by D. Laine
“Identification and location?” she demanded.
I made a face at Jake. Another agent on a power trip?
He shrugged off her brusqueness and replied, “Team one. L.A.”
“Walker?” Her voice hardened. “I assume Romero is with you?”
“Here,” I supplied. “Who are—”
“If you look through your eyepiece, you should see a light in the upper right hand corner,” she explained. I looked and saw a red dot. “When it’s red, the visual to the agency is turned off. Green means it’s on. You can find the switch to turn on the feed near your temple.”
Jake and I followed her instructions and stared at each other while we waited for confirmation that we were live. The thought of our actions being broadcast for a room full of agents to watch didn’t settle well with me—especially not after witnessing two of my comrades get slaughtered this morning. But after the mess created by the eruption, Spence insisted on maintaining contact with his active teams at all times, using any means necessary.
Of course, that also meant Jake and I couldn’t screw around either.
“I already miss the old school ways,” I whispered to him.
He started to nod before the angry-for-no-apparent-reason agent declared, “This device has already improved communications, Romero. They’ll be used from here on out. I suggest you get used to it.”
I raised my eyebrows at Jake while he fought a grin. There was no mistaking the animosity oozing from this lady. Much more than the usual assassin-agent animosity. I supposed the news of Jake’s punch had already made its way through the compound. I wouldn’t be surprised if the events hadn’t been altered to pin me as the aggressor.
“We’ve got you on visual,” the agent continued. “You are free to proceed with your mission.”
“Thank you for giving us permission to do our job,” I responded politely as we wandered away from the vehicle.
“Stop trying to be a smart-ass, Romero. You just sound like an ass,” she hissed quietly.
Jake made a noise that sounded like he was choking on his tongue. He stopped with his back to the brick wall to catch his breath and gave me an expectant look. I shrugged, because I had no response.
“You disappoint me,” he informed me before sticking his head around the corner.
“I disappoint myself,” I muttered. “But you’ve got to admit that was pretty good.”
He nodded. When he moved, I followed. The angry agent was no longer my concern.
Two buildings separated us from our target. A narrow alley sliced between them and dumped us out adjacent to the parking lot ten yards from our point of entry. Five steps from the back door, the generator hummed.
“How do you want to tackle this?” I questioned Jake.
His mouth dropped open to answer me, but a gruff voice interrupted him through the audio device. “You risk losing the element of surprise by tampering with equipment outside the residence.”
“Who the fuck is this now?” I whispered to Jake. He shrugged, forcing me to demand, “Who are you?”
“Dom—”
“You work in command?”
“Yes, I—”
“Ever been in the field?”
“No, I—”
“Then I don’t want to hear your idiotic suggestions.” I flicked the device off and chucked the eyepiece into the alley behind me. To Jake, I said, “We need to do this before we lose light, because I’m not wearing that stupid thing anymore.”
Jake regarded me with a lopsided smile before tossing his gear alongside mine. “I retract my earlier statement. I’ve never been prouder of you as a partner.” Repositioning his gun, he nodded. “Let’s go.”
With no voices in our heads and no one to impress but each other, we approached the rear entrance of the building. The stench of decay hit me halfway across the parking lot, making my stomach churn and my eyes water. I glanced at the black tarp-covered mound stacked against the side of building, and determined that was the source of the smell.
Jake spotted it too. His eyes sparked with rage and a need to avenge the lives lost at the hands of this vessel and his tag goons.
No words passed between us. We communicated with gestures, nods, and eye contact that had become our own language. Our bond only strengthened in moments like this, when our hearts beat louder and our blood pumped faster. We didn’t need to be brothers to know what the other was thinking.
Jake moved to the door at the same time I withdrew a fireball from the pocket of my pants and twisted the cap off the top of the generator. The smell of gasoline washed over me, and I grinned at Jake over my shoulder. He withdrew the pick from the door, eyed the parking lot behind me, and gave a brusque nod. I squeezed the ball in my palm before letting it roll off my fingers, then turned and ran like hell.
We barreled inside, guns first. No enemy greeted us yet. Jake flattened against the wall on one side of the stairs inside the door, while I pressed against the wall on the other side. We waited.
And waited.
“Sure there was gas in it?” Jake hissed.
“Positive,” I returned. “How long does it take—”
The walls shook from the explosion outside, answering my question. A window to my left blew in, spraying glass across the floor. Alien screams rose from behind a door several paces past the shattered window.
Bullets from my gun greeted two tags when the door swung open. Smoke billowed from the suppressor attached to the end of my weapon as I inched past their bodies to sweep a gaze over the rest of the room.
Empty. No hidden doors.
From the other side of the stairway, Jake gave me the “all clear” signal from another room.
Footsteps thumped down the stairs, and we turned our attention to the two tags rushing to inspect the commotion. I holstered my gun so as not to put Jake in the crosshairs and withdrew my long dagger. We pounced as they raced by us, swinging our weapons in unison.
My sharp blade sliced through the sweet spot at the base of the skull. Thrusting up, I hit gold. The tag twitched before dropping to the ground with a heavy thud. Looking up, I watched as Jake’s tag followed a moment later.
