"Fine," she said finally.

"You're not chickening out are you?"

"No. Just worried about messing up your life if I get in trouble."

"I'm good," Brandon said, eyes on the screen. "And I've got some targets for you."

She glanced at him. "You do? How? I thought Jonny took the phone."

"I figured out something," he replied vaguely. "Look." He pointed to a small map with red and blue beacons. "Vamps are blue. There are a few active pockets in San Diego."

She observed the targets. Some were moving, others still. "What's red?"

"Jonny's vamps." Brandon enlarged the subset of San Diego with the blue vamps. "I figure we can go after the rogue vamps instead of his. We both win."

"We both win," she repeated. "Why do you want him to win?"

"I want him not to corner you again. This way you can fight vamps and Jonny won't get pissed."

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She studied the map. "How do you know whose vamps are whose?"

"I'm a hacker."

"That doesn't explain it. Brandon, are you …" She drifted off. Her brother wasn't working with Jonny, was he? How would Jonny have had time to set up something like that? Why wouldn't Brandon have told her? It wasn't like him to keep secrets from her. "Never mind. I don't care whose vamps they are. I'll go get ready."

"I'll send you some locations to hit."

She nodded and retreated to her room. Ashley changed quickly and armed herself with her batons and knives. She tucked the mask into her bra and slung on her backpack before returning to the living room. Brandon had texted her several downtown locations, and she stopped behind the couch to calculate how to reach them before tucking the phone away.

"Got it. I'll text when I'm there," she said and strode out of the apartment.

Busy with his laptop, Brandon grunted in response.

Twenty minutes later, Ashley hopped off the bus and walked along a quiet sidewalk running near the baseball park. Most storefronts were dark for the night, and she paused in front of the building whose address Brandon had sent her. The locale was boarded up, so she continued past the front and down a side alley running beside it. The door on the ground level on this side was also boarded up.

Stepping back, she scoured the side of the building for a window to give her access. Most were boarded, but one - four stories up - was not. She tugged out her mask and stashed her backpack. She checked her phone before tucking it away.

Five vamps, Brandon had texted. Monitoring your vitals. Bring back cells.




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