The ninja stood there, his jaw slack from the break, his face screwed into a grimace, and his aim shaky due to the pain he was in. Before she could dive to protect herself, Jones lunged after him again. The guy saw Jones coming and shifted his aim. Quinn dove for the enemy’s hand, hoping to thwart his aim, knowing if she could just do that, they could turn the tables and nail this guy.
But it was too late. The weapon fired and hit Jones in the gut, and down he went.
Alarm tore through Quinn at the sight of Jones crashing to the floor, and she did the one thing that would offer her only chance. She slammed her fist into the ninja’s jaw once more, feeling it snap and dislodge completely. He cried out, falling to his knees, and Quinn snatched the weapon from his hand and aimed it at him, hitting him square in the chest.
The ninja tumbled to the rug, joining his buddy, his eyes open and staring into nothing. She aimed the weapon at his partner next and pressed the trigger, ensuring he too never got up again. And for a fraction of a second, Quinn realized that the weapon didn’t feel right. It wasn’t hers.
Her breathing shallow and her throat dry, Quinn searched for the second data device, barely able to see with her mind racing in every direction. It was still in the ninja’s hand. She stuffed it into her pocket and zipped it closed again.
She whipped around, running over to Jones and kneeling next to him. He lay on his back, his face twisted into a scowl of pain and his forehead slick with sweat. He was breathing rapidly. She grabbed a couple of Linden’s button-down shirts from the closet, pressing one against the seeping wound. She took the other and wrapped it around Jones’s middle, tying it off.
“The data,” Jones gasped.
“I have the data. Let’s get out of here!”
He shook his head. “No. Go without me!”
Quinn got angry at the obstinance that had caused them so many kerfuffles in the past. Then she heard it. The reason for his arguing.
The buzz. A proximity alert, and a rapid one.
The cops were coming.
Chapter 37
No. No!
Quinn didn’t know why her mind went the way it did. She only knew that there was no way she was leaving Jones there.
She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out an injector, aiming right for Jones’s neck. Epinephrine and cortisol, enough to get them out of there. Then she spotted her weapon lying nearby, behind the bed. She picked it up and stowed it away.
“That was a shot of life, you stubborn bastard,” she said to Jones. “Let’s go!”
She kneeled down and helped Jones up, him grimacing again at the pain. He glanced at the detector… the cops were still a few blocks away. They could make it… but only if they took the elevator.
They bolted from the house, leaving the door ajar as they found the elevator. Quinn gritted her teeth as they endured the endless wait for the elevator to make it to the seventy-sixth floor. When it did, Jones slumped against the corner, conserving his energy, knowing he would need another burst of it soon. Both looked down, not letting the camera see their faces.
She checked the detector. The cops were less than two blocks away.
The elevator made its way down, Quinn watching its progress, painfully slow even at that hour when no one else got on. It was too slow. By the time they reached the lobby, the cops would be waiting for them.
Then Quinn had an idea. She pressed the button for the tenth floor, plus all those beneath it. When they finally arrived at the tenth floor, they stepped out and Quinn pressed the call buttons for the other elevators as well. Then, she led Jones into the stairwell and they tumbled down the stairs, round and round until they got close to the bottom. She checked the detector.
The cops were there. They’d arrived out front, and a second car was circling around the north side of the block, preparing to pull into the alley. The cops were trying to surround them and cut off their exit. Jones had added a new descrambler to his detector, which meant it was accurate.
“We got this,” Jones breathed. “Alley.”
Quinn nodded in agreement and they sped down the last steps, Jones grunting the entire way, his breathing labored from his injury, the injection only partly masking his intense pain. At the southeast exit, Quinn peeked outside to ensure they were safe.
It was clear.
Out they went into the hot night, both running and Jones stumbling behind her, his breathing even more labored now.
Just a little farther. Just to the end of the alley, then left, cross the street, then into the next alley. With the detector, we can stay ahead of them!
Suddenly, Quinn heard shuffling and then a thud, following by a groan. Jones had tripped and fallen down. The injection was wearing off. That was the thing about the injection… it only worked short term. She kneeled down by Jones’s side and put his arm around her, feeling his sweat and his hot breath on her.
“Come on, just a little farther,” she coaxed and Jones clung to her, leaning on her as they ran, Quinn feeling the weight of him and struggling to keep them moving forward.
Just a little farther.
When they were a few feet from the end of the alley, Quinn felt her hope rise. Once out, they were no longer trapped, and the chances of the cops nailing them plummeted considerably, especially if she brandished her weapon. They stumbled toward their freedom.
Then, out of nowhere, someone appeared from around the corner of the glass building. A man, wearing slacks, a t-shirt, and a cap. Quinn knew immediately he was jacker police.
And a clever one. He’d known they had a proximity detector, predicted that they’d avoid the circling police cars, and had risked leaving his protective unit in order to hunt them down on foot from another direction.
The cop aimed his police-issue firearm at her. But Quinn, anticipating him, had already raised her own weapon, superior to his and gleaming under the moonlight. Just as she went to press the trigger, to exploit her millisecond of advantage and aim for his weapon hand to disarm him, she froze.
