Reaper

“This is really bad,” Lina said quietly, surveying the camp that had been destroyed in the raid. “This is really, really bad.”

Saphira nodded. The place was levelled – there wasn’t a trace of evidence left to suggest that the other Reapers and werewolves had been here. The area was now an open field covered in debris – and to a tracker, it reeked of humans. Tendrils of smoke floated up in patches from piles of ash and burnt cement. The Hunters had made sure to burn everything in their wake.

The group of Reapers fanned out over the area, trying to find something connected to either Charlie, Jesse, or Sawyer, but so far they had come up empty.

Something shiny caught Saphira’s eye. She bent down to pick it up. It took her only a second to figure out what it was.

“GPS,” she muttered to herself, turning it over to inspect it in her hand. “Well, would you look at that.”

She turned to the horizon where the sun was rising slowly to the east. As the pale streaks of the new day began to fan out across the sky, she thought about what was to come. An assault from the Hunters meant that all the supernatural races had a common enemy – humans.

This was the dawn of war.

Saphira hoped that they were on the right side of it.



It was an accident, they said. Shooting Sawyer had been an accident.

Noah told me that they had been on Isis’s trail for years. She was very powerful, so powerful that her victims were calculated, planned, so as not to draw attention to herself. Her minions only Fed from the bottom of the social ladder, the people who wouldn’t be noticed. So, as Hunters, they knew what they had to follow to get to her.

When I had made the call to Noah, he finally understood that I might be involved. He had hoped that I wasn’t. “But your disappearance from New York was too well-timed to be a coincidence,” he had said, as if that was supposed to make me feel better.

Noah told me then that they had a team in Chicago. They witnessed mine and Jesse’s kidnapping at the mall, and followed them close enough to Isis’s compound to be able to put together a team to infiltrate it. It had taken a few days – a few days that I had spent unconscious, apparently – but they had located it successfully.

They didn’t know about the other Reapers. If they had, they would have killed them on the spot. I didn’t tell them about them, for their own safety. But I was sad that they hadn’t found Jesse and me. They promised. They didn’t keep it.

The base that they took us to was far away. At least, I think. I wasn’t sure exactly how much of the ride there I had been unconscious. Jesse informed me that the whole trip had taken about eight hours. How he managed to stay sane that long in the back of that damn truck, I have no idea.

When we arrived at the base, it was like something out of an action movie.

The area was extremely secure. Chain link fences and all other types of boundaries were raised along the border of the base, giving the place an official government feel. I felt like I was entering Area 51. Thinking back, I realize that I wasn’t actually that far off. Men shouted orders as our fleet of vehicles all entered, each weighing the vehicles and taking all passengers into account. Once they saw Noah in our car, they smiled and waved – and congratulated him on the mission.

The entire expanse of land was desert and plains. It was empty, except for the base. I could see out the back of the truck that the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. All kinds of pinks, blues, and purples spread over the sky like water colors. As the gates closed behind us and we travelled farther into the base, I realized just how ugly that barbed wire is in comparison.

The place looked like a collection of buildings. I’m not exactly sure which one we went to, but Noah swiftly settled me into what looked like a living room with fluffy furniture all over the place. Everything was black, which I’m sure was because it was less likely to show the dirt, and it smelled like industrial cleaners. I fought back, hard, begging him to take me to Sawyer.

Fitch calmly escorted Jesse to the restroom, where he could shower and come out with some clean clothes.

I refused – I wanted to see Sawyer first.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Noah’s voice yanked me out of my thoughts. “Water, coffee, soda…?”

I sighed angrily, running my hands through my hair and finally slumping my head on the table. “Scotch, please,” I muttered through a mouthful of my hair.

I couldn’t see him, but I knew Noah was giving me a disapproving look. “Charlotte, I don’t think –“

“I’m 22 and I just survived a kidnapping and a military raid.” I looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Can I please have a scotch?”

