The Recruit (Book Six), page 9
The Lycan was a terrible liar.
Olivia just shook her head. “I can’t. I’m an even worse liar than you are, Miranda.”
“I’m not a bad liar,” Miranda said.
“You kind of are,” Clementine said. “Sorry.”
Miranda made a low growl that was, Clem decided, more cute than terrifying. “Dammit.”
“Look,” Olivia leaned forward, “yeah, I bite Mannie, but we’ve known each other for a while, and I trust him. He would never admit that I bite him, even if half the people here suspect it. Nathaniel seems like a nice guy, but we don’t know if he can be trusted. If he told Jordan or Will or hell, even Hannah that he bit you, he’d be turned to ash.”
When Clem didn’t reply, Olivia said, “It would be the same for me, Clem. Every time I bite Mannie and drink from him, I’m taking a risk. One that could end in my death.”
“So why do you do it?” Clem said.
Olivia took a deep breath. “Because I love him and when we’re together the urge to feed from him is, well… it’s overpowering for both of us. Could we stop if we absolutely had to? Probably. But biting Mannie, drinking from him, in a weird way strengthens our relationship and makes our intimacy more intense.”
“It’s not the same though,” Clementine said. “Nathaniel won’t tell them he bit me. Why would he? He has to worry more that I can’t be trusted and that makes me feel awful. Which is weird in itself because I barely know him. But I feel this – this connection to him.”
“Maybe because he bit you before,” Miranda said. “Or maybe you’re still kind of glamoured by him?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Olivia said. “The glamour would have worn off long before now. Maybe he used it on you last night.”
“He didn’t,” Clem said. “I know what it feels like when he does, and he didn’t last night.”
“Okay, well, the other thing to worry about is that he loses control and drinks too much. He could accidentally kill you. I’m not trying to scare you, really I’m not, but take it from me – it takes us a while to learn how to control how much we drink from a human. We were made to drink from humans after they gave us the vaccine, to help us learn to control it, and it’s,” Olivia paused, “difficult. Especially when you’re drinking straight from a human.”
“Nathaniel wouldn’t hurt me,” Clem said.
“You don’t know that,” Miranda said. “Look, I get having an attraction to someone you shouldn’t, but this attraction could kill you. It’s probably best if you stay away from Nathaniel. He’ll be sent to the New York training facility soon, anyway, right?”
“He hasn’t made his decision yet,” Clem said. “And I,” she swallowed hard, “I think he might choose death.”
“Fuck,” Miranda said. “You sure about that?”
“He said something about guilt and… I mean, I got this really bad feeling when I talked to him the other morning. I told him I forgave him for what he did, but not sure that it made him feel any better.”
There were a few moments of silence and then Clem said, “Sorry, guys. I’m really bringing the room down over a guy I barely even know.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Olivia said. “That’s what friends are for.” She looked over at Miranda. “Don’t you dare start singing.”
Miranda laughed. “You ruin all my fun. Anyway, we can talk about this as much as you want, Clem. Trust me – both Olivia and I know what it’s like to obsess over a guy you can’t have.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s not going to help and – and I just want to try to be normal for a while. Pretend that I’m just hanging out with friends. That’s stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid at all,” Miranda said. “It’s a big adjustment period.”
“I spoke with Mannie about getting your personal things from your apartment,” Olivia said. “He said he would talk to Jordan about it and arrange for you to get your stuff.”
“Thank you, Liv,” Clem said.
“No problem.” There were a few moments of silence before Olivia said, “Okay, well, let’s do something normal.”
There was more silence and Miranda laughed. “Jesus, we don’t even know what’s normal anymore.”
Olivia studied her nails. “I used to be obsessed with painting my nails. Painted them every Friday night while I binge watched old episodes of The Office. I would even do designs and stuff on them.”
Miranda grinned at Olivia before holding out her hand. “You got any nail polish?”
“Miranda?”
