The Hunters were a pair of sisters, the older of whom had previously worked for LIGHTS but had been on her own for the last decade or so, recruiting her sister to work with her. Though she had been successful for many years as part of the team, she had her reasons for departing. Laura, the older and taller of the two, was royally pissed to see Giovani speeding away in his familiar black Corvette. She had been tracking him for more years than she could count, and it seemed that they were just about to get a two-for-one hit when he caught their scent and bailed. "Dammit!" she yelled, her black knee-high boots coming to a screeching halt on the sidewalk outside of the dinky little bar Giovani had so rapidly exited. "We almost had him!"
Laura could hear the exhaustion in her younger sister Laney’s voice. She clearly was not so surprised to see Giovani make yet another last-minute dash. "Yep," she said, crossing her arms across her chest. "Once again, Giovani gets away from us by the skin of his very pointy teeth. Come on, let's go. If we get back to the car, we might be able to follow him. Maybe we can actually catch up to him this time." Whether she was actually feeling optimistic or was forcing it for her sister’s sake, Laura couldn’t tell, but she wanted to mirror her sister’s enthusiasm.
"All right," Laura said, her feet not yet moving. "I'm beginning to wonder what the point is, though." She couldn’t help but feel defeated.
"What do you mean?" Laney asked, grabbing her sister by the jacket and swinging her around. "We've been chasing him for over twelve years. The point is to catch him and destroy him. We'll get him!" Laney started walking toward the car, letting go of her sister’s lapel.
"Ha," Laura replied, her feet finally moving at the same pace as her sister’s. "It's never taken anyone this long to catch one Vampire. What is his secret? Why can he get away so quickly?"
"You know, he can smell us. Most of them can't. And we have no help," Laney added as they approached the parking lot where they had quickly ditched Laney’s red Dodge Charger and sprinted toward the bar only a few minutes ago. The sisters had been right on Giovani's heels the last few days as he had left Omaha and headed for Lincoln. They almost had him earlier when he was near Bryan Health Hospital earlier in the day, but he had made another quick move and gotten out of their sights completely for the last two or three hours. Laura had thought they finally caught their lucky break when they had just happened to be driving past the intersection at the crossroads down the block and they spotted the familiar Corvette parked outside of the bar.
Opening the car door, Laney looked at her sister over the roof. "If we got LIGHTS involved....”
"No way!" Laura said, before she could even finish the sentence. "Absolutely not." She yanked her door open so hard, she almost ripped off a fingernail.
"I wish you would just consider it," Laney tried again, as she slid into the passenger side, Laura already behind the wheel. "You don't have to talk to him."
"Yes, yes I would," Laura insisted. "If we contact LIGHTS, we'll have to work with him again, and I'm not ready for that. I'm just not ready." She started the car, turning the key a little too far and nearly bending it.
"It's been fifteen years," Laney protested as Laura threw the car into reverse. "I'm sure it would be different. He was never rude to you after you broke up. Maybe we can get that new girl, Cadence, or whatever her name is, the one that finally took down Holland. Maybe she could get Giovani."
"No!" Laura said emphatically. "We don't need her help. And we don't need help from LIGHTS. Drop it." She hadn’t met Cadence Findley, but she knew her grandmother. The thought of the beautiful brunette working so closely with her ex-boyfriend made Laura’s stomach flip over. She pushed the thought aside. She couldn’t let Laura know what she was thinking.
"Clearly we do need their help," Laney said under her breath. "Fine. Well, one of us has to call it in that Giovani has a new friend. They’ll want to know about him, and it will be better if someone tells them right away. I guess that will have to be me?"
"Yes," Laura said, pointing her Charger toward the interstate. She had a hunch that Giovani was headed back toward Omaha, and if that was the case, she wanted to catch up to him before she lost him in a sea of city traffic. She had an idea of where he was living--or not living, as the case may be--and she wanted to see if they could tail him. To her sister, who was still looking at her inquisitively. "You know I'm not talking to Aaron."
"Fine," Laney said. Laura could see from the flicker in her eyes she was switching on her IAC. "I'll let your ex-boyfriend's team know. I'm sure Aaron will be very excited to hear we've got another untagged Vampire wreaking havoc on the streets of Nebraska."
"Let Mitzy know, and she'll call it in. She's been Independent in Lincoln for ages. She probably already knows. Then neither one of us has to talk to him," Laura suggested, trying to focus on the road and not on thoughts of her ex.
Laney sighed. Laura wondered why her sister would be looking for an excuse to talk to Aaron. It was as if she wanted to reach out to him. "Whatever you say, sis," she consented. "You're the boss, after all."
Turning her attention from the road for just a moment, Laura narrowed her eyelids at her sister, daring her to say more. Laney folded her arms and focused out the window, her eyes moving rapidly, letting Laura know she was talking to someone. As long as it wasn’t Laura—and it wasn’t about Aaron—that was all right with her.
