Jack, page 20
part #2 of Hunted Shifters Legacy Series
He played the video, starting from when Dennis drove off to get his precious food. Instead of returning to the apartment building, the car continued on in a different direction. It didn’t take Jack long to figure out the general layout of the streets, and he mentally ticked the passed areas before the car finally stopped.
Jack felt his lungs ripped from his body when he realized it was close to the area where he’d located the tracker on the computer. Very close, in fact.
When his breath returned a second or two later, he was already moving.
* * *
Racing from Queens to Manhattan on a Friday night was what one would call appointment suicide, considering everyone who raced to their meetups and meetings probably wouldn’t get there in time. Traffic was killer, rendering his car stuck before he decided to park it somewhere in Brooklyn and take the subway from there.
It didn’t help that he had to find a way to place the computer application on the special phone, wasting some valuable time. But it worked, because somehow she was thinking ahead, having already configured both to recognize and give each other access.
That was how much she trusted him, and it shook him.
On the train, Jack put on his earphones and listened to the security cameras’ sound recordings, then rechecked the live frequency feedback. There was no alert, and everything there was clear. When he got to Manhattan, he accessed the tracker again and found the green dot still in the same spot. So he walked there, tucking his phone back in his coat pocket and tightening it around him. He made sure to blend in with the crowd, just in case.
A few minutes later, he was in the tracker’s general location: a small area that was filled with bars, clubs, and love motels, basically making it a hookup spot. It wasn’t the high-class type of establishments, either.
There were some women strolling around on the streets, high heels clicking and heavy makeup hiding their real faces. Glitter, false glamour, and wigs, as they leaned down over slowing cars and made their offers with their cleavage out. Some drivers took the offers and had the women easing in before being whisked off, while others refused and just kept going. He eyed some deal going on as a pink-haired woman slipped an envelope in a driver’s hand, and the sight of the colored hair reminded Jack of Kit so much that his stomach clenched.
Other than prostitutes, this place was also infamous for one type of creature: nightwalkers who loved to prowl the bars and clubs for unsuspecting women. Glamour was their number one weapon, allowing them to seduce their victims into sex or offering blood.
Sometimes, the women had no say in the latter.
Why was the tracker here? Was this not connected to Dennis, after all? Were the nightwalkers they had a scuffle with before somehow involved?
Frustration mounted at his lack of information, rolling off him in waves. Forcing himself to remain calm, Jack entered a club under the pretense of using the restroom. Inside a supply closet, he returned to his phone, checking for Dennis’ car to make sure it was still there.
He switched to the other tracking application a few seconds later—
And Jack’s heart stopped when he saw that the green dot was gone.
This couldn’t be. Thinking he was wrong, he zoomed out the map, tried to look for the dot in other vicinities. He restarted his special phone, restarted the application, then remembered his earpod and turned the tracker of that on.
As expected, it showed on the phone screen, a green dot blinking almost mockingly at him.
The other green dot was still missing.
Dread started filling his stomach. That dread traveled up his chest, making it tight until he was having trouble getting air in his lungs. Slipping out of the supply closet, he went to the bar and ordered himself a glass of scotch, then let it sit as he tried to think it over.
Dennis’ car still there, Kit’s tracker pointing to a neighborhood infamous for nightwalkers…what was the common factor?
Instinct told him they were all connected, and that same instinct told him the murders were somehow connected, too. But he needed proof, as instinct wasn’t going to get him anything but speculations.
He also needed to find where the hell Kit was, and if the tracker was tracking her.
The thought made him want to punch a wall, but also to yell at her if she was indeed taking something on herself. Indecision warred, muddling his mind until he realized he’d already ordered three glasses of scotch and emptied them. Using his regular phone, he called Kit’s number again but didn’t leave anything on her voicemail. After a while, he paid for his drinks and exited the club, leaving the area and returning to where Dennis’ car was parked. Keeping himself away from prying eyes, he stared at his phone.
Then he sent a message to another number, relaying only the information needed.
Jack sat in one of the hotel lobby’s many chairs, tense as a board. Waiting it out. He didn’t have to wait long as a text alert pinged, and he read it fast. The message made his blood run cold, and soon he was calling the number.
Celine picked up on the first ring—and like the old friends they were, she could already sense the trouble. “What’s wrong, Jack? Why are you asking about Kit?”
If he told her, then she would tell Hunter, her mate. The clan would then be in their business—in his business—and there would be some lines crossed. He weighed all of this, especially how it would affect his private life, before he weighed the opposite side of the coin: Kit in danger with every second he wasted.
That had Jack sitting up, the decision loud and clear in his mind.
In his heart.
“You said she currently doesn’t have any work for your clan, and there had been no errands left for her.”
“Yes. I asked Hunter, and she already did the errands needed. She confirmed it with him, too. As far as he knows, Edmund still isn’t around and hasn’t delegated anything recently. What’s this about?”
“What about your clan members? Are they all there?”
There was a pause, as if she were mentally counting them. “Yes, except for Edmund. But he’s accounted for in Europe. Jack…?”
