Outed - Sierra Aguirre-Stoker, Shane Barrett

Shay has to admit, this is an undercover job he probably shouldn’t be enjoying as much as he has been. 
It’s not their usual. Polaris tends to deal with vigilante hate crime most of the time, so the rare undercover jobs are usually Sierra’s area of expertise, with Pete running background chasing down the funding sources. The few times Shay’s been part of them, it’s been as ‘captured victim’, not a role any of them enjoy putting him in after the mess that was the trip back from the Silver Cells. It’s a risk, and they came uncomfortably close to a disaster in Reno two months ago, but sometimes, you do what you have to do for the job.
This case is a fight ring. Vamp-run, and sleazy as hell. Shay is well aware that most of the vamps he’s been asked to fight are here under coercion, either forced to fight for food, or under threat to someone they care about. He’s allowed more freedom since he ‘volunteered’  to participate, but he has no doubt that if he’d stayed in long enough, he’d eventually be twisted around under the thumb of the owners. 
Still, it’s oddly enjoyable to be using his old skill set again. He hasn’t fought this way, outside of hunter-training crash course demonstrations, in years, but his instincts are still sharp, and the familiar moves are muscle memory at this point. 
If they ask him to go into a death match, he won’t cross that line, but he won’t deny that it kind of feels good to for once be the one who has the status in the group they’re about to run into the ground.
What he likes a lot less is having Sierra here with him. Sure, at first it kind of seemed like a ‘turn about is fair play’, sending her in with him undercover as his personal host. After a run of jobs where he’s the one being hauled around in restraints, there seemed like a tiny bit of fairness in her needing to play the blissed out blood-source groupie.
Until they realized that this coven is hard-core and feedings from hosts are part of the entertainment.
He’s had to actually bite her.
He’d tried to get her to pull the plug on the operation right then, but she’d refused. The job is bigger than them, she’d insisted, and if they’ve had to put Shay in un-life threatening situations with vigilantes, she can handle being a host for a few days.
Hopefully, after tonight, that will be over. It’s a huge match night, the attention is on the fight ring, and Sierra is planning to slip away in the chaos to access the main offices and plug in a drive Kira sent with them that contains a virus that will break down the firewalls from the inside and send this group’s financials to Pete, allowing them to rope in several other players as well as just this ring. 
His job is to make sure his fight, which turned out to be second on the program, is engaging enough that attention stays on the ring. He doesn’t think it’ll be a problem. The other vamp he’s slated to fight is another volunteer, a big, burly guy who’s been a vampire for the past twenty-five years. A skilled fighter who knows his own power and his own weak spots. 
He’s going to be a challenging opponent, and Shay isn’t at all sure he’s capable of winning against this guy. But he’s going to have to keep the fight going long enough to give Sierra the window she needs. He’s pretty sure he can manage at least a few rounds. 
When he steps into the ring, the lights shining down are nearly blinding. That’s odd, most of the audience is vampires and this place caters to their ability to see in the dark. Shay’s never seen the lights on this bright. Maybe it has something to do with the big match. Maybe more humans who know about the Nightlife are going to be attending.
That theory dies a sudden death when he sees the opposite corner of the ring. Because his ‘challenger’ isn’t the heavily tattooed, dreadlocks-sporting vamp Shay was slated to fight. 
It’s a much smaller figure, trapped between two of the ring’s enforcers.
Sierra is flung down, hard, to the ground in front of him. The shoulder of her shirt is torn, and through it he can see her marigold and stake tattoo.
That’s not good. Not good at all.
The marigold and the red ribbon with her dad’s name could be passed off as a normal memorial tattoo. The integration of the stake means only one thing. She’s familiar enough with the world of hunters and vamps to use it. 
He’d ask her why she’d decided that was a good idea, but he’s pretty sure the answer is going to be ‘didn’t think that far ahead’. Sierra isn’t much for long term plans. More of a spur of the moment improviser. 
To be fair, that tattoo is usually an asset when working with their normal investigations in vigilante circles. It automatically buys her some credit with people who might otherwise wonder what reason someone like her could have to be so vehemently interested in stamping out the undead. Avenging a dad who was killed by them is honestly a pretty solid and not-necessary-to-fake cover story. It’s much less easy to trip over than the covers that usually get handed out to Pete or any of the rest of the team who ends up in the belly of the beasts. 
The group’s leader (and default match commentator), a vampire who calls himself Arcturus, steps out behind her, taking his place in the center of the ring just like he does before a bout. He looks around at the assembled audience.
“Sorry for the change of program, but we’ve had a bit of a surprise.” He gestures to Sierra, who looks like she’s been pretty well winded in whatever fight she had with her captors, given she’s still on hands and knees on the floor of the ring, spitting blood and glaring at him.
“This one's a hunter, folks.” He points to her ink. “Or a vigilante. Not sure which one's worse.”
Shay really hopes Sierra doesn’t decide to tell him she’s been both. She’s just perversely snarky enough to try it. 
He’s watching her, not the still-bombastic Arc, so he notices when she holds up her hand, a subtle 8 sign. They have to buy eight more minutes for Kira's crawler virus to take over the mainframe and transmit the financials to Pete. Attention has to stay on them, not drift to why Sierra was wandering around a forbidden area of the compound. 
“Which does beg the question,” Arc continues, turning to Shay, “Why did he bring her here?”
“I know what she is. Or was.” It’s a desperate bid for saving them and he knows it. But he might be able to pull it off. “They’re the most fun to corrupt.”
He’s sure he’s going to pay for that remark later. He hopes they both live long enough for that. It’ll be worth it.
