by Jody Klaire
“I’m on my way,” Charlie said and headed out of the lobby.
“Rebecca,” I called and she hurried over. “When we leave, lock the door and unless a woman with spiky blonde hair flashes a badge at you, don’t open it. Promise me.”
She went to ask but I gripped her by the shoulders. “Swear it to me, right now.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
McKinley set off after me as I headed out of the doors. “Aeron,” he snapped, pulling me around to look at him. “What is going on?”
The doors locked shut behind me. Mark hurried up the street. “Get inside!”
He frowned. “Aeron, Charlie just went tearing into Martha’s, people are worried.”
Small towns cared. They would come out, what Yannick would want.
“Get everyone inside. Tell them it’s an emergency . . . Please.” My voice broke under the strain. Renee was in Yannick’s path. “Don’t ask me to explain . . . just get to safety.”
Mark searched my eyes. He nodded once and ran up the street, telling folk that there was gas. They had to stay indoors.
“Have you loaded your gun?” I asked McKinley.
McKinley scowled at me. “You just freaked out the whole damn—”
“Have you loaded your gun?” I sounded like Frei—short, sharp, assertive.
Thank cotton he listened.
“Of course I did.”
“Good, because the only thing standing between Renee and that lunatic,” I turned to look at the station, “is Hal.”
The vision of the badge in cold fingers rocketed through my mind and shattered my heart. The poor guy wouldn’t stand a chance. The realization made McKinley’s eyes drop to the ground and he cleared his throat.
“Time to make your decision, James. You trust what you’ve been shown and risk humiliation if I’m wrong.” I pointed to the open door of the station. It was too inviting, it looked like the mouth of a bear trap. “Or you trust your logic and you risk a massacre.”
He pulled out his gun.
Then a soul-wrenching scream cut through the night air.
Chapter 25
BRAD STUMBLED AS he used Grace and Marie to help him up the station steps. He was feeling like he could take on anyone. Who cared if perfect Sheriff Weedy had a gun. He laughed. He could take him on no problem. Sheriff Weedy would never fire anyhow—the guy was lame, weak, pathetic.
“Brad, I want to go home,” Grace muttered, trying to free herself from his grasp.
Brad gripped her tighter, her willowy arm unable to break his strength. Yes, he was a man, she would do exactly what he wanted.
“Brad,” she whined. “Let go!”
She slapped him across the face and it made him laugh. Marie broke free and ran toward the station as he slammed Grace up against the wall, making her squeal.
“You’ll do as you’re damn told.” She turned her face away from him as he leaned in. “Now look what your stupid friend has gone and done,” he snarled. “I’ll have to show Hal just how to fire his gun.”
“You’re drunk,” Grace spat.
He felt a sharp pain rip through him, bringing him crashing to his knees. Tears filled his eyes. Right in the jewels. Grace ran off into the station as he hauled himself to his feet.
“Stupid dumb bitch.” He headed up the steps after her. “I’ll make you pay for that.”
“No closer, Jewel,” Hal said. His pistol was drawn, protecting Marie and Grace who hid behind him. “Go on home.”
Brad spat at him and Hal flinched. “I will leave when I have her.”
Hal scowled. “Where I come from a man knows how to treat a lady.”
Brad howled with laughter. This idiot was even worse than he thought. He dashed forward and shoulder charged into Hal. The gun flew out of Hal’s hand. Hal smashed into the wall.
“You are nobody.” His spittle flew into Hal’s face. “You only have this badge ’cause they felt sorry for you.”
He gripped hold of the deputy’s badge and ripped it from Hal’s jacket. “You need to learn your place, hillbilly—”
His voice disappeared from him. White hot agony hit the side of his neck. Had Hal hit him? Brad squinted as Hal’s face turned red. He lifted his hand to clutch the side of his neck. His blood, he stared down at his hands, he was bleeding.
Someone screamed. Hal pulled off his jacket and pressed it next to Brad’s neck only for another voice to permeate the deafening howling.
