“So you took Allie to the bar? After bringing her upstairs.”
“Yes.” Jon nodded, folding his arms. “Yes. That’s right.”
Revik stared at him, frowning. Something was wrong.
No, all of it was wrong. Jon’s light, his answers to Revik’s questions, his lack of emotional reaction to their predicament––all of it was wrong. Jon’s light flickered strangely, erratically, like a piece of film stuck in a projector, flickering dark and then light.
“Why did you come back down here?” Revik barked.
Jon stared at him. “To get you.”
“In the cell? They told you to go inside the cell?”
“Well, yeah… we were in a hurry. I didn’t want to wait. It sounded urgent.”
“Who sounded urgent? Wreg?”
Again, Jon’s hazel eyes blurred.
Again, that piece of film got stuck, flickered.
“Does any of this make sense to you, Jon?” Revik growled. “Taking Allie to the upper floors of the hotel, then down to the bar? Coming in person? Twice? Wreg’s security team ignoring multiple equipment malfunctions in the high security area of the hotel? Does this sound like the Wreg you know? Why the fuck would they be having a security meeting in the bar? Where any refugee seer or human might hear it?”
“Did you really tell me you would meet us up there? At the bar?” Jon frowned, looking even more confused. “I told you to come up before I left with Allie?”
“Yes.” Maygar’s mouth firmed as he looked between them. His dark brown eyes held confusion, but a dawning understanding grew there as he stared at Jon, along with a deeper fear. His voice came out nearly angry. “You did say that. I heard it, too. Revik said he’d be upstairs in ten minutes. He told you that.”
Revik glanced at Maygar, in spite of himself.
He was pretty sure Maygar had never called him by his first name before. As in, not ever––not even once.
The thought left his mind as soon as it entered.
He focused back on Jon.
Jon stared between the two of them, his hazel eyes still confused. Revik watched the flickering there, the stuck part of the loop, and for a moment, he couldn’t think at all. He felt something in his chest constrict, right before heat pounded through his limbs, a rush of adrenaline and fear that briefly overcame him .
Trembling, he took a step back from Jon.
He just stood there for a few seconds, fighting to breathe, to get his body and light under control. Then he motioned towards the other man, feeling his own body continue to tense, enough that he already felt himself restraining his muscles, pulling them back.
“Fuck,” he said thickly. “Jon, come here.” Seeing the alarmed look on the other’s face, Revik turned his words into a command. “Come here! Now! I won’t hurt you.”
“You promise?”
“I fucking promise,” he said. “Come here, Jon. Now.”
Jon approached him cautiously.
Once he got close enough, Revik gripped his shoulder, pulling him around and abruptly against his body, so he was immersed in Jon’s aleimic field. Once there, Revik immediately went deeper. He began scanning every inch of his light.
When Jon flinched back, shielding parts of himself, Revik hit him, hard, with his aleimi.
“Don’t you dare fucking shield!” he snarled.
Maygar jumped, taking a step back from both of them.
Revik barely noticed.
“…Don’t hold back a fucking thing from me right now, do you hear me? Open to me, Jon, or I swear to the gods I’ll beat you unconscious so you do open to me.” When Jon paled, Revik met his gaze, unwavering. “My wife’s life is at stake. Don’t think for a second I don’t mean it.”
Closing his mouth, Jon nodded, not tearing his eyes off Revik’s.
Revik saw his fear––more fear than Jon had ever aimed at him before––but he barely registered that fact as he wound his light as tightly into Jon’s as he could, more tightly than he ever had, even in that cell in the Caucasus.
That time, Jon’s light stayed open.
He opened more when Revik pulled on him, enough that Revik felt a hard rush of pain on him from the bond forming with Wreg, physical hunger from not having eaten since he got up that morning, a soreness in one leg from mulei. He also felt specific thoughts, such as Jon thinking Revik looked like a sociopath at the moment, more frightening than he had even as Syrimne, fears about what had Revik looking so afraid, knowledge about Allie’s pregnancy from Wreg, a fleeting memory of the Caucasus cells, and how Revik acted while they’d been planning that extraction op in D.C.
