The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (11 page)

I shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”

Riley smiled. “Great. I’ll pull you aside before we leave, and you can tell me how it went. I’ll keep it casual, not like
tonight. I don’t want him to feel like I’m spying on him.”

“Okay.”

Riley motioned for me to follow and then headed back to the basement.

The training lasted all day, but I wasn’t part of it. After Riley went back to his team leaders, I took my spot beside Fred.
The others had been divided up into four groups of four, with Raoul and Kristie directing them. No one had picked Fred for
a side, or maybe he’d ignored them, or maybe they couldn’t even see that he was there. I could still see him. He stood out—the
only one not participating, a big blond elephant in the room.

I had no desire to insinuate myself into either Raoul’s team or Kristie’s, so I just watched. No one seemed to notice that
I was sitting out with Fred. Though we must have been somewhat invisible, thanks to talented Fred, I felt horribly obvious.
I wished I were invisible to
myself
—that I could see the illusion so that I could trust it. But no one noticed us, and after a while I could almost relax.

I watched the practicing closely. I wanted to know everything, just in case. I wasn’t planning on fighting; I was planning
on finding Diego and making a break for it. But what if Diego wanted to fight? Or what if we had to fight to get away from
the rest? Better to pay attention.

Only once did anyone ask about Diego. It was Kevin, but I had a sense that Raoul had put him up to it.

“So, did Diego end up getting fried after all?” Kevin asked in a forced joking tone.

“Diego’s with
her
,” Riley said, and no one had to ask who he meant. “Surveillance.”

A few people shuddered. No one said anything more about Diego.

Was he really with
her
? I cringed at the thought. Maybe Riley was just saying that to keep people from questioning him. He probably didn’t want
Raoul getting jealous and feeling second best when Riley needed him at his most arrogant today. I couldn’t be sure, and I
wasn’t going to ask. I kept quiet, as usual, and watched the training.

In the end, watching was boring, thirsty work. Riley didn’t give his army a break for three days and two nights straight.
During the daytime it was harder to stay out of the mix—we all were crammed so tightly into the basement. It made things easier
in one way for Riley—he could usually catch a fight before it got ugly. Outside at night, they had more room to really work
around each other, but Riley was kept busy darting back and forth to catch limbs and get them back to their owners quickly.
He kept his temper well, and he’d been smart enough to find all the lighters this time. I would have bet that this would spin
out of control, that we’d lose at least a couple of coven members with Raoul and Kristie skirmishing head to head for days
on end. But Riley had better control of them than I had thought possible.

Still, it was mostly repetition. I noticed Riley saying the same things over and over and over again.
Work together, watch your back, don’t go at her head-on; work together, watch your back, don’t go at him head-on; work together,
watch your back, don’t go at her head-on
. It was kind of ridiculous, really, and made the group seem exceptionally stupid. But I was sure I would have been just as
stupid if I’d been in the thick of the fight with them rather than watching calmly from the sidelines with Fred.

It reminded me in a way of how Riley had drilled into us our fear of the sun. Constant repetition.

Still, it was so dull that after about ten hours that first day, Fred produced a deck of cards and started playing solitaire.
That was more interesting than
watching the same mistakes over and over again, so I mostly watched him.

After about another twelve hours—we were inside again—I nudged Fred to point out a red five that he could move over. He nodded
and made the change. After that hand, he dealt out the cards to both of us, and we played rummy. We never spoke, but Fred
smiled a few times. No one ever looked our way or asked us to join in.

There were no hunting breaks, and as time went on, this got harder and harder to ignore. Fights broke out more regularly and
with less provocation. Riley’s commands got more shrill, and he tore off two arms himself. I tried to forget the burning thirst
as much as possible—after all, Riley must have been getting thirsty, too, so this couldn’t last forever—but mostly thirst
was the only thing on my mind. Fred was looking pretty strained.

Early into the third night—one more day to go, and when I thought about the ticking clock it tied my empty stomach into knots—Riley
called all the mock fights to a halt.

