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“I said we’re on sabbatical.”
Justin listened in on Aaron’s phone conversation through the cracked kitchen window. He wondered when his partner had started locking him out of conversations that concerned both of them. He didn’t like it.
Justin swung the door wide open, letting it creak on his way out to join Aaron on the patio. His partner glanced his way, acknowledging him, before turning back to his conversation. He was obviously annoyed, his neck raw from scratching, his brows scrunched together. He bared his teeth when he spoke. “Well I’m awful sorry your tracking software can’t find people who don’t want to be found!”
HQ can’t locate us? Justin wondered. When Michelle said this place was warded against everything, she really meant everything. How do you even block GPS tracking?
Justin nudged Aaron and motioned to the phone. Reluctantly, he put it on speaker so they both could hear. “ --know, but it’s been almost a month and circumstances--”
Aaron grabbed the phone and practically screamed into it. “FUCKING circumstances, right?!” His eyes burned with blue fire. Justin found him terrifying in these moments. He didn’t know how anyone could not back down from Aaron when he was like this.
Except, of course, himself. “What circumstances?” he asked loud enough to be picked up by the receiver.
Justin ignored the glare from Aaron and listened carefully to the agent on the phone. “Justin, hello. The circumstances I am referring to are that in the time that you two have been on leave in nowheresville, we lost four field agents in the line of battle.”
The voice was not one he’d heard before; he wondered if Ross had been let go for his growing fondness for his dependents. This voice was female, gruff and real, which made the news set even more goosebumps down Justin’s arms.
“Four?” he asked, looking to Aaron. The other was seething, but Justin at least now had a clue as to why. “Who?”
“I’m not authorized to give you that information--”
This time it was Justin who cut her off. “Tell me, or we quit and you lose six field agents this month.” Aaron arched an impressed eyebrow at Justin’s outburst.
The woman inhaled slowly. “There’s Sergeant Haylock and trainee Noriega.”
Justin and Aaron winced. Haylock had managed thirty years in the hunting business. He had been around before HQ had even been set up. Back when it was every hunter for themself against the forces of darkness. No pay, no benefits, no special weapons. This past year, he had taken on a protege, Danny Noriega, a teen he saved from a nest of vamps. Kid wanted to get back at the monsters who held him. He had been a good soul, but an amateur. And in their line of work, amateurs either get good fast or they get dead faster.
“Fucking kid got the best in the business killed with his stupidity.” Aaron’s words cut like a knife.
Justin didn’t try to control himself. He slapped Aaron, leaving the blonde with a red mark on his face, slack-jawed and silent. He grabbed the phone from his now silent partner. “Who else?”
The dispatcher lady was silent. Justin banged his fist on the glass patio table. “WHO?!”
Her voice was quiet. “Belli and Act.”
Aaron covered his face with his hands. Justin sat down hard.
“You asked,” said the dispatcher.
Justin was ready to jump through the phone and slap the dispatcher for her attitude, but Aaron wisely took it from him. “Dispatch?” his voice was scratchy but controlled.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“What’s your name?”
“... Kelley.”
Aaron sighed. “Well, Kelley, we’re hunters. And hunters die. It’s what we do.” His voice grew defeated even as he gave the pep talk. “And we all know that when we get in this line of work. Roy knew it, Danny knew it, Will and Court knew it.”
Justin heard him say their names, one right after the other, knowing they were dead. His voice didn’t even crack once. Meanwhile Justin wiped away tears that had started and spilled over in a matter of seconds.
“And so did we.” Aaron paused to look down at Justin’s tear-stained face. “And we know that the best way to avenge the death of a fellow hunter,” he breathed hard, the only sign that the news had affected him at all. “Is to go out and hunt the sons-of-bitches responsible.”
The truth and empowerment in his words had the desired effect on Justin. He stiffened his upper lip, set his jaw, and turned his pain into fuel. Justin clenched his fists.
“So,” Aaron continued. “You do what Dispatch is good at, and you make up a little file of the last cases they worked. You send them to me, and you let us finish what they didn’t get a chance to. Understand?”
“Loud and clear, Mister Coady.”
“One last thing,” said Aaron.
“Yes?”
“After we do this,” he looked straight at Justin. “Don’t call ever again. After this,” said Aaron. “We’re out.”