Dread intensified in the pit of his stomach.
“Her tracking device tracked someone in Manhattan earlier. Obviously it’s not a single member of your clan. That leaves her, and now the tracker signal has disappeared. She’s gone. Kit’s gone, Celine. I need help to find her.”
Chapter 27
This was crazy.
It was crazy of Kit to jump inside a tombstone without any thought but to follow Dennis and Aidan when she should’ve called someone for help instead. It was crazy to lose her phone somewhere in the process, particularly since she was now fully aware of the fact that she was no longer in the human world but somewhere…different.
A pocket, to be exact. Not just any clan pocket, but one of those rare pockets like Jack’s. This one had the exact layout of the graveyard, only the tombstones were destroyed and turned into huge piles of rocks. Whatever trees and plants were still alive in the New York version were dead but in the same spot.
It was fascinating, like looking into a mirror image. It was certainly the first time she’d seen a pocket like this, though she couldn’t claim to be an expert. Beyond the graveyard area, there was only fog, making the distance blurry.
In her spot under a pile of rocks, where she’d shimmied in the fear of getting discovered, she could see feet at first, right in her line of vision. Obviously, the two men’s feet. Dennis wore expensive Italian loafers, while Aidan was in his regular, worn-out sneakers. The sight of the latter sent a hard pinch to her heart, a burning sensation that made her frown. Aidan had always been her co-worker, sometimes friend—the reliable guy who always helped her whenever she needed assistance in her radio gigs.
Why? Why would they frame Dennis for murder? Who was behind it?
Who was their boss?
The feet eventually disappeared, but their voices still lingered. Kit stayed put, torn between leaving and staying to find out the answers to her questions. Staying might risk her life.
Leaving might risk the next victim’s if the killer was really there and she couldn’t return to this place anymore.
The decision was made out of instinct, and she gritted her teeth and stuck with it. She planted her elbows on the grass, then pushed herself up until she almost met the lowest rock on the pile. Careful not to touch it, she crawled forward, straining her eyes and ears. The feet had moved somewhere to her right, and the voices had gotten louder. It looked like they were arguing.
“The boss still isn’t here.”
“You need to be patient.”
“I have things to do. I have a radio segment later.”
“Your segments are nothing compared to this. It's best to remember that. Hell, my law clients are nothing compared to this.”
“I’m a professional, Supra. Being late isn’t professional.”
Grumblings followed, then more arguments, whispered now. She only listened with half an ear, the other half trying to detect different sounds but finding none. She obviously couldn’t stay there forever, but Kit wasn’t about to risk it without any form of defense. A dagger wasn’t enough—not when she didn’t know the extent of their strength.
Maybe she could return to the tombstone spot, throw something to the other end…her earpod. The last untouched one. The idea took hard form, and she envisioned it in her mind: activation of the tracker, a flick of finger to get the ear pod to the pocket entrance and back to New York, where it could be tracked easily. Someone from the other end would eventually realize she was missing, trace her…
Except no one else knew where her new apartment was, and the only other tracking application was in her online backup. Jack could trace her, if he were the type to nose his way in other people’s files unrelated to his cases.
He wasn’t.
Her heart sank, but she didn’t lose hope. Perhaps there was some other way…
A thud jarred her from her thoughts, dull at first before the sound fully took form. Something blocked the tombstone from her line of vision a second later: worn-out sneakers blurring before she found herself staring into dull, lifeless eyes.
Aidan’s eyes.
It didn’t register at first...and then it did. Her reaction was instantaneous: body going cold, ice skittering down her veins. Kit flattened herself to the ground as shock followed, making her numb enough that she could only freeze.
“Annoying prick,” someone muttered, right before an object was dropped on Aidan’s chest. Aidan’s eyes didn’t move, but his body jerked as the weight of the dagger sank right into his chest. “You should’ve just kept your mouth shut. You would’ve been more useful.”
Italian loafers came into view, hovering within her line of vision. The voice played in her senses, and she was reeling by the time she put two and two together.
The voice was coming from the man in front of her, who was obviously Dennis—except the voice had changed, and she now recognized it all too well.
Danny.
The caller-stalker.
She gasped quietly, then settled down when her mind attempted to disengage and set her into a panic attack. Kit slapped her hand over her mouth to cover the next gasp, watching as Aidan’s body was dragged off and out of her sight. Italian loafers disappeared, too, and the tombstone came back into view.
She couldn’t stay here like this.
The musing snapped her forward, shimmying out of the pile of rocks and trying not to think about the consequences. She wanted to think she moved like a blur as she activated the earpod’s tracker and threw it hard in the tombstone’s direction, watching as it twinkled out of sight. But Kit was pretty sure she was moving slow, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to get away with this. A second later, those deductions turned out correct when Dennis’ head snapped in her direction, hands dropping the body he was dragging.
Dark eyes fixed on her, only they were now ringed with red at the very edges.
The ice she was feeling earlier soared through her blood as she took in the sight.
