by C. J. Lyons
Devon waved me to wait behind the rocks at the cavern’s entrance while he scouted inside. He unpacked his pistol and cell phone in its waterproof case from the dry bag, slipped free of his fins, and silently waded through the tidal pool into the grotto. I watched anxiously, barely able to make out the deeper dark of the entrance from the shadows of the rock face surrounding it.
A sudden explosion followed by a series of booms startled me. The sky above me lit up—fireworks from the barge Devon had hired. Midnight. Ryder’s diversion, right on schedule.
“Angela,” Devon whispered urgently. “Come on.”
The light from the fireworks helped me to see him. I waded through the water to join him. He reached a hand and helped me to step free from the pool onto the stone ledge where the old glass furnaces stood. Two bodies were crumpled against the wall of the nearest furnace, their blood dark against the stone. They weren’t guards—at least not from the group I’d seen earlier—but they both had machine pistols.
“Francesca must have brought in reinforcements,” I told Devon.
“More likely Tyrone. So much for the element of surprise.”
I wished we could let Ryder know, but we’d decided against using radios or phones—Ryder hadn’t been able to get encrypted, secure ones on such short notice, and given the Lazarettos’ resources, he wasn’t sure that even military equipment wouldn’t be compromised. But, if everything went according to plan, we wouldn’t need them.
Devon and I skirted the shadows, leaving the grotto by way of the ancient staircase carved into the island’s bedrock. At the top, I waited while he used the security override on Tommaso’s phone to cut the security cameras in the corridor leading to the courtyard. As soon as we reached the next safe area to take cover, he turned them back on, hopefully before anyone noticed the lapse.
“The civilians are all on the top floor, watching the fireworks,” he whispered as he scrolled through the camera feeds on his phone. “We’re clear down here.”
We jogged down the hall, the only trace of our passing our wet footsteps. When we reached the courtyard entrance, we waited in the shadows behind the columns. Now it was up to Ryder.
Chapter 51
RYDER BRACED HIMSELF against an algae-slicked piling as he shrugged free of his dive tank and regulator. The fireworks made for an even better distraction than he’d anticipated.
He swung up to look over the edge of the dock. The nearest guards were the two sentries just inside the gate, both with their necks craned to watch the fireworks instead of the water. Perfect.
Bobbing back down, he skirted the dock along with the motorboat docked there and swam to the seawall, using its irregular surface and the high tide to buoy him so that he could reach the far inside corner of the concrete pier. Shaking off the water, he pushed his back against the wall, and weapon ready, he sidled until the gate was immediately to his right, the guards just beyond. He didn’t need to get inside the gate that protected the compound. All he needed was to get their attention as well as the attention of the guards across the courtyard at the lab.
Which meant no suppressor on his MP5. With one final glance at his watch, right on schedule, he envisioned the position of the guard farthest from him—the one who would have a line of sight on Ryder first. Then he swung free of the shadows and opened fire.
<<<>>>
RYDER’S ATTACK DREW the guards from the lab. Two ran out right away. Devon held me back as two more joined in the battle. When the coast was clear, we ran across the courtyard. I couldn’t stop thinking of Ryder, outnumbered six to one.
Even more infuriating was knowing that he’d laugh at the odds. Men.
Tommaso’s phone got us through the main doors. I led the way to the containment lab.
“You need to wait here,” I told him at the heavy glass door. “I’m immune, you aren’t.”
He nodded and unlocked the door for me. I sprinted to the inner lab pod, cycling through another set of doors until I reached the freezer holding the prions. The plan was for me to remove the prions from the freezer so that they’d be directly exposed to the caustic lye sprinklers. Then Devon would activate the fail-safe to trigger them.
I yanked on the freezer door. Nothing. Then I noticed the biometric security pad beside it. Damn it. I waved to Devon to join me. To his credit, despite his lack of immunity, he didn’t hesitate.
“I need your thumbprint,” I told him, gesturing to the pad.