It was Noah.
The dim alley light shone upon Noah’s face. His eyes were focused, his jaw set.
Quinn stood perfectly still, Jones’s weight heavy on her.
Noah pointed his firearm at her with the cool conviction of someone who knew he had the advantage. His expression momentarily shifted to surprise when he spotted her weapon, but he didn’t look intimidated by the show of force. Then his gaze moved to her face, and his all-seeing brown eyes met hers. His eyes widened and his determined veneer melted, shifting from confusion, to realization, and then to horror.
And Quinn felt it. She felt his shock, and she felt his pain.
Noah had expected a jacker, but he hadn’t expected her.
He blinked a couple of times, as if his mind was reassuring itself that it saw what it saw. Quinn stared too, her own beliefs rearranging themselves to some new reality she couldn’t fathom.
And there they stood, facing one another, each aiming their deadly weapon at the other in some kind of emotionally turmoiled standoff, neither able to act. They stood for what seemed like forever, Quinn unable to look away from him, unable to act now that she knew the truth.
Noah hadn’t known about her.
Finally, Quinn ran through her options. Each was more terrible than the last. She’d been dimed by a cop, and everything she’d worked for was about to dissolve into desert dust. But gravely injuring or killing a cop wasn’t an option under most circumstances, and there was no way she could harm Noah.
That left only one option. She needed to disable Noah’s weapon and aim for his lower extremities, enough to make it difficult for him to pursue but not enough to do any real damage. Then, they’d make a run for it. Noah would be fine, and she could deliver the data, giving her a slim chance that the Protectorate might reward her fortitude and offer her help with getting out of El Diablo. Then, she could start over somewhere else.
She knew she needed to take that option. But her finger wouldn’t move.
Noah’s gaze remained locked with hers, his eyes dark and glowering now, their expression a mix of turbulent emotions that seemed to intensify as his jaw pulsed with tension. And in that moment, she believed—felt in her bones—that he was going to press that trigger and end her.
He had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Noah’s hand twitched and Quinn flinched, waiting for it, for the sound, followed by the pain. Followed by nothingness.
But it never came. Noah lowered his weapon.
Quinn remained where she was, frozen in place, her finger on her trigger and Jones flagging next to her. Noah stood there, his expression now unreadable, his eyes still afire. She lowered her weapon as well, stuffing it in her pocket and holding on to Jones as tightly as she could as she dragged him away, out of the alley and onto the streets.
And she never looked back.
Chapter 38
Jones’s weight was heavy on Quinn as they labored through the streets, his solid body hot against hers, sweat pouring from both of them.
“Who was that?” he mumbled, sounding mostly incoherent.
“It’s okay,” she said, her eyes everywhere, searching for a taxi, ignoring Jones’s question. Right now, she had more pressing issues to deal with. Like finding transport and getting the hell out of there. But there was none to be found, not that late, not in that part of town. “Hang on, Jones. We’re gonna get you to a doctor.”
“Cops. Cops saw us…”
“We’ll be okay. Just hang on.”
Then, she saw it. A little white car. She put her fingers to her teeth and whistled as loud as she could. The taxi’s brake lights went on.
She tried to move forward, but Jones’s weight was near dead now, heavier than ever. She gave him a hard slap on his bloodied face. “Stay with me. We’ve got a taxi.”
The driver got out of the car and stood there, watching her lug Jones his way.
“For fuck’s sake!” she shouted. “Help me, will you? He’s injured.”
The driver scowled and came to help her with Jones. When he spotted the blood seeping through the shirt she’d tied around Jones’s middle, he balked. “He’s gonna get blood on my car. No fucken way.”
Quinn gritted her teeth. Fucking Uptown taxi drivers. “If you leave us here and he dies, I’ll fucking come find you. I’ve already memorized your union ID.”
She didn’t want to pull out her energy weapon. But she would. She’d aim that thing right at his goddamned head if she had to.
The driver cursed and helped her get Jones into the car. Jones had collapsed completely, his body no longer able to cope. In the back seat, as they drove, Quinn stripped Jones of all his equipment and belongings, disturbed at his weakened state. Suddenly, Quinn desperately missed thuggish Jones, who was vital and strong and would never tolerate her rooting through his pockets or even getting close enough to consider it. Now, he was badly injured, and only moments from complete collapse.
Soon, they arrived at Midtown General Hospital. Quinn tossed some money at the driver for the ride, including extra for cleaning, and whistled to the hospital workers to come help her with Jones.
They rushed over, laid him on a stretcher, and rolled him away.
The administrator approached Quinn to ask the inevitable questions about insurance. She looked Quinn up and down, seeing her bloodied condition.
“You need treatment?” she asked.
“No.”
The administrator said nothing more about it. Quinn gave her a dummy name for Jones, along with his insurance information. They’d memorized each other’s info just in case. The dummy name wouldn’t work for long, but maybe it would delay the cops, who would surely comb the hospitals looking for a man who’d been shot by an energy weapon.
