Blood Bourbon

Plan A

"Why haven't you activated the tracker yet?" It was the vampire, Timothy, that was leading him up an elevator ride and down a hallway to a door, going through another couple layers of biometric security measures.

Charlie watched him for a moment, frowning. "Odd. For some reason I'm surprised to see that that shite works on you guys."

"I can even see my reflection in the mirror too." Tim drawled sarcastically, pushing the door open and waving him in. It was a bare apartment, without much in the way of furnishings. "We moved him here after we tranqed him. He's a wake, but he's been unresponsive since."

"Why'd you tranq him?" Charlie looked towards the low bed, where he could see the man lying motionless on his back.

Tim watched him for a long moment. "I told him the truth, rather bluntly, of the situation. He's not a bullshit kind of guy. And honestly, I know I'd want to know right away if it was reversed. But I may have pushed too much at him, too fast. We've had to force feed him, his body needs as much as it can get to heal... and his jaw was nearly shot off. And now he's not making any effort to respond to it."

"Aren't you guys like sharks, normally?" Charlie had seen vampires go batshit around a little spilled blood, though his question earned him another scathing look from Timothy.

"Most of us can control ourselves reasonably well, unless we're hungry." The man grumbled finally, before raising a brow.

Charlie glanced towards the bed again, letting out a breath.

He felt for the man, he was struggling every minute not to break down and freak out over the fact that his little brother was somewhere, possibly being tortured by those sick fucks. He didn't know how long Daryl had, if they even needed him alive, or if Daryl could survive what was ahead of him.

Charlie's soul ached. If Ryker and Daryl meant that much to one another, he couldn't imagine the pain the vampire was going through. "How badly was he hit?"

"Three boxes of ammunition, from what I can tell, most of which he wasn't under cover." Tim walked over to a vest, tossing it through the air to Charlie.

He caught it and felt a chill. It had been riddled with bullets. Several buried deep in the trauma plates front and back. Some bullets had made it through the lighter parts of the vest, and the material was dark with dried blood. "We're afraid that if we turn it on, we're going to waste our one chance to track him. If he's still moving, we'll need to scramble to catch up. If he's further than we can reach, we needed resources on the ground. We run the chance that the watch has been found, or that he's been separated from it... but we figured it was best here, if you agreed to assist."

Charlie put the vest down on the lone table in the room, walking over to look at Ryker. The man's eyes were closed and because vampires have no need for air, he looked deadly still. There was a mass of scar tissue along the right side of the man's jaw and over his left cheek. "An inch more and he would be dead."

"An inch less and he'd not have been hit." Tim murmured from beside him, his approach completely undetectable until he spoke. "With the injury, and what we know about Daryl and the company, Ryker may be unreachable for a while."

He wanted, so badly, to just let the man have his recovery.

Judging by everything, he wouldn't blame the vampire for needing it. But something told him that Daryl would need Ryker up and walking toward him when they found his little brother. Something told him that he couldn't let Ryker give up on this, so he did the only thing he could think of as a soldier. He poked the beast. Snorting, he looked to Tim. "Tell Knight Corp to forget it. We don't need your help."