Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

My hands were shaking as I lowered the gun, and I blinked furiously to hold back tears. I couldn’t afford to wallow. A .38 Special isn’t exactly a quiet gun, and people on the lower levels of the garage had to have heard the shot. Maybe they’d assume it was just a car backfiring, but I couldn’t count on it.

I grabbed my backpack and shoved the gun back inside. There was a tracker in my pack somewhere, but I didn’t have time to look for it now, and all the reasons I’d had previously for not dropping the backpack still applied.

Heart in my throat, I stepped around the protection of the car, keeping a wary eye on Blake. His face was still tight with pain, and his skin was a bloodless shade of white, but he was conscious. I hoped that meant he wasn’t going to die.

“I’m sorry,” I said lamely, then rolled my eyes. What kind of action movie heroine apologized to the enemy for hurting him? If I was going to play the part of a badass, I was going to need some serious practice.

I slung the backpack over my shoulder and opened the door to the stairwell. Blake’s eyes glittered as he glared at me, but when he tried to stand up, his face went even whiter and I thought he might pass out. I bit my tongue to stave off another apology, then slipped into the stairwell and let the door slam behind me. The echoing sound made me jump, and it took a healthy dose of self-control to keep myself from running down the stairs, which would only draw attention. I had enough people chasing me without adding the police to the list.

I hurried to the nearest Metro station, and got on the first train that arrived, not caring where it was going as long as it was away from the scene of the crime. Once the train was moving, I sat down and started examining the contents of my backpack—making sure the gun stayed safely concealed, naturally.

Eventually I found the tracker. Jack had done an impressive job of hiding it. I’d gone through everything twice and was beginning to think I’d have to dump the whole backpack after all, when I finally noticed that my purse-sized package of tissues weighed more than it should. I pulled out the first few tissues, then found a white, rectangular device, about two inches long, tucked into the center of the pack.

I left the tracker on the train—that ought to keep Anderson and crew occupied for a while—then got off at the next stop and took a cab back to my hotel.

Just in case the tracker had allowed Blake to figure out which hotel I was staying in, I decided to get out of there. My cell phone rang while I was packing. I checked caller ID: Steph. I groaned. There was no way I could talk to her now without her figuring out something was wrong, and I couldn’t explain my situation without sounding like a lunatic.

I was going to have to talk to her eventually, but I couldn’t handle Steph now.

Deciding I’d call her in a couple of hours, I checked out of the Holiday Inn and found myself a new hotel halfway across town. I took a hot bath, hoping that would calm my nerves, but nothing short of a horse tranquilizer could have done the trick.

I had no idea what my next step should be. Apparently, I had two factions of Liberi after me, and they had the financial and magical resources to make my life really difficult. I couldn’t evade them forever, not unless I decided to run away and make myself disappear.

I’d had enough experience tracking people who didn’t want to be found to cover my own tracks if I needed to. I could disappear from D.C. and create a new identity for myself somewhere else. But I’d spent most of my childhood being shuffled from foster home to foster home, and here in the D.C. area with the Glasses, I’d experienced the only true stability I’d ever known. I couldn’t face the prospect of digging up my roots and leaving everything and everyone I’d come to love behind. Not unless it was absolutely the last resort.

Which meant that somehow, I was going to have to find a way to convince both factions of Liberi to leave me alone.

To be perfectly honest, I already had a sinking feeling that life as I had known it was over. I didn’t have a clue how to get the Liberi to back off, and even if I did … Let’s face it, I wasn’t the same person I’d been just twenty-four hours ago. I believed in the supernatural. I’d become immortal with supernatural powers myself. And I’d shot a man. In cold blood.

I have to admit, I was wallowing. But then, who could possibly argue that I didn’t have the right?

My phone rang again, and I snapped out of my funk enough to check caller ID. A nervous shiver ran through me when I saw the name Anderson Kane.

Naturally, my first instinct was to ignore the call, just as I’d ignored Steph’s. I had, after all, gone to rather extreme lengths to avoid being forced to talk to him. But I was desperately in need of more information, and my available sources were pretty limited. Anderson couldn’t hurt me over the phone—at least I hoped not—so I answered.

I’m not much of a badass. Hard to be, when you’re only five-two. In spite of that, I’ve never been one to let people push me around and I’d had enough pushing already from the various Liberi I’d met, so instead of answering with a pleasant or neutral greeting, I said, “How’s Blake?”

My stomach flip-flopped at the memory of Blake clutching his bleeding chest, at the memory that I’d actually pointed a gun at another human being and pulled the trigger. Good thing Anderson couldn’t see my face, or he’d have known how much I was bluffing with my tough girl act. Hell, maybe he knew anyway.

He was silent for a long moment, and I wondered if he was more surprised or angry at my bravado.

“He’ll recover,” Anderson finally said, his voice perfectly neutral. “I suppose sending him after you was a miscalculation on my part. He has a unique ability to get under people’s skin, and he still believes you killed Emmitt on purpose.”

I raised an eyebrow, though of course he couldn’t see. “You say that as if you don’t believe it anymore.”

He sighed, and it may have been my imagination, but I heard a world of sorrow in that sigh. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maggie is convinced Emmitt had grown weary and set you up, and I was beginning to agree with her. Then you up and shot Blake. I have to say that seems more like the act of a cold-blooded schemer than an innocent victim.”

Internally, I cringed at the accusation in his voice. I didn’t want to feel guilty about shooting Blake, but I couldn’t help it. I’d already killed a man last night, and the fact that it had been an accident on my part didn’t do much to ease my conscience. I couldn’t help wondering… If I hadn’t sped up when the driveway had straightened out, would I have been able to swerve in time to avoid hitting him? I hadn’t thought I’d been going that fast, but the airbag did deploy, which suggested I’d been going faster than I’d realized.

I tried to summon a surge of anger to counter the guilt. “What was I supposed to do? Let him use that creepy power of his to violate me and then drag me to you so you could torture me? Are you suggesting only a cold-blooded schemer would do everything in her power to avoid that?”

There was such a long silence on the other end of the line I thought I might have lost the signal on my phone.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, and he actually sounded like he meant it. Whether he did or not was anyone’s guess. “I don’t suppose any of us are thinking as clearly as we should at the moment, especially me. Emmitt was my friend for a long, long time. I should have—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.

My own eyes stung at the pain in Anderson’s voice. I’m such a bleeding heart. But I couldn’t help mentally putting myself in his shoes. I’d stolen his friend’s life and immortality. Worse, I claimed that friend had used me to commit suicide. If I were in Anderson’s shoes, I’d probably lash out at me, too.