Brad dropped to his knees. Hal fought with some man. The man the Ice Queen had shot. Hal’s head hit the wall. Grace bolted. Brad collapsed into the crimson warmth pooling on the floor.
The Ice Queen was to blame. She should have shot the bastard in the head.
AS WE GOT to the steps, Grace hurtled toward us. Gunshots shattered the shop window to her right. McKinley overtook me and swept her out of the way.
Bam.
Bam.
Two more shots rang out.
I ducked and rolled, ending up against a post holding up the front entrance of the building.
A tiny part of my brain computed that I’d just performed a CIG move that I couldn’t master no matter how hard I’d tried back in boot camp. Frei would have been proud.
“Yannick Boucher,” McKinley called out, peeking around the corner. “You are surrounded.”
I shot McKinley a look. If Yannick was really the mass murdering lunatic we thought he was, then like heck would that lame attempt stop him.
“Grace, you okay?” I called as she buried her head into McKinley’s shoulder. “You injured? He hit you?”
Grace peered up from McKinley’s coat and shook her head.
“Okay.” My thoughts were clearing. What would Frei do? “Grace, you got to do James and me here a favor.”
McKinley ducked back around the corner as more shots pinged off the wall next to his head.
“Grace, I want you to go to Martha and Earl’s,” I said. She’d be safer there. “Charlie is with them.”
She clung onto McKinley, unwilling to let him go.
“Grace,” McKinley said, glancing back at her. “We need Charlie . . . please.”
Their eyes met. He turned and slid his hand around the back of her neck. Something unspoken passed between them. His aura warmed and he pulled her to him and kissed her. He pulled back and she stared into his eyes, then her aura warmed like his. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him right back as she sank into him.
Seriously, now? I sighed. Franken-Frei didn’t have to put up with this kinda thing.
Their auras danced like they were celebrating and I didn’t know where the heck to look. Somehow getting dribbled on switched something inside her and Grace’s courage seemed to ignite.
“I can do that,” she whispered. “I’ll go get him for you.”
After a moment and a couple more volleys from Yannick, Grace hurried away up the street. McKinley gave me a wry grin.
“Can we get back to saving folks now?” I grumbled. Heck, I felt like I’d just wandered into one of them romance novels Renee didn’t think I knew she read.
McKinley fired a shot around the corner and I took cover to look at what we faced. Hal was on the floor as was another guy. I tried to see who it was but there was too much blood.
Bam.
Dust kicked off the brickwork next to my head and I ducked back behind cover. My heart hammered so hard it hurt. Close. Too close.
“There’s somebody on the ground,” I called to McKinley.
“Grace was sobbing something about Brad.” He fired another round and reloaded his pistol. “Marie is in there too.”
“That makes four people. The rescue crew?”
He shook his head. “Down by the avalanche site, working to clear the road for the morning.”
I was grateful for the small mercy. “Any ideas?”
“I handle low level crime,” he said. “International nutcases are not my staple.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Any other way in?”
“Not unless you want to haul yourself up a fire escape.”
“There’s a fire escape?”
He nodded, firing again. “Second to first floor ladder froze solid.”
I fought the urge to throw a snowball at him. “Where is it?”
McKinley looked at me like he was trying to figure if I was serious.
Damn right I was. I nodded.
“Alright. It’s round here. There’s a keypad on the door.” He yelled the code at me and thumbed to his right.
That meant going into the line of fire again.
“Cover me?”
He nodded. “On three.”
“Forget it, just fire.” I bolted forward. McKinley let rip.
Ping. Just behind my foot.
Ping. In front of my foot.
Ping. Off the lamp post next to my head.
I dived forward. Overshot. And clattered to the ground. I didn’t stop. I slid, at speed, toward the adjacent building. I covered my head.
Crunch.
Several parts of my body yelped in protest as I clattered into the wall. I scrambled to my feet. Pain shot through my elbow. I stared into the pitch black alleyway between the buildings.
