Rivals: Episode Three Page 2

  “Oh, and because I found Ara cheating on me with Gaige. Needless to say, I murdered her and framed Gaige for the crime. Kill two birds with one stone since I was sure Xavier would want to hunt down his sister's killer. It wasn't difficult either. Ara still reeked of Gaige by the time they found her."

  “You're sick," I spat through a false show of courage.

  "On the contrary, I think I'm the most normal one here. If my trust and love weren't so devastatingly broken, then maybe we wouldn't be here? But nooo, your werebear toy had to come in and ruin everything. Such a shame."

  "Why me?"

  Elijah laughed in a way that made my stomach twist into an even tighter knot. "I thought that was obvious. He's in love with you, Kimberly, and therefore I must take you from him. The same way he took the one I loved from me."

  “They’re going to come find me,” I said, almost whispered. My voice cracked with fear and uncertainty.

  “Oh, that’s what I want to happen, darling.” A predatory claw ran across my throat. “We didn’t work all that hard to cover our tracks, after all.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GAIGE

  “Fuck,” I said to no one as we ran up to room 305, the door looking like it was blown in by a SWAT team. The sturdy white wood was splintered in half by something coming at it with the force of a truck, the hinges were bent in all kinds of fucked up positions. It was clear that the room was broken into, and so I braced for the worst.

  Xavier sped in before I could step through the shattered entrance. It was obvious we got here too late. I couldn’t even smell her, meaning she was gone for a while. I did pick up the scent of something else, something musky and pungent. It was the scent of a shifter. Two of them from the way their stench was permeating the air.

  “Shifters were here.”

  “I can smell them too,” Xavier said, walking through the small living room and into the bedroom. I looked around the living room, trying to pick up on any sort of clue as to where they could have taken her. They had to have left something behind. A small piece of paper caught my eye, crumpled unassumingly next to the thick mahogany coffee table. I moved to pick it up when I heard a moan come from the bathroom just next to me.

  “Hello?” I pushed open the door, a little wary as to who was on the other side.

  It was a girl, and she looked really beat up. Her face was swollen and developing a baseball sized bruise right smack in the middle of her forehead. Her nose had been bleeding too, the crimson red crusted to dark spots just above her trembling upper lip.

  “What happened? Are you ok?” I ask, coming down to her level and looking her over.

  “I… we, we were just hanging… I don’t really remember.” That’s when the girl started to break down into tears. Seeing the impending meltdown, I immediately went into reassuring mode. “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be fine. Listen, you’ve got two of the most powerful beings on this side of the West Coast. You’ve never been safer. We’ll call an ambulance now just to get you checked out, but you’re going to be fine.” I gently squeezed her shoulder and brushed away a river of tears.

  “Do you know where they took Kimberly?”

  Her eyes bugged out. “They took Kimberly?!”

  “A little sensitivity wouldn’t hurt the girl who’s most likely suffering from a concussion,” I said, not looking back up at Xavier.

  “A concussion?!” She turned her shock towards me.

  “I’m not a doctor, I don’t know.” That seemed to reassure her by just the slightest amount. “My name’s Gaige and this is Xavier. Who are you?”

  “Oh shit… the shifter and the vampire? Both of you together?” Her eyes jumped from me to Xavier, who stood behind me. Her mouth dropped a little. “Shit. Good job, Kim.” It was under her breath, but we could all hear it.

  “I’m Rachel, Kimberly’s best friend. She’s told me a bit about you guys.” And then her eyes widened even further, settling on me with a sense of dread behind them. “Oh my god, you’re Gaige,” she said, no doubt remembering some sort of earth-shattering fact. “You murdered that lawyer. His sister!”

  Fuck. Is that going to follow me forever, now?

  “That was actually a misunderstanding,” I say, hearing how ridiculous I sound.

  “The man who did murder my sister may have Kimberly.”

  “This is news to me,” I turn to Xavier and stand up. “What’s going on?” I ask, wanting to get answers. “We both need to be on the same page before we go fight for Kimberly’s life. Whatever you’ve been holding back until now needs to be aired out.”

  Xavier’s eyes narrowed and for a second I thought he was trying to charm me. I felt a moment of relaxation and trust, like I should listen to whatever was asked and told to me. I shook my head and cleared away the fog that was beginning to surround it.

  “Elijah Spectre, you know the name.”

  “I do. Elijah’s been an outcast of the shifter community for years now. Ever since the Rosenfield murders, no one’s seen or heard of him.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KIMBERLY

  “Are you ready for your one phone call of the day?” Elijah asked. I could hear his light footsteps crunch gently over the dirt and rocks as he approached me from behind. I had no idea what he was talking about. No way was he actually going to let me call someone.

  That’s when I heard it. A ringing sound. The sound of a phone call going through! My heart immediately started pumping like a rabid drummer. My mouth got dry and my throat started to clamp, but I needed to be able to speak. If this was real and it wasn’t some cruel joke, then it could be my chance to make it out of here.

  The rings stopped. My heart pounded. “Hello?” a deep voice asked, confused and concerned.

