Breed of Innocence (The Breed Chronicles, #01) Read online

I turned my head away and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands to keep them dry, refusing to cry in front of strangers.

  In front of strangers who knew too much.

  The cops—and the shrink they’d made me see—had both tried convincing me that demons didn’t exist. But I knew what I saw. I knew what killed my family, even if I hadn’t found any concrete proof yet.

  And I didn’t know what Mrs. Gill was up to, but she had a part in this. She had set this up somehow.

  I stared out the window. “My family is gone.” I bit the words out, forcing them through a lump in my throat. I turned back toward him. “Monsters and demons aren’t real. They’re CG effects in movies or TV shows, or people dressed up in costumes with too much makeup on, walking around on Halloween to scare kids—”

  “You don’t believe that and I think we both know it. I’ve talked with the woman who runs the group home—Mrs. Gill. She told me about your dreams, Miss Hall. She told me about the nightmares you still have to this day, even last night.”

  Pain radiated up my jaw from clenching my teeth so hard and my fingers were cold. I glanced down, found them white. “You’ve never had a bad dream before, Director Greene,” I said with a note of contempt.

  He gave a small nod. “Certainly.”

  “Then what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal, as you call it, is I doubt everyone dreams of monsters. I doubt they all wake up in the middle of night and refuse to go back to sleep. They don’t spend their time researching demons. They don’t have knives confiscated.” He waited a beat, then added, “And I highly doubt they risk being thrown into juvenile detention by sneaking out to find them.”

  “So I like browsing the web, big whoop.” I shrugged it off. “I live in a house with eight other people who pretty much hate my guts and resent the fact I breathe the same air as them. I can’t say the feeling isn’t mutual.”

  I thought of Lucy, one of my three roommates. She’d spent the last year making my life miserable, snitching on me about anything and everything. Real things, fake things—it didn’t matter as long as it got me into trouble. And she, or one of the other girls, had to have told Mrs. Gill about the dreams, because she wouldn’t have found out otherwise. She wouldn’t have cared.

  “Even so.”

  “It’s a group home. We’re not exactly the best crowd to begin with, you know? And I can bet you at least half of them—if not all—have a knife or two hiding somewhere.”

  Because I knew I wasn’t the only one.

  But I’d wised up and stopped hiding them in the room if I wasn’t in it. After a particularly nasty nightmare one night, I’d woken up with a knife clutched in my hand and blood streaming through my fingers. No one had seen me, but it’d been a close call. Having weapons of any kind was strictly against the rules, and getting caught with another one would have gotten me in a world of trouble.

  He raised an eyebrow in silent query. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “The last thing? Sneaking out to look for demons?”

  I laughed but the sound was strained, even to my ears. “It’s a group home,” I repeated slowly. “You try living in that place for a year. I bet you’d try to leave, too. Heck, give it a week and you’d be ready to run away.”

  “I imagine I would. But aren’t the issues I raised the same reasons you’re in Mrs. Gill’s care to begin with? The foster families they tried placing you with were incapable of dealing with the fights, the demon hunts, the weapons.”

  “So?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t insult us both by lying. You know what monsters are out there, Miss Hall. You’ve seen them. You’ve seen what they can do, and you’ve tried finding them.”

  “They’re not real. The thing—guy,” I corrected quickly, seeing his smug look, “was on drugs or wearing a mask. Just let me out. I want to go back!”

  “You haven’t heard my offer.”

  “I don’t need to hear it. I decline. I refuse. There’s absolutely nothing you can offer me that I’d—”

  “What about the opportunity to catch the thing that took your family from you?” He met my stare and held it.

  I’d been half a second away from executing Plan A and punching the window out. His words stopped me cold and had my hand dropping from the handle. “I don’t know what killed them. I don’t remember. I was in shock.”

  “Stop lying to yourself. To me.” For the first time, his words were clipped and his tone harsh.

  “There are no such things as demons. They’re just—”

  “CG effects, yes, I know. That’s what you said before. I can help you find them, Jade.”

