Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

Usually, once she took those glasses off and went to bed, the ceiling above her would be a blur and the kitchen would be indiscernible shades of darkness. But the virus that had transformed her had also healed her eyes and corrected her vision more efficiently than a LASIK surgeon.

A long sigh escaped her. Sometimes she found the novelty of being able to see so clearly as great a sleep deterrent as the bouts of insomnia.

Will, her twin brother, had also worn glasses. How would he have reacted to suddenly regaining perfect vision?

As always, the thought of her brother brought tears to Tessa’s eyes and a lump to her throat.

When she was in high school, her best friend’s cat had been hit by a car and badly injured. Courtney had found the little tabby, which had died before she and her parents could get it to the animal hospital. And Courtney had later told Tessa that she wished one of her parents had found it instead because whenever she thought of her pet, she saw again the pain in its bloody face and the wounds it had suffered.

It was the same with Will. Tessa’s brother had been with her when Gershom had posed as Seth and attacked. Defenseless against such strength and power, she had been gravely wounded and forced to witness every excruciating injury Gershom had inflicted upon Will, listening to her brother’s cries of agony until he breathed his last breath.

Moisture welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Sniffling, she wiped them away.

How she wished she could un-see that and remember Will the way he had been before that night.

Don’t think about it. Think about something else. Anything else.

Rolling to her other side, she concentrated on the multitude of sounds that filled the building around and above her.

Tessa wasn’t sure how many employees worked at network headquarters. Hundreds surely, maybe more. Few ventured down to sublevel five. Employees had to have the highest clearance to take the elevator this far. But the four other subterranean floors, coupled with the ground floor, hosted a hell of a lot of people who held a wide variety of occupations and specialties: physical trainers and physical therapists who worked with all employees—even those with desk jobs—to help them gain and maintain physical strength; hand-to-hand combat instructors who taught every employee how to use that strength in the event of another attack; physicians who provided free healthcare to all employees; weapons developers who provided the network and immortals with everything they needed on both a small and large scale; viral researchers like Melanie who sought a cure for the vampiric virus or a way to prevent humans infected with it from going insane; accountants and investors who kept the network and immortals wealthy and ensured that every employee earned a very healthy salary; hackers capable of providing immortals with new identities periodically so no one would realize they didn’t age; hackers who could erase any immortal- or vampire-related information that popped up on the internet; actors who could step in and pose as witnesses, firemen, or even DEA or FBI agents in emergency situations to discourage looky-loos and gain control of the situation until Seth could arrive; chefs for the network’s top-of-the-line cafeterias; auto repairmen who kept the network special ops vehicles in excellent condition; handlers who kept tabs on gifted ones so the network could step in if anyone discovered their advanced DNA and caused problems…

The list went on and on.

And Tessa could hear them all.

She listened in on an acting class in which the instructor pretended to be a police officer arriving on the scene of a vampire attack. Tessa hunted with Sean periodically, so she should probably learn how to handle witnesses if no telepaths were around to aid them.

Alas, the class wrapped up fifteen minutes later.

Grumbling, she rolled back onto her other side, then gave up trying to sleep and slid out of bed.

Immortal Guardians were supposed to have enormous control over their bodies, enabling them to sleep whenever and however long they wanted to.

For Tessa? Not so much. She couldn’t seem to get her mind to shut off.

Padding into her living room, she crossed to the sizeable faux window one wall sported.

Chris Reordon was a good guy. Even in the face of her initial hostility and distrust, he had been nothing but kind to her and the other new immortals who had unwisely given Gershom their loyalty. When the Immortal Guardians had captured them, for lack of a better word, Reordon could’ve put Tessa and the others in holding cells until they’d calmed down and come to grips with their situation. Instead, he had given them lovely apartments filled with luxuries such as this window.

Longing rose within her as she stared at it. It wasn’t an actual window, of course. She was five stories underground. Instead, it was a high-definition flat-screen television that broadcast a live view of the meadow outside the building.

Sunlight bathed tall grasses peppered with colorful wildflowers.

Every once in a while, a breeze would set all into motion, causing the grasses to ripple like ocean waves that had flowers bobbing on the surface. It was beautiful. And wonderfully hypnotic. Tessa wished she could be out there, feel the wind tug at her hair and replace the network’s recycled air with the scent of those blossoms.

She glanced at the classic corded phone on the kitchen bar. Its keypad bore only one button.

Taking a deep breath, she crossed to it, lifted the receiver, and pressed the button.

“Reordon,” Chris answered after just one ring.