  “Gaige!” I yell, immediately breaking out into tears. “What’s going on?!”

  “We’re not sure, Kimberly. But we’re going to save you.”

  It was a promise that did nothing to stop my racing heart beat. The fear was beginning to push my stomach into uncomfortable knots.

  “Oh my god,” I say, breathless and terrified, sweat mixing with tears and falling down my face in huge drops. “Help me. I don’t know where I am.”

  I tried speaking quickly. I had no idea who was holding the phone to my face or for how long they were going to allow me to talk.

  “What’s around you? Do you see anything?” It was Xavier now.

  “It’s hot and I…” I racked my brain, trying to untangle the thoughts and somehow figure out what was real and what could have been me escaping into my own head. “I heard a ship’s horn earlier,” I say, “I’m blindfolded so I can’t see anything.” Just then, the phone twitched next to my face. But instead of being pulled back like I had assumed it would be, it was switched to my other ear.

  Why is Elijah letting me talk?

  Suddenly it dawned on me, I couldn’t see it earlier through the haze of terror, but now it all made sense. It was a trap. He wanted them to come and rescue me, but only on his terms, when he knew they were going to come. I needed to let them know. They had to be prepared.

  “It’s a tra—”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Elijah interrupted and threw the phone across the room before I could even finish. I heard it shattering into pieces once it struck the wall to my left. “We don’t want to give them any advantages either, darling. Just enough so that they know where to look. I still want to surprise them.”

  “This isn’t going to work,” I say, somehow finding a kernel of courage. “They’re stronger than you are.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  GAIGE

  The phone flew from my hand and straight towards the bathroom mirror, shattering the glass in a shower of shards right into the sink. Rachel yelped at the sudden outburst. “Fuck!”

  “Relax,” Xavier said, picking up the phone from the bed of glass. “Throwing tantrums isn’t going to help the situation. Is this yours?” he asked Rachel, lifting
up the small black phone. Rachel just shook her head in response, still looking up at me fearfully. I forgot she thought I was a cold-blooded killer, and I’m sure my soap opera outburst didn’t help her perception of me.

  “That means he must have left it here. They want us to find her.”

  “Yeah, we know that. She was going to warn us before the phone hung up.” I let my back fall onto the wall behind me. “It doesn’t help us in finding her, though. Elijah just wants to play a glorified game of fucked up cat and mouse.”

  “Exactly.” Xavier pressed a few buttons on the phone and lifted it up. On the screen was a blurry picture taken with only a few street lamps lighting the scene. It was hard to make out but not impossible. “Those are the docks. By where the Port of Miami is.”

  “Wait, she said she heard a ship’s horn!” I say, realizing how close we were getting to saving her. “That’s where she is. Whoever has her must be in one of the abandoned warehouses nearby the port.”

  “We need to go.” Xavier pocketed the phone and turned his attention to Rachel, who looked like she was close to passing out again. “Rachel, the police are on their way, do not tell them anything about our visit or about where Kimberly is. They’ll merely get in the way. This is something Gaige and I can handle.”

  Rachel, her face pale and her eyes bulging, nodded her head. I wasn’t sure if we could fully trust her, but we had no choice. I wasn’t going to force this girl into keeping quiet and neither was Xavier, although I had a feeling he was using his extra-special vampire charm bullshit.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

  ***

  The warehouses weren’t far from us. It took about seven minutes at a hundred-and-twenty miles per hour to get there. It was a clump of hollowed out warehouses that used to be home to a soap factory, a shoe factory, and a few other random businesses that took root in the underbellies of Miami. It definitely wasn’t the nicest of areas. The air reeked of garbage and homeless littered the streets, makeshift tents posted up on the side of graffitied bus stops, their abandoned residents lost to the normal world. I could tell a lot of them were shifters, displaced from society and not being able to find a place to fit in. Others weren’t, most were simply humans who had made some wrong turns in life or fell down a rabbit hole they couldn’t climb out of.

  Tonight felt different, though. The homeless were scarce, and as we got deeper into the abandoned group of warehouses, the people all but disappeared.

  “You sensing this too?”

  “I sensed something was off since we found Rachel. That cell phone might as well have been a map leading straight here in huge bold red letters.”

  I nodded as I put my car in park next to the biggest warehouse and the one closest to the port. The street lamps that flickered by its entrance matched the same ones that were in the blurry photo.

  We got out of the car, closing the doors quietly behind us. I looked around, making sure I didn’t see anyone hiding in the large shadows cast by the tall stacks of moldy storage containers. The ocean wasn’t far from where we stood, I could smell the salt through the acidic stench of trash. There was also something else mixed in the air. A scent already familiar to me.

  “Kimberly,” I said, walking towards a door that was conspicuously ajar. I’m sure it wasn’t a coincidence that her trail led straight through the open door. Xavier looked at me and nodded, giving me the sign that he understood. He put a hand out before I kept walking and pointed upwards. I followed his finger up towards a shattered window and narrowed my eyes back towards him. What was he trying to say?

  “Split up,” he whispered.

