Her mind drifted for a moment. He was pretty glorious, darker than Axel, as he had sublimated in and out of the fight. She found that impressive, even if he should have been done with Toni much faster. They were all glorious, these misfit guys and their secrets. She wasn’t mad at them in that moment. Fuck it. She kept secrets, so they were allowed to, as well. Her kids in New York were safe and would remain so. Axel wasn’t getting out this time. The Ghosts who could escape were just going to hide. She looked around a little.
Only Felix. Only Felix was going to get away. Poor sod.
She began walking, though it was more of a stagger, over to Vincent when a sharp pain erupted in her stomach. She saw his eyes go wide and his face pale.
“Vincent?” She mumbled, confused at Vincent’s expression. She turned to Axel, whose final shield broke at that moment, and he began to laugh.
“I won’t lose to you,” Axel snarled with a grin as the team over-powered him, sending him into the ground. “Not to you.”
She looked down.
Her own dagger was hilt-deep in her stomach. Blood gushed out of the wound, and she didn’t bother worrying anymore. Her guys were alive, and he lost. That was all that mattered. She yanked it out and dropped it to the floor.
25
ZANDER
The fight was chaos. Zander whipped water to put out the fires that weren’t under Elijah’s control. He kept throwing shields over all of them except Quinn, who was farther from the group than Zander could manage. That didn’t worry him. Quinn was more than capable of handling himself. If Zander didn’t know better, he would say that Quinn was holding back so he didn’t accidentally kill all of them,
Then he saw her. He’d never thought ‘born to kill’ was an apt description for anyone or anything, but there she was.
She shoved a knife in Colt’s back, not a single bit of emotion on her face. He could feel her magic slice across the room in cold, deadly rage as Colt’s body dropped. Then she was gone again, a black smoke creeping into the background of the fight. He was stunned for a moment too long, and the shield around Elijah and him shattered.
“Zander!” Elijah yelled at him. “Get your fucking head in the game!”
He threw up another shield right before a tornado of fire ran them over. They needed to end one of those fuckers. He had no idea that there were two Magi with the Mythic control over all four elements. True elementals like them were normally born once in a century. They had known about Axel, but the other guy was an unknown.
The fight continued until Quinn nearly brought the building down on them with a surge of magic that Zander couldn’t comprehend. That mother fucker was holding back. Dick head.
He heard Jasper scream.
“Hold on!” Zander screamed, running for him. He dove for Jasper as Quinn threw up a rock wall between him and Axel. Zander didn’t have time to send a thank you as he immediately began looking over Jasper.
Fuck.
“Jasper,” Zander snapped urgently. “Jasper, your leg.”
“Oh, fuck,” Jasper groaned, looking down.
“I…” Zander held on to what was left of Jasper’s bad leg. A piece of the ceiling had shattered the shield Zander had been holding over Jasper and landed on his leg, breaking it and completely crushing everything from the knee down.
“Fuck,” Jasper moaned, falling back. Zander caught him and knew his friend was going into shock.
“Jasper, look at me,” Zander growled hoarsely. “Look at me!”
“The fuck do you want?” Jasper growled, glaring at him.
“For you stay calm.” Zander hoped Jasper would listen. Zander didn’t have the power to save Jasper’s foot or leg. It wasn’t something any healer could fix, no matter how powerful they were. “We’ll make it through this.”
“Sawyer got the other guy out of the game!” Elijah roared. “We got this! Axel is going down!”
“See?” Zander wanted Jasper to listen, to ignore the injury for just a moment longer.
They had called for a fuck-ton of backup on their way over. Where the fuck were they?
“Go finish it,” Jasper groaned, falling back again. Zander let him this time. The injury wasn’t fatal, but Zander just couldn’t save it. Jasper wasn’t going to end the day with both of his legs. “I can still…”
Jasper passed out. Well, Zander used his magic to knock him out completely, so he wouldn’t freak out later. They just needed to over-power Axel, and then everything would be over.