“He has to run out of ammo eventually,” I said to McKinley.
“Thing is, he has a whole armory,” he called back as I headed into the darkness. “I only have a few more clips.”
URSULA FREI BARKED orders at her men as they hiked up the run. They had no time to wait for the men on the other side to clear the way. Yannick would have decimated the place by then.
“Ewan!” she snapped, bringing one of her team running over. “You got a lock . . . any damn thing?”
Ewan shook his head. “It’s the weather. The satellite can’t see through all the cloud.”
“Then get a better one!”
She knew it was a stupid retort and she knew full well that blizzard conditions rendered the things useless. She took a look at the line of flattened trees. She had thought about climbing it and she would if it was daylight. Not at night, in a blizzard, not even she was that gung-ho.
Her cell rang and she flipped it open, plugging her free ear from the blasting wind. “Frei.”
“Any nearer?”
Ursula sighed at the sound of Lilia’s voice. Last thing she needed was a worried mother breathing down her neck. “No.”
“Aeron can do this,” Lilia said. “You trained her.”
Ursula tried not to growl. Their old argument was about to start again. “Lilia, you know why Aeron passed the course and you know why I didn’t want her to.”
“Renee being in trouble will change that,” Lilia said. “She’ll come through.”
“Aeron wouldn’t even fire at a freaking target.” Ursula kicked at the snow. “You think she would pull the trigger on a person?”
“No.” Lilia sighed.
Aeron shouldn’t be in the field, she should have been somewhere in protective custody helping from there. Aeron was too important to the mission to be out dealing with POIs.
“You saw her yourself in hand-to-hand training,” Ursula said. “She took an uppercut and gained a black eye yet not once would she even defend herself.”
“She’s an empath, Ursula,” Lilia said. “To hurt another is to hurt herself.”
“So you see my point,” Ursula said. “Yannick is a military-grade psychopath. He delights in tearing towns apart and . . . Renee is in there.”
Even saying the words made her stomach scrunch into a knot. “We nearly lost her the last time . . . if he gets his hands on her—”
“Not alone.”
Ursula heard the telltale whisper that said Lilia was lost in a vision.
“. . . bathing the snow. . . No path in sight, no way to find, nothing but murky smudges . . . Whispers ‘Aimed for me’ . . . ‘Who do you think you are?’. . . ‘I didn’t see’ . . . ‘I didn’t see’ . . . ‘I didn’t see!’ Malice lurks . . . Vulture circles . . . ‘Always alone!’ . . . heart beats and beats faster and faster . . . pebbled stone . . . nine two three bursts into yellow-white shimmers, so blinding, so bright . . . Until daylight and love sing through the music. Harmony of hope and light reaches out and breathes life back into the wandering mind.”
“Lilia,” Ursula said, clearing her throat. Her hairs prickled along her arms. “Lilia, what does that mean?”
“Nine two three,” Lilia repeated. “Chapter nine, verse twenty three . . . ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’”
Ursula frowned. “You quoting biblical texts at me?” She heard calls from up on top of the mound. “It’s not your style.”
“It wasn’t my vision,” Lilia answered, her voice raspy. “Goodness, she’s so . . . so . . . empathic.”
“What do you mean?” The team beckoned to her and she stalked over to them. “Lilia, what do you mean?”
“When it comes to Renee,” Lilia answered. “Aeron is capable of anything.”
“I’ll get them out.” Ursula ended the call as Ewan joined her.
“Break through,” he said. “It’s safe enough to climb it.”
“Everyone on the team follows me,” she said. “Make sure there are med kits handy.”
“Ma’am.”
Ursula checked her gun. She’d seen worse than Yannick. She’d worked for worse than him, but what he had done to Renee was beyond anything even her old life would have permitted. The guy needed to be wiped from existence.
