Thank you for reading this chapter! If you have not read the previous chapters, please do so (particularly 16 and 17). I have been away for a while; life (and death) tend to get in the way of many things, including writing. Special thanks to "Giraffe" for helping me through perhaps the worst writer's block ever AND for being the one to hold my hand these last several months, keeping me as sane as I have been! Note: This chapter is not very sex-heavy; it is about advancing the plot.
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"This just in from the IPD newsroom: Dr. James Alvarez, Nobel Laureate chemist, has been found dead outside of a laboratory testing facility only two blocks from these IPD headquarters. Preliminary evidence indicates he was murdered. We will bring you further updates as more information becomes available."
As if in a deep sleep, Bitsy heard the words. Swimming back to full consciousness, she turned the name over in her mind and remembered a visit from the agitated eminent scientist just last week during one of her "counseling sessions with her cousin" to "break her from her catatonia" following the abuse at the after party of the ball a month ago.
Hiding her seething anger at both Tracy Bathory and her followers and Stuart-she must never call him Tristan again-behind an impenetrable wall of mechanical docility and blankness, Bitsy had managed to set in motion several stages of her plan to destroy the witch leader and her minions once and for all.
And, she thought, her thoughts tinged with traitorous regret, if I need to bring Stuart down in the process, so be it.
She pondered the events of the past month.
It was quite by lucky accident, really, that she came across the broken down van two days after that night on her way to IPD Headquarters as Alyssa Mason. Something about the set up had seemed not really right.
The driver, a swarthy, hulking figure, was accompanied by an even more monolithic, armed guard. By comparison, her 5'5" figure seemed almost diminutive-even with the extra three inches her heels afforded.
And, even though her treasonous hands still insisted on clothing her in red-HIS color, she inwardly seethed, even now, she was the one who saw red from their disdain of her as a mere woman.
Until she pulled out her revolver and her badge.
Not surprisingly, the name Alyssa Mason, when coupled with the mention of the IPD, had a pronounced effect on these two low-level goons.
Their tough facades quickly fell as she ordered them out of the van and onto the ground. Although she recognized the markings on the vehicle and knew it belonged to Tracy Bathory, the fact that they did not mention the duchess's name made Bitsy's Vampiran senses tingle.
Pretending ignorance, while at the same time cheering her good luck, Bitsy prodded them or information about their boss and about the contents of the van. They kept understandably mute. No one snitched on Tracy Bathory and lived for long. The deaths were usually immediate and painful.
After securing them in her department-issued vehicle, she wrenched open the back doors of the cargo van to discover a horrific scene.
Time spent in the stark regions of Stuart's dungeon should have prepared her for the vision, but truly nothing could have prepared her for this.
Heavy chains with even heavier manacles were bolted into the floor of the van. And-they weren't empty. Two rows of six women each, naked, dirty, bruised, and bloody, with visible evidence of violation-possibly from the two men stinking up her car-sat mutely facing each other.
All twelve were in their early twenties, as far as she could tell. Different races. Different "looks." But what terrified Bitsy, what made her want to run away screaming, were the expressions on their faces.
The ones that were the easiest to accept were the five girls who looked as if they were waking up from a dream into a nightmarish reality. Those she soothed, "Shh. I'm here to help. You have nothing to fear from me."
No, the ones that scared her were those who sat, placidly serene. Not in a safe place of their own construct to escape the horrors lavished upon them. Bitsy's mind railed at her, providing the solution even as her stomach churned. They had been drugged into passive submission.
She made a few decisions right then. First, she needed backup. Second, drawing blood immediately from the young women was imperative. Returning to her car, she retrieved a few kits from the trunk. Dripping a few drops of a blood stabilizer Chris had made into each vial, she entered the van as calmly as she could and extracted blood from three of the quiescent women and two of those who were quite obviously "coming to."
There, in the corner, she made another grisly discovery: two more women, tossed aside as if rubbish, gone. Her eyes made contact with a set more rational than the others, a violet pair of orbs that would have matched her younger sister's.
"Overdose." The voice was harsh, scratchy, hoarse-from screaming? Bitsy nodded and covered the two bodies as best as she could with her jacket.
While still hunkered there in the fetid aroma of the unwashed and abused women, Bitsy called Ginger for assistance, then worried that this scene would trigger her normally unflappable older sister.
