Three days had passed since the warehouse district, and Major Patricia Gwen sat alone in her apartment, the silence broken only by the distant hum of city life. She wore nothing but an oversized sleep shirt, the fabric stretched slightly over her full, braless chest, the hem brushing the tops of her toned thighs. Every slow breath hinted at the soft sway of her breasts beneath the thin cotton, nipples faintly visible in the dim light slipping through the half-closed blinds.
Her auburn hair fell in loose, unruly waves around her shoulders, the kind of mess that came from restless sleep and not caring enough to tame it. As she shifted on the couch, the shirt rose just enough to tease the curve of her firm backside—years of military drills and combat runs carved into the lean muscle of her body. Even without trying, even in exhaustion, Patricia exuded a quiet, raw allure—the kind of beauty sharpened by discipline, but softened in these private moments where she could finally breathe.
Her phone lay on the coffee table like an accusation.
She'd been staring at it for twenty minutes, her fingers trembling as they hovered over a contact entry that read simply: K with a heart emoji attached to it.
The number hadn't changed in eighteen months. She'd never had the courage to delete it.
Finally, she pressed call.
The phone rang once before the automated message kicked in: "The number you have dialed is not available or has been disconnected."
She dropped the phone and let out a bitter chuckle. "Dead men don't answer their phones, Patricia."
The past three days had been a careful dance of investigation and misdirection. She'd filed her official report, accepted the commendation for "exceptional tactical performance," and watched as the warehouse incident became another success story in the Shadowguard's public relations machinery.
Privately, she'd been hunting.
Database searches for unusual supernatural activity. Cross-referencing missing persons reports with vampire nest locations. Following up on every lead that might explain what she'd witnessed.
Nothing. Complete silence.
As if Kaine Cross—or whatever had been wearing his face—had simply vanished back into the shadows where the dead belonged.
She pulled her knees to her chest, remembering the way she'd looked those wounded recruits in the eyes and convinced them to lie.
"You were unconscious when I ...."
___
[Three days earlier]
The harsh fluorescent lights of the warehouse cast everything in stark relief. Blood pooled black on concrete, twisted metal scattered like confetti, and the acrid smell of supernatural violence hanging heavy in the recycled air.
Major Patricia Gwen stood frozen between shipping containers, her mind struggling to process what she'd just witnessed.
'That was Kaine Cross. I'm sure of it. The way he moved, the weapon, even his voice when he spoke to that... thing.'
But Kaine Cross was dead. She'd seen the after-action reports herself—killed in action during a nest clearing operation eighteen months ago. Official cause of death: exsanguination after multiple vampire attacks.
They'd never recovered the body, but that wasn't unusual in their line of work. Sometimes the monsters didn't leave enough pieces to bury.
'And yet there he was, walking through seven vampires like they were training dummies. With some kind of undead servant that moved like...'
A wet, rattling cough echoed through the warehouse, snapping her back to immediate reality. One of the surviving recruits was trying to sit up, blood frothing at the corners of his mouth as he struggled to breathe.
'Focus, Patricia. Questions later. These kids need help now.'
"Medic!" she barked into her comm unit, her voice carrying the authority of eight years in the field. "Priority one medical emergency, warehouse district, multiple casualties. I need trauma teams, blood units, and surgical backup. Move!"
She dropped to one knee beside the wounded recruit, her hands automatically going through the field medicine protocols drilled into every Shadowguard operative.
Check airway, check breathing, check circulation. Apply pressure to major bleeding. Keep them talking if they're conscious.
The kid couldn't have been more than twenty-two, with the kind of baby face that suggested he'd never needed to shave regularly before joining up. His name tape read 'MARTINEZ' in block letters, and his dark eyes were wide with shock and pain.
"Hey, Martinez. Look at me," Gwen said, her voice taking on the calm, steady tone she'd learned to use with wounded soldiers. "You're going to be fine. Help is coming. Just keep breathing, okay?"
"Ma'am..." Martinez's voice was barely a whisper, blood speckling his lips as he spoke. "The man... he had gray skin... and the thing with him..."
The words hit her like a physical blow. Gray skin. That detail she'd tried to dismiss, tried to rationalize as shadows and poor lighting. But Martinez had seen it too.
'If I report what we saw, they'll either declare me mentally unfit for duty or launch an investigation that tears the organization apart. A dead operative with supernatural abilities? Either I'm having a psychotic break, or every assumption we've made about our war is wrong.'
"Martinez, listen to me very carefully." Gwen leaned closer, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "You were delirious from blood loss. Severe head trauma can cause hallucinations. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
The recruit's eyes focused on her with desperate confusion. "But ma'am, I saw—"
"You saw me fighting those vampires. That's all." Her tone carried the kind of quiet authority that came from years of making life-and-death decisions in impossible situations. "Seven hostile vampires eliminated by conventional weapons and tactics. Nothing else happened here tonight."
'I've already violated direct orders by being here. Now I'm supposed to walk into Steele's office and claim I witnessed the resurrection of a dead colleague? With gray skin and supernatural powers? They'd have me in psychiatric evaluation before I finished the sentence.'