  The thought didn’t sit well with me, but I also didn’t want to waste time arguing. Xavier was a decently intelligent man, he would have a plan. So I nodded and watched as he walked towards one of the mountains of storage containers. They were long and crusty, their reds and whites and greens falling off and revealing the rusty metal underneath, and they made the perfect staircase up to the broken window, except for the fact that they stood about twenty feet away from the warehouse. It was a jump that no human could make.

  But, Xavier was no human. He climbed up the containers with an agility and grace reserved for something like a cat. He reached the top in seconds. If I wasn’t aware of his plan, I wouldn’t have been able to keep track of him. That was how well he blended in with the night and how quickly he moved through the shadows.

  He came to the edge of the highest container and faced the window. He bent his knees and poised himself for the jump. In a crazy display of power, the vamp leaped from the edge and launched himself directly through the window, clearing a jump that would have consumed anyone that tried it.

  Fuck, those vamps are strong.

  I moved through the open door, stepping into a reception area that had weeds growing in the corners and a rat’s nest tucked underneath a broken chair. Some sort of company logo hung off its last hinge on the wall behind the front desk. Kimberly’s scent was stronger, but so was something else. Another shifter. A few shifters it seemed like.

  I had no time to consider what the fuck was going on. I just knew I needed to save Kimberly. This was clearly some sort of trap, but I had no other option. And with Xavier somewhere upstairs, then maybe we could end up as the one’s with the element of surprise on our side.

  And so I walked past the desk and into a cramped hallway, the lights flickering above me, a cockroach running past me. On the wall was an arrow, thick and sloppily done with dripping brushes of red paint, and it pointed down into the hallway. Underneath the arrow was a message:

  Only getting even, G.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  XAVIER

  I jumped through the window and landed in a quiet roll onto the floor. The room I entered was empty, long-abandoned and gutted by whatever humans owned it. Immediately, I could sense the presence of at least four others. From the rotten musk that drifted in through the crack of the door, I could tell they were shifters. Then there was something else. The sweetness that told me Kimberly was nearby as well. It was a scent that had the ability to set me on fire, and that’s exactly what it did. I felt my muscles tense for action as I got up from the floor and moved quietly towards the door. I nudged it open and listened to see if there were any shifters in my immediate area.

  That’s when I heard Kimberly. A soft sniffle of fear cut through the night like a blaring alarm. I focused in on the sound and stepped out of the doorway. I was on the fourth floor and looking down onto a huge open space. The warehouse seemed to have been built like a prison, with offices all along the walls on every level but having nothing except a huge open floor in the center. I looked down past the rust colored rails and saw Kimberly sitting there, her hands and ankles tied, her hair matted and her face puffy, but she was alive. She was breathing and she was alert. This was good.

  What wasn’t so good was the man that walked lazily behind her, looking down at his watch as though the take-out he ordered was late. I saw two other figures crouched in the shadows behind them. Someone on the first floor probably wouldn’t have been able to see them, but I had a good vantage point.

  I couldn't attack, though. I needed them to be distracted by Gaige before I made my move. That would guarantee we keep the advantage.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to lie in wait much longer. I heard a gravelly voice from the entrance, “Kimberly.”

  The man that stood behind her turned in a half-circle to face Gaige. He wasn’t large nor small, just a normal looking man with a few more defined features and a little bit more muscle than the average guy. His hair was shaggy and his eyes small, conniving. The way he stood, with his head cocked to the left, his back a little slumped to the side, it all told me that he was the one behind this and he was enjoying it too. He didn’t stand there tense and worried and ready to spring. Because he knew exactly what to expect.

  Or at least, he thought he knew what to expect. No one seemed to sense the fact that I had snuck in above them. Th
ey weren’t prepared for a vampire’s agility and stealth.

  I crept towards the left, keeping close to the wall and not making a sound. My focus stayed pinned on Kimberly and her captor just feet below me.

  Where the hell is Gaige?

  Kimberly made another whimper and was answered with a jolly laugh from behind her.

  “I thought you were done with the crying? Don’t worry, Kimberly, it shouldn’t be much longer now. Unless your boyfriends are more stupid than they look. Which would surprise me because they already look pretty dumb.”

  “I’d watch what you say,” answered a low voice from the entrance. It was Gaige. I couldn’t see him from my vantage point, but I was still able to pinpoint his general location. It seemed like he was directly below me now.

  “I’d say the one that abducted a werebear’s mate is the one that’s stupid.”

  “Gaige?!” Kimberly said in desperation. Her head whipped around, trying to find the source of his voice past the scratchy blindfold tied around her eyes.

  “Kimberly, I’m here,” Gaige reassured her. My muscles poised for action. I grabbed the crusty banister in front of me, ready to launch over at the slightest hint of action and tear off the captor’s head.

  “And I’m so happy you made it. Aren’t we missing one party guest, though?” the man said, cocking his head and squinting his eyes. “A certain blood-sucker with a taste for the bigger ladies?” He stretched out a hand and ran it through Kimberly’s matted hair, drawing out a cry of surprise from her. It took everything I had in me to stop myself from jumping down now and ending it all.