“Round it up, kids,” he told us, and everyone moved into a loose half-circle facing him. The original gangs all stood close
together, so the practicing hadn’t changed any of those alliances. Fred put the cards in his back pocket and stood up. I stood
close
to his side, counting on his repulsive aura to hide me.

“You’ve done well,” Riley told us. “Tonight, you get a reward. Drink up, because tomorrow you’re going to want your strength.”

Snarls of relief from almost everyone.

“I say
want
and not
need
for a reason,” Riley went on. “I think you guys have got this. You’ve stayed smart and worked hard. Our enemies aren’t going
to know what’s hit them!”

Kristie and Raoul growled, and both of their companies followed suit immediately. I was surprised to see it, but they did
look like an army in that moment. Not that they were marching in formation or anything, but there was just something uniform
about the response. Like they all were part of one big organism. As always, Fred and I were the glaring exceptions, but I
thought only Riley was even the slightest bit aware of us—every now and then his eyes would scan across where we were standing,
almost like he was checking to make sure he still felt Fred’s talent. And Riley didn’t seem to mind that we weren’t joining
up. For now, anyway.

“Um, you mean tomorrow
night
, right, boss?” Raoul clarified.

“Right,” Riley said with a strange little smile. It didn’t seem like anyone else noticed anything off in
his reply—except for Fred. He looked down at me with one eyebrow raised. I shrugged.

“You ready for your reward?” Riley asked.

His little army roared in response.

“Tonight you get a taste of what our world will be like when our competition is out of the picture. Follow me!”

Riley bounded away; Raoul and his team were right on his heels. Kristie’s group started shoving and clawing right through
the middle of them to get to the front.

“Don’t make me change my mind!” Riley bellowed from the trees ahead. “You can all go thirsty. I don’t care!”

Kristie barked an order and her group sullenly fell behind Raoul’s. Fred and I waited until the last of them was out of sight.
Then Fred did one of those little
ladies first
sweeps with his arm. It didn’t feel like he was afraid to have me at his back, just that he was being polite. I started running
after the army.

The others were already long gone, but it was nothing to follow their smell. Fred and I ran in companionable silence. I wondered
what he was thinking. Maybe he was only thirsty. I was burning, so he probably was, too.

We caught up to the others after about five minutes, but kept our distance. The army was moving
in amazing quiet. They were focused, and more… disciplined. I kind of wished that Riley had started the training sooner.
It was easier to be around this group.

We crossed over an empty two-lane freeway, another strip of forest, and then we were on a beach. The water was smooth, and
we’d gone almost due north, so this must have been the strait. We hadn’t passed near any residences, and I was sure that was
on purpose. Thirsty and on edge, it wouldn’t take too much to dissolve this small measure of organization into a screaming
free-for-all.

We’d never hunted all together before, and I was pretty sure that it was not a good idea now. I remembered Kevin and the Spider-Man
kid fighting over the woman in the car that first night I’d talked to Diego. Riley had better have a whole lot of bodies for
us or people were going to start tearing each other up to get the most blood.

Riley paused at the water’s edge.

“Don’t hold back,” he told us. “I want you well fed and strong—at your peak. Now… let’s go have some fun.”

He dove smoothly into the surf. The others were growling excitedly as they submerged, too. Fred and I followed more closely
than before because we couldn’t follow their scent under water. But I could
feel that Fred was hesitant—ready to bolt if this was something other than an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. It seemed like
he didn’t trust Riley any more than I did.

We didn’t swim long, and then we saw the others kicking upward. Fred and I surfaced last, and Riley started talking as soon
as our heads were out of the water, like he’d been waiting for us. He must have been more aware of Fred than the others were.

“There she is,” he said, waving toward a large ferry chugging south, probably making the last commuter run of the night down
from Canada. “Give me a minute. When the power goes out, she’s all yours.”

