Bathe In Fire - Shadows of the Night 2

Chapter 22

Hi!

Time for the next update. I can't put my finger on it, but I like something about this chapter, and I hope you do too. It took me a while to finish this one and it seems like time for writing is rare at the moment. Here's to hopes I haven't wasted what little I had. Please let me know what you think.

Thank you all so much for sticking with this story. When I began writing Breathe Under Water, I started out without a plan and I never dreamed I would and could finish a single book. A big part of the motivation, of the thing that makes me want to write, is your feedback and response as a reader. I really want to thank you for that. It's incredible!

Lara

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Chapter 22

My steps sounded hollow in the empty corridor, an angry staccato beat in the nightly silence. Not only that my boss negated the possibility of vampires being involved in any way, he had the chutzpah to claim that I was too prejudiced to keep working in the TF3. The connection was there, as was the evidence. Why couldn't he see it?

I was supposed to lean back and reflect on my shortcomings as a force member? A week off? I didn't like Brown's all-or-nothing clause. Either I committed myself to the force and its policy of viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, or I was out.

I snorted as I fished for my keys. Innocent vampires. Wasn't that an oxymoron? Vamps were predators – if not by choice, then by nature. No way around that. My boss had to realize that. So why did Brown keep treating Alexander like the uptown wonder boy from around the block? Trusting a vampire, a master vampire old as dirt at that, was like playing Russian roulette – only that chances of you ending up dead were twice as high.

What was I going to do now? I couldn't simply go back and join Brown's congregation of delusional sheep. I couldn't ignore what I had found out. I was positive that the drugs messed with the victims' blood and that vamps were involved somehow. I had to trust my gut feeling.

If I was right and that was the case, my only chance to prove it was to catch a vampire selling the drug red-handed. The TF3 had been roaming the streets for weeks without success. No matter how much we'd tried to blend in, we'd never even come close to finding our targets. Maybe, as I realized with biting clarity, that was due to the fact that we'd always gone out in pairs. We'd always formed mixed teams. We'd focused too much on the drug itself. Maybe we should have guided our eyes to the potential victims instead. Many of the victims had been known bleeders. We never contemplated merely focusing on that.

Crap. That was it!

I stepped into our apartment. I found Ryan in front of the TV, still thinking about the best way to prove my theory and investigate on my own.

"Hi Anna," Ryan said, raising his head to peek over the back of the couch.

I moved on, dropping my bag on the floor unceremoniously. Identifying the killer or killers was like searching a needle in a haystack. I needed more information, more insight into how the-

"What crawled up your ass and died? You look like shit," Ryan said.

I blinked, swerving my eyes to him. Ryan was wearing gray pajama bottoms and a white shirt, staring at me with a cocky attitude I had come to accept as an everyday occurrence I had to endure. It was just the way he was. The nest of messy blond hair on his head and the wrinkled shirt were telltale signs: it looked like Ryan had spent most of the afternoon in front of the TV, 'recuperating' from his injuries.

I gave him a dirty look. "That coming from someone whose face looks like it's been rolled over by a truck. Twice. Besides, you-"

I stopped and froze. Focus on the victims. Drug addicts. Ryan was the key to getting more inside information about the drug business in this city. And he had been in front of me all this time!