by D. Laine
“He’s meeting some guy that has some information on his sister,” he offered.
“His sister? Really?”
Marcus flashed a smile, and I couldn’t help but stare at him. It was like an eclipse. So rare, and yet so mesmerizing, you couldn’t look away.
“He thinks he found her. Right here in town. Been here all along.”
ASIDE FROM THE news on Jake’s sister, Marcus and Maria didn’t have any more updates for me. As I had predicted, their late night of research hadn’t turned up anything informative. They didn’t know the identity of the last vessel. Maybe there wasn’t another one left. Or maybe there were more. We still knew nothing.
All I had learned was that Thea may have been infected after all. But I wasn’t telling Marcus or Maria. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. Jake was the only one I would trust with that knowledge, and I still wasn’t sure I would tell him when the time came. I hadn’t even decided what I would do.
Jake still hadn’t returned when I exited the bathroom, freshly showered and in a clean change of clothes a few minutes later.
“I’ve got something else to check on,” I told the Chavez twins as I collected my holster, gun, and knife from the bedside table. “When Jake gets back, let him know I went to the school to do some digging.”
“Need some help?” Maria questioned.
I glanced over my shoulder to find her expression sincere. Not mocking. Not smug. The Maria I once knew was coming back. Regardless, this was something I could handle on my own.
“I got it,” I told her. Heading toward the door, I added, “I won’t be long.”
The drive to the university only took a few minutes. Finding a parking spot took longer. I fired off a quick text to David as I got out of the Hummer and made my way to the science building. He confirmed that he was in the lab—where he had been since he sent me a text early this morning.
I had been buried deep inside the girl he was obviously in love with at the time. When I spotted him hunched over the gadgets, I felt a twinge of guilt. Just a twinge. Not enough to vow to never let it happen again.
Hell no. I liked the guy, but not that damn much.
“What do you got?” I called out to him as I crossed the room. My eyes drifted over the machine in front of him, noting the squiggly lines as they poured out. They were bigger than they were last night.
“Something’s happening,” David told me. “Seismic activity spiked early this morning.”
He pulled a stack of papers piled to the side and gave them to me. He must have forgotten that I wasn’t a geology student.
“Started around four-thirty,” he continued while he pointed to a spot on one of the papers he had already circled. “It’s only intensified since.”
“What do you make of it?”
David’s eyes were wide and fearful when they lifted to mine. “I think we’re going to make history. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon.”
I cleared my throat as I set the stack of papers down. “What do the so-called specialists say?”
David scoffed. His attention was already back on the stream of lines pouring out of the machine. “They don’t know this area like I do. They come in from Washington, or wherever it is they’re from, walk around with their expensive gadgets, collect some dirt . . .” He turned to peer at me from over his shoulder. “They’re going to kill a lot of people.”
I shook my head as I reached for the phone in my pocket. “Not if I can help it.”
“What are you—”
I held up a finger to silence David as I pulled up my boss’s number and pressed send. Agent Spence’s gruff voice barked in my ear almost immediately.
“This had better be some good news, Romero. I’ve got big fish to take down, and four of my best assassins stuck in—”
“What’s going on with Yellowstone, Spence?”
A beat of silence, then, “Nothing is going on.”
“It’s not nothing, sir. It’s—”
“A team of agents have canvassed the park. We’ve been in touch with the country’s top geologists. They’ve studied the data. They’ve assured me that an eruption is not imminent. Your priority is to locate the last vessel—”
“One vessel isn’t going to matter when this thing blows, sir.”
“Romero . . .” My boss sucked in a sharp breath, and I braced for a string of heated words. “Lucifer’s vessel took out three teams last night. It’s getting bad, son. We need to focus on the big picture. We need to stop our primary target, and I need you, Walker, and the Chavez twins back here on the double to get it done. Finish the job and move out.”
“Order an evacuation of the area,” I demanded. “You do that, and we’ll—”
“Are you trying to bargain with me, son?” Despite the endearing term, his tone was sharp. It let me know I was walking on thin ice with him.
“No, sir. I just . . . I don’t feel comfortable leaving this area with the threat of an eruption,” I responded, choosing my words carefully. “I have proof. I have someone here who disagrees with what the government specialists have told you. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, sir. No offense.”
Spence breathed heavily into the phone. “You are a pain in my ass, Romero.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Wasn’t a compliment,” he grumbled. “We’ll issue a voluntary evacuation for now. In the meantime, I want to see this so-called proof you have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get it done, Romero,” Spence snapped. “I need you guys back here now.”
The line went dead before I could utter another response. Slipping the phone into my jacket pocket, I turned to David.
“Who are you?” he wondered. He gawked at me like a young boy who had come face-to-face with a real life Superman.
I flashed David a smug grin. “Not a geology major.”
“No,” David agreed breathlessly. “You’re—”
The steady whir from the gadget beside us suddenly intensified. I didn’t need to be a geology major to realize that the needle moving over the role of paper in fast, sharp waves indicated that something was happening. The visible concern on David’s face as he watched the new pattern confirmed my own worries.
