What Lies Beneath

My heart stopped. "When? Where? How'd he look?"

Landon pulled me up. "Calm down, Mila. Don't get so close to the cage."

The man smiled up at us defiantly. "I don't bite."

"I do," Landon growled. "Where did you see the man?"

"I'm willing to tell you. For a favor."

A switch flipped, and I was suddenly angry enough to kill. "What do you want?" I snapped.

He was grinning with too much smugness for a man in a cage. Like the others, he didn't look older than thirty, at most. Dark hair and dark eyes. Plain, but somehow worth kidnapping. "Simple. Let me go. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Get me out alive."

I looked to Landon. "What do we do?"

He thought for a moment. "There are God-knows-how-many guards around here. I have no clue how to actually get him out of the cage, and this is pretty much a suicide mission."

I chewed on my lip. "You can't just break the cage?"

"If they were weak enough to get broken, then the demons would have already done it."

I blinked tears back. "I can't keep going without Jaxon."

He sighed. "Don't cry." It was almost a groan. "Just calm down. I'll think of something."

His words of non-comfort did little for my lack of breathing. No hope. That was what I heard. Even if it wasn't the truth. "Please," I wheezed.

He grabbed my arms. "Really, calm down, honey. You're not helping."

I looked up as I was starting to lose the ability to stand straight. "I need him."

He cursed. "Fine, you son of a bitch," he said to the man. "We can get you out." Landon let go of me and started walking the room.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He didn't turn. "I'm looking for something to use to get him out." He found a cabinet that he decided to break open. "The only thing getting into those cages is a key." "How do you know that? It's metal. We can break it."

He turned and looked at me as if I was stupid. "It's never that simple. Do you believe these people haven't been trying to get free since the second they were thrown in there?"

My arms crossed. "Then how do we find a key?"

Landon closed the drawer. He rubbed his hands down his face. "Well, the guards would have a key. Possibly."

I tensed. "So, we go find that guard you killed?"

He started walking to the door. "Yeah."

"Should I wait here?"

Landon laughed before he turned back. "You'd probably get yourself killed if I left you alone for longer than ten seconds."

My eyes narrowed at him. "I was capable before you, and I will be after you."

"Only if we find your brother alive."

The statement stung, but it didn't make it any less true. Alone, I probably wouldn't make it very long. I certainly wouldn't want to try.

I followed Landon out of the room and back into pure darkness. I was close to Landon as we moved, in case we had more people following us. I almost went as far as to hold his shirt, but that wouldn't really make either of us feel better. He might actually shove me away since his dislike for me was so very clear. To be fair, I had torched something he needed. I'd earned the hate.

"We're getting them all out, right?" I asked.

He scoffed. "You're joking."

"No, I'm not. If we leave them, they get sold. I can't let that happen."

He stopped walking to glare down at me. "I said I'd help you find your brother. I'm already risking my life here. Don't push it."

And that was the end of it.

We got back to where the body had been left to rot. Blood had pooled all around him, soaking through his clothes and beginning to dry in his hair. His eyes had been open when he died, blood trickling out of his mouth.

I made a sound that wasn't entirely human. I couldn't look at him, so I shut my eyes. The smell of blood was inescapable.

I listened to Landon moving the man around to go through his pockets. He let out a string of curses, and I forced my eyes open. "Nothing."

"What now?"

He stood up. "They wouldn't have let him be alone without a key. Someone here has one."

I stiffened again. "Are we going to have to hurt more people?"

"It's a way of life, Mila. If you want to survive, you have to do ugly things sometimes."

I should know that. I was a thief, a liar, selfish. This shouldn't hurt me like it does.

He pulled me along like a dog he was taking for a walk. No patience or understanding for what being here was doing to me. We were both people, but we were as different as we could be. Maybe that was a good thing. We moved though the hallway after our hopes with the dead guard failed. I used my phone as a light while I walked, since I wasn't lucky enough to have vampire vision.

All was quiet until we reached a corner at the same time another person did. Before the guard could attack, Landon had him against the wall by the throat. I froze and shook while Landon crushed his neck.

"Hello." He smiled. "I was hoping you had the key to those cages on you?"

The man choked for a breath, so Landon loosened his hold. He still didn't answer.

Landon looked so annoyed. "Are you going to tell me or not?"

The man shook his head.

Landon glanced over at me. "Darlin', you might not wanna watch this. You seem a little squeamish."

I took a step back. "Are you going to kill him?"

The man reacted to my words with a futile attempt at thrashing free. Landon wasn't as concerned. "Maybe. I don't need to, but if he isn't helping me out..." He looked back over at the guard.

The guard was gasping for breath. "I don't have it."

"All right then." Landon smiled before he hit the man's head against the wall. He let go and let the guard fall to the ground.

My heart hit my ribs. "Is he dead?"

