Shadow Falls After Dark: Eternal Part 25

She tossed him the last pair of cuffs. He caught them and locked up the frosty vamp. "You didn't do too bad, yourself," Della told him.

"Actually..." Shawn forced the cuffed vamp onto the ground next to the others, and then stepped back and pulled out his phone. "My orders were to get info without trouble. Burnett's not going to be happy."

"Is he ever?" Chase mouthed off, then moved next to Della and took her chin in his hand.

"That idiot left a bruise." He looked back at the unconscious culprit.

"It's nothing." Della stepped away from his touch.

"It's over." Shawn's voice echoed behind them. "Yeah, she's fine."

Della rolled her eyes knowing Burnett asked about her first as if she couldn't handle herself. How embarra.s.sing!

"Told you he's overprotective," Chase whispered as he lifted her chin again.

"And what are you?" She slapped his hand.

"We're all fine," Shawn said, a little louder as if to caution them that Burnett could hear.

She and Chase faced him and Della tilted her head to the side to hear the voice on the line.

"Is everyone else okay?" Burnett's voice came from the phone.

"Yeah." Shawn looked down at his bleeding shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Burnett asked, hearing his lie.

"I got cut, but it's not bad."

Burnett moaned. "Did we get anything?"

"Well, it didn't go down like we wanted. We're going to need a paddy wagon."

Burnett moaned again. "How many?"

"Eight." Shawn walked off and Della couldn't hear Burnett anymore.

"You really okay?" Chase asked her and reached for her hand that she'd used to knock out the rogue.

"Stop," Della snapped.

"Hey?" Shawn looked back over his shoulder. "They are all alive, right?"

Chase glanced at the eight vamps lined up like downed dominos. "Yeah, but I could fix that." He glared daggers at the vamp who'd hit her.

Della and Chase followed the car with the rogues to the FRU offices. Burnett met them in the entrance. He walked right up to her and lifted her chin.

"It's just a bruise!" she fumed.

"Which one did it?" he asked in quiet fury.

"What does it matter?"

"The one in the brown T-shirt," Chase volunteered.

Della scowled at Chase and then back to Burnett. "Why is it that Shawn, who took a knife to his shoulder, just walked past and you never went mother hen on his a.s.s?"

Burnett frowned. "Because my daughter isn't named after him. Besides, I have a doctor meeting him right now. Now, were you hurt anywhere else?"

"No, I'm fine."

"The fist," Chase answered. "She knocked one out. Did a good job of it."

"I am fine!" Della growled.

Only then did Burnett glance toward Chase. "You okay?"

"Not a bruise."

"Bragger!" Della mouthed off.

Burnett looked at the door. "Can you see that Della gets back to Shadow Falls? We'll take over from here."

"No!" Della and Chase said at the same time.

Della tilted her bruised chin back. "I ... we want to know if they have anything on Liam."

Burnett's expression hardened, but the look in his eyes said he wasn't going to give them a fight. He turned and looked at another agent standing by a front desk. "Take them into room six to watch the interviews."

Chase moved beside Burnett. Della noticed that Burnett only had about an inch of height on Chase.

"I should do the interviews," Chase said.

"Sorry." Determination tightened Burnett's expression. "Hire on with us, and you'll get full privileges. Until then, you do only what I say you do."

Chase's eyes grew a bit brighter, but he didn't respond. Remembering his negative response to Shawn earlier about signing on with the FRU, her curiosity about his employment with the Vampire Council piqued again. Why was he working for them? How had he come to work for them? Was there a reason for his loyalty to his employer?

The other agent, a were, walked up and motioned for her and Chase to follow. While Della did as requested, she recalled smelling the were at the restaurant.

The agent pushed open a door at the end of a drab, gray hallway. "They'll bring them in one at a time ... in about three minutes. You can see and hear them, but they can't hear you." The were motioned to the gla.s.s wall. Not that he needed to explain. Both Chase and she had been here once before. "Burnett will be doing the interviews."

Once alone in the room, Della looked at Chase and her curiosity bit. "Why the loyalty to the Vampire Council?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You seem really loyal to them."

His shoulders tightened. "They aren't the rogue group as you've been led to believe. We might not agree with all the FRU politics but-"

"I didn't say that. I'm simply asking why you're so loyal to them?"

He looked cornered by her inquiry.

"That's a strange question coming from you, who defends Burnett even when you hate it that he's coddling you."

His counterattack, rather than giving her a straight answer, made her even more curious. Was he hiding something?

"Not so strange," Della answered. "That's exactly why I'm curious. I'm loyal to Burnett because..." She paused, finding it just a bit hard to admit out loud. "He's more than just a route into my career, he's family. What's your excuse?"