Four down. And not a single drop of blood on my shoes. Not bad for being outnumbered, but we still had two more tags and a vessel to eliminate. Every assassin knew that premature celebration was a good way to wind up dead.
Didn’t mean we couldn’t boast a little. Jake and I shared matching grins before turning toward the stairs.
We ascended single file—with Jake taking the lead on this one—and emerged into a narrow hallway with two doors on opposing sides nearly identical to the layout downstairs. From the blueprints given to us by the agency, I knew both were designated as bedrooms.
We took the one to the right first. Jake entered while I covered the other door and the stairs. With my back to the room, I didn’t see what he saw. But I sure as hell smelled and heard it—more rotten flesh being devoured by a hungry tag.
Jake’s shoes echoed off the hard floor as he entered the room. I grimaced at the screeching howl that erupted from the tag at the interruption of its meal. I heard the brief struggle, but I didn’t dare look for longer than a second and risk taking my eyes off the other door.
Jake had it under control. He eliminated the tag quickly with a fast swing of his favorite blade. The thump of the tag’s head falling to the floor confirmed the kill.
He shut the door behind him to spare us from the worst of the smell. It wasn’t enough. I blew out my nose a few times in an attempt to dislodge the stench embedded in my nostrils, but it didn’t work. When this was all over, there was a good chance I would hurl up my lunch.
“Those fuckers stink.” Jake stated the obvious with a scowl.
“Yeah they do.” I gagged. “Let’s get out of here, huh?”
Jake fell in behind me as I approached the final door. If the intelligence we had been given was correct, we should find one tag and a vessel inside. Our blades replaced with guns, I t
urned the door knob and pushed it open. Shoulder to shoulder, we marched into the room.
Aside from the remains of several human bodies shoved into the corner, it was empty. I spun in a circle, looking for . . . anything.
“What are we missing?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jake muttered.
“Maybe they went for a lover’s stroll.” I moved in the direction of the closest window. Only now did I regret tossing our only method of communication with the agency. They could use the satellite to find the missing tag and vessel. We would know in a matter of minutes where they were. Without the agency’s help, Jake and I would be left to wait for their return.
I peered out at the sky. Night was closing in fast.
“Want to go back and get our gear?” Jake suggested.
I squinted through the shadows that steadily rolled in with every passing second, looking for the alley where we had left our devices. A flash of reddish-orange flared just above the roof of the bordering building, catching my attention, and I pressed my nose to the glass to see what it was.
The light surged and grew, illuminating the man-shaped shadows gathered around it.
“Fuck! Jake?”
“What?”
“They just set our car on fire, man.”
“Who?”
Thick black wisps of smoke rose above the roof as the shadows shifted away from the fire, moving in our direction. I didn’t need to see them clearly to know who—or what—they were.
“Tags.”
Jake was at my side in an instant. “How many?”
“A dozen? Give or take.”
We fell silent as we considered our options. We could take them from our position inside the building, but the commotion might draw the attention of more tags in the area. Taking them out quietly meant letting them get close, and that risked injury or death. A prompt and easy escape was out, since our transportation was now a raging inferno.
“How do you want to—”
“We need to run,” Jake suddenly interrupted.
“No. We can—”
His hand curled around my shoulder to grip me hard. His eyes were wide and haunted when they met mine. “Do you hear that?”
I hadn’t heard anything until he said something. But now . . .
My skin prickled at the low rumbling noise coming from outside. Not from the alley, but from the other side of the building.
We sprinted across the room to peer out the other window, toward the city. A shadowy wave rolled toward us from two streets over. Easily fifty or more tags. Either they were coming to inspect the fire, or they already knew we were here. I didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to find out. Besides, they would find us eventually if we didn’t move.
Something screamed directly beneath us, and the hairs on my neck stood on end. The smaller group had made it inside the building.
Jake slid the window open with a grunt. I turned my chin over my shoulder to watch the door as he clambered through the narrow opening. Two tags barged into the room. I took them out with two precision shots before following Jake out the window.
My feet slipped on the ash coating the roof, and I gripped the awning above me to keep from plummeting to the sidewalk below. Behind me, the rumble of incoming tags grew louder. An angry growl drifted through the open window as I shuffled to the side. Seconds later, a bony arm darted out to graze my ankle. The heel of my boot ground its fingers into the rough shingles, temporarily discouraging it from trying again.
Ahead of me, Jake jumped onto a flat section of the roof. Gun in his hand, he waved me forward. Despite his slight tremor, he covered my six until I climbed onto the landing beside him. From here, I could see that we had only one way out of this mess.
And Jake wasn’t going to like it.
“I’m sure the gap isn’t as wide as it looks from here,” I told him.
He turned a pair of skeptical eyes on me.
“It’s doable,” I tried to assure him—and myself.
We had gotten ourselves into some situations before, but this was the first one I wasn’t so sure we could get ourselves out of alive. Assuming the gap between this roof and the next was a jumpable distance, we couldn’t roof jump the whole way back to the agency. Eventually, we would face the tags.