Clem stared at the man who’d walked into the common room. He was tall and broad shouldered and, Clem decided, sexy as hell. His dark hair was a little on the long side and his body was thick with muscle.
A soft smile crossed Miranda’s face and she stood up from the couch. “Hey. What are you up to?”
He slipped his arm around her waist. “Just finished up with the recruits. You want to go for a run with me?”
“I’d love to,” Miranda said. She smiled at Clem. “Clementine, this is Ryder. He’s the stakes and knives instructor. Ryder, this is Clementine.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ryder said.
“You as well,” she said.
“Hey, Olivia. How are you?” Ryder said.
“Good, thanks.” Olivia said. She dug her phone out of her pocket when it chimed.
“How was your night?” Ryder said.
Miranda wiggled her fingers at him. “Olivia painted my nails.”
He gave them a brief disinterested look and Miranda laughed before poking him in the ribs. “C’mon, handsome, let’s go for a run. I’ve got some energy to burn.”
They walked away and Ryder said something into Miranda’s ear that made her cheeks flush the same red as her hair. He grinned at her and they left the common room. Olivia was tapping away on her phone and after a second, she glanced up at Clementine.
“Sorry, Mannie’s on a break and wondered what I was doing.”
“If you want to go hang out with him, I’m perfectly fine on my own,” Clementine said.
Olivia hesitated before shaking her head. “No, I’ll stay…” She stared at the doorway of the common room and Clem glanced over.
Her stomach clenched when she saw Nathaniel standing in the doorway. He walked toward them and she stood up from the couch, crossing her arms over her torso and smiling nervously at him. “Hi, Nathaniel.”
“Hi. Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Um…” She glanced at Olivia who stood up.
“I’m gonna find Mannie. Nice to see you, Nathaniel.”
He nodded and waited until Olivia was gone before clearing his throat. “How are you?”
“Good.” She tapped at her collarbone before sinking back down onto the couch. She needed to sit, her legs were shaking and she felt wobbly like a newborn colt.
He sat down at the far end of the couch. “Clem, I wanted to apologize for -”
“It’s my fault,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry for kissing you and for,” they were the only ones in the common room, but she lowered her voice anyway, “asking you to bite me. That was horrible of me.”
“It isn’t your fault. It’s mine for -”
“It’s in no way your fault,” she said. “I kissed you first.”
That small, cute smile crossed his face. “I wanted you to kiss me.”
She studied his mouth, flushing when he cleared his throat again and shifted on the couch. “Uh, anyway, I’m sorry and I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
“You know you didn’t,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you, Nathaniel. I’ll never be afraid of you.”
“We can’t be anything more than friends,” he said abruptly. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I want from you.”
His words were like a sharp knife in her belly, but she managed a thin smile. “Okay.”
“It’s nothing personal,” he said. “I just -”
“It’s fine. Friends is good,” she said. She knew why he wanted to be only friends, it was dangerous to be anything more, but that small stupid part of her brain kept nagging at her. Kept whispering that of course he only wanted to be friends, she was stupid if she thought someone like Nathaniel would ever be interested in someone like her. He was smart and good and… honourable, and she was a broke, uneducated stripper. It was a miracle that he even wanted to be friends with her.
“Clementine, if you don’t want to be friends, you don’t have -”
“I do.” She pasted on a smile. “I want to be friends, Nathaniel.”
“Okay.” It was clear he didn’t believe her but before he could say anything else, the genius twins walked into the common room. Amara was sitting on one of their shoulders and she waved at Clementine.
The twins joined them at the couch and sat down between them. The one beside Clementine held out his hand. “Hey, beautiful. I’m Tyrone.”
“Hi, Tyrone. I’m Clementine.”
“Clem, Clem, Clem,” Amara said before flying off Tyrone’s shoulder. She hovered in front of Clem and grinned at her before flying to Nathaniel. She hovered a safe distance away, studying him intently as he returned her stare.
