The Recruit (Book Six), page 5
“Goddammit, Tyrone. I told you the fit still wasn’t right!” A young Black man, wearing a flowered Hawaiian shirt and a loose pair of jeans, scooped up the sword from the floor.
“I fucking agreed with you, dickface. The strap needs another hole in it so the kung-fu master can tighten it more.” An identical looking Black man wearing a baggy hoodie and bright green pants took the sword from him.
They had to be the genius twins. Hannah’s adopted brothers, if Clem was remembering correctly what Hannah had told her that night in the infirmary.
“No shit, Sherlock,” the twin in the Hawaiian shirt said.
“Shut up, Luther,” Tyrone said before grinning at Chen. “We’ll get it right soon, I promise.”
Chen nodded. “I know you will.” He turned and bowed to the dark-haired man. “Alex, we will continue with just one sword if you’re agreeable.”
She wanted to stay and keep watching, but afraid they’d catch her if she lingered, Clem moved on. She walked down another three hallways – Jesus, how big was this place? – before stopping at a half-open door at the end of one corridor.
She peeked inside, staring with mild amusement at the bowl of fruit sitting on a table in the middle of the room and the four people sitting in a circle around it. Each person had an easel with a canvas in front of them. Clem studied the two paintings she could see from her viewpoint by the door.
“Good work, Selena. Try adding a little more red to the apple.” An old man with gray hair and the kind face of a grandfather was circling the room, studying each painting. “Chris, this is looking better.”
“It isn’t, Professor,” Chris said with a laugh, “but thanks. And thanks for not straight up kicking me out of the class when you realized what a disaster I am at this.”
Clem froze, her breath catching in her throat when the professor looked straight at her through the half-open door. “Exploring your creative side is just as important as honing your fighting skills. Everyone is welcome in the class.”
He smiled at Clem and motioned to where there was an empty chair with an easel and blank canvas in front of it.
Blushing, Clem shook her head before quickly walking around the corner and straight into a redheaded woman. Clem backed away, smiling apologetically at the woman. “I’m so sorry.”
“No problem.” The redhead glanced at the pale blonde woman who was with her. “This her?”
The blonde woman nodded. “Yes. I didn’t realize that Barb had given her the okay to leave the infirmary.”
Clem didn’t say anything, and the redhead grinned. “Five bucks says Barb doesn’t know she’s gone.”
“Clem!” The little naked fairy – no, firefly, she was a firefly – darted out from the redhead’s long hair and flew toward her. “Hi, Clem.”
“Uh, hi, Amara. How are you?”
The firefly hovered in front of her for a few seconds before returning to the redhead and landing on her shoulder. She kissed the woman’s neck and stroked her hair. “Human girl, Miranda.”
“Yeah, I know,” the redhead said. “When did you meet her, Amara?”
“She was in the infirmary when I woke up,” Clem said.
“Of course she was,” Miranda said with a roll of her eyes. “She’s the nosiest little thing, I swear.”
“Nosy,” Amara agreed, “but a cute motherfucker.”
The blonde woman laughed. “She really needs to stop hanging out with Luther and Tyrone. They’re giving her a potty mouth.”
“I know, but she’s obsessed with them,” Miranda said. “The only guy she loves more than the twins is Ryder.”
“Where Ryder?” Amara said, her large wings fluttering with excitement. “Where Ryder, Miranda?”
“He’s with Will and Mannie,” Miranda said. “Jim recorded the football game from this afternoon, and they went to the farmhouse to watch it with him tonight.”
“Amara go?” she said hopefully.
“No, honey, you’re too little to go to the farmhouse on your own. You’ll see him when he comes back, okay?”
Amara just shrugged as Miranda held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Miranda.”
Clem shook her hand. “Clementine. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too. This is Olivia.”
Clem shook Olivia’s hand. “You were at the club. You’re a… good vampire.”
“Yes. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Better, I mean… as good as I can be considering everything Hannah told me last night.”