Then she was turning around and running in the opposite direction—right towards the fog, where she couldn’t see a thing. Kit kept running, anyway, making for a forward path. She bumped into stones, wayward fallen branches and tree trunks, each contact marking scratches on her ankles and knees that had her gritting her teeth. But she didn’t stop running, taking out her dagger as she squinted her eyes and tried to see where she was going.
The fog was too thick at first, but it eventually began to thin out. When it did, she took careful note of her surroundings: the same layout as the graveyard, but with all the tombstones still smashed to rocks. But those began to thin out, too, and soon she found herself running on pure grass, brown at first before turning a lush, emerald green.
When the fog dissipated, her eyes took in three very bizarre sights: a forest-type clump of brown, dead trees to the right, another clump of pure green to the left. A green and brown field in the middle, leading endlessly to more fog intensifying up ahead. She didn’t pause from her movements, instinct making the decision for her.
She turned left and entered the green, her mind telling her to go faster. Dead forest meant dead branches, which would make all kinds of crunching noises, while fog and field was just asking for trouble. But her heart didn’t feel light as she passed by lush leaves that slapped her face, and the muted sound of her footsteps still felt like a drumming roar in her ears.
She needed to regroup. Stop. Please.
Something inside her was screaming it, so she listened. Kit turned to the nearest trees in front of her, slipping in between two that looked like they’d clumped together somewhere along the years. It protected her back, kept her front exposed enough for her to still see outside. Dagger gripped tight, her eyes moved and searched, sweeping in all directions and trying to find a disturbance in the silence.
It wasn’t the kind of silence she was used to in New York parks, where one could still hear crickets and such. This one was total silence, the type made of surreal dreams and nightmares—the one where she didn’t dare breathe for fear of being heard. That fear pounded in her senses, warring with her need to be in tune with her instincts, and it was the biggest distraction there was.
An image of Aidan dead hurtled in her mind, and she almost hyperventilated right then and there. Instead, Kit locked her knees in place and forced her will to cooperate.
It was a slow, painstaking process, done in silence and with barely any movement. By the time she had a semblance of calm back, she blinked repeatedly and refocused her vision. The fog had somehow arrived in that short span of time, a thin layer slithering on the ground before rising to thicken. Not as thick as the one outside, though, so she squinted and kept sweeping…
Kit stilled when the loafers came back into view, taking a step right in front of her. Another step, then stopping. She didn’t even hear Dennis come, and maybe that was the mistake of choosing this forest instead of the other one.
She waited for him to leave, but he stayed right where he was. Unmoving. Belatedly, she realized he was doing just as she was doing: sweeping the area, his senses attuned to his surroundings as he tried to detect any noise in the silence.
A whimper bubbled in her throat, but she swallowed it back in. She gripped her dagger so tight that it hurt, but the pain did a good job of keeping her alert. She didn’t know long they stayed like that: him rotating his body one second at a time, searching for something. Searching for her. Her remaining perfectly still, as if she were part of the trees and not her own person.
Something crunched to her right, and the shoes in front of her moved in a blur. The forest was silent again—not that Dennis was even loud to begin with—but she was too afraid to move at this point. Not wanting to force it, Kit stayed right where she was, gathering her scrambled thoughts and internalizing her panic until it was drifting away. Her heart returned to its normal beat, and it was a miracle it wasn’t palpitating that hard earlier.
Her body eased but didn’t relax, and she soon found herself reaching a decision.
Bracing for it, Kit tiptoed out of the tree trunk, each footstep painstakingly light. She saw nothing beyond the fog, and the lack of life had her both relieved and creeped out. Ready for any sign of movement, she took one step after another, remembering what she knew about vampires. There were three kinds as far as their clan was aware: regular nightwalkers who were gorgeous and glamoured to seduce, vicious nightwalkers who’d lost most of their humanity and attacked without thought, and daywalkers who had the ability to withstand the sun at certain angles and degrees. Some could withstand direct contact, while others burned when the rays hit their skin.
Dennis never went out until it was late afternoon, as far as she could remember...
Her senses pricked, and it was the only warning she got as nothing else made a sound. Kit whirled around, dagger ready and raised. It came in contact with flesh, and she used the method she was taught: push, twist, and pull, allowing the weapon to lodge in and hurt. A grunt of pain filled her ears, and she had a moment to meet Dennis’ stunned gaze before his eyes glazed over.
The red in those eyes dulled, and blood spurted out of his injury. He fell down, kneeling, then was rolling to the ground before he landed with a hard thud. The dagger stuck in his body came down with him, and her body stumbled forward as her hand refused to let go of the hilt.
He still wasn’t dead enough, as he made choking sounds and tried to get away from her. But too much blood was flowing from his chest, and the choking sounds turned into whimpers. Soon, they died off, his body slouching before stilling. He took one last, deep breath, mouth opening to do so and allowing her to see…to see.
Dennis had no fangs.
He had red eyes like a vampire’s, but nothing else.
“That’s pretty impressive for a beginner, I must say. Most would go for cutting the head off completely, and they don’t seem to understand that a perfect plunge under the chest area is enough to kill a person.”
