Chapter 22 pt. 2

I could see their reluctance to take me in but they followed orders and kept an eye on me. I mostly ignored them, following footsteps from the sedan that only I could see.

“He’s pretty clever,” I commented as I realized that the footprints that were visible led to the door and out into some brush, but the footprints that I could see had been swept away by something. The only reason I knew which to follow was the freshness of the blood drops and how carefully they had been controlled on the obvious path.

“Where are you going?” one of my security guards asked impatiently.

I pointed at the open first aid box on the wall with a bit of gauze hanging out. “He was bleeding when he left the pub. He would have needed to patch himself up.”

I glanced at a mirror above a small hand washing sink and it happened again. The events played as if it were a movie for my eyes only.

The hunter had been there, frantically tying bandages and popping aspirin. He didn’t have the vampire with him though. I missed it.

I didn’t miss which way the hunter went, though.

“Boys,” I whispered, “The hunter is still here. Call Kris but don’t make a fuss or he’ll run.”

I could have been speaking to a wall.

“Kris, your girl says he’s still here,” one of them scoffed over the radio loudly.

“Are you kidding me?” I hissed, looking up at the camera. The hunter was running already.

I took off after him without a second thought, leaving the two boys with their confusion. I had no idea what I would do if I actually caught the hunter but I knew that I was faster than him. So I cut him off at an entrance to the warehouse and had him dead to rights with no weapon and nothing but my hands to catch him.

He rounded a corner and stopped dead in his tracks the instant he saw me. I should have moved to capture him but I finally realized how dumb I had been to not bring my bodyguards with me.

“Where’s the vampire?” I called out.

Silence.

“Did you kill him?” I tried again.

He tilted his head to the side a little. “Raven?”

He might have said more but Kris and his team were clamoring in behind him. I was frozen to my spot as he ran off again.

I knew his voice.

Kris was the first to come to me. “Where are Ryan and Jake? They were supposed to stay with you.”

I didn’t answer but the boys came running out on their own having finally decided to go after me.

“Why didn’t you follow orders?” Kris shouted at them. “And what the hell were you thinking when you called us on the radio? Thanks to you two, we just lost him again. Get your asses to the trucks. I don’t want to see you until we’re back at the Nest.”

Leo snapped me out of my frozen daze by standing right in front of me, too close for comfort. “Raven! Are you hurt? Did he do something to you?”

I shook my head a little. “I knew him,” I whispered, still not sure about what had happened.

Leo looked over his shoulder at Kris then took my hand and slowly led me out of the warehouse to the intel van. He put me in the backseat and slid in next to me before taking my hands in his.

“Raven, look at me. What’s going on in your head? Can you tell me?”

“I knew him,” I repeated.

“You knew the hunter? Did he say something? What about our guy?”

“Check the office. He was watching from the security cameras,” I spoke, still in a daze.

Leo grabbed the radio in the front seat. “Kris, check the office upstairs. He was using the security cameras to avoid us.”

“What did he do to her?” came a hissed reply.

“She’s acting like she’s stunned. Otherwise she doesn’t have a mark on her. She keeps saying that she knew him, but I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.”

“Any word on facial recognition?”

“Whoever he is, he’s not in any system that we have access to without asking for international help.”

“You don’t have to. I know him,” I spoke suddenly.

Leo looked at me in surprise.

“Go ahead and ask for an international scan when we get back,” Kris ordered through the radio.

“He’s my brother.”

~~~
Kris and his team found the remains of the vampire in the office, leaving motive still in question. Leo and the driver of the intel van were silent which left me silent and trying to remember my brother. How could he possibly be a hunter? Why would he never have told me?

Back at the Nest, we went up to the office and I pulled up Facebook again. The last time I had posted I was in London and on my way to celebrate before going home again but I couldn’t remember traveling and I didn’t remember being in London before Warren woke me up.

Leo made me jump when he saw what I was doing and spoke up. “That’s a gorgeous picture. Where did you find that?”

“I took that picture but I don’t remember it,” I whispered.

“Do you want me to tell Kris everything?”

“No, I can do it,” I sighed.