"No," he said, looking at the guard. "Sleeping. Just because I'm not human, doesn't mean I go around killing like it's nothing. I do it when I have to."

Really? Now I felt guilty for thinking he might just up and snap a neck? Maybe I was prejudiced against vampires.

"Well excuse me for thinking a guy who eats people might kill when it's convenient."

He turned to close the distance between us. "I am a monster, but I don't always do monstrous things. At least I have a reason for what I do. What's yours? Convenience? You'd rather steal than work, isn't that right?" My jaw clenched. "You don't know a goddamned thing about my life."

"You're right. And again, I don't actually care. You're a job that I need to take care of before I get back to what's important. So I suggest you keep your opinions about my methods to yourself. Unless you want to find Jaxon on your own." What could I say to that? "Fine, but I don't have to approve of what you're doing."

"Believe it or not, I don't actually care what you have to say. You're a few wrong sentences from getting tied up and locked in a closet while I do this alone."

My arms crossed, and I stared right into his eyes, really wishing I didn't need him. "What makes you think you're so much more capable than I am?"

He smirked. "Because I am, sweetheart. You don't have to like it. Just shut your mouth, and we won't have a problem."

It would seem we already have a problem. Far be it from me to bring it up. He helps me find Jax, and I don't have to deal with this guy ever again. Then my only issue is having to live in a world where I know that vampires and demons run around selling each other. No biggie.

Landon started walking away from me, and I had to hurry to follow. He stopped at the door at the end of the hall and tried opening it. When it didn't open, he backed up and nearly bumped into me. Then he threw his foot into the door, almost making the whole thing break off its hinges.

I made a sound, and Landon looked back at me. "What?"

I shrugged. "Nothing." That was just a little hot is all... but he's a dick, and I'm trying very hard to not think he's attractive. If only that worked.

He ignored me and walked through the door. "Well, if there are guards nearby, they'll come."

I got my knife again. "Super."

We started moving into the pitch-black room, and I heard Landon fumble for a light. He hit a switch, and my eyes were blinded for a moment. Once the spots faded, I saw an office. Miserable-looking and small, but it held a lot of papers. Some were in neat stacks, and a good hundred or so were scattered around the room in piles on the floor.

I may have huffed with anger. "Lotta paperwork for an illegal non-human trafficking deal."

Landon looked around. I knew not for what. "You have no idea." He left my side and want around the desk. "Close the door, love. This may take a while."

I did as he said, making sure no one was coming for us. We were seemingly in the clear. I stuck my knife in my pocket and straightened out the bottom of my skirt. "What happens if we can't get the key?" My voice made me sound terrified. Landon sat down at the desk and broke open a drawer. "Then I'll have to find another way to open that cage, won't I?"

"You don't sound worried."

"I'm not. If this fails, I lose a very helpful but not totally necessary- book. I don't have a life on the line."

I swallowed my fear. Not only Jaxon's life was on the line, but mine. If at the end of this tunnel was a dead brother, then I was done too.

I started walking over to the desk. "Are you finding anything?"

He still didn't look up. "Records in code, as to not alert the police. Not much else."

"What the hell do they do if the police catch on? I bet the whole demon thing makes it complicated."

Finally, his eyes met mine. "I wouldn't know. I imagine it ends in blood and a lot of money. Money can make you do or forget a lot of things. But I'm sure you know that."

At least I'd never done something as evil as this. I'd never taken a life. Neither had Jaxon. It was a line that we knew we couldn't cross, unless we'd die. We had been lucky so far, but it felt like that luck was running thin.

I leaned over Landon's shoulder to look at what was capturing his attention. He looked up at me slowly and annoyed. "Can I help you with something?"

"I just wanna know how you know all about this place." I had a sick feeling in my stomach over why. He was so numb to this, and so old, that it wouldn't be hard to believe he'd once worked for a place like this. Finding or selling people. Money could make you do a lot of things, and he wasn't a very good man to begin with.

"I'm a lot older than you. I know about plenty of things. If you'd like, I can explain to you how to take apart and put back together Remington 870 tactical shotgun if you'd like."

I might have gone a little dead-eyed. "I would actually like that very much. Only, can you do it slow and with the lights dim..." I was mostly kidding.

He rolled his eyes. "I can do it naked too."

"Please."

"Maybe later, if you're a good girl. For now, I need to find a key so we can save that bastard."

I sat on the desk right beside Landon. "He's not a bastard. He just wants to not get sold. Is that evil?"

He set his papers down. "No. But it's annoying, and he's in my way. He could want to save kittens, and I'd still want to stab him a little."

I poked his shoulder and smiled. "Aww. Do you like kittens, honey? You're just a big-"

He flashed his fangs at me. "Call me something fluffy or cute..." His hand wrapped around my thigh, "...and I'll tap my very favorite vein for my next meal."

I smiled back to hide the trace of fear. "You trying to scare me?"

His grin widened, and the light bounced off his teeth. "Could be."