Feeling a familiar jolt of cold anger snake its way up, she swallowed hard, steadying herself. She wasn’t that person anymore but if Lilia thought Aeron was the only one capable of anything when it came to Renee, she was wrong.
So was she.
Ursula put the armor-piercing rounds in her gun and loaded it. It wasn’t CIG protocol to shoot someone like Yannick. The last time, she had listened and watched him be incarcerated.
Look where it had gotten them.
No, this time, she wasn’t standing back and letting him walk away. This time she’d make sure he never hurt another person again. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too late for Renee.
Chapter 26
HAL TRIED TO fight the rising nausea as the room came back into focus. Somewhere nearby he could hear screams and gunfire. Had he left the TV on? When had he fallen asleep? Reaching out to fumble for the controls, he frowned when he felt something warm and gooey cover his hand. The bed was rock hard like he was on the floor. Wait . . .
The realization sent a jolt through him, which only caused the nausea to erupt and he retched. He heard a man laughing at him.
“Hal!” he heard Marie plead. “Hal, please get up . . . please.”
The man bellowed in another language.
Hal heard Marie scream and thud to the floor. He found his strength from somewhere deep and crawled over to her. Her cheek was bleeding and it shot rage into every part of his body. “You sick—”
The gun pointed at his head stopped him in his tracks.
More firing continued, the guy had two guns. How did he have two?
“Take the woman.” He sneered down at Hal. “Unlock the door . . . now.”
Hal fumbled for his keys, seeing the blood coating his fingers as he looked down. Panic hammered its way through him until he saw Brad Jewel’s lifeless body on the floor.
“Allez!”
Hal pulled Marie with him toward the front door, using the cover of the firing to whisper to her.
“At the back of the cells is another stairway . . . it’ll take you to the second floor,” he said, making a show of searching for the key. “There’s a fire exit . . .”
“I won’t leave you,” she said, gripping his face. “I won’t.”
Hal felt something warm fill him like he’d downed a shot of whiskey. He felt fuzzy. More gunshots snapped him out of the daze.
“You have to,” he said. “Marie . . . for me.”
“Allez, allez!”
Hal glared in the direction of the manic gunman. He recogn
ized him as the man that Aeron’s friend had shot but other than that, he had no idea why or what his deal was.
“Any longer and I shoot her!”
The threat sent a shudder down Hal’s spine and he jammed the key into the lock. The door swung open.
“Inside . . . maintenant!” The gunman shut the door behind them, pulled Marie into his grip, and held the gun to her head. “Activate the lockdown. Do it. Then take me to your prisoner.”
Hal snapped the door security bar in place and led them down the corridor, past the desk, and through the back offices to the cells. The man discarded a gun—his gun.
“In the cell.”
“Which one?”
The man laughed. “Her cell.”
Hal shivered at the sound of the intent in the man’s voice. He looked at the fire extinguisher on the wall—
“One move. I pull the trigger.”
Hal was shoved hard from behind and fell into the bars. His feet and legs felt unresponsive, feeble, he could just about focus. The stairs were too far away for Marie to run without risking the gunman shooting her. He opened the cell door and the gunman motioned for him and Marie to go inside the cell. The gunman stepped in after them.
Serena sat on the cot, staring straight ahead, not hearing, not seeing.
“Lock her to the bars.”
Hal took hold of Marie’s hands and, under the scrutiny of the gunman’s glare, he had no choice but to do as told. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll get you out, I swear it.”
The gunman laughed. “You will not be so lucky.”
He motioned with the gun for Hal to go to the opposite side of the cell next to the washbasin.
“Move and I shoot her.”
“You sound like you’ll do that anyway.”
The gunman smiled. “Ah, but you will have to watch her bleed.”
He pulled the trigger.
Hal felt his left ankle explode in agony. He toppled onto the floor as the tears blurred his vision. The pain and pressure inside his pounding head made him retch again. Marie was screaming but the room faded in and out until he registered the metal bedpost hitting his chin as the room went black.