Page 54 of Jagged Souls

“Let me go.”

“Please don’t kill me.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Antonio forced me…”

I glance at a blond-haired boy who is missing both his legs from the thigh down. The fact that he’s still conscious means he has just entered his ascension. The healing magic inside of him has a fresh well to pull from, and it’s working overtime, but eventually, it will fail. He can’t be more than nineteen.

When he finds me staring, hope fills his eyes. He’s too naive, not knowing it’s worse to have the attention of your enemy. He wouldn’t have spent any time in the Death Hunt.

I start to turn away to pick someone else to interrogate when he says, “He has my sister… Please help her… and I’ll tell you… everything.”

“What do you know?”

“Help –”

“Only if you have usable information.”

He struggles to sit up. His desire to talk to me like a man rather than lying on his back has me recalculating what he might’ve been through. Kids don’t handle pain that well if they come from happy families.

“Antonio is breeding… hybrids,” he says. “My sister was forced… into the program four… years ago. I tried to rescue her… but they chased me out.” He takes a heavy breath, then another. Sweat glistens on his brow. The puddle around him grows, and the stench of iron is making my teeth ache. I clench my jaw, fighting back my urge to feed. I am more than my base desires.

“I have been rogue ever since, but I know… where they are keeping her and the other women. He… bought a whole town and turned the school… into a… a facility…”

My blood runs cold. Micha is in a school. If he’s fucking breeding her –

His eyes start to close.

“Where?” I snap, praying he isn’t going to say the area I just fucking marked out.

“Morning Springs, West…”

“Virginia?”

He nods, looking as pale as a ghost.

A dark energy claws at me, begging for release. My body shakes as I struggle to control it. She’s been there for hours. How many times have they –

Stop.

Concentrate.

You can’t help her if you lose it.

Gritting my teeth, I breathe in hard. My fists clench, but I stop the rest of my body shaking. “How many wolves?” I demand.

“A few hundred... There’s not… much security… in the school itself… But it’s in… the middle... of town… Please… help… Katie…”

His eyes start to close, and I storm up the stairs to get cell service to call Louise Warner. She’s our second best healer (Mother is currently out with Aleric and seven of his vampires, searching the area I outlined for her hours ago), and I want this boy alive. I can use him to turn his sister into a mole, recruiting her through Zita.

Despite it being three in the morning, Louise answers on the second ring. “Yes, Boss?”

“Come to the house.”

I hang up, knowing she’ll be here in a few minutes; she doesn’t live that far away. I text Mother the town she should be searching for, and she replies back, saying she’s already found it and is waiting for the vampires to study the area enough to phase us in. Which means she’ll be back well in time for the raids.

In three hours, every government agency in America is going to crack down on the Death Hunt. They’ll attack their compounds, businesses, and every place they like to hang out in an organized sweep, creating the perfect distraction we need to go after Micha.