He huffed. Shaking his head in disapproval, he retreated from the room in search of my drink.

Truth be told, I’m not a hundred percent sure why I wanted the scotch. I didn’t really drink much alcohol, and I especially wasn’t fond of it after the night in Atlantic City when this whole episode began. The thought of it made my head hurt. But somehow, a scotch sounded… familiar, more welcoming than anything else. Plus, a shot of alcohol would definitely numb my aching head right about now.

“What can I get for you?” I asked quietly, directing my attention to the man standing behind the two girls chatting up Jesse.

My hand froze on the pen. I don’t much notice customers or really think about them much unless they cause an issue, but this guy… This guy was different.

He looked at me then, his eyes bright. “Scotch, please.”

I realized then – Sawyer. He was the reason it sounded like such a good idea. The thought of having something, anything, to keep my mind with him was welcome, at the moment. I ran my hands nervously through my hair. Ugh, it was knotted something awful.

A few minutes later, Noah returned, with Mason, my oldest brother, in tow.

Mason definitely looked the part of doctor. He was tall, taller than Noah, and his stark brown hair was well clipped and kept, like he was always putting product in it. He was clean-shaven, showing off his impressive jawline that ran in our family. However, unlike mine and Noah’s, Mason’s eyes were a bright, steely gray, the kind of gray that gave away no emotion whatsoever and also kind of haunted my nightmares.

Mason gave me a cool nod as he entered the room. He was dressed in some scrubs and a white lab coat, looking the part. Part of me thought about how pretentious he was about having gone to medical school, but I bit my tongue.

“Mason,” I said curtly.

“Charlotte.”

He eyed me for a moment. After a beat, he rushed towards me. I tensed – well, that was unexpected. He threw his arms around me, enveloping me into a hug that I had only experienced once before, at my high school graduation. I heard him choke back what sounded like a strangled sob, and I raised an eyebrow at Noah over his shoulder. Noah shrugged. Hesitantly, I wrapped my own arms around his torso awkwardly, returning the gesture.

When he pulled away, the mask of indifference had faded from his face. Mason wore that mask his entire life – without it, he seemed… different, somehow.

“Charlie, I thought you were dead,” he said quietly, as if knowing what I was going to say before I said it. He knelt down in front of me, his hands on the armrest of the couch I had sunk down into. “When they told us you had disappeared, I was – I –“ He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I was so worried that I’d never see my little sister again.”

I didn’t say anything. I gritted my teeth to keep the sarcastic responses at bay, but there was only so much I could do. Fury and frustration seethed beneath my skin, pulsing hot through my veins, and it was all I could do not to bolt.

Noah, reading my expression, slowly approached the table in front of me. He gently placed the glass of scotch onto the smooth black surface, and with it a pile of clothes. I realized after a moment that it was a pair of jeans, a white cotton shirt and some black sneakers.

“Where’s Sawyer?” I asked softly. It didn’t come out as forceful as I had wanted.

Mason blinked at me, surprised. “The Reaper?” When my expression didn’t change, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s down the hall, to the left, but –“

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. I was out of my chair before he could finish his sentence. All that I could think of was Sawyer and whether or not he was alive.

Noah held out an arm and caught me swiftly. I struggled against his grip, but it was no use – I was exhausted, hungry, and weak, and he was a trained soldier with a good seventy pounds on me. I squirmed in his grasp for a few moments, overcome with frustration, but I ran out of energy and succumbed. Mason swore under his breath as Noah restrained my hands behind my back to keep me from hitting him.

I glared at Mason.

He held up his hands for me to see, approaching me slowly, like a rabid animal. “Charlie, he’s fine,” he said slowly, his eyes conveying his sincerity. “Well, okay, not fine – he’s had some blood loss, not to mention the poisoning, but – he’s stable.” I felt the blood drain from my face. Poison? “You can go see him after you shower. I don’t want you to contaminate his wounds further.”