“True. Watching them betray everything they claim to stand for, for the sweetness of our bite, is a pleasure. But…it begs the question, why weren’t you honest about your host’s origins from the beginning?”
Shay hesitates a fraction of a second too long, and he knows it’s over. No matter what he says now, he and Sierra are both going to be considered traitors, spies, liabilities.
“It’s not quite the entertainment I was expecting for the evening, but I am nothing if not flexible,” Arc continues. “Let's make this interesting. You kill her, I’ll believe you. And even if I don’t, you can’t go back to them after that.”
Shay has to admit, that’s an effective strategy.
“What’s in it for me?” Sierra asks. Of course she’s not just going to let things go. “What if it turns out I’m the better one?”
The vampire laughs hollowly, as if he doesn’t expect to have to make good on this bargain but finds her optimism amusing. “You kill him, I’ll make sure your end is quick.”
“Huh. I’m not really a fan of this deal. Do I get to re-negotiate my contract?”
“So, turns out you have quite the mouth when you’re not playing the part of the docile little host, I see.” 
Sierra shrugs. “I had quite the mouth anyway. You just didn’t get the privilege of learning that.”
Shay feels a little bit like sinking into the floor. 
But he has to admit, she’s doing a great job keeping everyone interested.
Arc steps out of the ring, the gates closing behind him with a metallic click as he climbs to his catwalk-podium before the fight begins. The lights dim, but not as much as usual. Shay frowns. Maybe they really do want to see a fair fight.
The stake that lands on the ground at Sierra’s feet is just as much of a surprise as the lights. Clearly, these vampires don’t feel threatened enough by her to be concerned about giving her a weapon. And it probably raises the stakes (literally) for their viewers. After all, the deal was contingent on the possibility that Sierra could in fact win. 
Shay circles her as the lights focus in on the ring itself.
The mental clock counting down in his head says they have three minutes and forty-one seconds left to buy themselves. They can definitely manage that. He doesn’t really want to think too much about what comes after. He can see why Sierra’s strategy is ‘don’t plan ahead’. It makes life a lot more stressful when he’s actually trying to come up with a working plan, not kill his partner, and make a whole watching crowd of vampires who are very tuned in to the nuances of a cage fight believe that he is. 
No one who doesn’t know them well, hasn’t watched their sparring sessions, would know they aren’t trying to kill each other now. They circle each other with well practiced moves, landing blows that would be devastatingly final if the other didn’t know how to dodge them. 
In between the dramatic displays, though, are a series of clumsier, half-defended actions that will hopefully keep too many in the audience from noticing the practiced familiarity. If they realize that Shay hasn’t just been feeding on Sierra, but training with her and fighting alongside her, they’re both doomed.
Shay is pretty sure he knows what Sierra’s game is. Keep the ruse going at any price. She’s keeping his cover intact, whatever happens to her, making it look like there’s no way he knows her dangerous side, that all of this is luck and good fighting skills in play. 
But this has gone far enough. He’s already put her in enough danger here. This is where that ends.
If he could just figure out how to get them both out of this without them actually dying. 
Because the way this is going, that’s looking more and more unlikely.
Then the clock in his head ticks down to zero.
Clearly, Sierra’s does too. They both freeze at nearly the same moment, statues in the spotlights. 
And then the lights come on, in searing intensity. 
Apparently, what Kira neglected to tell them was that her virus was also going to infiltrate the internal control network for the building lighting systems and override any existing settings. The arena lights are apparently fully controlled electronically, because right now they’re at the approximate brightness setting of the literal sun.
Or at least that’s how it feels to Shay, and apparently to every other vamp in this place.
A hand, warm and human and small, slips into his own, and starts pulling him forward. Sierra, who can still actually see in this blinding glare, is going to get him out.
All around them, vamps are screeching and hissing, and several collide with either Shay or Sierra in their blinded flailing. He grabs Sierra’s hand a little tighter. He doesn’t want to lose his connection to her now. 
The flood of furious, blinded vampires surges in, and Shay feels Sierra turn so she’s covering his back. He pushes his way through the crowd blindly, guided by the pressure of her shoulders as she steers him to an exit. He can feel the jarring motions as she uses her stake on any vamp fool enough to come close.
At least if this is it, they go down fighting back to back. 
Then his hands hit cool metal, and he presses down on the door’s exit bar. It opens, spilling them into a mercifully dark hall, and he immediately spins to close it behind them and lean against it while Sierra drags something that sounds heavy to rest in front of it.
His eyes are adjusting, slowly, and he realizes Sierra’s choice of exits has spit them out near the underground garage where spectators arrive and park.
It feels like sheer dumb luck that there’s a jeep with keys tucked under the floor mat parked with easy access to the exit. 
Shay learned a long time ago not to question those kind of situations.
They pull out of the garage and the jeep hits cracked pavement just as two groups of vampires burst into the garage from two other doors. 
Which is just about the same time the trail of lit gasoline they left behind them reaches the fuel drums.
“Remind me again why our strike team is called Polaris and not Phoenix?” Shay asks, watching the tower of flame leap upward, silhouetting the surroundings and their jeep’s shadow in sharp relief against the night.
“Because then everyone is surprised when my favorite tactic is fire,” Sierra replies, curling a little deeper into the seat next to him. They’re both going to be hitting withdrawals soon, which means they need to find a place to hole up and wait for it to pass. Shay had left his own burner phone behind in the locker before the fight, and Sierra’s probably got taken when she was caught, so they’re not going to be able to call for a pickup.
The next couple days are going to suck.
But at least they’re alive(ish) for that to be a problem.