by Elle Gray
His eyes linger on mine for another long moment before he seems to decide to trust me. It also confirms for me his plan to kill both Astra and me when this is over—why else would he be so free and willing to share his plans with me?
“What happened to those Justices was… unfortunate. Justice Kettering was a friend of mine,” he says. “But I must admit, their deaths opened up a series of opportunities for myself. Like a stone blocking up the river behind it. Once removed, the river can flow freely once again. I simply took advantage of the opportunity.”
“That is a very poetic way of saying, ‘I wanted to murder them to pad my bank account.’”
“Really, Blake. That’s such a cynical and crass way of looking at things.”
“Well, people often say I’m cynical and crass, so I guess that fits.”
He chuckles to himself. “I do enjoy your humor and your spirit, Blake,” he says. “I truly wish you had chosen to work for me.”
“Uh-huh. So, is this the part where you go back on your word and kill us both?” I ask.
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
I nod. That’s what I thought.”
I slip my phone out of my pocket and hold it up for Mangold to see.
“You didn’t honestly think I was stupid enough to walk in here without a contingency plan did you?” I ask. “Like I didn’t know you were planning to kill Astra and me after you got what you wanted straight from the jump? I’ve made copies of everything in that box and put it all on another drive. On the other end of this phone, I have a friend waiting for me to call. And if I don’t call within the next half an hour, she will release that thumb drive to a number of different news outlets. You’ll be ruined, Mr. Mangold. And if you somehow manage to escape the authorities, you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life on the run. Always looking over your shoulder.
“Oh dear,” he replies, his eyes widening in shock. “Whatever am I going to do now?”
He looks at me, an expression of confusion on his face. It’s like he can’t believe I double-crossed his double-cross or something. Mangold is either stupider than I ever imagined, or this is the worst display of narcissism, hubris, and arrogance that I’ve ever seen.
Unless…
As the third option settles in, I feel my stomach roil and taste the bile in the back of my throat. Mangold’s expression changes from one of confused outrage to one of genuine mirth and he begins to laugh. He claps his hands, thoroughly amused.
“You didn’t really believe I wasn’t anticipating you double-crossing me, did you?” he asks.
“Yeah well, I kind of hoped.”
“Silly girl,” he crows. “Do you actually believe I don’t know you have your sister at your apartment waiting for your call? And do you actually believe I don’t have men there waiting for my word to take her? Oh, take her again, I should say. She was abducted before, was she not? While I applaud your effort, I must give the execution a thumbs down.”
My heart is racing, and I see Astra’s eyes widen in panic. She struggles against her bonds, thrashing wildly, trying to break free. My mind is spinning as I try to find a way out of this trap I walked myself into. I shake my head in disbelief. How did I not see this coming? And why am I drawing a blank?
The gun is a comforting weight in my hand, and I know it’s the only way out of this. I wanted to avoid violence, but I see now I have no choice. The only way out of this mess is to shoot my way out. I raise my head and feel Mangold’s eyes boring into me. A slow grin stretches across his lips and his eyes sparkle with delight.
“Kill them,” he orders his men.
And then the lights go out, plunging us into darkness.
Twenty-Six
Platinum Precision Tech Warehouse Site 11B; Seattle, WA
That moment of darkness creates enough pandemonium that I’m able to cover the distance and get myself to Astra. Mangold and his men are shouting at one another in confusion. I quickly pull the knife out of my boot and slice through Astra’s bonds. But it’s pitch black inside the storage facility and I couldn’t see where our enemies were.
A loud click echoes through the building. It must be an emergency generator kicking in, because a moment later, we are bathed in light once more. Five feet to our left, one of Mangold’s men—the new droid—is turning toward us, bringing his weapon to bear.