  “I’ll tell you what I told Mrs. Gill and everyone else. I. Don’t. Believe. In. Demons.” I laughed again. “Did Mrs. Gill put you up to this? Is this her new way of trying to get rid of me? She can’t have me arrested, so she’s going to try to have me locked away in a padded room because she doesn’t like me?”

  He sighed. “Mrs. Gill didn’t arrange this meeting, Miss Hall. I did. If I prove I’m not working with her, that I’m not trying to set you up, will you at least listen to my offer?”

  “No.”

  “Two hours. Give me two hours to prove it. If we’re right, you listen to my offer.”

  “And when you’re wrong?”

  “If we’re wrong, then you go back to the group home.”

  “Wow! What a great consolation prize.” I slapped my hands to my cheeks. “I get to go back to the place I should be at now. Golly, thanks!”

  Smiling, and fighting back a laugh, he shook his head and reached into his briefcase again. My hand went to the door immediately. He noticed the move and slowly pulled his hand back, clutching a white envelope between two fingers. He threw it beside me. When I made no move to touch it, he said, “Open it.”

  I spared him a fleeting look, then stared down at the envelope. It was thick. Holding it away from me like it might explode, I carefully unfolded the top and peeked inside. My eyes went wide, my mouth slack. It was full of bills. I shuffled through it, found twenties and fifties—even hundred dollar bills. More money than I’d seen at one time ever. After another minute of ogling, I looked up. “You’re going to give me…however much this is…just to waste an hour of my time?”

  “It will be a bit longer than an hour, but yes. In essence, I’m paying for your time. Nothing more, Miss Hall,” he added hastily, this time with a hint of annoyance. “And I don’t believe it will be a waste of time, but if you’re correct, then you’ll be compensated for it.”

  It was a lot of money. I already had a small stash going for when I turned eighteen and could leave The Pond. This would make leaving so much easier. Heck, maybe I could even leave sooner…

  I stuffed the envelope under my right leg, the one closest to the door, and narrowed my eyes at him. “How do I know you won’t just take it back?”

  “You have my word, Miss Hall.”

  “Yeah, that’s great. The word of a stranger.”

  Greene leaned forward, tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Mr. Walden? Please pull over.”

  My stomach lurched as the car rolled to a stop on the side of the road. I kept my hand near the handle.

  “Have we harmed you or in any way threatened you?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said slowly. I didn’t add ‘yet’ though it was implied.

  “You’ve been with us for well over twenty minutes now. If harming you had been our intent, I wouldn’t have needed the pretense, would I have? This would be a very time consuming charade. If you’d like to keep the money, you know my condition. If you’d like to be returned to Mrs. Gill, then you’ll be driven back. It’s your decision.”

  He had a point, didn’t he? They didn’t need to offer me money for my time when I was already in the car with them. If my instincts about them were that far off and they were serial killers or something, then they would kill me regardless, and playing along could buy me some time.

  I thought ab
out it for a few minutes in silence. Finally, I shrugged and angled my body away from him so I was leaning against the door. “Okay. It’s your money.”

  He gave a small nod, then signaled to the driver before looking at me again. “It will take us about an hour to reach our destination, so you may as well relax, Miss Hall.”

  I didn’t respond. There was no point in telling him I wouldn’t relax. This could still be a trap or some big, elaborate scheme, but I really didn’t think so.

  Because everything he’d said was true, down to me sneaking out to look for demons.

  CHAPTER 02

  Feeling pressure on my shoulder, I bolted upright and whipped my head to the side. My fingers curled into fists when I didn’t recognize where I was. I blinked a few times. A blurry, semi-smiling face came into focus. Greene, I realized after a second, forcing myself to relax slightly.

  “Sorry.” Director Greene held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Uncurling my fingers, I pushed myself up in the seat and fought off the strangling seatbelt. I couldn’t suppress a yawn as I glanced out the window. I saw trees. Lots and lots of trees. “I don’t see any demons,” I said through another yawn.

