by Kelly Meding
"But you didn't. You stayed in control, Wyatt, and you saved our lives. Whatever Vale did to you, you stayed in control."
"He wanted me to kill you."
"Yes, he did."
"Why?"
"Because I was irritating him. He wants the security codes for the Dane mansion. Marcus wouldn't give them up. We need to regroup and get the hell out of here before Vale returns with backup."
"Is he likely to?"
"I don't know, but we know who he is and what he wants to do. Shutting us up will probably become a priority for him, and I don't want to be here if he does come back."
"Me, either." Wyatt brushed gentle fingertips over my throat. "They hurt you."
"Barely. I've had worse."
Emotion flickered in his eyes. "I hate that."
"Me, too." I pressed a quick kiss to his mouth, wishing we had time for more. "Come on."
We went back down to the cells. Baylor and Marcus were both dressed. They'd ripped Milo's t-shirt down the back and managed to get each arm through a sleeve, giving him some protection. That seemed about as much as he could manage. Milo's face was horribly pale, his whole body shiny with sweat, and shivering like he was cold. The individual bruises on his back and legs were darkening into one large, horrific splotch of color, and the skin was starting to swell.
Wyatt and I dressed fast. Our weapons and phones were missing, and the scroll satchel wasn't with our things. Fucking Vale. Marcus carried Milo up into the outer offices. Wyatt, Baylor, and I did a quick search, just in case, and turned up nothing. Vale had either disposed of everything else or taken it with him.
"Vale's scent goes this way," Marcus said, inclining his head toward another hallway.
Wyatt led, using his nose to follow the scent. Baylor backed him up with Vale's dropped gun, while I took the rear. The short hallway ended at what looked like an emergency door. The exit sign above wasn't lit, the entire hall barely illuminated by a crack of light from beneath the door.
"He must have gone out here," Wyatt said. He listened a moment. "No obvious voices or sounds."
"Doesn't mean there's no ambush waiting," Baylor said. He felt along the door's frame, testing for wires or trips.
I checked for the Break and found its power waiting. Whatever Vale had used to block my access, he'd apparently taken it with him. I nearly offered to teleport out, but it was a stupid idea. I had no clue what was outside that door and fusing my legs with a car fender was not on today's agenda.
Baylor and Wyatt shooed us back a few paces, and I took a defensive position in front of Marcus and Milo. Wyatt stood to the left of the door, Baylor to the right. Wyatt pressed the emergency bar down. Nothing squealed. Pushed the door open a few inches. Sunlight streamed inside. Wyatt sniffed the air.
So far, so good.
He pushed a little more.
Baylor inched forward and peeked outside. "Looks like a parking lot, small one, back end of an alley type," he said. "No cars. Older buildings, too, unkempt."
"Any ideas on location?" I asked.
"Nothing I recognize, but I'd lay good money we're close to Mercy's Lot." He nodded at Wyatt, who let the door shut. "Okay, there's a plank fence straight ahead, about twenty feet, but no cover. Wyatt and I will go out first and make sure we aren't being watched. When we're sure it's clear, the three of you follow on my signal."
I glanced behind me at Marcus, who nodded his agreement. Milo ignored all of us, swallowed whole by the pain that was his entire world. "Understood," I said to Baylor.
Our trio backed deeper into the hallway. Wyatt and Baylor shared a look. Wyatt shoved the door open wide. Its hinges squealed. Sunlight flashed in my eyes, and I blinked hard. Heard an odd popping sound, and then the door slammed shut again. A second thud.
As the orange dots disappeared from my vision, two things became clear: Wyatt still stood to the left of the closed emergency door, and Baylor was down.
Flat on his back on the ground. Eyes wide open. A red hole centered perfectly in his forehead. Blood pooling around his head.
"Adrian?" Wyatt asked.
Oh God, no.
Chapter Eight
I didn't have to check his pulse to know Adrian Baylor was dead, but I did anyway. Knelt down and pressed my fingertips to his throat. Nothing. A perfect storm of shock and grief formed in my throat and slowly choked me, preventing any real tears. I closed his eyelids, the skin still so warm.
