Free The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel by Ashlei D. Hawley Page B

Milwaukee area.’ The words scrolled across the screen, crushing Jameson’s hopes of finding refuge anywhere outside of the city. It seemed nowhere had fared better than their town in the initial onslaught.
         Jameson let his eyes track the location of every safe zone that had been overrun. Hospitals. Stadiums. Churches. Community centers. Anywhere people had gathered, banded together for safety, the Rippers had discovered and annihilated them.
         And added more to their ranks, Jameson realized as he continued to watch the broadcast of the apocalypse. It seemed that if a body was not badly damaged and had been bitten, the victim would rise as a Ripper themselves. The bite was incurable, Jameson read, and not a single person thus far had been able to survive a bite.
         “Infectious,” Jameson murmured under his breath. “Insanely infectious. It is a virus.” He felt for the flash drive in his pocket and again wished he knew where at least one vampire was. He needed someone to see the information he possessed. The world appeared to be in desperate need of someone doing something useful with the data he carried.
         “Jameson,” Leland said as he sat beside the older man. “I still want to know what happened. What are you, man? How did you do that?”
         Jameson gave Leland a look of surprise and jerked his gaze away from the apocalyptic images on the television. He had all but forgotten that he’d shown Leland his inhuman strength.
         “What do you mean, ‘what are you?’” Phoebe asked as she approached from the kitchen. The apartment was tiny and she’d clearly heard what Leland had said.
         Jameson sighed and stood. “I’m not human, I won’t lie to you about that.” There’s no way he could lie about it, he’d decided. Not even a bodybuilder focused on lifting semi-trucks in competitions could have done what he had.
         Phoebe stopped walking. Fear filled her hazel eyes at Jameson’s admission. “Not human? What are you? Are you like them? Like the Rippers?”
         Jameson wished he could have calmed the girl, but there was little he could do. Instead, he tried to explain in his calmest voice.
         “I’m not like them, the Rippers. I’m…I’m a vampire.”
         A laugh escaped Phoebe’s lips before she took in Jameson’s serious, unsmiling expression. “You’re kidding.”
         “Not in the slightest,” Jameson assured her. “I was turned a few days ago. My maker, Joselyn, was murdered earlier today. I don’t know what’s happening, but I think her murder has something to do with what’s happening to everyone.”
         “You think she knew something about the Rippers?” Phoebe asked. Jameson thought she seemed to be taking the information about his vampiric nature quite well.
         Leland looked at Jameson with far more suspicion than Phoebe did. The girl hadn’t seen of Jameson what he had.
         “Is that why you let that woman die?” Leland asked. His stubborn tone and narrowed eyes told Jameson a fight was on the way if he didn’t give the kid a satisfactory answer. “Did you not care because you’re not even one of us? And what about those monsters? You just watch them like you aren’t even afraid of them. Is that because you’re one of them?”
         Jameson thought on the words he could give to Leland that would help him make sense of things. Seeing as he could barely make sense of them himself, finding the words was a struggle. Leland thought he was a monster and that was fine. With the seductive scent of blood in the room, thrumming beneath the surface of so much young, delicate skin, Jameson couldn’t even argue that he was a monster himself.
         “Just because you’re one of the monsters doesn’t mean you can’t be afraid of the ones who aren’t like you,” Jameson told Leland. “I may be something that’s not human, but I’m nothing like the people who’ve