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“Ben, it’s been a while,” Dawn said before she stood up and went for a hug. “How’ve you been?”
The vampire smiled as Dawn looked him over, hands on his shoulders. “I’m alright. Miss our game nights, though.”
“Come back sometime. Just because you’re not dating my rock-brained brother doesn’t mean we still can’t be friends.”
The vampire smiled, sharp fangs on display. “I’d love that.”
“Alright, enough of this gooey reunion. There’s important shit to talk about,” Maddox said. I looked between the dragons and the vamp, shocked. I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised. Not all vampires followed the Matriarch’s lead. Those who didn’t want to associate with the darker aspects of their species defected, moving away from the Obsidian District and finding space among the other supernaturals. They only drank synthetic blood and never used their power to harm others. It wasn’t the majority of vamps that lived that kind of life, though, and it was nearly impossible to tell if you were dealing with a vampire who wanted to seduce and feed off you or one who wanted to hang out with some beer and good TV.
Ben spoke to the gathered group. “I connected with some vampires that live in the Obsidian. It didn’t take me long at all to figure out they were hunting for someone.” I couldn’t help but imagine him launching across the room, hands outstretched so he could wrap them around my throat. “There was a photo being spread. A wanted-photo. There’d been a month’s long hunt and no one knew where the target was, until they were spotted just the other day. Helstriva is offering an eternal spot in her private oasis, along with an unheard-of amount of money for anyone who brings back the person in the photo. There are vampires coming from all over the world off of her call to action.”
Damien, who stood nearest to Ben, stepped even closer. “Do you have the photo?”
He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Damien. “That’s definitely Robby.”
“Can I see?” I asked, standing up and swallowing down all my fear as I went toward Damien and the vampire. I felt like a rabbit voluntarily hopping into the jaws of a salivating manticore.
Damien handed me the paper. I wasn’t shocked when I saw my face smiling back. This photo had been taken when I was… wait. “Something’s off.” I cocked my head, arched a brow. That was my face, but there were tiny differences that twenty-six years of looking into a mirror helped me spot. A freckle on the nose, a slight slant in the smile, a gap in the teeth.
And the background looked like the photo had been taken on a cruise ship. I’d never been on a cruise ship in my entire life. My mom had always said she didn’t want to float around in a giant Petri dish, and my dad was scared of the ocean, so we stuck with family vacations to Disney instead.
“Is this edited?” I asked, looking at Ben. That’s when I realized he held another photo.
“It’s not,” he said. “There were two pictures handed out. This is the other one.”
I took it from him. Now I fully recognized myself. It was a photo pulled from my social media. I rarely ever posted, so it wasn’t difficult for me to remember this as one of the more recent shots. I smiled over a birthday cake my cousin had baked for me, my mom coming in from the side of the shot with a knife, ready to cut into the cake.
“Okay, this is definitely me. But that other picture has to be edited. I’ve never been on a cruise, and I don’t have those freckles either.”
Damien looked at both photos in my hand. He looked to Ben. The room fell deathly silent. I could practically hear the rhythmic beating of everyone’s hearts. Why did Damien look so damn serious? This was good, wasn’t it? We were finally getting some answers.
“Maybe she did it to throw vampires off?” I suggested. “Make the hunt harder?”
“Robby…” Wrinkles appeared between Damien’s dark brows. He looked like he was uncomfortable. Like he was nervous about what he was going to ask next.
“Do you know if you had a twin?”
My head dropped forward, face scrunching in pure confusion. “No, of course not. Why would that even be a possibility? I’m an only child. I have always been an only child.”
Ben sucked in a breath. “Helstriva wanted both men in those photos found and brought to her. Only one already has.”
“One already—but how?” It wasn’t computing. I looked at the photos again. They hadn’t caught me, but if they had one… but there was no way. I would have known. My parents would have said something. I couldn’t have had a twin, someone out there that looked just like me, that shared the same womb as me. A brother. That was impossible.