  Greene chuckled. “Patience isn’t one of your strong suits, is it?”

  The other two in front laughed with him. Peter twisted around in his seat and shook his head. “That she isn’t. Not a bad little fighter, though.” He winked at me.

  “So I’ve heard,” Greene said with an approving nod.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. “Can we get on with this? I’m getting kind of anxious for my I-told-you-so.”

  “Funny. I was thinking the same thing myself.”

  After another ten silence-filled minutes, Greene tapped the driver on his shoulder. The car turned onto another road and then pulled to the side.

  I frowned and looked out the window. All I saw were trees still. “Where are we?”

  “A few miles from the coast.”

  That made no sense. He had to be talking about the east coast, because I didn’t think I’d slept long enough for us to be on the west. “There’s nothing here,” I said. “At least not this close to the Pond—I mean Mrs. Gill’s.”

  “Are you familiar with Florida’s history?”

  “Somewhat,” I answered honestly. History had never been my favorite subject in school, but I knew some of Florida’s past.

  “Look out your window again, Miss Hall.”

  I did as he asked but still saw nothing exciting. “Trees, more trees, and oh, look, water!”

  “Keep watching.”

  More water, more trees. Abandoned buildings. “Wait, is that the—”

  “The old Kennedy Space Center? Yes.”

  I’d read about it in school, but I’d never seen it in person before—not that there was much to see of it now since it was decommissioned. Four category-five hurricanes had rolled in and destroyed most of the area fifteen years ago. Miles and miles of the coast had been abandoned. No one came here anymore, not if they could help it.

  “Hold on,” I said after a minute, holding up my hand. I knew where we were now—and not because of my history lessons. This place had been on the news nightly for the last week. Mrs. Gill’s insatiable need for gossip of any kind had the news playing almost twenty-four/seven.

  And what they were saying about the area wasn’t good.

  Everyone was calling it the Butcher’s Bermuda Triangle, because once someone went in, they didn’t come back out. And if they were found, it wasn’t in one piece. There’d been more disappearances and deaths in the area in the last week than in the year before combined. Unexplained, vicious deaths.

  I licked my lips. “What are we doing here?” Are you a rubber duck, Jade? Stop squeaking! I cleared my throat. “Even the cops don’t come here anymore unless they have to.”

  “Because some of them know what’s out here. They aren’t idiots. Not all of them, anyway,” Peter said as he got out of the car. He opened my door and hunched over to look inside. “Are you sure about this, sir? There are other areas.”

  Greene nodded. “She wants proof and I’m going to give it to her.” His gaze landed on me. “Go on. Walk a block in any direction, or even stand here for ten minutes. You’ll find your proof.”

  “Or it’ll find her,” David muttered, speaking for the first time in over an hour.

  “Go on, Jade. Nothing will happen to you. Peter will stay by your side.”

  For some reason, that wasn’t so reassuring. For one, Peter was the one who’d chased me. Two, I was in the worst area of the state, on what the news was reporting as a serial killer’s killing ground. And three, I was with three men I didn’t know, wasn’t sure I liked, and didn’t trust completely. They wouldn’t hurt me, I didn’t think, but… I had to be insane.

  If I die here, I’m coming back from the dead to kick my own ass.

  Slowly, I got out of the car and looked around. We were surrounded by old, beat down buildings. Most were missing windows or doors, and even a few were missing roofs or walls.

  A loud bang from my right made my heart jump to my throat, even as I spun around and assumed a fighting position.

  Great. Just like the movies. Stupid cat knocks over garbage can, heroine laughs at herself for being an idiot over said cat knocking over said garbage can, and then gets her head chopped off for relaxing.

  The trunk lid popped open and Peter started digging in. I blew out a shaky breath and walked to the back of the car. Peering inside, my eyes went wide again. There were more weapons inside than I’d ever seen before, and that was saying something since my mom used to collect them.

  Peter grabbed a small bag from inside and put it over his shoulder. He dug in again, this time pulling out a stake—an actual wooden stake—and a gun.

