Page 1 of The Donor’s Dilemma

Chapter One

The moment Verity set foot in the editor's office, she knew she wasn’t leaving with her job.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Jay demanded, his tone reminding her of her mother. I’m not mad, just disappointed.

“I was thinking that it was the right thing to do.” She knew this might happen, but in truth she hadn’t expected the article to take off like it did.

“Well, I hope that the right thing to do is gonna pay your bills.”

“Jay! It was freelance; it had nothing to do with the Gazette…”

“Of course it did!” he shouted. Okay, maybe he was mad. “If anyone searches your name, the first thing they see is the Stonehaven Gazette!”

“But people died…”

“It doesn’t matter! You can’t say things like that about vampires, Verity!”

“But they didn’t care!”

“I don’t care!” Jay screamed, face turning red.

The other reporters watched from outside the office, some peeking over monitors, others outright gaping. She looked at Jay then, really looked, saw the dark circles under his eyes of a sleepless day, the deep furrow of a brow forgetting how to relax.

“I don’t care,” he repeated, quiet and defeated. “You can’t say things like that about vampires. Who do you think owns the paper?”

There was no point arguing. It wasn’t Jay’s decision to make, and if the almighty vampires who owned the Gazette decided she was out, then she was out.

“I didn’t say all vampires,” she murmured.

“It doesn’t matter. You said they didn’t care about human lives, and you can’t take something like that back. I’m sorry.”

Verity nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sorry too.”

He caught her arm as she walked to the door.

“It was a good article,” he whispered.

She offered him a tight smile before heading for her desk. Verity didn’t have much, just her laptop and a couple of notebooks that she shoved into her bag. As she closed her laptop she noticed a sticky note on the screen.

Vincit Omnia Veritas.

Truth conquers all.

She knew that catchphrase, just as she knew the scratchy handwriting of the man who worked opposite her. Closing the screen, she met Trevor’s eyes. The slight nod he gave her was perhaps the most approval she had ever seen from the veteran reporter in the eight years they’d worked together.

Her eyes stung.

Verity had expected to lose her job when she left her flat that evening. She expected to be shouted at, expected to do the walk of shame from the office. But Trev being nice to her? That she hadn’t expected.

She also hadn’t expected to find the eviction notice waiting on her doormat at home, or the withdrawal of her car insurance, the cancellation of her credit cards, phone contract and every one of her email accounts.

She hadn’t expected that, after building a career and dedicating her life to reporting the truth to her community, she would have to ask her parents if she could move back home. To be sleeping in her childhood bedroom at thirty-one. To have nothing.

Three months later

“Wakey wakey, sweetheart. Bonfires start in an hour.”