This can't be happening.
"It was a fucking sniper," Wyatt said.
The thick rasp of his voice made me look at him. He'd slumped to the floor next to the door, as devastated as I'd ever seen him. He'd worked with Baylor in the Triads for years, him and Kismet. I wanted to comfort Wyatt, to pull him into my arms and hold him until the shock went away. But Baylor would still be dead, Milo needed a doctor, and Vale was getting further away.
Action first, grief later.
"Stay here, I'll be right back," I said.
No one argued with me. I ran back down the short hallway and poked around until I found some stairs. Up to the next level. More offices, just as empty and dusty. The thickness of the closed up air made my eyes itch and my nose tingle with the need to sneeze. I navigated my way back to where I guessed the emergency exit to be and found a boarded up window.
The boards had enough cracks for me to peek through. To see the empty alley parking lot below and the buildings around us. We were downtown, somewhere near the train tracks and Black River, if my guess was right. The back of this building faced a long, empty alley, and at the end of it was another brick building and a nice flat roof. Perfect place for a sniper to lay in wait and pick us off one by one. I studied the rooftop a section at a time until a small flash of light caught my attention. The kind of flash a scope makes when the sun hits the lens just right.
"Bingo, you fucker," I said.
Downstairs, Wyatt hadn't moved. Marcus had settled himself and Milo on the floor, and Marcus gave me an expectant look.
"I know where the sniper is," I said, scooping Baylor's gun off the floor. "I'm going to go kill him, then I'll be back for you guys."
My announcement broke through Wyatt's haze of shock. "What?" he asked.
"Just hang tight, please."
"Be careful."
"You know me."
"Be careful anyway."
I smiled, then closed my eyes. My emotional tap into the Break was loneliness. I imagined if it was Wyatt on the ground dead, a hole between his eyes, lost to me. Grief and loneliness clutched my heart and real tears stung my eyes. I latched onto the emotions and let them build. Pictured the alley beneath the other building, the empty pavement and shadows. Let the Break suck me in and rip me apart.
Teleporting hurt every single time I did it, and today was no exception. I hurtled through the magic of the Break and focused on that spot. Pulled out of the Break and came back in one piece. Tiny hammers pounded the inside of my skull. Acid bubbled up in my stomach. I doubled over, clutching my abdomen, and managed to not barf. As my mind and my eyes cleared, I took in the alley. The building two hundred feet away where my friends were waiting.
I circled what looked like a cheap apartment building until I found the fire escape. Climbed up and slowly, quietly ascended. Each squeal of rusty metal made my nerves fray a little bit more. Every step upward came with the expectation of another shot, this one blasting through my own skull. Four stories up to the roof.
The sniper was too confident in his hiding place, because he never heard me coming. I peeked over the edge and spotted him about twenty feet away from me. The barrel of his rifle was resting on the roof ledge, and his attention was fixed on the scope. I thumbed the safety off my borrowed gun, aimed, and fired.
The idiot was so surprised when I shot him in the calf that he let his rifle fall over the edge of the building. I kept my gun trained on his chest as I climbed over onto the roof. He stared at me with wide copper eyes. God, he was young. Looked about sixteen human years, which meant ma
ybe four Therian years. Only a kid and still a murderer.
"Where's Vale?" I asked as I approached.
The teenage Felia started shaking.
"You just murdered a friend of mine, asshole, so don't think for a second I won't kill you, too."
"I don't know," he replied. "I swear, I don't. He told me to guard the door and to shoot anyone who wasn't one of ours."
"Do you know who I am?"
He shook his head so hard I thought he'd snap a vertebrae.
"So you do what Vale tells you without asking questions?"
"He's my cousin."
"And he's my enemy. I gotta tell you, kid, my enemies have a bad habit of dying."
He started crying. Actually fucking crying, and I almost felt sorry for the kid. Almost.
I loomed over him. "Your cousin is an idiot. I know he wants to murder Riley Dane, and I won't let that happen. So if you don't want every other surviving member of your family to die while I'm hunting Vale, you give me something useful."
