As I drove through the back roads that allowed me to speed, as much as I could with my crappy car anyway, I couldn't help but wonder. What would have happened if the FBI had accepted my all those years ago? Seeing how hateful and so…jaded and cruel Agent Mulholland was, I wondered if that is what I too would have been if she'd worked for them.
At twenty-eight it didn't escape my notice that I had been on this path for a very long time. Twelve years to be exact. Growing up in the system, I had seen and experienced the worst it had to offer. The scary stories that people theorized about but shied away from. And I had escaped it at sixteen, angry at the world and hating herself. I had lived on the streets for two years and signed up for the army the day after my eighteenth birthday.
It was there that I had realized there were people who could resist the denizen and I was one of them. The BDHA had scouted and two others after their second tour in the wild country, where certain dark denizen disregarded the law of right to life. I had returned to my country stronger but no less angry at the world because in war I had realized there were more ways to suffer than I had thought possible.
The BDHA offered me a chance to actually do something about it, and I took it and never looked back. But at that time, I had wanted to go to the FBI. They had rejected my application though; they had stopped taking females sometime in the last three decades.
I sighed as I passed the sign into Canaan, the sprawling city that had been born out of the ashes of the old world after the fourth word war that revealed the denizen two hundred years ago.
As one of the fastest growing cities, the BDHA had sought it as a prime location to establish their headquarters. She'd lived there for the past six years, after four years in the army she'd walked into the city with a tiny duffel of army clothes and nothing else. The army paid well, if you survived the tour, and she'd survived two terms.
For the first time in my life I had money, and she'd been smart about it. As I drove around a bend I spied the apartment building I used to live in, a sketchy neighborhood by a surprisingly loyal neighborhood.
The kind of place where the gang members on the fourth floor protected and looked out for all the single women in the building, especially the single mom with the crazy abusive ex who used to live beside my own apartment.
I shook my head at the memories, a small lofty smile on my lips as I remembered that time in my life. The headquarters building was located in a district filled with old buildings, there were high-rises surrounding the district and large park in the center and a lake in the center of the park. It was formally called Henley but informally they called it the heart of Canaan.
I stopped at a red light in the busiest road in the city. It connected the four parts of the city from north to south from east to west. The west road led out of the city. East led to a sprawling Cliffside that terminated at the sea. North led to forests and farmland that supported the city then hundreds of miles of nothing. South was where most businesses here as well as the heart of the city. I lived in north Canaan, my small house was built at the edge of the forest, close to the local shifter pack. The reason why the house had been so cheap, no other people had wanted to lie in such close proximity to savage monsters.
As the light turned green I drove towards the south and the office even though all I wanted to do was go the opposite way, to my house.
In twenty minutes I finally arrived at the office and drove into the guarded underground parking lot after greeting the gate keeper.
I put on my badge over my neck as I headed for the elevator, and pressed for the highest floor where no doubt the director was waiting.
I closed the door immediately I entered the office. Not as spacious as that of a rich CEO, but Director Oh had done an expert job making it look sophisticated and minimal at the same time.
The woman in question was seriously looking at her computer, I waved as I walked into the room, still not taking my eyes off the screen. Director Oh was a short woman of Korean descent. my short expertly cut hair was an attractive dark auburn color with one patch of white from root to end. She wore glasses when sheworked but other times her dark eyes shined luminous in knowledge and age and what she had seen. She was always stylish in the latest fashion, looked like she couldn't stand to be in the same place as a fly. A carefully crafted veneer to hide the power beneath.
I would have fallen for it if I hadn't seen the other woman single handedly bring down a rabid Lynx shifter. Using her blood witch abilities, she'd cut open her own palm and wielded the blood that poured out like a whip that cut through skin and bone, even denizen own.
I took a seat and waited patiently while looking out the huge bay windows behind the director. Between the other buildings, if one sat at an angle, they could see the Henley lake and park.
"Well? I read the report Fresco sent." She bent to angle her head, "You want to take this one?" she raised a brow at me.
"I don't know," I folded my arms, "I want to, I want to make sure it gets done right but I also don't want to dredge up memories I want buried you know?"
Oh sighed in understanding and leaned back in her chair. shewas aware of my past; as a blood witch she had taken my blood at the start of my career to divine what I was and if we'd work well with together. This was something she did for all top members of the agency, the inner circle so to speak. This often allowed her to see the person's past. It was inescapable. So sheknew the bits and pieces of my past she chose to remember.
"I can assign it to Henry, he returned from Cabo today and since that mission was a bust he is chomping at the bit to do something else. Is that okay with you?"
I shrugged, "He is good, and I know he won't take Mulholland's shit so that's probably the best choice all things considered."
She narrowed her eyes. "Mulholland's on this?"
I nodded. "He is crying clearance and sensitive information as the reason why we can't go over the senator's stuff but I know he won't be able to get a warrant till tomorrow morning. I have detective Espinoza and Fresco gathering as much evidence as they can, once they get it here they can give it to Reagan and his team to start going over it before Mulholland comes for it tomorrow."
She nodded, "that's good." she reached across my desk and pulled out a blue file from a stack of others and stretched it to me.
I leaned forward and got it, opening to pore over it. "What is it?" I flipped pages. It was just pages of bios of different people, I looked up. "What's this?" I asked again, with a frown this time.
"That is your new case, missing persons. We have the occasional missing person, a few times every month but this one has an entire building being emptied of people."
"What?" I looked down at the pages again. "How is that possible?"
She shrugged. "That's the mystery, it was a den full of ice addicts, sixteen humans and two denizen hybrids. One moment they were there the next they weren't. No one would have even noticed it if not for the fact that all of them vanished the same night. We need to know what happened, so we can prevent it from happening again."
I sighed and closed the file, taking to my feet. "I will see what I can find."
"Work with Rachel, Quentin will be assigned to the team as well when he returns."
I nodded and turned to leave the room. This had to be serious if I was putting Quen and I together. I disliked office fraternization and hated the couples working together even more. If I was willing to just brush this aside this way, then something about the case must've spooked a lot.
I looked at the file, my mind worrying at the fact I hadn't heard from my sister in months. We hadn't seen each other in two years, but I called occasionally for money and that was pretty much how I kept tabs that I was alive. Ever since she'd called for a large sum, saying I was going to rehab, I hadn't heard from her.
I pulled out my phone and dialed her for the umpteenth time this week
"Hey this is Ysolde, I'm not at the phone right now so leave your message at the beep."
"Izzy it's me, again. I don't know if you're ignoring me or what, I am super worried about you. You don't need to say anything; I just want to know if you're still alive. Call me. Please." I ended the call with a sigh. I really hoped I was not dead in a ditch somewhere, chances of that not happening we nil seeing as the last time I had seen my I looked like death warmed over. And addict since we were kids she'd really destroyed herself once we got older and I only turned up when things got very bad. Last time she'd stolen all the cash I had at home and some appliances from the kitchen.