She moved to the next recruit, a young woman with sergeant's stripes whose left arm was bent at an angle that definitely wasn't anatomically correct.
The woman was conscious but staring at the ceiling with the thousand-yard stare of someone whose worldview had just been violently readjusted.
"Sergeant Chen," Gwen said, checking the name tape. "How are you holding up?"
"Those weren't normal vampires, ma'am." Chen's voice was steady despite the obvious pain. "Third generation, maybe older. They moved like they'd been doing this for centuries. And that thing that saved us... it wasn't human."
'She's right about the vampires. But if she starts talking about what saved us...'
"Sergeant, you took a serious head injury during the initial engagement." Gwen kept her voice professional, clinical. "Severe concussion can cause false memories, especially in high-stress combat situations. You were unconscious when I arrived and eliminated the hostiles."
Chen's eyes sharpened, focusing on Gwen with the kind of professional assessment that suggested she wasn't going to be as easy to convince as Martinez.
"Ma'am, with respect, I know what I saw. That wasn't you who—"
"Was it?" Gwen's voice dropped to barely audible, but carried enough intensity to stop the younger woman mid-sentence. "Are you absolutely certain about what you remember from a traumatic combat situation while suffering from blood loss and head trauma?"
'What if it wasn't really Kaine? What if something else is wearing his face, using his voice? What if I report this and put him in danger from the very people who are supposed to protect him?'
Chen stared at her for a long moment, and Gwen could see the internal struggle playing out behind her eyes. The sergeant was smart enough to recognize the subtext, professional enough to understand the implications.
"I... I remember being unconscious for most of the engagement," Chen said finally. "You eliminated the hostiles using standard tactics."
The warehouse filled with the sound of approaching vehicles—engines, radios, the organized chaos of emergency response teams mobilizing. Gwen could hear helicopter rotors in the distance, probably medical evacuation choppers.
Within minutes, the scene transformed from post-battle carnage into controlled medical crisis management. Paramedics swarmed the wounded recruits, setting up IVs and stabilization equipment with practiced efficiency.
Crime scene specialists began documenting the vampire remains, their equipment beeping and clicking as it analyzed the supernatural residue left by high-level bloodsuckers.
"Jesus Christ," one of the specialists muttered, staring at his scanner's readout. "These aren't normal kills. Look at this energy signature—third generation vampires, at least three of them. What kind of firepower did you use to take them down this clean?"
'Third generation. That matches what I saw. But they weren't killed by firepower. They were torn apart by something that moved faster than human reflexes should allow.'
"Classified weapons," Gwen replied smoothly. "You know how it is with experimental tech."
The specialist nodded with professional acceptance. In an organization that dealt with supernatural threats, everybody got used to compartmentalization and need-to-know protocols.
'But what if those reports about Kaine's death were wrong? What if he survived something that changed him? What if he's been fighting this war alone for eighteen months while we declared him dead?'
Another specialist approached, his expression mixing professional awe with concern. "Major Gwen, preliminary analysis shows seven vampire casualties, including multiple third-generation hostiles. That's... extraordinary work. Are you injured?"
'Seven vampires. Including three third-gens. And they think I did it all myself.'
"Minor injuries only," she lied.
What she didn't mention was that she hadn't engaged a single vampire during the entire encounter. That she'd watched from the shadows while something that shouldn't exist had eliminated experienced predators with supernatural efficiency.
That the person she'd once known—the person she'd once cared about more than regulations allowed—might have become something beyond human understanding.
"Major Gwen." The voice belonged to Captain Torres, one of the senior field commanders. "Outstanding work tonight. Command is going to want a full debrief, but preliminary reports suggest this was a significant tactical victory."
'A tactical victory I had nothing to do with. Accomplished by someone who's supposed to be dead.'
"Just following protocol, Captain."
"Seven vampires, including multiple third-gens, with minimal friendly casualties. That's textbook execution, Major."
'If only it were that simple.'
Torres continued speaking, but Gwen's attention was caught by movement at the edge of her vision. Senior Hunter Davidson approaching through the organized chaos—one of Colonel Steele's inner circle.
Davidson was the kind of career soldier who survived by reading political winds and adapting accordingly. His measured approach and carefully neutral expression suggested he was delivering official business that wouldn't be pleasant.
"Major Gwen," Davidson said, stopping just close enough to be heard without appearing threatening. "Colonel Steele requests your immediate presence at headquarters."
'Of course he does. I violated direct orders, and now I have to explain how I single-handedly eliminated seven high-level vampires.'
"I'm coordinating medical evacuation and crime scene analysis," Gwen replied. "This scene needs—"
"The Colonel was very specific about the timeframe, ma'am. He said 'immediately' and emphasized that other priorities were secondary."
'I need time to think. Time to figure out what I actually saw and what it means. Time to decide whether the person who saved those recruits is still the person I once knew.'
Gwen looked around the warehouse one more time, taking in the scene that would probably define her career. The wounded recruits being loaded onto stretchers. The crime scene specialists documenting evidence of a battle that hadn't happened the way anyone thought.
The blood and carnage that told a story everyone would believe except for the person who'd actually witnessed the truth.
"Tell the Colonel I'll be there within twenty minutes," she said.