"There's a house in Mercy's Lot," he replied through choking sobs. "452 Ashmont Road. We've met there a few times."
"Who lives there?"
"It's bank-owned now."
"Fine. Take the laces out of your shoes."
"Huh?"
"Now!"
He acquiesced. I used one lace to bind his wrists behind his back so tight his hands started turning red before I was done. The second I looped around his ankles. It wasn't ideal, especially for a Felia's strength, and I couldn't have him getting away. So for good measure, I shot him in the other calf. He screamed. I slammed the butt of my gun into the back of his head, and he slumped to the roof, unconscious.
I checked him for a cell phone and didn't find one. Teleporting back with him was going to hurt like hell, and I didn't have the energy for it. I'd have to hope he was still there later, after I got backup. I tapped into loneliness, into the Break, and teleported to the parking lot two hundred feet away. After the dizziness went away, I knocked hard on the exit door.
"Wyatt, it's me," I said.
The door opened, and I slipped inside. Right into Wyatt's arms. I hugged him back, breathing in the familiar scent of him. Feeling the heavy thud of his heartbeat against my chest, the warmth of his breath on my neck. I hugged him, not because I needed it but because he did.
I pressed my lips to the stubble-rough skin near his ear, then whispered, "I'm so sorry about Adrian. So sorry."
He held me tighter, shaking ever so slightly. His Lupa infection had heightened all of his emotions to extremes, and he was feeling his grief more strongly than he'd usually show. Wyatt didn't break down in front of others. He broke down in private where no one could see.
"The sniper's unconscious and tied up," I said, as much for Wyatt as for Marcus. "No cell phone, but gave me an address in Mercy's Lot."
"Do you trust his information?" Marcus asked.
"Not a hell of a lot, but it's all we have." I pulled back from Wyatt's embrace so I could look him in the eyes. He'd calmed considerably, the silver returning to thin rings around his irises instead of overtaking his entire eye. "I need to find a phone and get some backup, okay?"
Wyatt started to speak, probably to say he was coming with me, then stopped. He saw the answer to that request in my face. "Do you know where we are?"
"I have an idea, yeah. Protect them for me?"
He nodded. "Watch your back."
"I love you."
"Love you, too. So much."
I handed him the gun, which he only took under protest, then I slipped back outside.
Judging by the shadows on the ground, it was late afternoon, closing in on dinnertime. My empty stomach concurred with the assessment. That late night snack in the cafeteria felt like weeks ago. Thanks to Reilly's little surprise, I hadn't eaten any of the breakfast I'd ordered. A stack of those greasy pancakes he loved sounded like heaven.
I slipped around the side of the building and headed for the street. A cold wash of familiarity hit me. Corcoran Street. It ran parallel to the railroad tracks, along an alley dotted with abandoned businesses and construction sites, and less than two blocks from here was the Corcoran train bridge. The place where my old Triad partners, Jesse and Ash, had died back in May. Only days before I died the first time, too.
The street was cracked and dotted with potholes, a testament to its lack of use or repair. No cars drove past. The sounds of the city seemed so far away. The air was thick with the ripe odors of the nearby Black River, as well as soot and ash from the train tracks. Freight trains still occasionally ran through the city, and we hadn't heard one all afternoon.
When I looked back at the building we'd been trapped in, I spotted a partial wood sign still hanging over the boarded-up front doors: lice Depar. We'd been in some sort of police station after all.
I started jogging down the street toward the train bridge, eyes open for any signs of life or modern technology. Even a pay phone would be useful. None presented themselves, and then I was standing under the bridge, its metal pylons stretching high above my head.
I hadn't been back here since the night my partners died. We'd been set up, called here individually and them ambushed by half-Bloods. We fought well, like we always had. We'd been a unit for four years, had each other's backs, and made a lot of kills. Until that final fight. Jesse slipped up and got infected. He turned so fast, so horribly, and then he killed Ash right in front of me. So I'd killed him.