He didn't answer right away. Was he thinking of a lie, or ... "I like my job. I like the freedom the council allows me. It's no secret I find Burnett's micromanaging to be ridiculous."

"Yeah, but that's Burnett-with me. We're talking about working for the FRU, not working for Burnett."

"True, but I get the feeling he carries a lot of weight in the unit. And the rest of them are just like him."

Della could have argued the point. No one cared as much as Burnett, and while she hated his coddling, she wasn't above caring for him right back. That said, she couldn't deny seeing reason in Chase's answer.

"How did you hire on with the Vampire Council?"

He looked at the gla.s.s wall into the empty interrogation room. "They became aware of me being a Reborn. They sought me out."

Out of habit, she listened to his heart. It hadn't skipped, but she hadn't forgotten his ability to control that organ. Her suspicions grew. Had he turned away so she wouldn't note the telltale signs of him lying?

She was just about to call him on that fact, when she heard them: An agent, one of the vampires who'd come to help transport them here, brought one of the rogues into the room and forced him down in a chair.

A few seconds later, Burnett came in and sat across the table from the unhappy cuffed vamp. Burnett carried a file and opened it on the table. His gaze stayed on the paperwork. He didn't come across as violent, but being Burnett, just his presence carried a certain amount of intimidation.

He sat there without speaking. Never even looking up. Even hidden behind the one-way gla.s.s, Della could feel the tension building.

The vamp couldn't handle the silence any longer. "We weren't going to hurt them. We just wanted the blood."

"Funny, it didn't seem that way, did it?" Chase asked Della.

"No," Della admitted.

Slowly, Burnett looked up. "Tell that to the agent who got knifed and the one who got clipped in the jaw."

"Hey, that chick kneed me in the b.a.l.l.s."

"You're lucky she didn't remove them to play badminton with."

Chase chuckled lightly. "Burnett knows you well."

Della shrugged, but didn't answer, too busy studying what was happening in the other room in hopes of learning a thing or two.

Burnett leaned back in his chair, squaring his shoulders, making the guy sitting across from him appear smaller. Did he do that on purpose?

Finally, Burnett spoke, but looked back at the file. "She doesn't normally go so easy on lowlifes who threaten her life."

"I told you we weren't-"

"Jason Von, right?"

When the kid didn't answer, Burnett leaned forward, his eyes glowing. "Is that your name?"

"Yes," Jason said.

Burnett nodded. "Look, Jason, I'm not going to beat around the bush. All eight of you are going down for attempted robbery, two of you get the added bonus of a.s.sault. Our facilities are almost filled. We have two spots left at Burton. It's not a walk in the park, but Parkrow, our other facility, it's rough. Only about fifty percent who go in, come out. And twenty-five of those will end up killing themselves. And the first two of the five of you with the lesser counts who tell us what we need to know will get to go to Burton."

He pulled a photograph out of the file and pushed it in front of the rogue. The rogue, who suddenly seemed too young to be up to his yin yang in this kind of trouble.

"Are you going to be one of the lucky Burton attendees?" Burnett tapped the picture with his index finger. "I need info on this kid." He looked the guy straight in the eyes. "Do you know him? Have you ever seen him before? I know he was hanging out in your gang's territory."

The vamp, probably no older than Della, glanced down at the image, and his eyes widened with recognition. In his round brown eyes, Della saw something else. Fear.

"He's afraid," Della said.

"He should be," Chase answered. "I've seen Parkrow, you might as well go to h.e.l.l."

"No," Della said. "When he looked at the picture he was afraid. He knows something and is scared to tell."

The kid looked back up at Burnett. "I..."

"Burton or Parkrow?" Burnett said.

"I ... uh," the vamp stuttered.

"Fine," Burnett said. "Parkrow it is." He stood to leave.

"No," Della muttered. "He knows something."

Yes, he knows something. Find Natasha.

The voice echoed in Della's mind. She looked at Chase to see if he'd heard it, but he didn't appear to have.

Still reeling from the voice, Della got a fresh scent of werewolf again. She looked behind her to see if a were had somehow snuck in the room, but nope.

She inhaled again to see if she'd been mistaken. The scent hung on. And the familiarity of it tickled her senses. This was the same scent she'd gotten back at the restaurant.

"Do you smell that?" she questioned Chase.

He looked confused, but lifted his face and inhaled. "Smell what?"

d.a.m.n! The ghost was trying to tell her something. But what?

Her gaze shot back to the kid, to the fear in his eyes. "I don't know s.h.i.t," he said.