Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“That’s for all of them,” I whisper.
I don’t stay to watch her die.
I half-stagger, half-limp into the chaos that is the corridor.
Marsh is—was—about ten feet from the observation room door. I can tell where he fell because there’s blood everywhere, arterial spray painting the pale green walls like abstract art. And the body…
I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies but this—
This is something else.
Conrad Marsh is in pieces. Literally. His arms are several feet from his torso, as are his legs. His chest has been caved in. Below that, intestines and organs snake across the floor. His face is frozen in an expression of absolute terror, and his eyes—still open—seem to follow me as I step carefully around what’s left of him.
Nate is standing at the end of the corridor, his back to me. His hands are red to the elbows. His shoulders are heaving with each breath.
“Nate?”
He doesn’t turn around. “Don’t look at him.”
“Too late for that.”
His head goes back as if to ask the ceiling for help and I hear him swallow. “He was running. He was going to call Paragon. I had to—”
I reach him, touch his arm. The muscle jumps under my fingers. “You did what you had to do.”
Even if you literally tore him limb from limb like an animal.
“Did I?” He finally turns, and his eyes are haunted. “Or did I just do what they programmed me to do? Kill on command. Follow orders. Be the weapon they built.”
“You’re not a weapon. You’re a man who just saved my life.”
“After I almost ended it,” he cries out softly.
“But you didn’t.” I grip his arm harder. “You didn’t, Nate. That’s what matters. You had their voice in your head, their commands, their bloody programming, and you still chose to stop. That’s not a weapon. That’s a person. You have your own free will and you chose it. You’re free from this now.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll never be free as long as…” he trails off, looks toward the room.
I give him a gentle, somewhat apologetic smile. “She won’t be a problem anymore. You’re no longer on her leash.”
That’s all I want to say, all I need to say. I know his relationship with Julia was complicated, sometimes familial. He doesn’t need to know the details.
He nods and I can see him pushing that info away to face later, the same thing I keep having to do. “We need to move,” he says. “Marsh got a message out before I—” He glances at the remains and doesn’t finish the sentence. “Paragon’s coming. And security.”
As if on cue, alarms start blaring
Red lights strobe along the corridor and doors slam somewhere in the distance. Underneath it all, I can hear footsteps—lots of them, getting closer. From both directions.
“Can you walk?” Nate asks.
“Yes.” I test my legs. They’re shaking, weak, but they hold. “Running might be ambitious.”
“Can you fight?”
I look at him. At the blood on his hands, the determined set of his jaw. Then I look at what’s left of Marsh, at the corridor stretching in both directions, at the red lights painting everything the color of emergency.
“Give me a weapon,” I say, “and watch me.”
He raises his chin and something like respect flashes across his handsome face, but he doesn’t argue. He crosses to the nearest fallen guard, the one he threw against the wall, and strips him efficiently. Pistol first—a Glock 19, standard issue—which he presses into my hands. Then a combat knife from the man’s belt.
“Backup,” he says.
I tuck the knife into my waistband and check the Glock’s magazine. Full. Fifteen rounds plus one in the chamber. Not a lot, but enough to make a difference.
The weight of the gun feels like coming home.
“They’re coming from both ends,” Nate says, tilting his head slightly, listening to something I can’t hear. “Twelve from the east. Eight from the west. More behind them.”
“Then we go through them.”
He gives me a ghost of a smile. “Stay close to me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
The first wave hits us thirty seconds later.
They come around both corners simultaneously—tactical formation, rifles up, shouting commands that blur together under the shriek of the alarms. I count six from my side, see more shadows behind them. They’re expecting a hostage situation. They’re expecting Nate to be holding Julia, slowed down, vulnerable.
They’re not expecting me to be standing on my own two feet with a knife and a gun in my hands and murder in my heart.
“Contact!” someone shouts. “Both targets mobile!”
Nate moves first.
He’s a blur, faster than anything human should be, and the first guard doesn’t even have time to scream before Nate’s fist connects with his chest. The body flies backward, bowling into the men behind him, and then Nate is among them, a tornado of violence in the strobing red light.
I drop low, making them wonder if it’s a loss of balance or a tactical maneuver, and the first burst goes over my head. My body screams at the movement, ribs grinding, but the pain is distant now, locked away somewhere I’ll deal with later. Right now there’s only the Glock in my hands and the muscle memory of a hundred training sessions.