18
Jon
“You were going to let that creature go,” Tammy’s voice rang out.
She stepped out of the wild shrubbery that stretched toward the ceiling, her black gown tattered around the ankles. The shredded fabric revealed a holster concealed along her right leg. It had to be special dispensation for such a tightly-watched event, furthering the bite of betrayal.
As she approached us, my grip solidified on my knife, and I was unsure for the first time in my life if Tammy was going to defend me or make me her next opponent.
“I won’t apologize for mercy where it’s due,” I said, my resolve hardening even though the hollowness inside me gaped anew.
“Jon, you’re hardly even a hunter anymore,” Tammy retorted. “Compassionfor monsters?”
I gestured at the gutted ahool corpses splayed out behind the overturned truck. “It should comfort you that it’s in short supply.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “What happened to the boy I saved?”
A flash of dark memories crawled across my mind—of my father’s corpse at my feet. Cliff’s arms under me, pulling me from the burning house. And Tammy, our brutal guardian angel, who had appeared in the doorway when Cliff and I were bruised and bloodied by the insidious spirit that had possessed him.
She’d shouted guidance to my killing blow, had crushed us in an embrace in the safety of the wooded yard outside, whispering that everything was over, it was safe.
Tammy’s frown deepened. “After what happened to your parents, I can’t believe what you’ve become. So easily swayed by a niamh? Afairy? These things are designed to lead you astray, muddle your mind with false desire—youknow this.I trained you to watch your back, to protect others from suffering your fate.” She scoffed, shaking her head in utter disbelief. “Clearly, I wasted my time.”
The words cut deeper than any blade could have.
Losing her. I was losing Tammy the way Ialwayslost people in my life.
“You taught me not to hunt from hate, but so that no one joins the people we’ve lost,” I said. “I’m still doing that. I’veneverfaltered in that. I’m just not like you anymore. Things have changed.”
Sylviahad changed me.
And money had changed the woman I’d once seen like family.
Tammy was just a few feet away now, striking distance for either of us. Tension still radiated off of her, her gaze skating urgently over the bloodbath around us. Not the satisfaction of a successful hunt, but the horror of botched inventory.
“It’s Eros, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice miraculously level despite my thundering heart. “You’re helping him.”
Her shoulders slumped a little, shame and defensiveness warring in her expression. “It’s not how I usually operate. But there’s somethinggoodthis is all for, even if you can’t see it yet.”
Yet.
“He’s asked you to kill me?”
“No.” She staggered even closer to me. “If you were any other asshole, you’d be on the ground already. But… I can’t. Even after what you’ve done, it would be like gunning down my own kid.”
She broke off, an odd, incomplete pause tightening the space between us.
Not kill, butbring alive.
“How long?” I asked tightly
“About three years.”
The breath whooshed from my lungs.Years. She had been working behind our backs, betraying the very foundations she’d taught us, keeping us in the dark. All the call-dodging and cryptic texts deferring our help snapped into focus. Suddenly, her increasing absence over the last few years aligned.
Fuck,we had tried to contact her feverishly when we’d first found Sylvia all those months ago.
Nausea washed over me as I realized how close we’d come to delivering Sylvia directly to these black market psychos.
