Ryan fell back onto the couch and sighed in relief. Finally, he was done with his unpacking. Tomorrow he started at his new job at the Federal Daywalker Protection Agency, which was newly created. His name had been on the list ever since talk began for the new Agency, so he had his pick of where to work. He chose Rutherford, which had a high concentration of daywalkers in its jurisdiction.
A box on the kitchen counter caught his attention. His pictures. All of his friends teased him for having actual prints instead of keeping them digital. There was just something about being able to sit with an album in his hands and flip through the pages that helped relax him. As always, he needed to resist the urge to look through one particular album. The one that only held two pictures. The binding on that album was the only one showing signs of wear, because he had looked at those pictures so often over the past four years.
It didn't take more than three minutes before he walked over and reached inside. Ryan didn't need to look for the one he wanted, because it was right on the top. The first picture was one he'd found on the floor of a coffee shop. Penlan Taylor in the throes of passion with a man and looking damned sexy. The second picture was a copy taken from his father's office. Penlan Taylor again, only this time beaten and bloody after the school jocks and others from town herded him onto the football field to 'punish' him for being a daywalker/nightwalker half-breed.
Ryan remembered when Pen had asked to meet him in the coffee shop and told him someone had taken compromising pictures. All the boy had said was 'someone' took the pictures of him with a man, and that they also showed fangs. As a half-breed, he was more daywalker, but he had residual fangs inherited from his nightwalker father. Those fangs only appeared when angry or when in the grips of passion, Pen quickly stated with the promise that he didn't have the nightwalker instincts to bite. The people of their small hometown hated the Taylor family, treating them worse than criminals, even though they'd never done anything wrong. Well, except for the daywalker mother. She had abused both her husband and son. Her family had come along and taken her away in the end, because she was too dangerous.
When Ryan pushed to find out who had taken the pictures, he'd been shocked to discover it was his own younger brother. So shocked, that he'd immediately refused to believe Pen. After all, their father was the chief of police, so of course, Benjie couldn't possibly be involved in anything like that. Pen ran away from him, dropping the picture, and gone to school the following Monday. Where the school jocks brought him out to the football field. People from the town were there waiting and they all jumped on the kid.
Penlan Taylor was just a tiny guy, about six or seven inches shorter than Ryan's six-foot frame. It wasn't just in height though. Pen was almost painfully thin, his clothes hanging off his body. Ryan figured he could probably pick Pen up with just one hand and hardly feel it at all. Until the moment he'd seen the picture of Pen in the act, so to speak, Ryan hadn't realized that he could be attracted to a man as well as to a woman. It didn't happen often for him, but it did happen. Never as strongly as when he'd seen that picture.
"I don't care if I said I didn't want to eat, you still make me supper, you lazy slut!"
Ryan sat up straight as the wall between the two apartments shook slightly. The walls were thick here, so whatever hit on the other side had hit hard. Shit, he shouldn't even be able to hear anything between the two. He realized he could hear because his window was open. The other window must be open too, and that was why he could hear the man next door shouting.
"Come on, Harvey," another voice, also male Ryan noted, pleaded. "There's tons of food in the fridge and I have to get to work. I can't be late again. Even if you'd said you wanted supper, it would have been leftovers anyway."
A cry, barely heard, was quickly followed by the harsher voice. "I fucking hate leftovers! You know that and yet you foist that crap off on me. No more! You're not going anywhere tonight, you little freak, I've got to teach you a lesson."
The next cry Ryan heard was filled with such pain, almost masking the sound of breaking glass, that he grabbed up his phone and called the police. He was set to go over there, but he wanted to at least have back up on the way. Once the address was out, he stepped into the hallway to get the actual apartment number, and was then stunned at the news he heard.
"Sorry, Sir, a daywalker lives there. Daywalkers are now under the authority of the Federal Daywalker Protection Agency. Would you like me to give you their number?"
What the Hell? "This is Agent Ryan Sealey, of the FDPA. Our authority is not all-inclusive. Crimes of any kind, no matter who is involved, are still to be taken care of by police and then referred if necessary."
"Our instructions are quite specific, Agent Sealey. Only the FDPA can be dispatched if the address is linked to a daywalker." The woman sounded bored and monotonous. "Until such time as we are told differently, I cannot send out any officers to your location."
This was ridiculous, more so considering that the local office of the FDPA wasn't even officially open until the next day. He would have to see what was going on with that, and either change it, or have the emergency operators transfer the calls directly. That was going to cause no end of trouble; he could feel it.
He pounded his fist on the door and waited impatiently for an answer. It didn't take long before a stocky black-haired man opened it with a growl. Ryan let his eyes sweep over the interior that he could see. This apartment was a mirror image of his own, the kitchen off to the left of the door rather than the right. A broken vase of flowers lay beside the coffee table, a few of the pieces showing blood.
A figure sat on the couch, short red hair tangled and messy. He seemed fine, if a little pale and Ryan was glad there weren't any obvious injuries. "I'm Agent Sealey with the FDPA. It sounded like there was quite a fight going on in here."
The two men exchanged a look and turned red before meeting his gaze. Surprisingly, they looked sheepish. The one at the door cleared his throat. "Yeah, we're sorry. We were playing around, you know, to add some spice. It really is all right, although I know how it must have sounded."
"The blood on the vase pieces?"
"My fault," the other said in a shy voice, coming to stand beside his boyfriend. "I'd just come from the shower and left my towel on the floor. I tripped over it and fell onto the coffee table. It's so embarrassing. Um, can I ask what FDPA is? And how you got here so quickly, since we were only...playing...for a few minutes."
Ryan explained about the FDPA and that he was their new next-door neighbour. They introduced themselves with a bit of a laugh and invited him for coffee. The dark-haired man was Harvey Mills and the redhead was Joey Compton. He teased them a bit about their behaviour and Joey groaned. It was Joey's idea to play that game, just to try something new and he'd had no idea of the eventual consequences. After an hour or so, they were all laughing and completely at ease.