“I know it’s a lot,” Olivia said, “and I’m sorry we had to yank you out of your normal life and into this one.”
Clem shrugged. “It wasn’t much of a life.”
There was awkward silence and Clementine cleared her throat. “Sorry. I’m not – that is, I’m socially awkward and I don’t really have friends.” She huffed out a laugh. “Shit. That’s stupid to admit, isn’t it?”
“Nope,” Miranda said. “We can’t all be social butterflies like Amara.”
“I not a butterfly! I a firefly!” Amara scowled at Miranda before biting her hard on the throat.
Clem took a step back when an honest to God growl erupted from Miranda’s throat and her eyes glowed green for a couple of seconds.
“Amara, no biting. Use your words if you’re angry, not your teeth,” Miranda said.
Amara folded her arms across her chest and stuck out her bottom lip. “Miranda no be nice to Amara.”
“I am being nice,” Miranda said. “What would Ryder say? You promised him you wouldn’t bite anymore, remember?”
Amara grinned sweetly at Miranda and patted her neck with her tiny hand. “Miranda no tell Ryder. Amara no bite anymore.”
She disappeared into Miranda’s hair as Miranda said, “Sorry, Clem, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Are you a werewo - Lycan?” Clem said.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay, um, cool. Well, it was nice to meet you both, but I guess I should return to the infirmary now,” Clem said.
Miranda and Olivia glanced at each other before Olivia said, “We were just headed back to my room to start a binge watch of Downton Abbey. Do you want to join us? I’ll text Barb and let her know you’re with us.”
Clem studied the Lycan and the vampire before nodding. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“This show is boring as hell.” Miranda stood up from the couch and crossed to the tiny kitchen. She poured herself some juice. “You want more orange juice, Clem?”
“No, thank you.” Clem said as Olivia closed her laptop.
“It’s only the third episode, we have to give it more of a chance,” Olivia said to Miranda when the redhead sank down onto the couch again.
“Life’s too short to give a show more than a three-episode chance.” Miranda took a drink of juice. “It’s bad enough that it’s midnight on a Saturday night and we’re binge watching some boring show.”
“You’d rather be at the bar?” Olivia said with a grin.
“No, but we could be out hunting.”
Olivia shrugged. “You know the vampires always lay low for a while after we slaughter a group of them. They won’t be going after the humans tonight.”
“Not as a group, but you know they’re out there individually trying to turn people,” Miranda said.
Olivia studied Clem. “You okay? I know this is a lot.”
“Yeah, I’m good, it’s just… even after what I saw at the club Thursday night, it’s hard for me to believe this is really happening. Vampires trying to take over the town, turning people to join their undead army? I mean, the police have to be noticing all the missing people, right?”
“They are,” Miranda said. “Hell, the FBI are involved, but they mostly just have a lot of missing people reports and no real leads. How could they? It’s not like they believe in the paranormal, you know?”
“The vampires are turning a lot of the college kids,” Olivia said.
“Yeah, because they’re stupid and keep having fucking bush parties,” Miranda said. “It’s like a damn buffet for the vamps.”
“Anyway,” Olivia said, “the FBI did put an agent undercover at the college but…”
“He was turned by vampires?” Clem said.
“Nope,” Miranda said. “Lucky for him, we infiltrated the bush party he was at and saved his ass from the vampires. But he was bit in the process so… he joined the program and as far as his bosses know, he went missing just like the other college students at the party.”
“Is he a recruit here?” Clem said.
“Nah, Jacob went to New York at their new recruitment center,” Miranda said. “He texted me and said he’ll probably be sent on assignment at the Atlanta base after he graduates.”
“I just find it hard to believe that there isn’t anyone with even a clue that there might be vampires in this town,” Clem said.