I push Astra to the ground behind me and fire twice. Both slugs slam into his chest, embedding themselves in what is obviously a bulletproof vest. The impact is still enough to knock him to the ground, though, and just for good measure, I fire off a third round—this one at his leg. He cries out in agony and quickly passes out as a red mist spurs from his thigh, his gun clattering away from him. I snatch it up as quickly as I can, handing it over to Astra, who manages to at least hold it protectively in front of her, even if she can’t stand up just yet. She may be bruised up, but the fire in her eyes is bright.
The sound of fighting to my right draws my attention and I whip my head around, my gun raised—and see something I did not expect to see. A long, lithe figure, dressed in black from head to toe, is engaged with the shorter and squatter of Mangold’s men. I can tell it’s a woman and she is a fierce, capable fighter. She flows from one move to the next, arms and legs striking with power and efficiency, delivering blow after blow with lethal accuracy.
Mangold’s man is trying to hold his own, trying to use his size to overpower the smaller woman, but she makes mincemeat out of him. She leaps into the air and spins dizzyingly, her foot crashing hard against the man’s face. He staggers back, dazed, and before the woman even lands, she’s somehow twisted her body to grab him in a headlock, taking him crashing down to the ground with a heavy thud. She instantly pops back up and beings raining a flurry of blows down on him. She is mesmerizing to watch in action, her movements graceful but lethal.
“Blake!”
Astra’s voice breaks my trance and I turn just in time to see the third man’s fist slicing through the air in a murderous arc. I try to avoid it, spinning to my right, but his fist catches me in the side of the head, and I lose my grip on my gun. I hear it hit and slide across the concrete as the blow sends me staggering. I drop to a knee; my vision is wavering and points of light burst from behind my eyes. I shake my head, trying to clear it as I catch sight of the man coming toward me again.
He towers over me and is twice as wide as me—his arms are as thick as my thighs. The look on his face is one of absolute malice. He looks like he hates me and wants to tear me in half with his bare hands. And I don’t doubt he can do it. My ears are still ringing, and I feel a little queasy, but as the mountain of man lumbers toward me and closes in, I launch myself through his legs, twisting my body as I do.
Before he can react, I piston my leg out as hard as I can and catch him in the back of the knee with the heel of my foot. The big man topples backward, and I roll to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed beneath his weight as he comes crashing down to the ground with a loud grunt. I leap to my feet as he starts to roll over, and when he gets up onto his hands and knees, I deliver a vicious kick to his jaw.
I hear something crack and the man lets out a muffled howl of agony. But he takes a swipe at me anyway, one of his massive mitts catching my leg and driving it into the other. My momentum sends me staggering. I’m barely able to keep my feet. When I spin around, I find the man is already standing up—and right behind me. His fist crashes into my face and the taste of blood immediately fills my mouth. I dance backward, my eyes watering, desperately trying to stay out of his reach.
I dodge around a stack of crates, trying to give myself a minute to get the ringing out of my ears and wipe the tears from my eyes. I feel the blood, warm and thick, sliding down my chin and neck. My face is throbbing like an exposed nerve. As I come around the side of the crates, the whole stack comes crashing down. I’m able to stay out from under them and my movements bring me up behind the man again.
He spins around and lumbers toward me, his e
yes filled with rage. It’s then I see the crowbar sitting atop one of the crates to my right, so I snatch it up. In one fluid movement, swing for the fences with it. The man stupidly tries to block it with his arm and as soon as the steel of the crowbar connects, I feel the bones beneath his skin give way. His scream fills the inside of the warehouse, startling a flock of birds who’d been nesting in the rafters. They take wing in a noisy hail of squawks and fluttering feathers.
The man’s arm hangs limp at his side, but he keeps coming. My heart flutters and my stomach roil as I keep dancing backward, staying out of the reach of his good arm.
“You’re like a damn Terminator,” I gasp.
He reaches out for me again and I dodge to the side. He lunges forward and I dodge back, suddenly realizing that I am very quickly backing myself into a corner. My eyes dart left and right, trying to find any way around this guy. I catch sight of Astra, who has managed to get up to her knees and currently has the first guy’s gun trained on us.
