idling car. Reyna linked arms with Beckham as they walked down the street.

“I didn’t think I’d miss the city,” she told him. “I always hated it after my uncle abandoned us.”

“It’s easier to be anonymous in the city.”

“As if you’ve ever been anonymous.”

He cracked one of his rare smiles. “I can blend into the darkness, Little One.”

Reyna rolled her eyes at him and walked with him down the rest of the alley. He knocked on a side door. When nothing happened, he tried the handle and crushed the lock on his way inside.

“Wait,” Beckham said, holding his hand up to her when she moved to follow him.

She stilled with her foot about to cross the threshold, and then she smelled it.

“Oh God,” she whispered. “Blood.”

The tangy rusty smell permeated the air. Even before she was all the way into the safe house, she could smell its pungent aroma. This was one of the larger safe houses. They’d been hoping to find upwards of fifty people in this place. Reyna was terrified to see what was waiting for them.