Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  His head lowered. Crimson edged the material. Slowly, as she forced her stomach to settle, as she breathed in deeply and let it out in a slow, calming exhale, her limbs unfroze.

  “I’m going to get you a towel,” she said, summoning every ounce of brisk practicality she could. She slid off the bed, balanced herself with a hand on his shoulder.

  His skin seared her palm. Too hot.

  “God, Simon—”

  His shoulder pulled away; he didn’t look at her. “Just get me a towel,” he muttered.

  Hurt needled at her.

  So did relief.

  Parker hurried to the bathroom, paused only long enough to retrieve her jeans. She found her bra tangled with her shirt, balled them together and stepped into the fragile sanctuary of the bathroom.

  With shaking hands, she ran water over a hand towel and carefully, determinedly wiped the blood off her shoulder. She didn’t throw up.

  Maybe she was getting a handle on this after all.

  She dressed fast. Avoided looking at herself in the mirror, sure she’d see what she always did—a woman claiming to be the boss of soldiers, of men and woman who bled every day, shaking in her skin at the sight of it.

  She was still standing. And right now, she was all Simon had.

  Swiping a soft, lush blue towel from the rack affixed to the wall, Parker fled before she met her own eyes in the mirror.

  Simon hadn’t moved. Head bowed, the sheet draped over his lap, he held the edge to his nose and didn’t even open his eyes as she pushed the towel into his hands. “Here.”

  He caught her hand. The hem of the sheet slipped to his lap. “Parker.”

  Blood coated his upper lip, patterned over his chin.

  She winced. “Just—”

  He didn’t let her finish. His grip tightened, but to her relief, he brought the towel back to his face. Held it there, his eyes searching hers over it. Fierce, intensity trapped in a yellow-green haze. “Mattie had a formula,” he said, but too thickly. As if through a long tunnel. “She called it the Eve sequence.”

  Parker caught his shoulders as he swayed. Broke his grip without even trying. “Is that what you need?” His eyes closed. “Simon, what’s the Eve sequence?”

  “Maybe nothing,” he muttered. “Maybe . . . it’s too late. She made . . . us. Made us like this. Degeneration.”

  As his weight dragged at her, it was all she could do to guide his slow descent back to the mattress. He crumpled, his head missed the pillow, but at least he didn’t slump forward onto the floor. Heart racing, she tucked two fingers at his neck.

  His eyes, though closed, crinkled into a weary smile. “Not dead yet,” he murmured from behind the cloth.

  Where did this come from? A nosebleed? His fever?

  How could this be genetic? What did it mean?

  Damn it, why hadn’t she paid more attention in her science studies?

  “Simon,” she said urgently. She knelt over him, pushed his hair back from his forehead. “You’re sick, Simon, we have to get you to a doctor.” And she needed to get home.

  To hell with the odds.

  “S’okay.” He wouldn’t open his eyes. “Just need rest. Got a headache.”

  Another headache?

  Parker bit her bottom lip.

  Maybe he’d sleep some more. His skin looked sallow, yellow-tinted under his darker coloring. Although sweaty, hot to the touch, he seemed to breathe all right—not counting the constant swallowing he had to maintain to keep the blood from drowning him.

  The mere thought sent chills up her spine.

  “You need that syringe, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay.” She couldn’t stop herself from pulling the blankets up higher, tucked them around his broad chest.

  “Rest.”

  He cracked open a bleary eye. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  There was the Simon she knew. “Count on it.”

  His eyebrows knotted. “Afraid of that.”

  But maybe he trusted her anyway, because his eye closed again, and he said nothing else.

  Parker eased off the bed as quietly as she could and dragged shaking hands down her thighs. As if she could scrape away the memory of his blood.

  Of his skin, hot against her palms. Smooth and ridged and—

  She shuddered.

  Degeneration, he’d said. Breakdown. Was every Salem Project subject suffering this? Every witch Lauderdale created?

  The horror of it bottled in her chest, locked behind an iron cage of anger.