There was an excited murmur. Someone giggled. Riley was off like a shot, and seconds later we saw him fly up the side of the
big boat. He headed straight for the control tower on top of the ship. Silencing the radio was my bet. He could say all he
wanted about these enemies being our reason for caution, but I was sure there was more to it than that. Humans weren’t supposed
to know about vampires. At least, not for very long. Just long enough for us to kill them.

Riley kicked a big plate-glass window out of his way and disappeared into the tower. Five seconds later, the lights went out.

I realized Raoul was already gone. He must have
submerged so we wouldn’t hear him swimming after Riley. Everyone else took off, and the water churned as if an enormous school
of barracuda were attacking.

Fred and I swam at a relatively leisurely pace behind them. In a funny way, it was like we were some old married couple. We
never talked, but we still did things at exactly the same time.

We got to the boat about three seconds later, and already the air was full of shrieks and the warm scent of blood. The smell
made me realize exactly how thirsty I was, but that was the last thing I realized. My brain shut down completely. There was
nothing but fiery pain in my throat and the delicious blood—blood everywhere—promising to put that fire out.

When it was over and there wasn’t a heart left beating on the whole ship, I wasn’t sure how many people I’d personally killed.
More than triple the number I’d ever had on a hunting trip before, easy. I felt hot and flushed. I’d drunk long past the point
at which my thirst was totally slaked, just for the taste of the blood. Most of the blood on the ferry was clean and luscious—these
passengers had not been dregs. Though I hadn’t held back, I was probably at the low end of the kill count. Raoul was so surrounded
by mangled bodies that they actually made
a little hill. He sat on top of his pile of the dead and laughed loudly to himself.

He wasn’t the only one laughing. The dark boat was full of sounds of delight. I heard Kristie say, “That was amazing—three
cheers for Riley!” Some of her crowd put up a raucous chorus of hurrahs like a bunch of happy drunks.

Jen and Kevin swung onto the view deck, dripping wet. “Got ’em all, boss,” Jen called to Riley. So some people must have tried
to swim for it. I hadn’t noticed.

I looked around for Fred. It took me a while to find him. I finally realized that I couldn’t look directly at the back corner
by the vending machines, and I headed that way. At first I felt like the rocking ferry was making me seasick, but then I got
close enough that the feeling faded and I could see Fred standing by the window. He smiled at me quickly, and then looked
over my head. I followed his gaze and saw that he was watching Riley. I got the feeling that he’d been doing this for some
time.

“Okay, kids,” Riley said. “You’ve had a taste of the sweet life, but now we’ve got work to do!”

They all roared enthusiastically.

“I’ve got three last things to tell you—and one of those things involves a little dessert—so let’s sink this scow and get
home!”

With laughter mixed in with the snarls, the army went to work dismantling the boat. Fred and I bailed out the window and watched
the demo from a short distance. It didn’t take long for the ferry to crumple in the middle with a loud groan of metal. The
midsection went down first, with both the bow and the stern twisting up to point to the sky. They sank one at a time, the
stern beating the bow by a few seconds. The school of barracuda headed toward us. Fred and I started swimming for shore.

We ran home with the others—though keeping our distance. A couple of times Fred looked at me like he had something he wanted
to say, but each time he seemed to change his mind.

Back at the house, Riley let the celebratory mood wind down. Even after a few hours had passed, he still had his hands full
trying to get everyone serious again. For once it wasn’t a fight he was trying to defuse, just high spirits. If Riley’s promises
were false, as I thought, he was going to have an issue when the ambush was over. Now that all these vampires had really feasted,
they weren’t going to go back to any measure of restraint very easily. For tonight, though, Riley was a hero.

Finally—a while after I would have guessed that the sun was up outside—everyone was quiet and paying attention. From their
faces, it seemed they
were ready to hear just about anything he had to say.

Riley stood halfway up the stairs, his face serious.

“Three things,” he began. “First, we want to be sure we get the right coven. If we accidentally run across another clan and
slaughter them, we’ll tip our hand. We want our enemies overconfident and unprepared. There are two things that mark this
coven, and they’re pretty hard to miss. One, they look different—they have yellow eyes.”