by Jenna Black
“Dorothy is going to make the late Chairman Hayes seem like a saint by comparison,” Nadia said. “He had a lot of flaws, but he did at least have some level of concern over the well-being of his state and some rudimentary respect for human life. Dorothy doesn’t have even that. When I threatened to go public with what I knew, Chairman Hayes wanted to protect his legacy, but he also wanted to protect the people of Paxco. He knew if it went public, there would be riots at the very least, a civil war at worst, and he knew thousands of people would probably die. Dorothy killed him because he wasn’t willing to take that risk—and she was. Because to her, thousands of people dying is not a big deal as long as she comes out on top.”
Angel rocked back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. The sound system came roaring to life, blasting out the kind of heavy, rhythmic music that made Nadia’s teeth vibrate. Nadia could see the front door opening as the club’s staff emerged from the shadows, ready to service their clientele.
“You know the information’s good,” Bishop shouted over the music. “Why don’t you just pay us and let us get the hell out of here.”
Angel leaned forward again. “Because this all sounds like a plot to a B-movie, and I still haven’t taken the idea of killing you off the table.”
“Remember what I said about Ghost and the others,” Bishop said, sounding not in the least bit intimidated by the threat. “They can cause you a shitload of trouble if anything happens to me or Honey.”
Angel grinned broadly. “Yeah, well here’s the thing: my bouncer just spotted the Ghost loitering around on the sidewalk outside the club.”
Nadia almost gasped at the news. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed the discreet rubber earpiece Angel was wearing. The last Nadia had checked, phone service was still down, so whatever communication system Angel was using didn’t utilize phone frequencies.
Bishop laughed. “Now who’s spouting bullshit stories? The Ghost sure as hell wouldn’t come here.”
“No?” Angel asked with a confident smirk. “So my bouncer is lying when he says the Ghost is outside my door with some blue-haired chick and a guy with a multicolored duster.”
Bishop sobered quickly and Nadia swallowed hard. There was no way Angel would know anything about Agnes’s and Dante’s Basement disguises—unless she was telling the truth. But Angel’s death threats aside, there had to be something seriously wrong for Nate and the others to have left the apartment and come to the club.
Nadia hastily stood up, almost knocking her chair over. There was a steady stream of Basement-dwellers pouring in through the front door, to the point that getting out might be a challenge.
“Sit down, Honey,” Angel commanded. “We’re not finished here.” She then spoke into what Nadia presumed was a microphone, although it was so well hidden it was invisible. “Bring them in. If they give you any trouble, go for the girl. That’ll be their weakness.”
Nadia looked at Bishop. He was the expert in surviving in the Basement and was more likely to know if this situation called for an escape attempt or more negotiation. He was still seated, and when she met his eyes, he nodded.
Slowly, Nadia sank back into her chair.
* * *
When one of the bouncers left his post by the front door and started making his way along the line—if that’s what you’d call the jumbled crowd of Basement-dwellers and tourists vying for a place in the unruly mob waiting to get in—it didn’t immediately occur to Nate that the huge blue-painted man was coming for him and his friends. Nate had encountered the blue man before in his trips to Angel’s, back when he’d been one of the privileged assholes who came here for fun. He went by the name Djinni, and he seemed to take great pleasure in patting people down, trying to provoke a reaction by being unduly rough or invasive.
Djinni was enough of a bruiser that even hardened Basement veterans moved aside for him as he made his way toward the back of the pack. His eyes scanned the entire crowd without ever pausing on anyone in particular, so Nate figured he could be excused for not seeing the man’s purpose until it was too late.
Nate turned his face slightly away, but it wasn’t like that would stop Djinni from recognizing him. Not that Djinni had any idea who the Ghost really was, but Nate wasn’t sure of his welcome here after his last encounter with Angel.
Djinni’s eyes didn’t lock onto them until he was within arm’s reach. That was when his hand suddenly shot out and latched onto Agnes’s upper arm, startling a choked scream out of her and cries of protest from both Nate and Dante.
Nate grabbed Djinni’s arm, taking his own life into his hands, but the blue man had to weigh over three hundred pounds, all of it muscle. Nate had no chance of prying Djinni’s hand free. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.
“Let go of her!” he said, but he felt about as effective as a five-year-old trying to wrestle a football player.
Dante was smart enough not to try to pit his strength against Djinni’s, but his hand was in the pocket of his duster, and he withdrew it just far enough to show he had a gun. Nate didn’t like their chances in a shootout—a large percentage of Basement-dwellers were armed at all times and might enjoy the chance to participate in some random mayhem.
“You need to get your hands off her now!” Dante commanded. He sounded like he actually expected Djinni to back down. But then, he hadn’t spent a whole lot of time in the Basement.
“Angel wants to see the three of you,” Djinni said, still holding on to Agnes’s arm. “The girl’s coming with me. You boys can either come along or get lost.”
Their little confrontation was drawing the attention of bored club-goers still waiting their turn to get in. Drawing attention was a bad idea, especially with Agnes looking so frightened and vulnerable. Basement predators would have a field day with a girl like her, even not knowing who she was. And if they should have any reason to realize she was not only a top Executive but a Chairman’s daughter, they would tear her limb from limb.