Revik scarcely noted these things. He cared about them even less.
He spent what felt like some of the longest minutes of his life looking at the other man’s light before he finally found what he’d already guessed had to be there.
It was good work. Really fucking good.
Too good.
“They have a line to you,” Revik said, clicking out. “Fuck. Jon. They have a goddamned line to you!” He shook him, roughly, then forced himself to let go, taking a step back, clenching his jaw. “Where did you take her? Where did you really take her, Jon? Do you know?”
He kept his light wrapped into the other man’s, restraining himself from screaming at him as he watched Jon think. It took every ounce of his willpower not to hit him as the silence stretched.
He had to remind himself it wasn’t Jon’s fault.
It wasn’t Jon’s fault.
It was his fault, Wreg’s, Balidor’s. Yumi’s.
Hell, it was Allie’s fault, too.
Somehow they’d all missed the one thing they absolutely couldn’t miss, that someone had a line into their inner circle, and a near-direct line to him and Allie. They’d been so focused the ex-Rebels: Wreg, Raddi, Tardek, Jorag, Neela, even Revik himself. Anyone who already had an established resonance with Menlim––
“The roof,” Jon said. He spoke thickly, as if with an effort. “Holy fucking Gods. I took her to the roof.” His voice cracked. He stared at Revik. “What the fuck? Why would I do that?”
“I told you,” Revik growled. “Someone got to you.”
“When?”
Revik shook his head. “I don’t know. Shut up. Let me think.”
He stood there, his face taut enough to hurt, his hand resting on the table in front of the cot. Neither of the other two men attempted to interrupt him.
They had Allie.
Shadow had Allie.
The roof meant a helicopter. She was probably already gone.
They’d gotten her and the baby out of the line of fire, first.
Revik fought to think, to breathe past the shock that vibrated his system. He fought to shut down anything nonessential, to strip away the emotion. For a long moment he couldn’t. His mind kept wanting to go back to the fact that he’d blurted out Allie’s condition to Maygar, before he’d known he meant to. She’d probably been furious with him.
It wasn't how he’d intended for her to find out.
He’d already made arrangements for lunch for the two of them.
He’d found a really good bottle of a non-alcoholic seer drink from Asia, something he was reasonably sure she’d never tried before. Everything had already been set up. He had only to signal the hotel staff to have it ready for them in the room before they headed up. He’d been prepared to discuss it with her at length, for hours if she wanted. He figured they’d talk about it, fuck, talk some more, fuck again. He could take her to Park Place for dinner maybe, or they could stay in the penthouse if she wanted––
Pain ribboned through his light.
Letting out a low gasp, he covered his face with a hand. He was shaking, almost to the point where he couldn’t control his limbs. He wanted to smash his fist into the wall, maybe even his head, anything to clear it, to numb himself.
He flinched violently when Jon grabbed his arm.
“Revik, man.” Jon shook him firmly, his jaw hard. “Come on. We n
eed you here.”
Revik gritted his teeth but only nodded, unable to look Jon in the face. A part of him still wanted to hit him, maybe more than once.
He knew the thought made no sense.
“They could gas us in here,” he said, gruff, and somewhat unnecessarily. “It’s probably why they locked it down.” He gave Jon a scarce glance. “…Or did you do that, too? Did you let them in, through the sewers? Then lock us in here?”
Jon swallowed, but didn’t lower his eyes. After a pause, he shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Nodding, Revik took his weight off the table, realizing only then that he leaned there. He looked at Maygar, saw that his face had paled, his brown eyes holding an open shock.
“Shadow has Allie?” Maygar said. “He has her? Are you sure?”
Revik nodded, unable to speak. He fought to clear his throat, then looked away instead, feeling that sick feeling in his chest worsen, grow unbearable. He raised a fist to his heart, holding his own chest, as if trying to hold it in, whatever it was.