Preferably not the fifty or sixty on our asses right now.
I grabbed my partner by the shoulders. “Just forget you have a severe fear of heights and go for it.”
“Go for it?” He laughed humorously.
“I’ll be right there with you. We’ll do it together.”
“Together.” He nodded once. And then we ran.
13
THEA
I wasn’t worried. Jake and Dylan had been gone for three days now, no one told me where they were, and I had no idea if they were okay or not, but I wasn’t worried. I went about my days as if nothing was wrong, despite the feeling that something was missing.
At least, I tried to.
“You’re not going to survive long out there.” Tanner appraised me with critical blue eyes. His massive biceps bulged when he crossed his arms over his chest. “Not if you keep this up.”
“So show me something useful then.” I thrust a finger in the direction of the weapons, where they lined one wall of the training room. “I can shoot a gun fine, but I’ll decapitate myself trying to use one of those things. I need to—”
“You need to be efficient at close contact first,” he interrupted. Sweeping an unimpressed gaze over me, he added, “And you need a hell of a lot more conditioning.”
“You’re not putting me back in the weight room.” I widened my stance and folded my arms to mirror him.
He started to turn, then stopped to smirk at my defiance. “You want to go another round?”
I nodded tersely, dropping my arms in preparation. I still didn’t think he would give in, so when he flew into me, I wasn’t exactly ready. Four of his five hits got through, striking already tender flesh and muscles, as he backed me up to the edge of the mat. Trapped between a rock and a wall, I attempted a tuck and roll around him. I ended up with the heel of his foot pressed to my windpipe.
He stared down at me and shook his head. I shoved his smelly, sock-clad foot aside and jumped up. “Let’s go again.”
“I don’t see the point,” he sighed.
“Again.”
He glared at me. “I’m not going to hold back.”
“I don’t want you to.”
He came at me with a wicked grin. I blocked his first strike, then another. Feeling the momentum shift, I bounced on my toes as he circled me.
His eyes hardened. “You think you’re good?”
“I just—”
His fists flew like darts strapped to tiny rockets, stinging and bruising everything they came in contact with. Three got through before I managed to block one. I thwarted another of Tanner’s attempts to pulverize my kidneys, and leapt over his sweeping leg before it could cut mine out from beneath me. When I came down, I wished someone was here to see that move. Dylan and Jake would have appreciated it, but they—
Tanner’s fist came out of nowhere, and I saw stars.
My head instinctively slumped into my hands. A drop of blood trickled onto my palm. I wiped it on my pant leg before peering up at Tanner. He and his two blurry twins slowly combined to form one solid, intimidating image.
His arms were at his sides. There may have been a brief hint of remorse hidden beneath the hardness in his eyes, but I was pretty sure I imagined it.
“We’re done for the day,” he told me.
“But I—”
“It’s four o’clock.” He pointed out the time on the wall. “We’re done.”
He stomped off, leaving me alone to collect the few supplies we had dragged out of storage over the course of the afternoon. Not much—a few pads that we rarely used. Certainly nothing sharp or pointy with the potential of being a weapon. It only took one trip to the small storage room to return everythi
ng to their proper spots.
My growling stomach reminded me that dinner would be served in the mess hall soon. But first, I needed a shower. As I took the stairs to the sixth floor, the throbbing reminder of Tanner’s hit settled to the right side of my face. When I finally looked in the mirror, I saw a red and puffy area just above my cheekbone. It didn’t look as bad as it felt, but I suspected it would still bruise.
If we hadn’t been training, I would have . . .
Well, I didn’t know what I would have done. Probably nothing, considering he was a beast of a man and I didn’t stand a chance at going against him. Besides, we had been training. I had been distracted by thoughts of Jake and Dylan, and he made me pay for it. That was all.
But tomorrow? Smirking at my reflection, I recalled the fact that Tanner didn’t wear a jock strap.
AT DINNER, I sat down to eat with Marcus, Maria, and the Ringer twins, who I still couldn’t tell apart. Everyone nodded or smiled when I invited myself to join them, except for Maria, who didn’t miss a beat in explaining whatever it was she was telling the others.
“—in the hallway. They haven’t heard anything,” she finished.
“So that’s three teams now?” the Ringer sitting beside me questioned. He glanced at me, likely spotting my confusion, and whispered, “Kent.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back.
He winked before turning his attention back to Maria.
“It’s not like them. I have a bad feeling about this one.” Her eyes dropped to the table, but not before I glimpsed an unfamiliar display of emotion on her face.
Marcus cleared his throat. I looked up as he nudged his sister’s arm with his elbow. His eyes pointed in my direction before quickly darting away.
Appetite suddenly lost, I set the fork in my hand down. “Okay. What’s going on?”
Marcus shook his head innocently—too innocently. Neither Keith nor Kent made eye contact with me. I turned to the one person I knew wouldn’t sugarcoat anything.
“Maria?” I asked tightly.
She reluctantly met my gaze. “I overheard a few command agents talking in the hallway this morning. They said Jake and Dylan were sent to Los Angeles.”