After the administrator left, Quinn stood there for a moment. She wanted to stay, more than anything, as if doing so would somehow save his life or prevent the police from hunting him down. But she couldn’t.
She turned and ran.
Quinn sat in an alley, alone. Everything hurt.
Her head hurt and her body ached from yet another beating from someone stronger than her. She was so thirsty that her throat was scratchy and she craved water like she hadn’t since three summers ago, when the temperatures hit the high 130s and El Diablo faced severe water rationing. She imagined the cool, clear water… down her gullet, on her face, splashed all over her.
Instead, she was covered in sweat, sticky and salty and hot. The ninja’s energy weapon had burned straight through her jacket and shirt, right to her skin. Her jacket was ruined, and the wound burned like El Diablo himself, even hotter and more painful now that the rest of her adrenaline had worn off. Fortunately, the wound didn’t run deep. Super Ninja had missed his shot.
But her injuries were only the beginning of her pain.
She kept looking around, one way and then the other, expecting Noah or another cop or even some thug to appear. But she was a long way from Linden’s house. The cops had no real chance of finding her, and while a few late-night drunks wandered the streets, there were no thugs here. She was in Midtown, not far from the botanic gardens, where alleys were safer, where at worst you’d encounter some Midtown couple looking for an alleyway frolic to spice up their Midtown sex life, or a group of bored teens looking to smoke some weed without the cops busting them for being under the legal age.
Now that she was far from the hospital and could engage a secure net, she sent the raw data—all of it, including whatever the ninjas had thieved from her—to the Protectorate. She included a message detailing in shorthand what went down, including the men in black and the narrow escape.
She didn’t mention Noah or their standoff. She didn’t want anything to interfere with the possibility that the Protectorate would help her. She didn’t like hiding the truth, but at that point she felt no loyalty to an organization who’d put her and Jones in that situation, who’d exposed them to an enemy they’d never been trained to handle, who’d basically ensured Jones’s death and her permanent banishment.
After sending the information, she sat there, the events of that evening playing through her mind, haunting her, nagging her with the brutal truth.
It was over. The game was finally over.
And she’d lost. So had Jones.
Who the hell were those men? What were they doing there? What was Linden really up to? And why didn’t the Protectorate warn them about these highly-trained mind thieves or offer training to defeat them? Did they do this to her and Jones on purpose? She would never know.
She needed to leave the city. And soon.
She couldn’t go back to her place, or her dad’s place. Now they would be watching both locations, possibly even staking them out, waiting for her return. Once a jacker cop got a whiff of a mindjacker’s scent, he would never cease following it until he made an arrest.
And Noah.
He hadn’t known. The dates, the botanic gardens, the art, the phone call wanting an explanation for her dropping him… it was all genuine. She didn’t know how that was possible, but his face had said it all.
Why did he spare her? She didn’t know that either. Nothing made sense.
But she knew one thing: it was only a matter of time before Noah hunted her down. At the very least, he would want answers. But Quinn knew deep down that Noah would want far more than that, that his temporary moment of weakness would gnaw at him, that he would find a way to lean on her, to make her pay for her lawlessness and her betrayal.
He would need to win.
But he’d given her one chance, a chance to leave town, to get out of El Diablo and out of his life for good.
She didn’t want to leave. El Diablo, the blazing, fucked-up inferno that it was, was her town. She was a native, born and raised. But
she had nothing now—no friends, no partner, no job, no money. No choice.
Quinn sat there, everything aching, her body yearning for water, emptiness filling every part of her as fatigue set in. For the moment, she would rest. She would stay put for a few hours, knowing she was safer in that Midtown alley than most anywhere else, at least for the moment.
Then, after a little rest, she would go.
Chapter 39
Quinn started awake. She looked around groggily; it was light out, but the light was soft, like the sun was just rising. She was still in the Midtown alley.
Her body felt stiffer than ever, and her wounded arm ached and oozed, like it had for however long she’d been there, haunting her disturbed dreams.
A beep sounded. She realized she’d heard it before, that it was what had roused her from sleep. She searched herself again, confused, until she found her phone.
Yolanda.
“Hello?” she said.
“Quinn.”
“Yolanda,” Quinn said drily, her voice rough from her thirst.
“Where are you?”
“Midtown.”
“You need to get to Coyote. Now.”
Quinn shut her eyes for a moment. The Protectorate had a safe house in Coyote, one she’d never seen, one only used in emergencies. That wasn’t good. “Why?”
“Just get there.”
Quinn sighed. This was it. Her grilling, then her getting axed. But it was also an opportunity to beg for help. “I’m on my way.”
“And Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
“Take a taxi.” She hung up.
Quinn sat there, puzzled. A taxi? A taxi all the way to the safe house? That would cost her a fortune. She wanted to believe Yolanda was concerned for her safety, but that couldn’t be it. Yolanda and those assholes wouldn’t have sent them into a death trap if they cared about safety. No, they knew the cops had shown and were looking for Quinn. That was bad for the Protectorate.
Mindjacker Page 19