Jon looked at Maygar. “Any ideas?”
Maygar shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off Revik. “What about the telekinesis? Can’t he use that to get us out of here?”
Revik let tendrils of his light once again explore the relevant structures above his head, but he already knew the answer. Still, he examined all of them all over again before shaking his head.
“No,” he said simply. “What else do we have? Are you armed?”
The last he aimed at Jon.
Jon jumped, as if remembering. He showed Revik his sidearm. A fifth gen Glock 17, organics in the firing mechanism. Organic-tipped bullets. Fine enough as a combat weapon, but it wouldn’t come close to getting them through that door, much less the walls, which were probably three feet thick on all sides.
Jon must have read Revik’s assessment on his face, because he frowned and re-holstered the gun. He looked at Maygar, as if remembering he was a seer for the first time, and an intermediary. He looked back at Revik.
“Can he do anything? He’s your son, right?”
Maygar scowled, but Revik saw the fear behind that look. He also saw the answer to Jon’s question, even as he scanned the younger seer to confirm it. Revik continued to stare at Maygar for a few seconds more, his jaw tightening.
“If you have anything to tell us about this Shadow, now would be the time,” he said.
Maygar gave him a wary look, then shrugged. Even so, Revik felt another ripple of that fear in the younger seer’s light.
“He doesn’t like to lose,” Maygar muttered. “He plays a lot of fucking head games.”
Jon frowned. “Not super helpful, man.”
Maygar gave him a cold look. “Sorry I didn’t collect enough intel for you, while I was screaming my guts out in that stinking stone fortress of his––”
“Yeah. Me, too,” Jon retorted.
“Cut the shit. Both of you.” Revik looked at Maygar. “Did he find anything in you? Did he tell you he did?” At Maygar’s blank look, Revik let his voice turn into a growl. “Did he find any pre-telekinetic structures in your light, Maygar?”
Maygar shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Revik stood up. He walked around the table, aiming for the one-way observation window.
He knew even before he’d scanned that Jon’s gun wouldn’t be enough to punch through the panel. Balidor set up these interrogation rooms. Revik saw the specs, while they were still in the planning stages. He’d put on some of the final touches himself.
He was about to ask Maygar to try working with him to see if they could use his telekinetic structures to punch through the Barrier shield, when a voice erupted from overhead.
“Well, hello there, brother Sword!”
Revik froze, staring at the one-way window.
He knew that fucking voice.
“I see you have your son with you.” Ditrini’s clipped and accented cadences came through the organic speakers, surrounding them like a physical force. “…And your wife’s adopted brother. Quite the family reunion… how delightful!”
Revik continued to stare at the organic window.
His light and body went totally still.
The only way Ditrini could be talking to them through those organic speakers, was if he stood in the security booth already.
When the Lao Hu infiltrator spoke next, Revik could hear his smile.
“Interesting how quickly the balance of power can change among friends… is it not?”
40
KILL ORDER
“WE’RE CUT OFF,” Wreg told Balidor in a hard voice.
Balidor stopped what he was doing long enough to stare at him. “On all sides? I thought the engineers were looking at it?”
Wreg turned, aiming emotionless obsidian eyes at him, his face a mask. Whatever lived behind that stare, it wasn’t directed at Balidor.
“The secondary team has a hard stop for now. That whole end of the basement is a mess, from what Chandre tells me.” Wreg went back to loading guns into the canvas bag. “The plan is the same for our team. Poresh and the other engineers gave them the go-ahead to try explosives. They’re placing them now.”
From a metal shelf, he handed Balidor five magazines of two different sizes, which the Adhipan leader stuffed into the pockets of his armored vest, but not before he checked to make sure the calibre was correct for the three guns he had strapped in holsters around his body.
Putting the smaller calibre magazine in a lower pocket, he stuck the organically-modded 9mm shells in a shallower pocket on top, where they’d be more easily accessible.
