by Amelia Jade
“Caia, it’s Connor, S-2. This is urgent.” He gave her his designation. S-2 meant he was a Sentinel, and the second-in-command.
The line went silent.
“This is Valen.” The smooth voice that came across the phone belied the power and intelligence that its host possessed.
“Valen, Connor. I need to know if you’ve heard from tonight’s evacuation team yet.”
“No. I wasn’t aware there was one.”
Connor swore. “It was last minute. They’ll be calling soon then, I hope.”
Every evacuation team was given a number that bounced around before being redirected to Valen Kedyn’s office. He and his twin brother Marcus owned and operated Lionshead Mining Consortium, the company that effectively owned Genesis Valley. It was also the company that was providing the funds, and personnel like Connor, to assist Flint’s Underground.
When an evac team was clear of the city, they were supposed to phone it in. Connor had made sure there was a phone number written on Maddy’s information card. She hadn’t told him what it was, but she had confirmed there was one.
“Okay. I will let you know the moment I hear from them,” Valen said.
“Thank you,” he said with a sigh.
“This one is important to you?” Valen asked after a moment.
Connor hesitated, but only briefly. Valen had lived a long time. He was only asking because it was polite. “To both of us,” he replied.
“How so?” Valen asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“She’s important to me. What she’s carrying is important to all our kind.”
“What is she carrying?” Valen asked, very, very carefully.
Connor frowned. “The serum samples. The ones Flint told you about, including the new ones, the unknown, and the one that stops a shifter from healing.”
“Connor. Be very, very specific here. What new serums? What serum can stop a shifter from healing?”
He froze. “Did Flint call you?”
“No,” Valen replied. “Connor, what is going on?”
Headlights appeared in front of the truck a split second before they appeared behind it. Connor glanced in his rearview mirror, seeing the tense, nervous expression on Milos’s and Andre’s faces.
“I have to go, Valen,” he said slowly, and hung up.
“So, what did Flint tell you?” he asked calmly.
The pair glanced at each other, then slowly Andre opened his mouth. “He told us that you were the traitor among us, and that the Agency had promised you superpowers in exchange for betraying the Underground.”
Connor snorted. “Tell me that sounded as flimsy to you as it does to me?”
Andre shrugged. “I don’t know. Why are there Agency men around us now?” he asked.
“That should be obvious, I would think,” Connor replied, looking in front of the truck again.
Several men had climbed from the vehicle in front of them. There were two of them, both lounging with the dangerous body language that indicated an Extremis Agent. Behind him, he saw two more pairs of booted feet illuminated by the low-lying headlights.
“What do you mean?”
Connor could tell that neither of the men relished any thoughts about fighting him, but that their loyalty to Flint was still strong. Considering that they had been friends for several years before Connor had ever entered the picture, he could understand that.
“Flint, who is the real traitor by the way, sold us out. He told the Agency where to find us. This way, no matter who survives, you two, or me, the Agency will kill the remaining party. Flint says that proves I was the traitor, and so begins the downfall of the Underground.”
The pair frowned at each other. “Why send us with you then?” Andre asked.
“Because I wasn’t leaving without you before I knew his real leanings. It would have looked too suspicious to the others. This way he gets rid of all of you, and there is no one left at the club to stop the Agency when they go after it.”
Connor steadfastly ignored the other aspect of the sudden realization that Flint was an Agency spy. He had to force it from his mind, to forget about it, until he was out of this situation. Because if he allowed himself to dwell on the fact that it was Flint who had made Maddy’s evacuation arrangements, he didn’t know what he would do.
“So, there are two options here,” he said calmly to the other occupants of the truck. “You can try to kill me, at which point I’ll probably kill both of you. Then I’ll go out there and probably die fighting the four of them.”
The pair in the backseat exchanged unhappy glances. “Or?” Milos asked.
“Or we can get out of the truck and fight them together, and get out of here.”
The pair didn’t move.
“So,” Connor said, unbuckling his seatbelt. “What’s it going to be?”
Chapter Fourteen
Madison
The door eased open under her touch at first, before suddenly opening all the way. A tall man with serious eyes stood in the archway, waving his hand for her to come in.
Maddy jumped back in surprise, her hand slipping to the knife she had hidden near the small of her back. Connor had given it to her, making her promise to carry it. She had protested, but his arguments had been persuasive. In the end, she had caved. Just then, she was glad she had.
“Whoa,” the man said, throwing up his hands. “I’m no threat.”
She looked him up and down, evaluating that promise. He was taller than her, and had an athletic build to him. He stepped back from the doorway as she looked at him, motioning once more for her to come in.
Maddy glanced over her shoulder, looking up and down the street. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. It wasn’t like there would be a big sign saying It’s a trap! With that in mind, she made her decision.
“Did Flint tell you I was coming?” she asked, nervously stepping inside and looking around.