“Duck, Blake!” she shouts.
She doesn’t need to tell me twice. At the exact same moment as the man swings his fist at me once again, I toss myself back and away from him, landing on my bottom. A gunshot rings out from behind him and he lurches forward—this time because of the impact of a lead slug. His weight tips and he falls to the ground, but not before I press my advantage.
I raise the crowbar and swing it again at the perfect moment. It connects with the side of his head with a sickening crunch. The man hits the concrete heavily, blood spilling from a gash on his temple. I scramble back up to my feet, holding the crowbar above my head and ready to knock him back down, but he’s out cold.
My breathing is ragged and the muscles in my body are burning. My face is still throbbing; I’m afraid to look in a mirror, convinced it will have swollen to twice its normal size. Only then do I finally take a look around.
The silence in the warehouse, save for my loud breathing, is deafening. Astra is on her feet with the woman in black assisting her. She sets Astra down in the chair and takes a moment to make sure she’s all right. Astra nods and says a few quiet words, then the woman in black turns and faces me. A balaclava covers her face, leaving only her eyes exposed and when she walks over to me, I recognize the eyes immediately.
“Kit,” I gasp.
She pulls the balaclava off and tucks it into her pocket, an awkward, sheepish grin on her face. I look at her in disbelief and shake my head. My little sister was the whirling, spinning death machine I just saw take down a man twice her size. And she’s barely even winded. I, on the other hand, am wheezing like a two-pack-a-day fiend who just ran a marathon.
“You’re out of shape, Sis,” she teases.
“Yeah, you don’t say?” I wheeze. “Thanks for pointing that out.”
“You’re very welcome,” she replies with a grin.
“Where in the world did you learn to fight like that?” I gasp.
“I told you, I went to some of the best schools in France,” she offers. “But not all of them were the traditional schools.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
She sighs. “I have a lot to explain to you.”
“The time is right?”
She nods. “It has to be.”
As I start to catch my wind and my mind starts working again, I freeze. In my mind’s eye, I see Kit approaching me with the balaclava on and I focus on her eyes. I’ve seen them before. And not just in my sister’s face.
“So it was you. You were in my apartment,” I say. “You broke in and were stealing the evidence I was collecting on the Thirteen.”
“I wasn’t stealing,” she protests. “I was just looking. I was ordered to steal so I took the most useless things I could find—of which, there sure was a whole lot—to bring back to my bosses.”
“There’s always a lot of junk and filler when you’re investigating something,” I reply. “So, you were ordered to spy on me?”
She hesitates a moment but finally nods. “Yeah. I was.”
“And you knocked me out,” I reply.
“That was an accident. You leaned into my punch,” she says. “I only meant to daze you so I could get out before you could grab me.”
“I leaned into your punch? You’re kidding, right?” I say. “You sucker-punched me.”
“I most certainly did not. You opened the door, I was there, boom, it had to be done,” she tells me. “But you will notice that I pulled my punch. I didn’t hit you as hard as I could have. Again, because I was only trying to daze you.”
“So, you really are part of the Thirteen,” I say. “You’re one of their operatives.”
“It’s a long and complicated story,” she replies.
“Hey guys, not to break up the family reunion and all, but I’m in rough shape over here,” Astra croaks. “I think I need to get to a hospital.”
Kit looks to Astra then back at me. There are so many questions I need her to answer for me but Astra’s right. The adrenaline of the fight has worn off and she is in a bad way. We need to get her some help.
“We can’t take her to a hospital,” Kit says. “They’ll be looking. And worse news, the Đavole is in play.”
Her words turn the blood in my veins to ice. “Are you sure?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” she nods. “I got word from a source I trust.”
“You have sources?”
“Yes, I do,” she says irritably. “But I don’t have time to explain right now. We need to get out of here. For all we know, the Đavole is on his way here.”
“Not to be difficult, but what is this ‘za-volay’ you guys are talking about? And will it prevent me from getting some help?” Astra groans.