“I’m Luther. I’m the good looking one.” The second teenager leaned over his brother and held out his hand.
She laughed and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Luther. You guys are Hannah’s brothers, right?”
“That’s right,” Luther said.
“You the vamp priest?” Luther turned to Nathaniel.
A grin toyed at Nathaniel’s mouth as Amara flew to Luther and landed on the top of his head. She sat cross-legged in his hair, glowing brightly and staring down at the four of them as Nathaniel said, “Is that what I’m being called?”
“Yeah,” Tyrone said. “There’s a bet going around about whether or not holy water will burn you.”
“You started the bet,” Luther said. He rolled his eyes when Tyrone punched him in the shoulder. “You did, dickface.” He turned to Nathaniel. “I say it won’t. You’re a good vamp now and as a priest, you used to actually make holy water. Right?”
“I did,” Nathaniel said.
“So, I’m thinking you’re probably special and can touch the holy water without being burned and shit.”
“That’s a fucking stupid theory,” Tyrone said. He held up one finger. “One, we know for a fact that the good vamps get burned by holy water and two -”
“Yeah, but he’s a fucking priest, numbnuts,” Luther said. “That makes him special.”
“He ain’t a priest now, you moron,” Tyrone said.
“How do you know the good vampires can be burned by holy water?” Clem said. “Did you try it with Olivia?”
“Fuck no,” Luther said. “Mannie would have our goddamn – excuse my language, Father – heads on a pole if we burned Liv with holy water. We tried it on Mom.”
“You what?” Clem stared wide-eyed at them. Tyrone whacked Luther on the back of the head making Luther wince and Amara laugh as she clung to Luther’s hair.
“You’re making us sound like assholes.” Tyrone smiled at Clem. “Mom’s a good vamp, just like Olivia and the Father here. We didn’t, like, sneak up and douse her with holy water or anything, she said we could try a little dab on her hand. So, we did.”
“Where did you get holy water?” Nathaniel said.
Luther’s face turned cagey. “We got our ways. Anyway, it burned her.”
“She drank some blood right away to heal herself, but it didn’t stop Dad from freaking out when he walked in on us pouring the holy water on her hand,” Tyrone said.
Luther winced again. “Fuck, man, he ain’t never yelled so loud before.”
Clem tamped down her smile as Tyrone said, “I thought he was gonna have a stroke, his face was so red. He grounded us for, like, a year but Mom overruled him. Said she gave us permission, so it wasn’t fair to ground us.”
“Anyway, if Tyrone and I managed to procure some more holy water, you interested in testing my theory?” Luther said.
“You just want to take Martin and Randall’s hundred bucks,” Tyrone said.
“Shit, I don’t need no bet to take their money. They’ve got shit for brains,” Luther said.
“Shit for brains,” Amara parroted and then laughed.
“That’s right, sweetie,” Luther said and held up his finger near Amara. She slapped it with her tiny hand before giggling and flying down to Luther’s face. She kissed his nose then flew to Tyrone and sat on his shoulder again.
“What do you say?” Luther said. “You willing to try it out?”
Nathaniel laughed. “Sure, why not.”
“Nice.” Luther said. “You ain’t half bad for a blood sucking priest.”
“Thanks, I think?” Nathaniel said.
“So,” Tyrone settled back in the couch and grinned at Clementine. “You and the priest wanna go outside and watch us blow some shit up?”
Chapter 8
“You’re doing great, Clem. Are you sure you haven’t had any training with computers before?” Resa settled in her chair next to Clem’s.
“Just what I learned in school so nothing specific. Unless googling various boy bands when I was a teenager counts as specific computer training,” Clem said.
Resa laughed. “If it did, I would be a certified expert.”
Clem smiled before continuing to input numbers into the spreadsheet. The Excel sheet had terrified her when Resa first showed it to her this morning, but after only a few hours of working in it, she felt like she had a pretty good handle on it.