The drab gray walls were the first thing that caught her eye. They were so…plain. Normally plain walls didn’t stand out, but there was something about the material or color that just screamed at her. She still couldn’t shake the feeling of how military-esque the whole place looked.
The man nodded slowly. “Yes, Flint informed me that you would be stopping by.”
She eyed his clean-shaven face, short hair, and lack of beer gut. While Maddy would be the first to admit that she didn’t know any fishermen, the man in front of her did not fit any stereotype she knew of fishermen.
“And you’re a fisherman?” she asked skeptically.
“Sure am,” he said boastfully.
Too boastfully. Why was he so enthusiastic to agree? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. They walked along the hallway until they reached a door at the end. The man opened it and gestured for Maddy to go through first. Not seeing how she had much of a choice, she walked out of the building into the dark.
The first thing that struck her was the lack of lights. She would have expected it to be busier, with a few people moving about perhaps, or spotlights illuminating ships, or the shipyard itself. There was none of that, however. Simply darkness, with the faint glow far in the distance that was the opposite side of the harbor. In the distance she could hear the low roar of the waves as they crashed into the pier.
Maddy looked around until the man stepped up to her side. Still feeling nervous, she looked up at him. “Where’s your boat?” she asked, carefully phrasing the question.
“Over this way,” he said, pointing into the darkness.
Maddy couldn’t see any lights where he pointed. For all she knew, there could have been a fleet of trawlers docked here. But that wasn’t what bothered her the most. She had asked him where his boat was. The man should have corrected her, told her that it was a ship. She knew that from watching far too much TV. But he hadn’t even flinched at her wording.
Something was very, very wrong. She was convinced of that now. This man wasn’t a fisherman. Flint hadn’t said that she w
as being evacuated by fishermen, she thought. All he had told her was that a fishing trawler was going to take her away. Madison had filled in the blanks herself, assuming that it would be manned by fishermen. Perhaps this was just a cover then, for a team of mercenaries.
The pair walked into the darkness. The farther they walked, the more she became convinced that somehow, something had gone sideways. How? And who was this man next to her, if not the man Flint had arranged for her to meet? The only possibility she could come up with was that he was part of this mysterious Agency that had been so stubbornly after her and Connor.
She had talked about that with him. Maddy wasn’t a shifter; she wasn’t valuable to them in the same sense that he was. Connor had just laughed and explained it to her. The Agency was headed up by a man named J. They didn’t know his full name. What he and his team had found out, however, was that he was extremely vain.
It was simple. Maddy had escaped him not once, but twice now. J couldn’t allow her to escape the city completely. It wouldn’t be good for his ego, so he would move heaven and hell to capture her.
Part of her was flattered that she could upset such a powerful man. Most of all though, she was terrified that she had just walked into a trap. Somehow the Agency had found out the plan, and done something to the team that was supposed to help her.
“So, what kind of fish do you normally catch?” she asked, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.
There was a hesitation. It was slight, and he covered it up well, but she had been looking right at him when she asked the question.
“Salmon, mostly,” he replied, his voice gruff and disinterested.
Maddy unfortunately didn’t know enough about fishing to know if salmon were found in the waters near King City. What she did know was that this man wasn’t telling her the truth. He was lying to her.
The same question kept repeating itself in her brain.
How had the Agency found out?
They had to have a mole on the inside. Connor had mentioned that he suspected the Agency had managed to infiltrate the Underground. Whoever this person was, they had information on her evacuation plan.
How was that possible though?
Connor had told her that Flint was the only one who was involved with this attempt. If that were the case, then how had the Agency found out?
Another thought entered her mind, unsettling her even more.
There had been less than an hour between Flint giving her the final note and her leaving the club. In that short period of time, the Agency had managed to get men in place and prepare for her?
That was impossible. Okay, perhaps not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Maddy had always subscribed to the theory that the simplest explanation was often the correct one.
The only way the Agency could have been ready was if they had known from the start where to expect her. Which meant that the information they received could only have come from one place: Flint. He was the traitor in the Underground. It seemed ridiculous; he was the leader, the founder of it! But the more she ran through the facts, the more Maddy became convinced she was right.
They were well into the shipyard now, probably halfway between the building and the ocean, though it was hard to tell in the inky blackness. Without thinking about it any further, Maddy made her move. She bolted from the big man’s side, darting forward into the darkness as fast as she could, hoping to lose him amongst all the containers and other objects.
“Hey! Get back here!” The man cursed and big-booted feet began to fall on the concrete behind her as he sought to catch up.
Maddy gritted her teeth, pushing her legs harder, faster, trying to outdistance her pursuer. The pavement flew by under her feet. She dodged obstacles that she didn’t even know were there until she was almost on top of them. Wind began to flap at her hair, whipping it back behind her as her feet slapped against the ground with a frequency that sounded too fast to be coming from her.
As she watched, her eyes began to pick out the huge containers and other items piled around the shipyard before she was closer.