“It’s bad news,” I tell her. “And it will most definitely keep you from getting help.”
“I have a safehouse we can go to,” Kit states. “We’ll be safe there. I’ll contact a doctor I know and she’ll meet us there.”
I look at Kit for a long moment. “Who are you?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, let’s get Astra to the safehouse and get her some help,” Kit says. “And get that nose of yours looked at. You look like Owen Wilson.”
“Great. Thanks,” I mutter.
Kit and I each take an arm and lift her up—and then a thought occurs to me. Panic grips me like a fist of ice and I look around the storage facility. It’s empty, save for us and the three unconscious bodies on the ground.
“What is it?” Kit asks.
“Where’s Mangold?”
Twenty-Seven
Kit’s Safehouse; Overlake District, 41872 E. Whitecap Street, Redmond, WA
“She’s pretty banged up and is likely going to have a few new scars, but she’ll be fine,” Doctor Santos tells us. “I gave her a sedative so she’ll probably be out all night. You will want to get her in for some x-rays as soon as you can. She has a possible fracture in her ulna. I splinted it for now, but she’ll want to get it looked at just to be sure.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Kit says. “You are a lifesaver.”
“Not this time. More like general wound care specialist,” Santos says with a grin.
That draws a much-needed laugh from me. I’ve been on edge the whole time, picturing a host of horrible things that could be wrong with Astra—internal bleeding, punctured organs, brain bleeds. Pretty much everything I found on WebMD that could result in death. So to hear an actual doctor tell us that Astra is going to be okay has lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders. Things are still really weird and tense right now, but at least that’s one worry I can take off my plate.
Santos is an interesting woman. Five-two maybe, with dark hair that falls to the middle of her back, rich, tawny skin, and dark eyes. She looks young, but she’s got the wisdom of somebody twice her age and one of the best bedside manners of any doctor I’ve ever seen. I was in a full-blown panic about Astra when Santos first got here and she promptly talked me off the ledge and saw to her patient. After that, she tended to my
nose, and although it still hurts, she managed to take the worst of the sting away.
The most interesting thing about her though is that she’s an off-book doctor who makes house calls. I’ve only ever heard of doctors who do that for the mob or things like that. It’s yet another wrinkle in this mysterious life my sister’s leading. A life I’m more curious about than ever.
I sit in a deep, plush chair near the fire and watch as my sister hands Santos an envelope I assume is stuffed with cash. Kit walks her to the door and says goodbye, closing and locking the door behind her. After that, she sets the alarms then goes to the kitchen. Part of me feels like she’s just putting this off, but when she comes back with a couple glasses of wine—chardonnay, thank you very much—I’m willing to forgive her delays.
The chairs are separated by a round, hand-carved table made of dark wood, with elegant scrollwork around the edges. It’s a beautiful piece. She sits down in the chair next to mine and we both stare into the flames in the hearth as we sip our wine in silence. The crackle and pop of the fire are the only sounds in the house. Even after all of the chaos of the night, I’m grateful to just sit and watch it. For a safehouse, this place has a homey, comfortable atmosphere.
The entire house is done in dark greens and dark, polished woods. It’s decorated tastefully with some beautiful, hand-painted landscapes in frames on the walls. There’s a sitting room with a deep, soft sofa set across the wood and glass coffee table from the matching loveseat. Tall bookcases are standing throughout the house, the shelves bursting with volumes of every genre—though Kit seems to prefer science fiction and fantasy to most anything else.
There’s a formal dining room that can seat six, a kitchen any professional chef would kill for, and this comfortable area near the hearth. It’s not hard for me to picture Kit curled up in one of these chairs with a good book on a rainy night. I get the feeling she’s spent a lot of time here—and not just recently. The place has a lived-in feel about it that you don’t get if you don’t actually live in it. If that’s true, I have to wonder why she hasn’t made herself known to me before the night she showed up at Annie’s.