He rejoined the fight and began sending torrents of water into Axel’s shield. It was cracking, and Axel was growing desperate, trying to fight them all off at once.
Once the shield was close to breaking, he watched Axel swing a hand out and grin at something.
He stopped, confused for a moment by what Axel was doing. He turned to Sawyer and Vincent, standing on the other side of the hangar bay. He watched in horror as Sawyer pulled the dagger out her own gut and dropped it to the floor.
He couldn’t breath as she collapsed. He couldn’t hear anything as his vision tunneled in on the woman he’d loved for over a decade.
“SAWYER!” Zander roared, running for her. She was down. She couldn’t be down. Not after everything. Not after all of this.
Axel had, in a last-ditch effort to take one of them out, used his telekinesis to send the knife Sawyer’s way. She hadn’t been paying attention, distracted and a little out of it from her injuries. Zander had known she was already injured. She’d been swaying on her feet since they’d shown up. He hadn’t had the chance to help her at all.
“Sawyer,” he gasped, sliding to a stop by her body. He rolled her over and touched the last bit of magic he had to try and save her.
Five broken ribs. Two had punctured her lung. She’d been slowly drowning for the entire fight. But the knife wound…
He placed a hand over it and forced his magic into her body. He forced her abdominal aortic artery to repair. It was a fatal wound. He knew that, but he was going to try anyway. He had to try. He sent a jump to her heart and forced it to beat once after the artery was repaired.
“Zander,” Vincent whispered desperately. “She’s gone, Zander.”
“I can heal her!” He roared.
“You are out of magic, Zander!” Vincent tried to pull him away, and Zander shoved Vincent back. None of the other team members tried to stop him.
Axel was laughing.
Zander pulled magic from the last place he had—his own life force. It was a dangerous and stupid thing do, but Zander didn’t care.
He had to save her.
He kept forcing her heart to beat with magic until dark spots danced in his vision. He was killing himself. His organs would start to shut down if he didn’t stop soon.
He passed out as soon as her heart beat once on its own. It was all he needed. He just needed to know her heart was still beating.
26
ELIJAH
“Stop laughing,” Elijah snarled, knocking Axel unconscious. Vincent was checking Sawyer’s pulse, and Quinn was getting Jasper, who was out cold.
“They are alive,” Vincent called over. “I’m not sure for how long. She’s not bleeding out anymore so I’m not even sure what I can do at this point.”
“Where the fuck is our back up?” Elijah growled. He couldn’t help Vincent with them. Someone had to stick with Axel, or he could fucking disappear. Elijah was less worried about that now that Axel not only had an inhibitor on him, but also was unconscious.
“I don’t know. They will probably show up any second, considering we don’t fucking need them anymore,” Vincent snapped.
“Sure enough,” Quinn growled, laying Jasper down next to Zander and Sawyer. Elijah saw Jasper’s leg and wanted to puke. “The brothers think they are a minute away.”
“A full fucking minute?” Elijah groaned. “We have three down and three criminals in custody. We fucking needed them five minutes ago!”
“Elijah,” Vincent pleaded, “stay calm. We can�
��t… we can’t lose focus now.”
“Fuck!” Elijah ran a hand through his hair and kicked Axel when the mother fucker dared to groan in pain on the floor. “You shut the fuck up.”
“Sawyer told me something important that we’re going to need to deal with,” Vincent whispered quietly, watching Elijah. Elijah was shocked by Vincent’s lack of reaction to Axel getting kicked while he was down.
“What’s that?”
“She’s Shadow.” Vincent’s voice betrayed nothing about his own feelings.
Elijah felt a shiver of something run through. No.
“Shadow is dead,” Elijah whispered, unwilling to believe.