What was happening?
Maddy cried out as a big black object loomed up out of the darkness. She broke to her left, but her feet couldn’t keep up with her mind all of a sudden, and she went down in a sprawling heap. Bouncing, she cursed as she slid across the ground, rough pavement taking its toll as her skin scraped off.
“I’ve got you now,” the man said as he approached.
She could just make out his sneering face as he appeared out of the gloom.
“Thought you could run from me, did you?” he snorted.
Pain shot through her scraped and bleeding hands as she scuttled backward across the pavement, trying desperately to stay away from him.
Her shoulder blades suddenly pressed up against something cold. Glancing up, Maddy saw that she had encountered yet another shipping container. The hollow bong that sounded when she hit it told her it was empty. It was the end of the line.
The man reached down and lifted her to her feet by her collar.
Maddy spat in his face.
“You’re going to pay for that,” he promised, wiping his face clean with the back of his hand.
She spat again and kicked at his groin.
“Enough!” he commanded, and drew back his hand to strike her across the face.
Maddy threw up her arm in a last-ditch attempt to block him, knowing that it would never work. She wasn’t strong enough.
I’m just a liability.
***
The man swung, his backhand connecting with her arm and blowing right through it. Maddy tensed, prepared for the blow she knew was coming.
“What the—?”
Nothing landed.
She opened her eyes—
To find that the Agent’s hand had been stopped cold by her arm. Maddy looked at it in amazement. She looked at him in amazement. He looked at her in amazement.
She punched him in the gut with her free arm, as hard as she could.
The man crumpled to the ground with a wail of agony. Maddy hadn’t been ready for him to release her, however, and she fell to the ground next to him.
What the hell just happened?
Even as the thought echoed through her mind, Maddy touched the pavement she was kneeling on. Her fingertips could sense the bounces and ridges in the asphalt. In the distance, the once-faint pounding of the ocean was suddenly right next to her. The night lit up, all the faint sources of light suddenly blossoming into vibrant colors that showed her everything surrounding her.
Then the pain of her earlier fall hit her.
Maddy screamed as the agony shot through her body, once again amplified by all of her new senses. As a human, she had had years to become accustomed to her sensory receptors, to ignore minor things. Now she was being assaulted anew by senses suddenly ten times more acute than anything she had known before.
Her scream was deafening and she clapped her hands over her ears to try and dull the sound. All that served to do was reignite the cuts on her hand as she slapped them against the sides of her skull. She pulled her knees in and began to rock back and forth in a ball, fighting to get everything under control. Through it all, she latched onto one thought.
The serum worked!
A booted foot caught her in the ribs, and she grunted with the pain. It was suddenly lessened as she became accustomed to her new senses, bringing them under her control and not allowing them to run free. Obviously the Agent had recovered from her first hit.
“Punch me, will you?” the Agent said, kicking her again.
Maddy, still on her hands and knees, opened her eyes at the words. She glanced at her hands, wondering if she could punch without dealing with a new wave of pain.
But to her surprise, the scrapes were already almost healed.
Right. Healing powers.
She looked up at the man sharply, a smile spreading across her face, pulling her lips back into a predatory snarl.
The m
an pulled his foot back and swung it at her head in response.
Maddy’s hand shot out, and she stopped his foot cold, feeling the reverberation as the force of his blow was redirected back up his leg and into her arm. She barely noticed it, but the Agent winced.
“You’re not an Extremis,” she said slowly. “You’re just human.”
The man sneered, despite his predicament. “No, we’re human.”
Three more shapes emerged around her. His reinforcements must have finally arrived.
“No matter,” Maddy said with a happy shrug.
Then she bent forward, grabbing the man by the shin with both of her newly enhanced hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked nervously.
“Fitting in,” she snarled, picking him up and swinging him around like a massive club.
The Agent screamed as she bodily slammed him into two of his companions. Something crunched as they went tumbling away in a heap. There were no screams, which was rather foreboding. Maddy didn’t have time to worry about that though, because the other two Agents spread out to either side of her, both brandishing knives. Even with her enhanced sight, the dim light made it hard to see, but she was positive the blades were coated with the same substance that had been on Connor.
She needed to avoid being hit.
In the background, lights came on in the shipyard at last. They illuminated a ship at the far end, but a quick glance at it told her that it was no fishing trawler, but some sort of sleek yacht. More men boiled over the side of it, leaping down to the solid ground.
How many men does the Agency have at its disposal?
Maddy was beginning to suspect it was a lot larger than many thought. Then again, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of people who hated shifters. Their supply was effectively endless, she realized. Not infinite, but more than enough to overwhelm the Underground, that was for sure.
She needed to get out of there, and soon!
First, she needed to deal with the Agents in front of her. They were between her and escape. To her left, one of the downed men moaned and began to gather himself. Maddy was no trained fighter. She might have the advantage in strength and speed, but she didn’t know what to do with it.