  Simon couldn’t go like that. While he slept, she’d get a bead on current events. Figure out how to get in touch with her agents.

  Figure out which agents to trust.

  Was he right? Were half her operatives turned already?

  Were her team leads dead? Worse?

  Parker hated not knowing. She was the Mission director. They were her responsibility. And with Simon’s comm, she’d be able to contact someone, anyone. Jonas?

  With his help, she could get back home. Slip any electronic surveillance, collect the syringe in her safe and get back here before Simon even woke.

  She bent, picked up Simon’s jeans as silently as she could, and padded out of the bedroom. Unclipping his comm, she draped his pants over the back of a chair and flipped it open with a flick of her thumb. The screen warmed up quickly.

  And with it, a list. A familiar list.

  She scrolled through it, first in curiosity. Then, the clean anger of righteous indignation flipped. Fury licked at her.

  Name after name. The previous five she knew well enough to recognize on sight—victims to Operation Domino. Each checked off like a shopping list.

  “What the hell is this?” she whispered, but she knew.

  The list scrolled on.

  J. Fisher.

  One of hers. A missionary, assigned to Eckhart’s team. Partnered with Agent Miles in the mid-lows. She’d never met him, but she knew her roster.

  Found dead yesterday.

  P. Adams.

  Simon had already warned her about that one. But as she scrolled through the plain text list, fear seized her heart. Fear, and fury.

  A. Williams.

  D. Smith.

  Missionaries, both of them. One topside, a new analyst from the orphanage training. Drew Smith had just finished training before Peterson was exposed. He was a fine man, a good agent. She’d handpicked him herself.

  Her knuckles whitened.

  Pain shot through her chest, a vise squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  J. Stone.

  Were her people nothing more than expendable pawns in Lauderdale’s sick game?

  A. Silo.

  Her eyes burned. Her throat ached with it, but she gritted her teeth. Forced back the knot of anger before it exploded from her chest in a scream of rage.

  That wouldn’t do anything.

  Except expose precisely what she’d turned her back on.

  Her best tech, up to his neck in classified information, and Silo, one of her few friends in the Mission. She’d gone to the same orphanage with her. Now she appeared on a hit list. With her.

  Because of her.

  She flipped open the screen, dialed Jonas’s frequency with shaking fingers.

  The line thrummed, that toneless note that told her he wasn’t picking up. She disconnected, tried once more.

  Nothing.

  Parker lowered the comm, eyes leveled sightlessly on the empty fireplace beside her. Her mind worked, burned through plan after plan until the only thing she could do became clear.

  She’d known about her chances. Simon—to his credit at least a little—had made it clear. She’d accepted it. Accepted it only inasmuch as she intended to tear the roof down around Lauderdale’s smug head.

  But he hadn’t told her about her people. Jonas, Silo, Williams—agents she trusted. Who trusted her. He’d hidden her away from the real battle, hoping . . . what? That she’d forget about the missionaries?
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  That she’d never find the list of people she knew—knew without a shadow of a doubt—were still hers. There was no mistaking it.

  She’d always known he was a double agent, but he’d been sitting on a hit list of Parker’s best and never so much as breathed a word.

  Setting her jaw, Parker forced her shoulders to straighten. Locked her knees, spine rigid, and blew out a hard breath. She knew what she had to do.

  She couldn’t take the time to feel sick about it.

  Grimly, Parker scraped her forearm across her face, then jumped as the comm pulsed in her hand.

  Her grip tightened. Her heart rate spiked, and as adrenaline flooded her system, Parker didn’t even look at the number. The comm clicked softly as she accepted the call.

  “Wells, where are you?”

  Black rage licked at the last fringes of her fraying control as Kayleigh Lauderdale’s voice snapped through the unit.

  “You haven’t reported in.” Her voice hardened. “You need to come in, Simon. I don’t like the implications of this—”

  “Hello, Dr. Lauderdale.”

  Silence filled the line. Tense, weighty. Then, quietly, “Director Adams. I understand there’s a warrant for your arrest.”