“I’m happy you agreed to work in admin, we’ve been down a person since Amanda transferred to the Atlanta facility, but I’m surprised,” Resa said. “Jordan told me you had decided to take the housekeeping position.”
Clem entered a number and saved the document. “I was going to, but I changed my mind.”
She supposed it was more like Nathaniel had changed her mind. His belief that she was just as good as everyone else here had given her a weird confidence she’d never felt before. Before the foreign feeling could wane, she’d told Jordan she wanted to work in admin.
She’d almost instantly regretted it. Despite what Nathaniel and Olivia and Miranda said, she knew deep down that she wasn’t as smart as others, but there was a tiny part of her that wouldn’t let her ask Jordan to switch her back to housekeeping.
“Well, I’m really glad you did. I know it’s only been a few days, but I mean it when I said you’re doing great,” Resa said.
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
Resa checked her watch before yawning. “Shit, I’m tired tonight. You doing okay with the whole working through the night, sleeping during the day thing?”
“Yes,” Clem said. “My previous job was like this. Does the entire facility run on a night schedule?”
“No, just the admin and recruits. Housekeeping and maintenance work during the day still,” Resa said.
The door to the office opened and Mannie stepped inside. “Hey, ladies.”
“Hi, Mannie, what’s up?” Resa said.
“Have you already sent the babies’ exam results to the Board?”
“Yep. They went out Monday afternoon. Why?”
“Fuck.” Mannie scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I think I fucked up on Duke’s. Pretty sure I forgot to fill in section four.”
“You did,” Resa said. “I double check the paperwork before sending and caught the missing info. I couldn’t find you so I had Will fill in the section before I emailed it. Sorry, I should have mentioned it to you.”
“You’re a fucking rockstar,” Mannie said with obvious relief. “I owe you, Resa.”
“Grab me a Starbucks the next time you’re in town and we’ll call it even.”
“Will do. Thanks again.” Mannie left the office.
Resa grinned at Clem. “Mannie and Reid are amazing vampire killers, but their paperwork skills are dismal. Between the two of them, I get a lot of free Starbucks.”
Clem laughed. “Nice. Do you go to town very often?”
“Nah, not really. I’ve been bitten, so if I go to town, I run the risk of being attacked. I’d have an instructor or graduated recruit with me, but with the number of vampires roaming the town lately, the instructors and recruits don’t have a lot of free time to be escorting us around. Once a month, I organize a group thing where a bunch of us all go at once to run errands or whatever with some recruits to keep us safe.”
“I don’t get it,” Clem said. “Couldn’t you just go during the day when the vampires are sleeping?”
“We used to do that,” Resa said. “But a few years ago, the facility was attacked by the vampires and a lot of people died – mostly recruits, but there were some admin and other non-recruit people who were killed too. The vampires were given the location of the facility by someone who worked here. Since then, the Board has been a little leery of allowing us to leave the facility on our own. They’re worried that we’ll give information to the vampires.”
Clem frowned. “So, you have to be babysat every time you leave? That sounds… stifling.”
Resa shrugged. “I guess so, but them escorting us is also a safety thing. Our monthly outings are during the day, but recruits go with us because of familiars.”
“Familiars… those are humans who, uh, do the bidding of vampires in hopes of being turned eventually, right?” Clem said.
“Yep,” Resa said. She paused before laughing. “Even after all these years, it’s still occasionally weird to me that this is my life. Anyway, there’s been an increase in familiars too and about four months ago, a few of them tried to snatch poor Ellen in accounting while she was picking up her prescription at the drug store.”
“Are you serious?” Clem said.
“Yes. They try to take humans to give as presents to their vampires. They want to increase their worth to the vampires, you know? Anyway, it was fine. Mallorie and Alex were with Ellen and they saved her, but that pretty much curbed any of us non-recruits’ desire to go into town without an escort, even during the day.”