“She very well could be if we don’t get her to a hospital,” Vincent pressed. “She told me. Did you see what she did here, today? I don’t think she was lying and…”
“Axel’s obsession with her,” Elijah gasped. “His slip into… recklessness. His drive to see her dead. All of this. Damn it, Vincent! I told you in LA this was all because of a woman! And it’s the same woman.”
“She’s an assassin,” Quinn sounded thoughtful. “It all makes so much sense.”
“What does?” Vincent frowned at him. He wasn’t going to talk to Elijah about the other topic. He’d blatantly disregarded Elijah on it, and now that was coming back to haunt him. “And she was an assassin. She hasn’t been active since she… died…”
“The feeling of her magic. Cold, deadly. Dark,” Quinn’s growly voice was soft. “I never thought it suited her, Sawyer the thief, but it makes sense with Shadow the assassin.”
“Huh.” Vincent looked thoughtful at that. “I… hadn’t noticed…”
“Can we… worry about this later?” Elijah heard sirens. “We have a woman who looks like death, and right now, that’s all that matters. We need these fuckers secured, and once all of them are in a hospital, we can debate on what to do about Sawyer’s… past.”
“You’re right,” Vincent sighed, “but we need to tell them before he does.” Vincent nodded towards Axel, and Elijah agreed, nodding silently.
“Jasper’s injury is my fault.” Quinn knelt next to the young man’s unconscious form. Elijah felt for Quinn, he really did. “A beam fell, and he couldn’t get out of the way in time because of his bad leg.”
“Well,” Elijah gave a dark chuckle. “He won’t need to worry about the bad knee anymore. There won’t be anything attached to it.”
“Wow, Elijah,” Vincent snapped. “Funny.”
“He would get a laugh out it,” Elijah reminded Vincent. “You know he will, once he’s awake.”
“Special Agent Castello?” A voice called out, causing Vincent to turn.
“Here! Bring healers!” He yelled back.
Elijah watched people flood into the building. Healers, non-Magi medics, and IMPO agents from Atlanta. None as high ranking as himself, but at least they were IMPO. James was at the back of the pack, coming straight for them as agents secured all the unconscious Ghosts.
Healers rushed to Jasper, Zander, and Sawyer and began working. Elijah kept his eye on them, hoping they didn’t lose Sawyer. He trusted Zander, but he was no healer and had no way of knowing how much healing he’d done on her. It was fucking stupid for Zander to use his life force like that.
But Elijah would never say that to him. He would have done it in a heartbeat, if he could have. Assassin or not, he didn’t want her dying on him. She was Sawyer, the fierce, passionate woman who showed her middle finger to the world and told it to bite her. And she put so many others before herself. She was so layered that he hoped to never stop discovering who she really was.
She couldn’t die.
“All three are stable,” one healer announced. “Did your healer…”
“He used his life force to heal her,” Elijah pointed at Sawyer at the female healer nodded.
“He saved her life. He just needs to rest and will be fine in no time. He nearly killed himself, though.” She stood up and looked up at Elijah. “Tell him not to do something so reckless next time. He might not be so lucky.”
“Will do,” Elijah told her, knowing he was lying to her.
“You got him,” James exclaimed to Vincent. “You fucking got him.”
“What did Ken and Jon say?” Vincent asked. As the healers and medics took their injured away, Elijah joined James and Vincent. Quinn stuck to his side like glue, and Elijah threw an arm over his shoulder.
“Well…” James sighed. “Nothing that was helpful.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later, but let’s just say, it’s bad.” James shook his head as he let that trail off. “Let’s get all of you to a hospital first…”
Elijah didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t like it at all.
27
VINCENT
Vincent was angry: at himself, at his brother, and at the unconscious woman in the hospital bed.
“You,” he whispered. “How did I not see it?”
Twenty-four hours since they captured Axel, and she hadn’t moved, not even a twitch. None of the healers could figure out where she’d gone. Her body was alive, and her Source was strong. She could wake up, but nothing would rouse her.