“Oh, there are conspiracy theories all over the internet. If you google the town name, you’ll see at least a dozen websites that mention vampires and werewolves and the paranormal as the reason for the missing people,” Miranda said. “Hell, that bush party where we saved Jacob? The students we also saved have been telling everyone who will listen that vampires are real. But no one takes them seriously. They tell them it must have been a bunch of serial killers who liked to bite people, or that it’s a mass hallucination from the drugs and alcohol. It’s crazy how easily people will convince themselves that vampires aren’t real, even when presented with clear evidence. No one wants to believe that the creatures who go bump in the night might actually exist.”
“Frankly, it makes our job easier,” Olivia said. “The less people who know, the better.”
Olivia took a drink from the silver travel mug she held in one slender hand. Clem tried not to look too fascinated by it. Even though she couldn’t see the liquid, Clem knew Olivia was drinking blood. She should have been grossed out by it. She wasn’t. But maybe that was because she had a hard time seeing the sweet and slender woman as a vampire. She couldn’t picture her hurting anyone even after seeing her throw a knife into Nathaniel’s chest.
Her cheeks burned just thinking his name and she cleared her throat. “So, um, are you both recruits, or have you graduated?”
“We just graduated not long ago,” Olivia said.
“Is that why you’re not training tonight?”
“The weekends we’re not hunting we get them off,” Miranda said. “It’s important for our mental and emotional well-being to have hobbies other than learning how to kill vampires.”
“Like painting?” Clementine said.
Olivia laughed. “You saw Professor Douglas’s class, huh?”
“I think so. Older guy, looks as harmless as a kitten?” Olivia said.
Miranda snickered. “Don’t let his looks deceive you. The professor is a Lycan. He’s older but he can still do serious damage.”
“Holy shit. He looks so… kind and grandfatherly.”
“He is kind and grandfatherly,” Miranda said. “He plays the violin and he’s a great chef and an incredible painter. He can also tear out the throat of a human or vampire in two seconds.”
Olivia smiled reassuringly at Clementine. “He’s a great guy, Clem, I promise. He teaches the recruits about the history of paranormals, but he also teaches a painting class a couple times a week. If you’re interested in painting, I’m sure you could join his class.”
“So, since you’ve graduated, will you be sent on assignment soon?” Clem asked.
Olivia and Miranda glanced at each other before Olivia said, “No. We’re staying here.”
“Is that normal? Hannah told me the recruits are usually sent off on assignment.”
“It’s not normal,” Miranda said bluntly. “But I’m in a relationship with Ryder who’s an instructor here, and Olivia is in a relationship with Mannie who’s also an instructor. If they send us on assignments, both Ryder and Mannie will leave to be with us, so they kept us here. With the number of vampires in our town, it makes sense for us to stay anyway.”
“Do a lot of recruits, uh, date the instructors? Hannah said that Will was an instructor and that they’re, um, mates.”
“It’s against the rules, actually. Selena is dating Reid who’s the guns instructor, but she had already graduated when they started dating so it wasn’t breaking the rules,” Olivia said. “It’s also against the rules for the recruits to have sex with each other but no one follows it and apparently in the last year or so, Jordan has been kind of lax about enforcing it.”
“Because it’s a stupid rule,” Miranda said. “I get the no banging the instructors rule, but the recruits not being allowed to blow off some steam by fucking each other is ridiculous. You have all these young, hot bodied humans crammed into an underground facility and training with each other every day and you expect them not to fuck like bunnies? Ridiculous.”
She pointed at Olivia with her almost empty juice glass. “Sex is a natural biological need and for the program to try to deny us that, is outdated and sexist. They don’t have the right to tell us who we can screw.”
She took a deep breath before smiling at Clem. “I am very passionate about this.”
Clem grinned at her. “I think you make valid points.”
“Thanks.”
“So, are Mannie and Ryder humans?” Clem said.
“Mannie is but Ryder is a Lycan,” Miranda said. “Anyway, enough about us. What about you? Did you grow up in this town?”
“No. I moved here a few years ago.”
“Do you have family here?” Olivia asked.