Before he could unlock the freezer, two guards entered the containment lab from the far end of the room, looking around. I ducked down behind the waist-high freezer, pulling Devon with me. We had a few seconds before they’d move to where they could spot us.
Devon reached a cautious hand up to place his thumb on the biometric lock. The click of the freezer opening sounded louder than the fireworks outside.
“Alto!” a man shouted.
“Hurry,” Devon told me as he popped up to fire on the guards.
“I’m trying.” Gingerly, I scooped racks of glass vials into my arms. They rattled together, the glass making a tinkling noise, and I froze, trying to steady my hands.
“Angela!”
A third guard had entered from behind us, attempting to sneak up on us. Glass flew around me as he shot through the pod’s glass walls.
Devon launched his body to cover mine. We collided into a lab bench, broken glass scattering in our wake. He rolled me to the ground and shoved me beneath the steel bench as bullets pinged the metal surface.
All I could see was his back as I cringed against the sound of bullets ricocheting off of metal. How did people ever get used to this?
“Don’t they care about unleashing the prions?” he shouted as he returned fire. The guard who tried to ambush us from behind slumped to the floor, motionless.
“They’re immune.”
Over his shoulder, I saw one of the first two men fall. The other cried out in pain. Devon kept shooting until the last man also dropped. Finally, Devon turned to me, giving me room to crawl free. His face was bleeding, and there were slivers of glass caught in the flesh of his scalp, arms, and hands, piercing the fabric of his wet suit.
“Devon,” I exclaimed in dismay as I realized where the shards had originated. When he’d tackled me, he’d landed on top of the prion specimens. I plucked two glass splinters free from his arm before he shook me off.
“Yeah. Guess there’s no immunity for friends of the family?”
All I could do was shake my head. “The treatment might work—”
“Go. Get out of here before more of them come.” He replaced the magazine in his pistol.
“What about the prions?” I couldn’t see a single intact container in view. The prions had been dispersed all over the lab. Not just mine, but the far more deadly ones from Francesca’s earlier experiments. Now we had no choice but to use the caustic lye. But how to decontaminate Devon?
He stood and pulled me to my feet. “The self-destruct will take care of them. Just like it did at Tommaso’s lab back home.”
Hard to believe that was only a few nights ago. We made it to the thick glass door leading into the main corridor. He pulled it open for me, ever the gallant. As I passed through it, I spotted movement back the way the guards had come from, across the lab. “Look out!”
Devon shoved me through the door and whirled, leaning his back against the door, closing it. Shots rang out. I saw his body shudder, knew he was hit. I tried to open the door to get to him, but his weight pushed against it as he fired at the new threat: another guard.
“Lock it down,” he called as he reloaded.
“No. Not with you inside.” A bullet smashed against the glass. A star-shaped crack formed across its surface. Then another one. Devon dropped down, his back against the door. A smear of blood followed his movement. “Devon, come on. Get out of there.”
I tried to push the door open, but his weight was still against it. The bullets kept coming, but he wasn’t returning fire.
; “Let me in,” I shouted. “You need help.”
He turned to face me, his expression grim. Now I saw what he was doing instead of firing back; he’d been dialing Francesca’s code into the security app, the one that communicated with the fail-safe mechanism. I threw all my weight against the door, but he’d already locked it.
“Devon, no!” I cried, pressing my palm against the glass, pleading with him. “It’s not too late. You don’t have to do this.”
“If I open that door, he could get out and spread the prions. Or, God forbid, now that they’re in me, I could. I couldn’t face that. I won’t.”
He pressed another button on the phone then reached up to place his thumb against the security pad. “Tell Esme—” Thick yellow liquid sprayed from above. “Hell, don’t tell her anything. She’s better off not knowing.”
“Devon—” I was sobbing now as the caustic lye rained down, bringing with it clouds of destruction. His phone fell to the ground.
He shuddered in pain, a gasp escaping him. “Don’t watch, Angela. Please, go—”
His wet suit smoldered where the lye ate away at the fabric. He covered his face, already red, the flesh slipping down in awful ribbons of blood, and turned his back to me.