He needed answers. He needed her story like his life depended on it. While his didn’t, hers did. He always figured catching Axel would just be… the end of it. Vincent was realizing that it was nowhere close to over.
“Wake up, Sawyer,” he whispered and couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice.
She was his brother’s lover and killer. Ex-lover, he reminded himself. Ex-killer. In the years since she supposedly died, she’d done nothing that warranted the IMPO to even care about her existence.
Vincent didn’t want her to die and didn’t want her dragged off to prison. He was running out of time to stop that from happening. Axel was in solitary. No one was allowed to speak with him on Vincent’s orders, but that could only last so long. Once Axel could tell someone about her, he would. He would make sure that she went down with him, a final act of revenge against the woman who betrayed him.
“Vincent,” James called into the room. “Any changes?”
“No,” Vincent sighed, looking at his handler. Vincent wasn’t sure if James would be on his side. He’d become their handler after his last team was murdered.
By Axel. Because of her.
James had sought him out to finally let Vincent go after his brother. He had let Vincent build the team for that goal. He was on his own vengeful quest for a team he’d been with for over a decade.
“I have those files you wanted,” James sighed. “Come here.”
“Shadow’s files,” Vincent whispered.
“I don’t know why you want them. It’s over.” James sat down at a small table and pulled the files from his briefcase.
“It’s never over with Axel, and we need to nail him for the murder of those agents.” Vincent kept his tone professional and gave nothing away. “Plus, I don’t think you and I have ever talked about it.”
“And you like to know everything about everyone,” James groaned. “Sit down boy. Sometimes I wonder if it was good idea to give you the amount of power I did.”
“Well, it’s paid off, now, hasn’t it?” Vincent gave him a wry smile and sat down. He slid the papers in front of him and began reading.
Strangely, he’d never actually read the original files on the Shadow incident.
“She cut a deal, didn’t she?” Vincent asked, looking up from the files. They were all the hits she’d done for Axel.
“This file is her deal with the IMPO and the WMC,” James sighed, pushing the other file to him. “What do you want to know about it?”
“Everything, obviously,” Vincent answered.
“February 2013, my team received a package,” James launched into a story that Vincent had never heard. James had never wanted to tell him before, and Vincent had never asked. It had never been pressing, since Vincent knew how the story ended. It hadn’t been a par
t of his game with Axel. Vincent flicked a look to Sawyer. That had changed. Now, it was the most important thing he’d ever hear. “It contained an offer.”
“Shadow wanted out and would betray Axel to do it,” Vincent mumbled.
“No,” James’ voice went hard. Vincent looked up at him and frowned. “Shadow wanted to betray Axel. Period.”
“What?” Vincent frowned.
“Let me tell you the entire story. Let me paint you the picture,” James closed all the files, stopping Vincent from reading them while he spoke. “Something must have happened because the initial contact was only about Shadow wanting to change sides and betray him. Period. She didn’t try to cut a deal. We offered it to her, not the other way around.” James took a deep breath. “The WMC was being kept up-to-date on everything. They figured, if she was willing to change sides to get back at him or something, that she could be convinced to remain on our side. So, they had the team make a deal. She would betray Axel to us. She would help the team take him down, and then get her pardon and go free. On conditions.”
“What conditions?” Vincent leaned back in the uncomfortable blue chair. Hospitals needed to invest in better furniture.
“She would be a consultant for the IMPO and be on the WMC’s call if they felt her expertise was needed. They wanted to use her,” James was whispering. “You need to remember, Vincent, that we work for power hungry people. Someone like Shadow wasn’t someone they would feel comfortable giving the death sentence or letting walk free.”
“Why were they uncomfortable with catching her and giving her the death sentence?” Vincent narrowed his eyes.
“The WMC had a certain faction that believes they need more than just their army and police force. Someone like Shadow could make problems disappear for them in exchange for ongoing freedom. If she had the chance to live up to the deal, she would be their killer, instead.”
A Life Of Shadows Page 27