  I glanced at the gun and took a step back.

  “Tranq,” he explained, fighting a grin.

  He closed the lid and started down the side of the road, then turned and motioned for me. Casting one last look over my shoulder, I followed, staying close behind him. When we rounded the corner at the end of the block, a soft whimpering sound stopped me in my tracks. I waited a beat, heard it again, and then turned toward the sound. On the left side of the street, something dark moved. I couldn’t see much more than shadows, but I squinted and realized the shadows were people on the ground.

  At first, I thought they might’ve just been making out, but then I wasn’t so sure. Who would come here for that kind of thing?

  Peter didn’t seem amused either. He stopped beside me, his eyes locked onto the couple.

  “They’re not making out, are they?” I whispered.

  What if that was the serial killer I’d heard so much about?

  Peter didn’t get a chance to respond as a woman’s scream blasted the air. The person on the ground—the woman, I guessed from the scream—started kicking and punching, her arms and legs flailing in the air.

  I started to shove past Peter but he grabbed my arm and stopped me. My foot hit a rock and sent it skipping along the road before it bounced off the attacker’s boot. In the blink of an eye, the man was on his feet. Lowering his head, he snarled and charged toward us.

  He moved fast and kept his head tucked close to his chest, so I couldn’t see much of his face. His mouth opened and the sound that came out was ear-splitting.

  Hundreds of shocks zapped my head, like it was trapped in a box full of angry wasps with acid-laced stingers. I slapped my hands over my ears and fell to my knees. I knew I should move, that I should run, but I couldn’t. The pain was too intense to do anything except watch as my would-be death ran at me.

  A scream lodged in the back of my throat.

  Peter moved in and knelt down in front of me. His lips moved, but I couldn’t make out his words because they were garbled.

  Dimly, I wondered why he wasn’t in the same agony I was, but then he turned his head to the side and I saw earplugs. I’d never seen him put any
in.

  The man was closer now, barely ten feet away. I flung my arm out and pointed, hoping Peter would get the idea. He didn’t. Behind him, the man opened his mouth wider and the sound and pain both increased tenfold until I was sure—or hoped—my head would simply implode or explode. Either had to be better than this.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks and blurred my vision.

  Peter offered a small smile as he yanked the gun from his belt. Seconds before the man would have crashed into him, Peter twisted around. I heard two soft pops. Peter was still in front of me, blocking most of my view, but I saw the man in front of him stop and rock on his feet like his legs had gone limp. He dropped to his knees and wobbled side to side. I jerked back as he fell face first to the ground.

  I swiped at my hair, pushing it behind my ears, and felt something wet on my fingers. Glancing down, I found the tips red with blood. I frowned and pressed my hands against my ears. When I drew them back, I found red on them, too. My ears were bleeding. No wonder they hurt.

  Peter turned back to me and his lips moved again. I still couldn’t make out his words—his voice was too distorted, like I was hearing it under water. I shook my head hopelessly. “I can’t hear you,” I said.

  His hands went to my shoulders and he stared into my face. After a second, he pointed to me, then to the woman.

  I shot her a quick look. “You want me to help her?”

  I didn’t hear his reply, but I read his lips enough to get the ‘yes’ reply.

  Nodding, I pushed to my feet and, sidestepping the man on the ground, ran to the woman. Her body was still and buried in trash.

  “I’m here to help,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and low, though I had no idea if I’d managed to or not. My ears started to ring but I still couldn’t hear clearly. I knelt down beside the woman and picked away at the trash to uncover her face. “Don’t worry.” I glanced over my shoulder to the man lying on the ground. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  I picked away at the debris until the woman’s entire body was visible. Was she even alive? Beneath layers of dirt and spattered blood, her skin was deathly white, her eyes bruised and closed. I reached out to check for a pulse. As soon as my fingers met skin, the woman’s eyes snapped open. I gasped and fell back, landing on my butt and clutching my chest.