“Devon,” I choked on his name.
He raised his arm. A final gunshot impacted the glass, bringing with it blood mixed with brain tissue and bone.
I couldn’t help it, I banged on the door, tears clouding my vision as much as the yellow haze of smoke filling the room beyond the glass. So typical. Leaving this world on his own terms. He’d died to save me, to save us all.
A man’s hand grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet. Tyrone. He circled his arm around my shoulder, jabbed a pistol to my neck.
“You’re going to answer for this.”
I struggled with him, not wanting to leave Devon. My mind was clouded with emotions, and that final gunshot kept playing over and over. I spun toward Tyrone and slapped him as hard as I could.
It was stupid. Not an act of aggression—if I’d wanted to do serious harm, there were plenty of other places I could have hit him more effectively. At that moment, I simply needed to give voice to my rage, to my sorrow. If I’d still had the hand grenade from our fight in the tunnels a few nights ago, I surely would have used it instead.
I would have gone out on my own terms, finishing this once and for all. Like Devon had.
My slap barely rocked Tyrone. He actually laughed at me, then struck me backhanded, sending me reeling into the opposite wall.
We hadn’t defeated Francesca, not while she still had access to one more source of a transmissible prion mutation: me.
Tyrone grabbed me, twisting my arm back and up until a yelp of pain escaped me as he dragged me down the hall to the stairs to the courtyard.
“Mother wants you alive,” Tyrone muttered into my ear over the clatter of equipment falling and melting in the lab beside us. “But she doesn’t need you alive. She can finish her work by harvesting DNA from your corpse.”
I couldn’t help my fear. Had Devon’s sacrifice been in vain? It should have been me inside that lab with him. Then everyone else would be safe, the prions destroyed—including the ones inside me. Now I had to find another way. My fingers brushed against Ryder’s pendant. I could do this. I had to.
I was out of choices, and the world was running out of time.
Chapter 52
THE NICE THING about providing a diversion was that Ryder didn’t have to worry too much about his aim, although the professional in him still kept score as he downed the first guard at the gate. This job was about attracting attention to bring the enemy to him and away from Rossi and Price.
Once several more guards had arrived, he ducked back against the seawall, giving them no line of sight. Didn’t stop them from shooting, which was fine by him. He reached into his dry bag for his flashbang grenades and lobbed two over the wall above him.
He’d also brought a few real grenades, just in case Price and Rossi failed and it came down to him to take care of the lab. No way in hell was anyone else going through what the Lazarettos had subjected Rossi and those kids to. Period.
He counted to four, the flashbangs went off, and he spun back to aim through the wrought-iron gates at the disoriented men on the other side. Three more down—wounded was better than dead because it took manpower to help them to safety. At least that’s how it’d worked in every other battle Ryder had been in. But not here.
The Lazarettos ignored their fallen comrades, despite the fact that Rossi had said everyone here was family. They simply stepped over them and kept shooting. Ryder wished he’d gone for kill shots.
Despite Price’s fancy tech, an alarm must have sounded at the lab, because two more men separated from the eight that Ryder had engaged and ran inside. He brought the enemy’s numbers down to three—a feat easier than it sounded given that he had superior cover and the gate they defended limited their line of fire.
A mechanical whine made it through the booming in his ears as the gates opened. He cautiously edged forward around the wall, just enough to take a look to see what they had planned.
A woman stood in the center of the courtyard, totally exposed and totally unconcerned. She was taller than Rossi but with the same dark hair and regal cheekbones. This had to be Francesca Lazaretto.
She was unarmed and Rossi’s mother, but still, Ryder raised his weapon, taking aim.
She beckoned to someone nearby. Tyrone Lazaretto dragged Rossi into view, holding her as a human shield.
“Game’s over, Detective Ryder,” he called out. “You lose. Again.”
<<<>>>
I TUGGED AGAINST Tyrone’s arm around my neck, enough to breathe and find my voice. “We did it,” I shouted to Ryder, knowing he’d get the message. “We destroyed the lab.”