  Parker chuckled. The sound grated, even through her own ears. “You’d know.” Ice replaced grim humor as she added, “So your father has finally tipped his hand, hasn’t he?”

  “Director, you need to come in—”

  Parker’s fingers spasmed against the case. “Don’t you start with me. You’ve been killing my people, you bitch.”

  Kayleigh’s voice rose an octave. “It’s not murder, they’re subjects.”

  “They’re mine.” Parker raised the comm, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper. “You made a mistake, Doctor.”

  “I’ve made a lot.” The raw honesty of the reply kicked Parker in the chest.

  Her fingers tightened. “I have something you want.”

  The doctor gasped. “What? What did you do to Simon?”

  The outright concern in her voice nearly sent Parker to her knees in hysterical laughter. She bit it back, clenching her teeth. “You mean that subject degenerating in the other room? Does he mean something to you, Kayleigh?”

  The doctor swore, hard and low across the feed.

  Parker looked up at the ceiling, blinking as guilt swamped her. Bloody, sharp. Made of jagged knives. “I’m told you’re looking for a serum. Something that’ll glue all these subjects back together.”

  More silence. But she knew Kayleigh was listening; she had the girl by the throat with this performance.

  God, she wished it were only a performance.

  Was Jonas dead already? Was she too late to help the others?

  “If you ever want it, you’ll make sure my people are alive,” Parker said, and the edge leaked out of her. Left her feeling drained, her voice dull. “I’ll come to you.”

  “How—”

  “Jonas Stone,” she said tightly. “Amy Silo. Anderson Williams, Drew Smith.” One by one, she listed missionaries by memory. Men and women she grasped at random; whose names felt right on this list. “Alan Eckhart, Seth Miles, Elizabeth Foster, Peter Neely—” Fuck this. “Every single one of my agents. I want them freed, Doctor. Unharmed. If you don’t, I’ll destroy the serum.”

  “Wait! Those aren’t—”

  Wordlessly, Parker shut the comm.

  The room spun.

  Simon sighed from the doorway. “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”

  Parker’s head jerked in his direction, but the damage was done. As Simon clung to the door frame, the world shifted out from under him, and he only knew it was too late.

  Nothing he said would undo the pain he read underneath her twisted anger.

  He let out a quiet, steadying breath. “I told you not to do anything stupid.”

  She blanched. Her features white, she dropped the comm as if it burned a brand into her palm. “I didn’t think using your comm qualified.” The excuse barely managed the volume of a whisper.

  Simon braced himself, struggled to make sense of the room as it swayed in rotating spin cycle around him. The fact he was still naked didn’t bother him.

  Not half as much as it obviously bothered her.

  Her gaze jerked up, cheeks red. Eyes wild. “What was the plan, Mr. Wells?”

  He managed a smile, thin as it was. “Back to Mr. Wells, huh?”

  “Don’t you dare. Not now, not after that.” Every word sliced through the air. Frozen, honed to a razored edge and flung at him with admirable precision.

  He couldn’t let her see how much he bled.

  “Did you plan this with her? Did you tell the good doctor you were going to screw the Mission director to keep me out of the way?” she asked bitterly. “What’s the big deal, you’re dying, right?”

  His heart wrenched.

  Stupid, stupid move.

  “It’s not like that.” Simon pushed off the door frame, forced himself upright and focused on her. The only thing in the room bright enough—real enough—to give him a beacon.

  She couldn’t know that.

  “Then explain it to me,” she began, and cut herself off with a savage, raw sound that didn’t quite reach laughter. “Never mind. Don’t lie. I saw the list, Mr. Wells. You’ve been killing my agents.”

  “Please.” He strode across the living room, managed to find the back of the chair. His hand closed over his jeans. He jerked the pants over one leg, struggled into them. “I’ve been killing Salem agents. I gave up everything to get you out safe. You heard her.”

  “Did you know I had the syringe?”

  “No. But it’s a sure bet Sector Three found out.”