"Could be?"

He shrugged and pushed my skirt up a couple inches. "Not kidding about the vein. Right here." He touched a spot on my inner thigh. "Tricky not killing a person when opening it. One can only seal a cut so well." "Best not bite me then."

He patted my leg. "So be it, sweet pea. Let me work." Then he went back to sifting through papers.

For twenty minutes I sat there while he searched the room, not saying a word. He seemed unworried, but that could be for a dozen reasons. I wasn't as patient.

"It's not in here," I whined. "We need to leave. God only knows what's happening to Jax right now."

Landon had been standing at the wall, reading a file. He closed it and put it back in the cabinet. "Maybe you're right." He started walking to the door. "Don't get all pissy if I have to hurt-" The door opened before Landon got there. A man that almost cleared seven feet tall entered the room, gun in hand. He aimed it at my head.

Landon took hold of the guard's arm and broke it with one quick motion. The gun dropped to the ground, and a bullet flew through the desk. My reflexes made me go backward, crouching behind the desk. I looked up, my head just barely visible as I watched the fight.

The guard attempted to come at Landon with a knife, but the fight was really nothing. With a twist of the man's head, he was gone. He fell to the floor in a heap. Landon searched him for a set of keys, but came up short. "Two down..." He stood and walked to me. He pulled me up by the hands. "Did you get hurt?"

I checked myself over. "Nothing more than a bruise."

He put his hand on my back and started pushing me along. "There won't be more than three guards left. Not for how few people they have here."

He was right, of course. The next guard we ran into had a set of keys. We couldn't know if they would work, but it was something. And Landon only knocked out the guard. He was hardly even bleeding.

We got back to the room where those demons were being held; I refused to go more than a couple feet from Landon as we walked. He might be a killer, but we were on the same side.

Landon looked at the pile of keys in his hand. "Well, now's the fun part." He started testing keys in the demon's cage until he found the one that unlocked it. The cage opened, and the demon crawled out. Landon grabbed him by the throat and held him against the cage. "Where's the man in that picture?"

The demon struggled. "Not until you get me out of here."

I tugged on Landon's shirt. "Come on. We can get him out." I took the keys from his hands. Getting them all out would be hard. But that didn't mean I couldn't give them a fighting chance. "What are you doing?" Landon called out as I knelt at a cage.

I put the key in and turned. The girl inside woke at the sound, but she didn't do more than look at me with bloodshot eyes. "I'm making it so I don't have nightmares for a decade." I opened the door and helped the her up.

She didn't look much older than I was. The demon had dull orange hair and duller blue eyes. She was much taller, but she held me for support. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"Are you going to be all right? Do you have someone to call?"

She blinked and nodded. "Yeah. I have a husband. He's probably been looking for me for weeks."

I handed her the keys. "I need you to open the rest of the cages. Me and that tall, angel-faced vampire over there are gonna clear the guards out. Get everyone upstairs and outside. You're in Los Angeles, and it's dark out. Call whoever you need to. Okay?"

She nodded, and her shaky fingers closed over the metal. "Thank you," she said again.

"Good luck."

I got back to Landon, and he was eyeing me. With a sigh, he said, "I told you I wasn't helping them."

"And you didn't. I did. Now shut your pretty mouth, and let's go." I shoved him, and I was pretty sure he considered killing me. He moved me and the demon along and up the stairs. I could hear the girl behind me as she opened cages.

We got to the stop of the stairs, and Landon paused. He said he was trying to listen for what he thought was the last guard, trying to get a guess on where he might be. Only he couldn't hear anything.

I looked around. "We have to take him out if the others are gonna get upstairs."

"Cute that you're saying we when we both know it's only me."

I shrugged. "You seem to enjoy hurting people. I would be selfish to take that from you."

"And it would be so very out-of-character for you to be selfish."

"You should talk, cupcake."

His eyebrow arched, and I swore he smiled. "You are really pushing it."

My nose wrinkled. "You like it."

"That's none of your business."

The demon cleared his throat. "Can you two save your foreplay for when I'm safe?"

We both glared at him. Then Landon shoved him along.

Once the three of us were in the black hallway, there was a loud sound from downstairs, like a crashing or breaking.

"Good job, Mila," Landon said with exasperation. "Butterfingers just got our location given away."

It was only three seconds before two more guards threw open a door at the end of the hall. A window in the room cast moonlight into the hall. The guards had a moment of shock to see us, then they reached for guns at their sides. Put-out yet again, Landon went for the men. The demon stayed at my side, unable or unwilling to fight with him. One of the guards pointed his gun, and Landon bent his arm back, snapping the bone and making the gun drop. The other man aimed and got a kick to the stomach over it. His gun remained in his hand, but he doubled over.

Five seconds later, both men were bleeding out on the floor.

Landon didn't stop to comfort me, clear horror on my face. Instead, we just kept moving.