“It’s a five,” he declared, “and still climbing.”
“How bad is that—”
Before David could elaborate, the floor beneath me lurched, knocking me off balance. David’s hand snagged my shirt sleeve and yanked me down. The floor continued to tremble as he shoved me underneath the table supporting the machine.
“Cover your head!”
I didn’t ask questions. I did as David instructed, following his lead. Shit fell from the walls all around us as the small room shook violently. Under the desk, we were safe from falling debris. I had no idea if this was the big eruption or not, but before I fell headfirst into a pool of panic, the trembling stopped.
I didn’t move right away. Not even after David climbed out from under the desk. I had never experienced an earthquake before. This was my first, and I already knew I didn’t like them.
“It’s waning,” David announced from above me. His face appeared in front of me. “You alright?”
I slid my tough-guy mask back into place. I was an assassin. I didn’t cower under desks. “Yeah. How big was it?”
David shrugged as I climbed out of my hiding place. “Five-point-six.”
I stood and glanced around the room. There didn’t appear to be as much damage as it had sounded. One table containing two heavy machines had toppled over. A few pictures had fallen from the walls. No ceiling cave-in. Not even a crack.
“Epicenter was Yellowstone,” David continued. “It was stronger there. We got the outer waves.”
It was starting. It was coming. I didn’t give a damn what Spence or the specialists said.
“David, I want you to do something for me.” When he turned to me, I snatched up a pen and piece of paper to jot down Sp
ence’s email address. Handing it to David, I ordered, “I need you to send all the research you’ve gathered to this man. Show him whatever you think will help convince him that this eruption is going to happen. Can you do that for me?”
David stared down at the paper and nodded.
“Okay. Good. And David?” I put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look up me. “After that, I want you to get out of town. Get as far away from here as you can.”
With some luck, I wouldn’t be far behind him—along with the other assassins and Thea.
19
Nobody was answering their goddamn phones. A bad case of karma had come back to bite me in the ass—at the worst possible time.
I knew we were approaching zero hour, but Spence and the agency didn’t seem to be taking my warning seriously. The streets were lined with college students heading to class and stay-at-home moms leading their kids into the grocery store like their world wasn’t about to end at any moment.
Obviously, the evacuation hadn’t been called. That wouldn’t stop me from getting everyone I cared about out of town as soon as possible. Of course, that would be a hell of a lot easier if one of them would answer their fucking phone.
Maria and Marcus were gone when I got to the hotel room. Jake still hadn’t returned. I left him another voicemail, then raced across town to the University Heights apartment complex. I left the Hummer running in the parking lot as I knocked on Thea’s door. Again, my least favorite person was there to greet me.
“Do you actually attend any of your classes?” I sneered at Vivian.
She gave me a cold smile. “What do you want now?”
“I need to talk to Thea.”
“She’s not here.”
Vivian moved to shut the door in my face, and I put my arm out to stop her.
“What do you mean she’s not here? She doesn’t have—” I glanced over my shoulder to find her car missing from its spot. “Shit.”
Behind me, Vivian sighed loudly. “One of the other waitresses called in sick. Thea left about thirty minutes ago to start her shift early.”
I turned to take off without another word to Vivian. I didn’t make it two steps before her fingers snagged the back of my shirt. With surprising force, she yanked me into the apartment.
I flew across the foyer and my back smacked into the kitchen counter with a thud. While I groaned through my disbelief and pain, Vivian closed the door softly, shutting us inside the gloomy apartment alone.
I glanced up as she stalked toward me. “Look, Vivian,” I started. “I don’t know what you think—”
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped.
I stood frozen under her hard gaze as she slithered up beside me. Her fingers trailed across my chest as she assessed me—not only in a sexual way, but also in a calculating way. Like one would calculate the worth of another in terms of what they could do for them. Like a—
“Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath.
“Hmm. You will do nicely, I think,” she purred.
My gaze dropped to the sliver of exposed skin on her hip not covered by her skimpy clothing. Most would think the mark on her right hip was a tattoo gone horribly wrong. Most weren’t trained to know what that mark meant.
Vivian was a vessel—the one we had missed.
But she didn’t know I was trained to kill things like her. My gun and knife were both exactly where I always kept them. All I needed was an opening.
“Thea will never have to know,” Vivian assured me. She leaned closely to nip at my neck. “I can make it worth your while.”
I took a deep, calming breath—not easy to do with a vessel literally licking the skin covering my jugular. At least she wasn’t a tag. No way could I have stayed this still if she was a tag. No way could I have let her do what she wanted while I reached for the weapon secured around my waist.
“No offense, Vivian,” I snorted, “but you’re not really my type.”
She didn’t like that. Her grip tightening around my neck clued me in to that. While her fingernails digging into my skin hurt like a bitch, I took it like a good little soldier. Because that meant she was distracted enough to not notice my own fingers curling around the handle of my knife.