Even knowing the drawbacks of creating a scene, Nate didn’t let go of Djinni’s arm, and Dante didn’t take his hand away from the gun. They couldn’t just stand idly by and let Agnes get manhandled by some blue-painted bruiser.
“We came here to see Angel anyway,” Agnes said. Her voice sounded far calmer than her face looked. “There’s no need for any drama here.”
She had a point.
Nate and Dante didn’t say anything to one another, but somehow they came to a mutual agreement with just a look. Dante’s hand eased out of his pocket, leaving the gun behind, and Nate forced himself to let go of Djinni’s arm.
The blue man’s teeth looked startlingly white as he bared them in a satisfied smile. He kept his hand on Agnes’s arm, but it didn’t look like he was squeezing uncomfortably tight, and he didn’t so much drag her from the crowd as guide her. Nate and Dante followed close behind. Nate expected to have to wipe blue paint from his hand after holding Djinni’s arm like that, but there was no hint of it. Maybe it was some kind of dye or stain rather than actual body paint, as he’d always assumed.
The crowd murmured in disapproval as Djinni led them to the door ahead of those who were waiting, but no one was going to mess with him.
As soon as they were through the door, Djinni let go of Agnes and whirled on Dante, grabbing him by the collar of his duster and shoving him against the wall. Nate insisted to himself that he didn’t take any satisfaction in the fact that the superspy didn’t see it coming and that Djinni had divested him of his weapon before he knew what hit him.
“No guns allowed in the club.” Djinni smirked as he popped the clip out of the gun and checked to make sure the chamber was empty. He tucked the gun into the back of his shorts.
Dante glared at the bouncer. “You could have just asked.” He straightened the duster with an air of offended dignity.
Nate worried that he and Dante—and more alarmingly, Agnes—might be searched more thoroughly, seeing as that was the club’s standard procedure, bu
t it seemed Djinni was through with the fun and games.
“This way,” he said, leading them across the room. The club wasn’t crowded yet—too many people were still waiting outside—so they didn’t really need him to lead them to Angel. Nate could see her sitting at a table in the far corner. He let out a little breath of relief to see that Nadia and Bishop were also seated at that table, although even from a distance he could read the body language and see the tension. Maybe negotiations were going badly and showing up here had been a big mistake. But it wasn’t like they’d had a lot of choices.
Djinni didn’t let go of Agnes’s arm until they were practically on top of the table, and even then, he stood in such a way as to block her retreat—and keep Nate and Dante from getting to her.
Angel leaned back in her chair, lacing her hands over her stomach, showing them how completely relaxed and in control she was.
“Why Ghost,” she said in a slow drawl, “what a pleasant surprise. I had no idea you had so much fun the last time you visited. Back for more?”
Nate was sweating, unable to suppress his body’s visceral memory of what Angel had done to him. He tried to project an image of nonchalance, but he was probably failing, and there was no way he could scrape up the words for a witty comeback.
He was an utter coward. Timid little Agnes did a better job of standing up to bullies than he did. His face flushed with shame, and he hoped the layers of white powder he wore to make his complexion ghostly were thick enough to hide it.
“Leave him alone, Angel,” Kurt said, pushing back his chair and rising to his feet.
Nate’s cheeks flamed hotter. Bad enough that he was showing his fear in front of everyone, but to have Kurt have to jump to his rescue … He was being a total wuss about this. Yeah, the beating had hurt like hell, but Angel and her merry men hadn’t done any actual damage. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that big a deal. At least that’s what he tried to tell himself.
Kurt interrupted Nate’s shame-spiral by clapping a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
The simple touch of Kurt’s hand helped steady and balance him, chasing the shadows away. He cleared his throat quietly to make sure his voice didn’t come out sounding weak and thready.
“A security squad showed up to search the building,” he answered. “We had to get out of there. This seemed the only logical place to go.”
He wanted to ask what was going on, how the negotiations were going—if they were indeed still going—but Kurt wasn’t in a position to give him an honest answer with Angel hanging on his every word, so there was no point.
“Are you sure they were looking for us?” Nadia asked, biting her lip, but then she shook her head. “Never mind. Stupid question.”
Angel snorted. “As if I needed another reminder that the lot of you are too hot to handle.”
“We’re not asking you to ‘handle’ us,” Nadia snapped. “We’re asking you to pay us what you owe us and let us go.”
Angel narrowed her eyes. “Go where, exactly?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“If you’re gonna get caught and interrogated then yeah, it is very much my business,” Angel said. “The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of putting a permanent end to that problem.”
Putting the clues together, Nate deduced that Nadia had already sold Angel the true story about Dorothy and Thea, but that Angel was leaning toward killing them all instead of paying them. Which meant that showing up here with Agnes and Dante in tow was about the worst thing he could have done, making it easier for Angel to tie up all the loose ends at once.
Nate had never fantasized about hitting a woman before, but he was seriously considering making an exception for Angel. She was supposed to be a resistance leader, for God’s sake!