  Parker stared at him. “You’ve been reporting on me.”

  “I haven’t.” Patience fractured. So did the truth. But he couldn’t tell her everything, not like this. He sucked in a breath as he pulled the jeans over his hips. The floor tilted. “Did you leave it at home, Parker? Is that why you won’t tell me where it is?”

  “It’s Direc—”

  Simon didn’t let her finish. Leaving his jeans unbuttoned, forcing himself to move through the pain shattering his skull, he closed the distance between them.

  Caught her hand as it flailed at him, seized her by the front of her blouse and forced her back. So fast, so savagely, that all she could do was stumble until her back slammed against the wall and the painting he’d already rattled crashed to the carpet. Wood splintered.

  Simon panted, his heart hammering within the cage of his ribs. His fingers ached from the force of his clench around her wrist, pinned against the wall above her head, but he didn’t care.

  She wouldn’t break. She’d promised him.

  But he’d broken her, all right.

  “It’s not,” he growled. “It’s Parker. Parker fucking Adams, Church heretic, Mission traitor, dead woman walking.”

  Love of his goddamned meager life, for all the good that did her.

  She jerked her hair from her face. Her cheeks blazed red, anger and something worse. Something hurtful and vicious.

  Something betrayed.

  Like he didn’t see that coming.

  “You can’t—”

  “Yes,” he said, a violent growl over her, his fist clenched at her blouse collar. “I can.”

  Without giving her the chance to evade him, to answer him, he jerked her body off the wall and seized her lips in a kiss that would prove it.

  He could. He could take from her this act of disobedience, could force her to confront the real reason she was so angry. It wasn’t just the list. She knew as well as he did that he’d had plenty of time to kill her and hadn’t. That the agents on that list were double agents, degenerating witches. It wasn’t even the lie, although that didn’t help.

  What it was came on a groan so frustrated, so impatient and angry and torn, that it wrenched out of her chest. Even as her mouth opened under his, strained against his as if she’d c
limb into his mouth and wear his skin. Her free hand speared into his hair, fingers clenching as her tongue stroked against his in desperation; a need so intense he could practically taste it.

  He’d gone and stolen something from her. Because he was an asshole and couldn’t help but trade his useless, deteriorating heart for hers. And she hadn’t even noticed yet.

  God damn it.

  His body responded even beyond the pain. He pushed her back against the wall, but this time, as her back hit it, she dragged him with her, until he pinned her hips with his. Her chest flattened against his own, so right and so wrong and not nearly enough contact. Never enough.

  Need and anger and regret all warred within him. He wrenched his mouth away, gasping for air. For sanity, for . . . God, for a chance.

  No more chances.

  Her eyes, dark and endless, opened. Shuttered. Her fingers loosened from his hair. “Let go of me,” she ordered, so softly he almost could have missed the ice. Almost.

  Even with her body straining against his, clothed against his seminakedness, soft and warm and everything he wanted, he knew he’d lost her.

  No less than he deserved, anyway. He got his final fling.

  But he still had to try. At least try to get her out of this mess, talk some sense into her.

  “Listen to me,” he said evenly. “And then you can do whatever you want.”

  Her jaw set, her lips, swollen from the brutal kiss she’d encouraged as much as suffered, gleaming damply. So beautiful.

  Not his.

  “I already told you how I was made,” he said, but wearily. He couldn’t help it. Last-ditch effort. “Mattie made damn sure that no matter what, we’d never live past a certain age, but she made a fail-safe. A fix.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Because I think that she suspected even then that we’d become a problem. That her husband’s intentions would . . . change.” His hand fisted against the wall. “Juliet Carpenter was her attempt to redress the wrong. It’s one part DNA, one part . . .” He shook his head, eyes squeezing shut against the vicious clamp around his skull. “One part witchcraft. Juliet’s power ties in to the fix.”

  Her eyes, vividly blue and somehow emptier than he ever imagined, met his without reserve. Without fear.

  Without . . .

  Well. He never had a right to expect anything more than a few wild hours.