Only the muzzle of his gun and a sliver of his face was visible from behind the stone pillar that anchored the gate into the seawall. He nodded his understanding, his expression grim.
We’d talked about this, that no matter what happened, the Lazarettos could not take me alive again. He raised his gun, aiming at me and Tyrone. But then, suddenly, Ryder froze. His face twisted in a look of anguish.
He stepped forward, his hands raised, his gun hanging uselessly across his chest. Another step and I could see the man behind him holding a pistol to Ryder’s back. Two more men stepped inside the courtyard, one on either side of Ryder, followed by a fourth man. He carried no weapons and was dressed in an elegant designer suit. His black hair was slicked back, the fireworks overhead making it glisten with light.
“Marco,” Francesca spat out her brother’s name.
“Francesca.” He gave her a nod. “I knew that if I forced a deadline on you, you’d finally reveal your hand. Hand the Vessel over to me. Now.”
Tyrone tensed behind me and I realized that Ryder wasn’t looking at me, but instead had made eye contact with him. Suddenly, Ryder dropped to the ground, kicking the legs out from the man behind him. Ryder came up shooting, taking out that man and the next closest one, while Tyrone finished off the third.
Marco appeared shocked. He turned back toward the dock where the rest of his men still waited. Tyrone let me go and trained his weapon on Marco, who froze. Ryder darted through the gates. More gunfire followed.
Marco flinched and stared at Tyrone, his mouth opening as if ready to bargain his way out of this. Before he could say anything, another shot sounded. Not from Tyrone. It was Francesca who fired.
I jumped, startled. Marco blew out his breath as if sighing, then fell to his knees. I ran toward him. He’d been shot in the left chest—almost directly over the heart.
“Stop,” Francesca ordered me, her voice slicing through the sound of the fireworks overhead and the residual echo of gunfire. I ignored her, dropping to Marco’s side. I reached out a hand to touch him, but Tyrone yanked me away and back onto my feet.
Francesca marched over to me, frowning at Tyrone as if disappointe
d in his inability to kill Ryder when he had the chance, and grabbed me. She held a small pistol to the back of my neck.
“Lower your weapons,” she called out as she prodded me forward, toward the dock. All I could hope was that Ryder was the one left standing on the dock and not Marco’s men. Tyrone took up position on one side of the gate, covering us as we crossed through it.
Ryder stood alone on the dock, the bodies of two more men at his feet. His eyes narrowed when he saw us, and I knew he wanted to shoot Tyrone.
“Put the gun down,” Francesca commanded. “Now.”
I shook my head at Ryder, despite Francesca digging the pistol into my spine. I wanted him to shoot me, dive into the sea, and swim to safety. He frowned in silent argument, unslung the machine gun, and set it on the ground.
He must have a plan, I told myself. Ryder would never give up. And he’d promised me that he’d never let Francesca use me to hurt anyone else. Last resort, he’d said. He’d do it, if it was the last resort.
“Very good.” Francesca kept me moving.
I purposely chose a path that placed us between Tyrone and Ryder, hoping it would give Ryder time to make a move and keep Tyrone from shooting him.
Tyrone, of course, did not cooperate, joining his mother and me as we passed through the open gate and onto the dock. Now Ryder no longer had the cover of the wall for protection.
“Shoot him,” Francesca ordered, shoving me toward the boat bobbing in the water.
“With pleasure, Mother.”
I threw an elbow at Tyrone, but Ryder was already moving. He lunged at Tyrone, knocking him to the ground while I struggled to free myself from Francesca. She could have shot me, but she didn’t. Instead, she slammed the pistol against the side of my head.
Reeling, I stumbled toward the edge of the dock. Fireworks boomed above us, competing with the ringing in my ears and the stars that exploded through my vision as I tried to shake my head clear again.
Francesca grabbed my arm, trying to haul me with her to the boat tied up at the dock. I pulled back, hard, lost my balance, and fell against the edge of the jetty, pain lancing through my arm as it hit the concrete.