Oddly enough, the sight before her did not trigger either Ginger or herself. Ginger had been...violated..several times in the past and worked tirelessly as a counselor at a women's shelter that Bitsy had set up under the governance of the IPD-a community outreach program.
While waiting for Ginger, Bitsy addressed the woman who appeared more older than the rest and more hardened to life's realities.
Blue, as she addressed herself, was 25 and nearing the end of her usefulness turning tricks on the streets. Her pimp had sold her to the two men, she explained to Bitsy, but it was clear that they were working for someone else. Blue did not know where they had been headed.
She was quick to note that she, Blue, was the only one who had prostituted before. The other girls were pulled off of the street, subdued by the drug, and shackled to the inside of the van.
"The drug scared me," she told Bitsy succinctly and without fanfare. "I've seen too many friends zombie-out or die from an overdose to escape, for just a few hours at a time, the job they had to do. I simply face the johns sober. Seemed safer."
Ginger arrived shortly thereafter, and Bitsy dropped the henchmen off at the headquarters for processing before delivering the blood-filled vials to a testing lab two blocks away.
The results came back two days later. Bitsy had Ginger go public with the information of what the contents contained but sat on the information concerning the human trafficking bust.
Patience, she cautioned herself. The goons were not talking, Blue had given her all of the information she knew, and the other girls, all safely ensconced in the women's shelter as they healed, knew nothing.
Bitsy realized she could not publicly accuse Tracy Bathory. That time was months, if not years, away. But operations like this could provide enough evidence to rid the world of her presence permanently when the time came.
Two days after her lead lab technician placed the results in her hands, Marcos approached her at IPD headquarters. They had not spoken since the night of the ball. Oddly enough, her rage seemed directed only at Stuart and not at the elder brother.
He entered her office with quiet intent, but he still betrayed a nervous energy that Bitsy noticed immediately. For the first time, she discerned that no one, save the three of them-Stuart, Marcos, and herself-knew about her less-than-innocent relationship with Marcos. No one at IPD headquarters had the merest clue.
Pacing in front of her desk, he cleared his throat, all the while studiously not looking at her.
Finally, the stretched silence unnerved her. "Marcos?"
He stopped, nearly dead still, save for the fine tremors that shook his clothes, making a soft rustling sound that interrupted the silence.
"I love you," he spoke in a halted pace. "But I need to leave. I know you are angry with him, know if I asked, you would insist to me that you hated him, even." He spun on his heel and bent until his nose brushed hers. "But you love him. A toxic love that will end badly, but you love him in a way that you will NEVER love me."
The usually confident Commandant General could only hold his gaze a few seconds before her eyes dropped and her chin tipped down. Her "I'm sorry" was barely audible.
"It's not your fault. It's not my fault. I'm not even sure it is his fault. I just cannot be here while you and he...interact," he finished with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Bitsy cleared her throat. "I understand. I can send you on a mission of sorts. I need to collect evidence of Tracy Bathory's illegal and immoral business dealings. Prostitution. Drugs. Murder. Corruption. I need an unbiased investigation of her work so that, when we do push forward, we will be able to end her trail of terror."
Marcos's expression was perhaps more eager than it should have been, unless one considered his inner torment. "I agree to it."
Bitsy, as Alyssa, swallowed hard. "I wish you good luck and safe travels. You need to begin in Gypsum, Texas, where my exposure to her began."
She stood and came around her desk to wrap her arms tight around him. "I do love you, Marc. I'm just...not in love with you."
His knowing gaze turned bleak. "That is a shattering distinction."
They both nodded, their expressions both sheepish and contrite.
"Goodbye, for now, Bitsy," he intoned before turning his back to her and exiting her office.
Pressing the pads of her fingers to her temples, she contemplated the fallacy of her decision to send him away. After several minutes, she pulled down her hands, her ruminations turning to Stuart.
Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. Rage. Fury. The dichotomy of Tristan, who wanted her so desperately, who cherished her, contrasted with the coldly autocratic Stuart, who used her mechanically then set her up for further abuse both galvanized her anger and destroyed her anew every time she allowed herself to scrutinize the events and emotions from that night.
He had tried to repair things. But, as each day passed, and she met his gentle considerations and tentative advances with blank emptiness, he tried less and less often.