Outrage overtook the last of his fear, and Nate leaned forward, putting his hands on the table so he could glare at Angel at eye level.
“Let me get this straight,” he said, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the music. “You’re a leader in the resistance movement that wants to overthrow the government of Paxco, and yet you think it’s a good idea to kill us all, which is exactly what said government wants. Isn’t giving aid and comfort to the enemy supposed to be a bad thing?”
To his surprise, Angel broke the stare first. It was a small victory, though Angel made as if she were just taking a moment to survey the activity in the club.
“We are not the enemy,” he continued, hoping to hammer home his point. “As long as we’re alive, we will be a constant thorn in Dorothy’s side. She’s going to expend lots of time and energy and money trying to hunt us down. Won’t that make it easier for you and your people to do … whatever it is you do?”
It was a rather weak ending to his speech, but he still wasn’t terribly clear on what the resistance saw its endgame to be. And at the moment, he didn’t care.
“That sounds very reasonable and all,” Angel said, “but my problem is that as long as you’re out there alive and being hunted, there’s an unacceptable risk of you being captured and running your mouths. You know too fucking much.”
Nate didn’t think they knew all that much about the resistance—not enough to be worth murdering five people over, at least. But if Angel thought there was, he doubted he’d be able to talk her into seeing it differently.
“Dorothy doesn’t want us alive,” Nadia said. “That was the whole point of letting Nate and me go in the first place. She wants us dead, and she wants it done unofficially. Her best-case scenario would be for us to be killed by Basement-dwellers so there’s no possible way she can be linked to it. And if we can be killed without anyone even knowing for sure whether we’re alive or dead, well that would just be icing on the cake. She doesn’t want any chance that we can be used as symbols or martyrs or rallying cries.”
“If that’s the case,” Angel quickly countered, “then why did she send a security squad to the apartment you were hiding in? And why is she offering a reward for you?”
With a start, Nate remembered that both he and Dante had been under the impression they were being followed in the streets of the Basement.
“She wasn’t trying to capture us,” he said. “She was trying to flush us out. Somewhere between the apartment and here, we picked up a tail. Why would some random Basement-dweller decide to tail the three of us? We sure don’t look like people who would be rolling in money. And what self-respecting Basement-dweller is going to think we look like a tempting target when we have Captain Studly on our side?” He made a sweeping gesture at Dante, who looked kind of puny next to someone like Djinni but who was definitely big and imposing compared to normal people.
“Dorothy wants us on the move,” he concluded, “with nowhere safe to hide. She’s got some gun-for-hire following us, waiting for the perfect moment of privacy when he can kill us all without any witnesses. And ten to one he’ll make it so that no one will ever find the bodies.”
“Don’t do Dorothy’s work for her,” Nadia said. “Don’t make it easier for her to get what she wants. Especially when what she wants includes snatching people from the Basement and dissecting their brains for her sick idea of research.”
Angel looked each of them in the face for a long moment, her eyes shining with calculation and cunning. But however reprehensible a person she might be, she wouldn’t have joined up with the resistance if she didn’t think the poor and disenfranchised people of Paxco were getting a raw deal—and if she didn’t want to do something about it. Helping Thea in any way, even indirectly, would trample all over her cause.
After what felt like about an hour of staring at them and thinking, Angel finally nodded.
“I’m not sure I one hundred percent buy your story,” she said. “But I’m willing to admit our new Chairman Hayes is bad news.”
“Her name is Dorothy,” Nate corrected, his stomach feeling queasy. “Chairman Hayes was my father, and Dorothy is no relat
ion, no matter what she claims.” Since he’d awakened as a Replica, he’d often thought he wanted his father dead. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t now struggling with a tangle of mixed emotions after seeing the man shot to death before his eyes. He knew everyone would naturally refer to Dorothy as Chairman Hayes now that she had supposedly succeeded Nate’s father, but he was never going to be able to hear that title without cringing.
Angel raised an eyebrow at him, so he knew she’d heard him, but she continued talking as if she hadn’t. “There’s something fishy about a woman who appears out of nowhere claiming to be the late Chairman’s daughter—just in time to conveniently take over the Chairmanship when the Chairman Heir murders his father and the Replica program is ‘on hiatus.’ Whatever her game is, I doubt I’m going to like it, so I guess I’ll give you children a helping hand after all.”
“You mean you’ll give us the money you already agreed you would pay us?” Nadia asked pointedly.
Angel laughed. “Bishop’s right: Honey Badger is the perfect street name for you.”
Honey Badger? When did Nadia acquire a street name? And what the hell was a honey badger?
“I could give you the money like we agreed,” Angel continued, “but even with Bishop’s help, I don’t know how you kids could find a safe place to hole up before you got yourselves killed. So I’m going to do you one better.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Wait here. Make yourselves at home. This may take a while.”
“What may take a while?” Nate asked, but Angel walked away with no answer but a smirk.
Djinni hovered menacingly, making it clear that Angel wasn’t inviting them to stay so much as ordering them to. And since Nate was far from eager to head back out to the street where their tail was waiting for them—assuming his guesses about the guy were true—he took a seat beside Bishop and resigned himself to waiting.