“No, I don’t talk much to my family. I moved here because…” Clem could feel her face burning. One of the good things about having no friends was not having to share the details of her crappy life or her poor decision making skills.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Olivia said.
“Speak for yourself,” Miranda said. “I’m as nosy as Amara, I just hide it better.”
Clem laughed, the tension she was feeling easing. “It’s nothing major. I was in a bad relationship with a guy who didn’t treat me well and I wanted a fresh start. He’d left me with a lot of consumer debt, and I couldn’t afford a place on my own. I had a friend living here at the time, so I moved in with her with the intention of getting a retail or waitress job and paying off my debt before saving up for college. Six months later, my friend met someone online and moved to Illinois, the restaurant I was working at closed down, and I couldn’t find any work other than at the club. I started off just waitressing, but the money was a lot better for… dancing.”
She wanted to not be embarrassed by the stripping, wanted to look both Olivia and Miranda in the face and not feel an ounce of shame for taking her clothes off for money, but she couldn’t do it. She was ashamed at what she’d had to do to survive.
“You couldn’t go back home to your family?” Olivia said.
“No. My family was still angry that I had let the guy I was seeing manipulate me and ruin my credit and they… I was difficult as a teenager, made a lot of stupid decisions and rebelled in a lot of dumb ways. I never…” she paused but in for a penny in for a pound, “I didn’t even graduate from high school because I didn’t want to follow my parents’ rules. So, I moved out in my senior year with my boyfriend and he didn’t want me in school. He wanted me with him.”
She shrugged. “He never hit me, but he was abusive in other ways, even if I couldn’t see it at the time. He had all the classic abuser behaviour though – isolating me from friends and family, not letting me keep a job for more than a few months at a time, insisting that I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough for anyone else but him.”
She stared at her hands before clearing her throat. “Anyway, I burned a lot of bridges by being with him, and my family was finished with me a long time ago. And thanks to the ex-boyfriend, I’ve kind of forgotten how to have friends or how to act in social situations and I have, well… I have some trust issues.”
“Understandable,” Miranda says. “When a guy fucks you over like that, it’s hard to let another one in.”
“Yeah.” Clem stared at her hands. “It wasn’t, like, my life goal to be a stripper and I’m embarrassed by -”
“Don’t be,” Olivia said. “You do what you have to, right? Honest work is honest work and as long as you do your best at the job, then that’s what matters. Right, Miranda?”
“Yep,” Miranda said. “You be the best damn stripper who ever stripped, Clem.”
Clem stared at her before bursting into laughter. Olivia was giggling as well, and Amara poked her head out of Miranda’s hair to stare at the two of them before disappearing again.
“What?” Miranda said. “I was being serious.”
Clem grinned. “I really appreciate that. It’s nice to be around people who don’t judge me for what I do.”
“Oh fuck, there will be some judgement,” Miranda said with a roll of her eyes. “Trust me, we’ve got some real assholes here in the program. But their opinion of you doesn’t mean shit, Clem. Remember that. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Right,” Clem said.
There were a few moments of comfortable silence before Olivia said, “Are you getting tired, Clem? Miranda and I stay up at night and sleep during the day like pretty much everyone else here, but if you’re tired, you can -”
“I’m fine,” Clem said. “I worked until three at the club most nights. I’m used to the night owl life.”
“Okay. Well, what do you say we give Downton Abbey another chance?” Olivia said.
Miranda made a farting noise and a thumbs down motion. “I vote no. Let’s watch a movie instead.”
“Clem?” Olivia said. “You wanna watch a movie with us?”
Clem sat back in the couch, a weird warmth settling in her belly. “I would love to.”
Chapter 5
“Hey, honey.” Hannah shifted Gavin in her arms as she stopped next to Will. The sun was just beginning to rise, turning the sky vivid streaks of oranges and reds.
“Hey, I thought you were headed to bed.” Will put his arm around her and she leaned into his solid warmth as Gavin stared at Will.