Memories of another lifetime tried to come back and I pushed them away. I had other people I cared about depending on me, waiting for me to bring help. I didn't have time for a trip down Memory Lane. The jail's proximity to the bridge, though, did help explain the ambush from that long ago night. Everything had been connected, orchestrated by a pissed-off elf with a grudge against the other Fey.
If I'd known then what I know now, things would have turned out so differently for everyone.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I stopped in the middle of the street and turned a slow circle. Something wasn't right—I'd learned long ago to trust myself when I got that weird sensation of being watched. It had kept me alive for four years as a Hunter, and it needed to keep me alive a good while longer.
Nothing presented itself as out of place, until the shadows near the pylons shifted. Glittering red eyes blinked at me. Multiple sets of eyes. My insides went watery and bile rose into my throat.
Goblins.
In the fucking daylight.
The eyes didn't move, but somehow the shapes of the goblins became more distinct. Their oily black skin, their oddly shaped heads and pear-shaped bodies. My fingers itched to reach for a knife and to start slashing throats. Only I didn't have a weapon on me. There were at least six goblins in the shadows, possibly armed with daggers and definitely armed with sharp teeth and claws. They were watching, not moving.
What were they waiting for?
I'd read once that discretion was the better part of valor, and I hadn't understood it at the time. Now that I was older and wiser, the saying told me it wasn't always cowardly to run from a fight—especially a fight I would definitely lose. And I had already lost enough today.
I ran.
Ran full-tilt out of there, down Corcoran Street, away from the jail and my friends. The thunder of feet behind me made my adrenaline spike. They were chasing me. I'd hunted in this part of the city dozens of times and I knew these streets, but they looked so different during the day. I knew darkness and shadows, not sunlight and reflections. I ducked through an unfinished construction site which was little more than a hole in the ground surrounded by plank fencing. I scanned for weapons along the way, hoping for a crow bar or even a solid piece of two-by-four.
Nothing.
The goblins kept pace, their huffing and snarls growing louder. Fear chilled me to the bone, and I ran harder, faster. Ducked through a hole in the fence and came out on another side street. More empty lots. I kept running north, aiming for a bigger population that
might scare the little bastards off.
Something slammed into me sideways, and I tumbled to the pavement in a pained heap, scraping skin off my elbows. I threw a fist at the goblin that had knocked me down. Hit it right in the eye. It screeched and backed off. I rolled sideways and lurched up to my knees. Another goblin leapt on my back and knocked me flat onto my stomach.
I twisted sharply and mashed the smaller creature beneath me, using my shoulder blades to slam its head into the pavement with a solid crunch. Its hold on my back loosened. I lunged away and came face to face with another goblin. It bared jagged teeth at me, practically smiling, while its three companions circled us.
I am in so much trouble.
"Who sent you?" I asked.
They started giggling, which was a truly horrific sound, like manic, phlegmy coughing mixed with nails screeching down a chalkboard. I wanted cover my ears, but didn't dare move. If they all attacked at once, I was dead. I'd been killed by goblins once, and I'd be damned if I was going out that way again.
The goblin nearest me licked his lips with a thick purple tongue. "Nessa," it snarled.
"Nessa," the others repeated like a Greek chorus. Truly fucking creepy.
A distant rumbling caught my attention, like a train coming down the tracks. Only it was closer than the railroad, which was two blocks to the west. Please, God, be a car.
The goblins tensed, their pointed ears twitching and swiveling like a dog's. The rumbling grew closer. And then the head of the goblin farthest to my left exploded with the simultaneous report of a gunshot. Relief hit me hard, and I channeled it into hitting the goblin nearest me in the face. It tumbled sideways from the unexpected blow, and I tucked and rolled in the opposite direction.
More gunshots broke, followed by the squealing of tires. I came up on my knees a few feet from my old position. The six goblins lay in an odd pattern of fuchsia blood and gore splatters. One twitched as it died.
"Stone?"
Tybalt jogged over to me and reached out his natural hand. I took it, as grateful for the help up as for the unexpected save. Behind him, Kyle was holstering his gun and poking at a dead goblin with his shoe.