Page 58 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
Babcock replied immediately.
I’ll send Natalie to meet you at the edge of the cemetery.
Fuck, he had to hurry.
Wes scrambled out of the window, slamming his phone on mute as he sprinted for the forest. He tripped over enough gravestones to lose count, ending up with a long red scrape across his left hand that he couldn’t quite recall the source of. He’d barely dove into the cover of the trees when the silhouette of Natalie stepped out, her phone screen lighting up the underside of her face. She leaned against a trunk.
Waiting for him.
That was one hunter taken care of, for the moment anyway.
Wesley crept deeper into the forest, wishing with every twig snap and leaf crunch that he had Vincent’s skill at stealth. Or his eyesight. He found the only pinprick of light in the darkness and followed. It led him to Babcock, the man’s back gratefully toward him and his metal stick tucked under one arm as he typed on his phone, his bright flashlight aimed at a hunched, kneeling figure.
Even half blocked by branches and shifting in and out of the bobbing light, Wes knew Vincent in an instant. He would know him anywhere: in the pitch black, at the end of the world, by the sound of his breath and the way Wes’s heart tuned to it. The sight of him like this burned Wesley alive. His vision tunneled in. His toe hit a mug-sized rock. He picked it up, balancing it in one hand as he crept toward Babcock. The man’s skull was all he could focus on, the rest of the world a hazy whirlwind drowned beneath the rush of blood in his ears.
This man had hunted Vincent. Had used him and bound him and hurt him. Was going to turn him over to Vitalis-Barron’s experiments in exchange for a paycheck. He was the very incarnation of the company. If Wesley couldn’t burn them down, he could at least damage a cog in their machine.
Babcock made an annoyed sound at his phone screen. He turned. His brow lifted. As their eyes locked, Wesley hesitated. But he couldn’t stop. Someone had to pay for everything that had hurt Vincent, that had killed Wesley’s mom, that had fucked over so many people for the profit of a corrupt corporation. If that someone wasn’t going to be Wesley then it was sure as hell going to be Babcock.
Wes bashed the rock into the side of Babcock’s face.
The man stumbled with a grunt. His stick fell first, disappearing into the bushes, then his flashlight slipped, tumbling across the ground and settling at an angle that cast them both in a stream of silver. Babcock blinked against the glow. His hand went toward his belt, but Wesley hit him again, slamming the rock like a bat into the man’s shoulder, then once more straight at the center of his chest. Something crunched.
Babcock stumbled harder this time. He caught himself on the trunk of a tree, his gaze bleary and hair rumpled from its usual slicked-back state. Something dripped from the corner of his lips. He stared at Wesley in unfocused confusion, as though still trying to put the pieces of himself back together as he asked, “Who are… You… you lived at that house we tracked the vamp to…”
“I’m Wesley; you invited me here.” Wes grinned, no pleasure in the expression. Well, some pleasure. Babcock could drown in his own blood, and Wes felt he would just keep grinning. “Yeah, that was my house. And that vampire you’ve hurt? That’s someone I love.”
Babcock’s eyes sharpened, then widened, and his lips turned to a snarl. “Now, hold on.” But he was reaching again, hand curling behind his back.
“Fuck that.” With all his might, Wesley smashed the rock into Babcock’s temple.
His skull thudded beneath it. He fell. As he hit the ground, his head made a second thump, sharper and wetter. He didn’t move. Wes’s arm shook, but he kept hold of the rock as he knelt, hovering his hand over the man’s mouth, then pressing beneath his jaw. Nothing.
Oh. Wes had probably killed another human, and he felt… nothing. No, he felt good. He felt just a little bit righteous even. He definitely needed to get a therapist after this.
Wesley dropped the rock and scooped up the flashlight instead, rushing to Vincent’s side. His lungs clenched and his throat went dry at the raw, red welts beneath the metal choker that looked like something made to catch dogs not people. A sob welled in his chest as he reached for the vampire.
Vincent flinched away.
Wes stopped. He lifted his palms. “Sorry, sorry, I know I—I’m not exactly the person you trust most right now. But I just want to help.”
“Then help,” Vincent wheezed. “Find a blade.”
“Right.” Wes scrambled to Babcock’s body—it smelled like urine now; that meant he was dead, didn’t it?—and patted along his waist. He found a gun hidden beneath the back of his jacket and a small knife hooked to his belt.
Vincent only cringed a little as Wes cut the ties on his ankles and wrists. He pulled the metal off his neck with an inhale so ragged it seemed like he might burst into sobs. His gaze darted to the trees in the direction of the quiet cemetery—Natalie must not have heard their commotion this far in—before jumping back to Wes, then to Babcock’s body, tense and scared like a cornered animal about to flee.
Every instinct told Wesley to grab him. If Vincent ran now, he’d be alone, without safety or shelter or blood. He’d have nothing and no one again. And Wesley would still be here, with a dead body and no proof of Vitalis-Barron’s crimes, forever wondering whether Vincent was alive, whether he was happy, whether Vitalis-Barron had snatched him away for their experiments and disposed of his body alongside Wes’s mom.
Unless…
Wes didn’t want to think like this. He should not have been considering asking anything of Vincent, much less something so dangerous. But Wes still needed to take down Vitalis-Barron, for his mother and for Vincent and for every other person they’d hurt. And he had something he wanted Vincent to have—something Vincent needed far more than Wes ever would. This was likely the only way Vincent would trust him enough to accept anything from him. He had to put all his cards on the table, the terrible alongside the good, and let Vincent judge if they were worth it.
“One last wager,” Wesley said, breathless.
Vincent didn’t interrupt.
“I need to get into the Vitalis-Barron research building and you need enough security to restart your life,” Wes explained. “So how about this: we hide the body in the brush, and you come to their lab with me now, before they realize Babcock is dead. We find the proof that my mother was part of their studies when she died, proof I can use to stop them from coming for you again and maybe even shut them down, and after we break out you can have my house.” Not his mom’s house, but his now. It had been Wes’s for over a year, he just hadn’t wanted to accept that.