They were moving fast, but nothing seemed fast enough right now.
Wreg already had a near-arsenal strapped around his chest, waist, even his thighs, and he still pulled weapons and explosives off the shelves, filling the black canvas bag at his feet for the others in their team––the same seers who were now apparently placing explosives with the engineers to get them through the cave-in on their side of the basement.
“You’re sure Jon is in the same cell? With Maygar and the Sword?” Balidor said.
Wreg’s eyes grew colder. “I’m sure.”
“Why did he come back down here at all?”
“He was ordered to, presumably.” Glancing over his shoulder at Balidor, he noted his puzzled look, and added, “We traced the mole. It was Jon.”
“Jon?” Balidor blinked, staring.
When Wreg didn’t speak, Balidor’s voice turned hard.
“Wreg… that’s not possible. You must know that.”
Wreg shook his head. “He’s not an agent of Shadow, if that’s what you mean. Someone got to him. We think it was at the docks… before we left Jersey. Before we got on that fucking sub. My team is double-checking the timing now, but it’s pretty clear he didn’t have this in his light in Albany, when we did the more extensive checks.”
He finished with another gun and shoved it in the black bag.
“I should’ve fucking caught it. I should’ve made him go through the protocol again.” Clicking in a mutter, he added, “I’d been wondering how he got down to that crate. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him. I couldn’t get anyone else to admit to having done it, either.”
His scowl deepened as he continued to work, turning his face back into the mask.
“…I thought those pussies were afraid I’d be pissed off that they’d touched him.”
“Wouldn’t you have been?” Balidor said drily.
Wreg glared at him. “Yes. But that’s not the fucking point now, is it? Jon couldn’t remember how he got there. I shouldn’t have let that go. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I couldn’t fathom how anyone could get to him on that dock without anyone noticing. I couldn’t fathom why they wouldn’t have just taken him out, if they got that close.” Fury blackened his eyes still more. “I should have put them all through security scans, found out for sure.”
“It’s not Jon�
�s fault––” Balidor began.
“I’m aware of that. It’s my fault.”
Staring at the back of his head, Balidor felt another cold layer of shock settle over his light.
On the outside, he only shook his head. “Do not waste thoughts on regret now, brother. We need your mind elsewhere.”
Wreg gave him a harder look, but only nodded.
“Chan’s got Jorag and Neela trying to get through the walls on the floor below.” Wreg’s voice reverted back to a flat nothingness. “They say the whole wall’s caved in on that side. They’re cut off from the security area entirely.”
“The second explosion,” Balidor muttered. “They’ve got sewer access, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“Tell them not to wait. Have them try to get around that way.”
“Already did,” Wreg said with nod. “They’re working on it. They have C4.”
He didn’t look up from shelves covered in hand-held explosives, his black eyes sharp.
“For now, they’re stuck down there,” he added, equally emotionlessly. “Chan thinks there’s too much structural damage in the main blast area, but Poresh sent two engineers over there to check. I have them moving stone manually while they wait. If the engineers come, or they find a safer blast point, they’ll try again. I’ve called everyone down I can to help them, at least without leaving the upper floors unprotected.”
Balidor nodded, but the knots in his chest and stomach only hardened.
“Is Chinja all right?” he said.
“Found her in corridor B, Sub-Basement 1. She’s been taken up to medical, but it looks like she’ll be fine. She was just knocked out.”
Balidor nodded slowly. His jaw hardened. “Any word on the Bridge?”
“Helicopter left the roof of Tower A twenty minutes ago.”
Balidor’s sick feeling worsened. He shunted it aside. “Ditrini?”
“Cell’s empty. I’ve put out orders out to kill that fucker on sight.”
Balidor nodded. His jaw hardened to granite as he remembered how close he’d come to solving that problem himself.
But he’d just told Wreg not to waste time on regrets; he could hardly do the same.
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