“I didn’t think you would be the type to go for the sweet and innocent ones,” she growled in my ear.
“It’s not that,” I retorted. “I just don’t fuck monsters.”
My arm swung around before she had time to register the meaning behind my words. I had the element of surprise, but she was still a vessel. She was still faster, and more powerful, than me. I was reminded of that the moment after my blade sank into her neck.
She reared back from the strike with a roar. Instantly her hands were on me, fast and furious and deadly.
“You son of a bitch!”
I yanked the blade out of her neck, uncaring of the damage it did on the way out. Blood sprayed across the floor in a red mist. Her rage when she lunged for me would have made for an easy kill—if not for the slick spot on the floor from her blood.
The agency had never tested us on balance. If they had, I would have learned long ago that it was my weakness. Coupled with the power behind the vessel’s blow to my torso, I didn’t stand a chance at staying on my own two feet.
Gripping her arm in my hand, I assured that she came with me. We both hit the floor hard. I rolled away, barely missing the expanding puddle of blood on the floor. That was my second mistake.
How many times had I been told, Never turn your back on a vessel?
Her arms wrapped around my neck from behind. While she positioned her hands on each side of my head—perfect for maximum torque when snapping the spine—I spun around to put my back to the kitchen. Throwing all my weight backward, I sandwiched her between me and the raised bar. Her grip loosened from the impact—enough for me to reach behind me, wrap my hand around a fistful of hair, and toss her off my back.
She sprung to her feet almost immediately. But that was fine. All I’d needed was a moment to position my knife.
When she steamrolled into me this time, she was met by the pointy end of the blade. Her momentum sent me to the floor on my back, but not before the knife sunk into her stomach with the sickening sound of tearing flesh and muscle. Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. Nothing but a trickle of blood came out, and landed on the floor beside me.
Withdrawing my knife, I shoved her limp body off of me. Laying there, staring at the white ceiling as I regained control of my breathing, I felt the tiniest tremble.
For a brief moment, I thought it was me, coming down from the adrenaline. I’d never gotten the shakes before, but I supposed it could happen. Then the floor lurched violently beneath me, and I knew it was something much worse.
The earthquake intensified quickly and leveled out at a steady tremble with no signs of waning. I scrambled to my feet, barely dodging a large picture frame as it crashed to the floor. Behind me, the refrigerator door popped open to spill its contents onto the floor. Cans and bottles and boxes of food fell from the cabinets. Shattered glass sprinkled the floor.
I trampled through it all as I crossed the foyer. Ripping the door open, I saw that the devastation reached far beyond the walls of the apartment. Car alarms blared, lights flashed, and people screamed as I stumbled outside toward the rocking Hummer. Behind me, the building’s awning broke off and crashed to the ground. Luckily, no one was standing in its way.
But surely, out there somewhere, people were being killed by falling debris caused by this quake. I didn’t need David to tell me that this one was worse than the last, and I didn’t want to think about what that could mean.
Jake was out there. Thea was out there. I only knew where I could find one of them.
The rumbling finally subsided as I jerked the Hummer’s door open. By the time I was situated in the driver’s seat, it had stopped completely. But the damage had been done. People poured out of their apartments to inspect the destruction. In the distance, sirens and li
ghts signaled the arrival of help.
I passed one police cruiser as I pulled out of the parking lot. The students at the complex had help. They would be fine. My focus was not on helping the masses, but on getting Thea, finding Jake, and getting the hell out of town.
As I drove to The Nest, I called Jake. This time, he answered.
“You okay?” he breathed into the phone.
“Yeah. You?”
“Just some scrapes and bruises. I’m headed back to the hotel now to check the damage to our shit and pack up.” He paused to sigh heavily. “I think it’s time to get out of here.”
“I think I agree with you for once,” I chuckled. “I’m going to The Nest to get Thea, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Make it quick, Dylan.”
“I will.” I nearly disconnected when I remembered what I had just done. “Oh, hey, Jake!”
“Yeah?” I heard him grunting through the phone, probably as he shouldered his way through clusters of confused people filling the sidewalks.
“I found the other vessel,” I told him. “It’s all taken care of.”
“Yeah? That’s good.” He sounded distracted, and I understood why. One measly vessel out of the picture wouldn’t matter when this supervolcano blew. Not if we were still in the kill-zone when it happened. That and he apparently had other news. “I found my sister.”
“What? No shit! Where?”
“She’s here. Student at the University.”
“And?”
“And what? The campus is in full panic mode after the earthquake. Most of the students are packing up to leave. I just found her and I’ve already lost her again.”
“Damn, Jake. I’m sorry,” I muttered through the speaker of my phone. I wasn’t a hug giving kind of guy, but I kind of wished I was with him so that I could give him one. It sounded like he needed it.
But he tried to downplay his fragile emotions. “It is what it is. She’ll get out. I found her once. I’ll find her again. Get back to the room soon though. We need to go, and I don’t want to lose you too.”