The Fugitives, A Dystopian Vampire Novel: Book Four: The Superiors Series by Lena Hillbrand

shore of a river, in the pocket of a belt that had been chewed through by an animal. He picked it up and turned it over. The belt had animal fur stuck along the inside. That bastard. That too-smart-for-his-own-good backar chodu had belted the device to an animal instead of destroying it, making it look like it was moving. It had been turned off for months, but even when it was off, they could track it.
    Byron couldn’t understand why Draven would save one tracker’s pod and destroy the other’s. Maybe it had been destroyed when Draven killed Lapin, or maybe it was all part of his elaborate plan. Byron couldn’t figure out Draven’s strategy, why he did these things, what had happened out here in these woods, what had happened to the trackers.
    He had figured out enough, though. They had followed Draven into the woods and disappeared. Their tracking devices were ruined or made to fool anyone who followed them. Byron knew enough to make Draven a suspect, officially. Before continuing, he turned on his own pod and entered the information into the database. He found nothing in the files that night, but the next evening, he received a message that another tracker and an Enforcer were being sent to search the woods for clues.
    His job done, Byron returned to his car. He didn’t need to confirm the kill. Now he had just cause to kill Draven. Back in Princeton, he visited his saps at the farm where he’d left them, had a meal, and took the bottled sap the farmer had collected for him. Then he showered and repacked his gear. Things weren’t going to be so rustic on this trip. He’d be taking the car, and he’d only need to camp if Draven had gone into the rural area around Moines, which Byron doubted. Moines was a populous area, and until a hundred miles south of the city, Draven would be easily accessible.
    Byron entered his information into the system, just in case. He’d get the bloodbagging bastard, but there was always that chance… He had a wife and kids to think about. The trip was legitimate now, though. As an Enforcer, he was going to collect a stolen sapien and capture a suspect. He had nothing to hide anymore—except activating Draven’s tracer. But that was a small matter, easy to overlook. Besides, he’d been right in doing it. Draven had turned out to be a suspect in a double murder, which was more than Byron had hoped for. When he’d set out, he’d assumed one of the trackers lived. He’d thought Lathan was incapacitated, but he hadn’t thought him dead. Draven was crazier than he’d imagined.
    The next evening, when the sky had reached a deep navy color, he set out. He maneuvered his way through traffic with unusual patience. He even whistled as he called up music on his car’s electronic device. Drumming on the steering wheel to keep the beat, he sang along to some music from his human life—an awful ballad by a band called Snakebite that he wouldn’t have admitted to knowing when he’d been human. He didn’t remember hearing the song before, but somehow, he knew every word.
    Soon traffic thinned, and he could push his speed higher and weave between cars easily. His spirits lifted as he thought of leaving Princeton, the city he’d grown to despise to his very marrow. When the lights grew dim behind him, he turned to watch them twinkle, merry and deceptive in their warmth. He knew better. The city was cold and frustrating. He breathed a sigh of contentment when the last of the lights disappeared and the road aimed downward more often than up.
    He hadn’t known it was possible to hate a place so much—it was only a city, after all, and cities were impersonal by their very nature. They weren’t living or dead, but frozen. He’d never held any animosity for something so artificial. But this city was a place that tried to suck away the life he’d held onto for two centuries. Something about it was evil, as if the very ground under the concrete seethed with hatred for its inhabitants.
    That