Half Blood Rising novel Chapter 12

“She’s dead, and it’s a race against time. There’s no way we’re going to get her back, Adam,” Mum said. I didn’t understand why everyone was so upset. I was missing Kerry. She had been gone for a little while, and I missed playing with her. We had been best friends for so long.

My little sister. Mum and Dad looked worried as I squeezed my doll tight. We were driving in this large, strange black car. My Aunt Emilia was there, too, with Uncle Peter. My fingers were tingling, and light was coming out of the packages in the back. I wondered what it was.

The drive was bumpy, too.

“It’s the fae, they are involved. I told them the other day that I wanted nothing to do with their world. I stepped away from it when I married Roger.” Mummy was saying. She was holding Kerry’s pink shirt. Daddy had touched her hand. There were tears in his eyes.

“We don’t know, and, so far, no one has received any phone calls or letters,” Aunt Emilia said. “This might have nothing to do with the supernatural world.”

“Emilia, don’t talk about them in front of Jaymin,” Mummy said, almost in the same tone of voice when I had done something I wasn’t supposed to do, then Mummy would start getting upset, like now. “Roger wasn’t supposed to know. When I married him, you swore to me that they had accepted my decision. Obviously, they are punishing me for cutting my family away from magic.”

“She’s too small to understand any of it. The fae never tell the truth, and I thought you already learnt that lesson from experience. I will call one of the members, see if I can find something out,” Aunt Emilia added, taking out her mobile phone.

“But what would they want from her?” Daddy asked. “She’s just an innocent child.”

“Her gifts, she’s the first born in that line, so there is a lot they can gain …

“Jaymin, are you even there? What the hell is wrong with you?” a voice broke through to me. It was Lachlan; he was squeezing my arm. The memories from the past were quickly fading away. His energy rushed through my veins instantly as I tried to breathe. I closed my eyes, trying to keep this memory intact. It seemed important, and now I knew for sure I had a real family before I was turned.

Everyone was staring at me. We were still in the van, driving through the streets of Moscow. I must have drifted off for a minute or so. Damn it.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I snapped at him, pulling away from his touch and thinking I had to stay away from him from now on. Another flashback from the past—Lachlan—his touch could make me see my life before I was turned? This was the second time it had happened now, but this time, without having to drink from him? The images were so surreal, but it was difficult to concentrate as I was supposed to be listening to Dimitry’s briefing at the same time.

This was why others thought I couldn’t be trusted. They still believed I was only half-vampire and half-human, but that wasn’t the case.

“Dimitry just asked you about your experience, and then you seemed to zone out,” Lachlan said. Ramona was smirking, staring at me and whispering something to Judas. I hated her.

“I’ve been tracking convicts for the past three years, so none of this will be new to me,” I said, a bit too aggressively than I’d intended.

“If you give her a job that requires the least responsibility, the better. The newbies always ruin everything,” the bitch commented, and I wanted to punch her in the gut.

“This is a very delicate job, and you need to be focused,” Dimitry said, giving me a sharp look. “Everyone will be going on a stakeout, we need results quickly. We have two days to rescue the warlock’s daughter.”

I needed to avoid touching Lachlan, he was making this trip difficult for me, and I had to prove to everyone here that I was capable of working in a team and staying in the academy.

Then Marco began asking questions about certain locations of the clan and then read the briefing. This was going to drive me mad. I needed to get some answers, but when? I couldn’t do anything while we were here. This job was important to me.

Was I part fae, as everyone I’d ever met tended to insinuate? Half-vampire and half-fae, was that even possible?

There were a lot of half-breeds, but I’d never come across anyone who had mixed genes—fae and vampire? Maybe the other vampires wanted to create a monster, and they had found me. I had to stop thinking like that. This scared the shit out of me.

“We’re here,” Dimitry said as the van stopped abruptly, and I nearly ended up in the front seat. “Come on, let’s get inside before anyone sees us.”

“This is getting real. I can’t wait to get out in the field and use my abilities,” Karina said to me once we were inside a large house. This was probably going to be our headquarters, where we were going to stay and report to. Moscow was much more developed than Kiev or Lviv, but I figured that Dimitry didn’t like bringing too much attention to himself, so he lived in a human neighbourhood.

The house smelled of burnt cabbage and sage. There was an older Russian lady hiding in the kitchen when we all walked in. It seemed she was Dimitry’s housekeeper or something. I didn’t think he was married.

“Roxana is going to show you to your rooms. We have several hours yet before the evening, and most of the members of the clan are active in the night. There is no movement before six p.m.,” Dimitry announced. Moments later, Roxana, the Russian lady who turned out to be another vampire, walked into the room. She nodded to me and Karina first, sniffing. She had a red scarf around her head, and yellow teeth.

The room was basic, much smaller than our dorm in Kiev, but it was enough for us.

“I’ve done a bit of research on my phone about this girl, Dorothy,” Karina announced, jumping on the squeaky bed. It was much colder in Moscow in July, but it was a relief from the constant heatwave in Eastern Europe.