They stood on that immaculately mowed lawn and stared up at that monumental monstrosity of a neo-classical house, and they were quietly shitting their pants, and not even Dickson had anything to say.

Gillian had not predicted this, and none of them saw it coming.

The tenuous link that tied a killer to the man living in this house was negligible. A blimp on their radar, a blind spot that would end all of their careers.

He hadn't gone for some faceless juror, judge, bailiff, cop, or even one of the many ADAs but went right for the jugular, taking this case out of their jurisdiction and league.

"What f##ng nut kills the f##ng mayor?" Dickson muttered, and all of them agreed with him for the first time.

"We're so screwed," Dana moaned, and the silence that followed her words was deafening.

***

The media buffeted the barricade like sharks in a bloody frenzy, trying to get to them, and the cops were treating their team like lepers. Gillian hated the tension in the air and the hatred aimed at them.

The brass called Boss and Colt into their headquarters before dawn, and they hadn't been seen since.

The outside of the house was barricaded and secured. They were waiting for the Feds and other big hitters to show up to fight for jurisdiction and were not allowed near the entrance.

Their faces popped up on every news station, paper, and radio channel as the "incompetent cops that can't catch a killer."

The media, the public, and their peers slammed them relentlessly and with relish.

~The new task force: "Born dead,"~ the headlines screamed, and she should not blame them.

***

"Come Friday, we won't get a job at McDonald's," Dickson grouched, "at least some of us can run back to daddy and our trust fund."

He just had to get that out of his system, didn't he? Gillian frowned at him, having waited for that jab all morning.

"Dude, I know their father. They go home without getting this squared away, and the only way either of them would get through the door is in a body bag," Dana said with such utter conviction that everybody stared at her but her and Elissa.

Their father loved them, but the family and its honor came before all else. The vampire world was unforgiving, and the royal family dared not show any weakness, ever.

A human would find that hard to understand, but they didn't. Gabriel had a kingdom to protect, and they were on their own, publicly anyway.

"Bullshit," Dickson scoffed, and Dana stared him down.

"Have you met Gabriel Drake?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Dana, you need not defend us... They want someone to blame, just like everybody else. Odd, though, that we were all working on this case.

"I would have thought the blame should fall on equal parts," Elissa murmured and shrugged without ever looking at any of them, and Gillian silently agreed.

"That there should be blame at all—when there was no more we could do and nothing more to find—pisses me off. This was supposed to be an elite squad of professionals, not some kindergarten blame party," Dana refused to be silenced.

Her loyalty belonged to them, as she did to their father. She was theirs to command. Her respect and her honor were theirs, along with her fealty.

When humans still lived with those concepts, they were so much more. This every-man-for-himself world was falling apart, and they didn't realize it. Gillian frowned, distracted by her thoughts.

This was not a unit; it was a lie, a joke.

These humans could not spell unity and did not understand the simplicity and the complexity of being more than just a single person alone.

They had lost their sense of belonging and working toward a sole purpose along with their sense of family.

***

"Hey, dudes, how do you like being thrown out of the party?" Some random "smart Alec" called out to them in passing. One of the uniforms from the previous crime scene, but Gillian didn't recall hearing his name.

"F##k you!" The phrase came from fifteen different people as if from one mouth, and like magic, two of his buddies appeared.

They were buff and intimidating men who spent too much time in the gym, all attitude and bulging muscle.

They would probably never be anything more than officers, but they had the upper hand right then. One wrong move and the whole squad would be thrown off the property. Her frown turned to a scowl, her arms crossed, and her stance widened, mirroring so many of the others.

"What did you sissy girls say?" One demanded as if the fact that they outranked him did not matter.

Dickson moved to step up to him with several others right behind him, but Elissa put her hand on his arm, and he hesitated just long enough for her to pass them both.

She was not a short woman, but they were a head taller than her. She felt slight against their bulk, and any normal-sized woman would have looked even more so.

Her manner and posture carried an air of authority as she mimicked her father, and it awakened caution in their eyes.

"Officers," she managed to turn the word into a telling insult. One of the men jerked in her direction, and if his buddy hadn't stopped him, her stare would have.

He shook his head but failed to drag his gaze away from hers, and she had to stop herself from smirking.

"You may think we're screwed, but we are still on active duty. Every last one of us outranks you. The civilian members of this team are out of your league and above your pay grade, and you insulted fifteen ranking officers twice.

"Were you about to assault me? Please try. I will take every one of your badges, even if it's the last thing I do as a detective in this police force," her quiet words dripped with intent.

In the end, it was not the one she stared down, but the one beside him that moved to shove her, and they all saw it.

The giant standing to her right lunged at her while his two buddies seemed frozen to the spot. They all moved to warn her, but it was too late.

The big man fell to his knees like an ox, and it seemed almost unreal.

She grabbed him by the soft tissue between his thumb and forefinger with some weird grip, doing something to the nerves in his hand. It was a trick one of her bodyguards once taught her and was amusingly effective.

Mewling sounds, like that of a small child in pain, escaped his gaping mouth as she rendered him unable to rise or even lift his massive upper body above the height of his hand.

Her cold gaze challenged the others to touch her or dare assault her.

"Move, and he will never use this hand again," she warned, changing her grip in the blink of an eye.

This time he screamed like a teenage girl with a spider in her hair as she twisted his wrist far enough that the slightest pressure would break it.

She had him face down in the dirt, and the other two backed away. Their eyes nailed to her as if she had grown two heads.

Their bulk shielded what was happening from the press, but it would not do so for long if they backed away further.

***

"That's enough, Beaumont. I think you made yourself clear," Boss commanded, but his words were as much meant for her as they were for the officers.

"Now shoo, go play with your buddies," Colt dismissed them as if they were truant children.

Gillian let go, and the officer cradled his arm. He looked for all the world like a hurt child, and she could swear his lip trembled.

They all expected a lecture from Boss, but he ignored the incident as if it had never happened. He handed a piece of paper to each of them, and it turned out to be new assignments.

Gillian scowled at the piece of paper.

"The FBI and Homeland security have reviewed our files, and they decided that as we are already up to date on this killer, we will continue to work with their task team. They are the lead on this, and we are simply there to help them," Boss instructed.

"I will assign each of you to work with one of their team members. They will outrank you, and you will obey their orders. Do I make myself clear?" he demanded, and they nodded like scolded children.

"They're waiting for us at the entrance to the house. You will ignore the press and make no comments—your jobs depend on that. Now go," his words jolted them into action, and they moved forward.

Boss fell into step beside Gillian, but she dared not look at him and could not read his mood.

"Remind me never to piss you off," he murmured.

Gillian's step almost faltered, and then he moved forward without her. She could nearly convince herself that she had misheard or imagined the whole thing.

Where were the scoldings and the anger? She should not have gotten so damn annoyed at those idiots. She had sensed the violence in the air and felt obligated to do something, but she could have tried something less likely to make them even more of a target.