Prologue
‘Her name is Evie Tremain. She’s seventeen years’ old. She lives in Riverview, California. Now go and kill her.’
The stillness in the room erupted as chairs scraped the floor. There were a few hushed whispers, a stifled laugh and then the door slammed shut cutting the noise off like a guillotine.
Lucas stood slowly, taking his time. He didn’t notice that the others had left the room, nor that Tristan was standing by the window watching him. All his attention was focused on the photograph he was holding in his hand.
It showed a girl - dark -haired, blue eyed - looking straight at the camera. It was a close up. He could make out the shadows her lashes were making down her cheeks. A strand of hair was caught like a web over one eye and in the corner of the shot he could see her hand, reaching to brush it away. Her lips were slightly parted, like she’d been sighing just at the moment the lens snapped shut. Her expression was…Lucas paused. He wasn’t sure what her expression was. She looked unhappy he thought, or maybe she was just pissed off.
She was a Hunter, he thought, what did he expect? And this one had a history that would make anyone unhappy. Or pissed off.
‘Is something up?’ Tristan asked.
Lucas looked up from the photograph, then glanced over towards the door, realizing that the others had gone ahead and he was the only one left in the room. He looked back at the older man.
‘No, nothing’s up,’ he answered quietly.
‘Well you best get going then,’ Tristan said, his eyes not leaving Lucas’s face, ‘You don’t want to miss out on all the fun.’
Lucas looked down once more at the picture of Evie Tremain, feeling momentarily ambivalent towards her. Then he scrunched the photograph into a ball and dropped it to the floor. It didn’t matter what lay behind that expression because soon nothing would lay behind it. She was just another Hunter. To be dealt with. Next week or next month there would be another. And then another. And another. And dealing with Hunters was what the Brotherhood did.
He didn’t look back at Tristan but he could sense him, could feel his eyes burning into his back as he left the room.
Lucas moved fast down the corridor not just because he was aware of Tristan standing watching him from the doorway but because he could no longer hear the others. He was faster than a human running at a sprint - he knew because many a time he’d had to outrun one – and it didn’t take him long to reach the basement. The blood was pounding in him when he reached the garage.
There was just one ride waiting for him. Caleb and Shula were sitting in the front seats, the engine was revving, the back door flung open.
‘Come on!’ Shula yelled, ‘What’s keeping you? There’s a Hunter waiting to be killed and the others are going to beat us to her.’
Lucas smiled and shook his head, ducking into the back seat and slamming it shut.
He let his head relax back into the seat and watched the speedometer climb as Caleb slammed the Mercedes out of the underground garage and onto the highway. He stared out of the window. This stretch of highway was always quiet, but at night it was more so – there were only a few factories and gas stations for at least twenty miles in each direction. The Mission was a good base for the moment. Tristan had chosen well.
‘She’s pretty.’
Lucas turned his head. Shula was leaning over the front seat waving the photograph of Evie in his face. He grunted and went back to looking out the window.