I hated to admit it, but he had a point. I relaxed enough to let Noah know that I wasn’t going to resist anymore. Hesitantly, he released me, and I rubbed my shoulders bitterly.

“The bathroom is there,” Noah said calmly, nodding to one of the other doors in the room.

I begrudgingly thanked him and grabbed the pile of clothes. After a moment, I eyed the untouched glass of scotch. I swiped it up and downed its contents in one go. Ah! It burned my throat as it went down, and I was acutely aware of the lack of food in my stomach, but the warm feeling it gave me was certainly worth it. I ignored my brothers’ stunned faces and hurried away, stubbornly locking myself in the room.

As the water cascaded over me, I felt myself truly relax for the first time in a really, really long time. Sawyer was alive, and he was safe – for the most part. I could at least trust my brothers not to kill him yet. I just wanted more than anything so see him alive.
The look on his face just before I went unconscious back at Isis’s place haunted me every time I closed my eyes. He had looked at me with this pained expression, staring at me with hollow green eyes. He had looked like a shell, lifeless and cold. I just wanted something to replace that image in my head.

The water ran brown for longer than I was comfortable with. I slowly ran a bar of soap over my bruised body. I had been knocked around, but thankfully I had no wounds to speak of. The dye in my hair had almost completely faded by the time I was done with my shower – leave it to Sawyer to pick the one-and-done kind, not the semi-permanent kind. I smiled to myself at the thought. Of course he wouldn’t know which hair dye to pick; he would have no reason to know that.

I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of anger as I lathered up my now-red hair. Why did my family think it was okay to keep this kind of information from me? That they were Hunters? Surely that put me in some kind of danger. And that would be their fault because I didn’t know about it! I expected this type of thing from my parents – they treated me like I was a fragile flower from day one. Mason, too, since he was eight when I was born and old enough to know not to hurt me. But I really felt a sense of betrayal because Noah, the only person in my family that I still cared about, had lied to me, too. That hurt the worst.

I felt hollow as I pulled myself out of the shower, somewhat reluctantly – I really enjoyed the way it felt. As I wrapped the fluffy white towel around my torso, I finally got a look at myself in the mirror.

“Holy shit,” I gasped, and then realized that I had actually said it out loud.

I didn’t even look like myself. I nervously placed a hand to my gaunt-looking face, surprised that it felt the same as it had these last few weeks. I guess just the lack of reflective surfaces allowed me to forget what I looked like, to be blind to the changes that were taking over my body. I had lost so much weight, I looked like I was about to pass out. Say what you want about dieting, but this – this wasn’t healthy. I felt around the sharp corners of my shoulders, wondering at the translucent skin and shrunken muscles. I felt like a covered skeleton.

No wonder Sawyer had been so mad at me. I’d be mad at me, too.

I quickly pulled on the clothes that Noah had brought me – I blushed like a tomato when I realized he had brought me underwear, too – and dried my hair the best I could before pulling it into a quick braid. I looked somewhat more presentable, but I couldn’t shake the image of myself in the mirror.

When I went back into the other room, Mason and Noah were talking, but Mason’s face looked like he had seen a ghost. Noah didn’t look well, either, come to think of it.

“What’s wrong?” I asked hesitantly, forgetting the anger I'd had before.

Mason met my gaze and for just a second I felt my heart stop. It had to do with Sawyer, I just knew it. Something was really, really wrong. He sighed, folding his arms over his chest.

“Look, Charlie, I’m not sure how to tell you this,” he said quietly, almost as though he didn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. “We discovered something significant while we were treating Sawyer. I had to run a test to be sure, and while you were in the shower, another doctor brought me the results.”

I felt my breath hitch in my throat. “What?” I croaked, eyes wide.

“Sawyer isn’t a pureblood Reaper,” he said slowly, incredulously, looking over the papers on his clipboard.

“You mean –“

“Yeah,” he breathed, nodding. “He’s half human.”