Authors: Kelley Armstrong
So she nodded and reached up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but it was too late, he was already turning away, not noticing. She wanted to call him back.
Just wait. Wait one moment. Please, please, please.
The closet door closed. His footsteps whispered across the carpet. And he was gone.
She moved to the door, went to press her ear against it. A blast of chaos—light and sound and terror and rage—sent her crashing into it, and she stumbled back as fast as she could, before anyone heard. Another chaos blast. A flash of Karl, grabbing a black-clad man at the top of the stairs and breaking his neck before throwing him over the banister. Hope took a deep breath and forced herself to back into the corner, then lowered herself to the carpet, knees up as far as they would go with her swollen stomach. She huddled there and closed her eyes and let the visions sweep over her.
Chaos.
It was food and drink to a demon. It was a drug to her. There’s good chaos—happy confusion, joyous celebration—but that was like watered wine to an alcoholic. She needed the stronger stuff. Hate. Rage. Fear. Pain. As the battle raged below, Hope should have been in heaven, drinking it in. But she felt
nothing. A blessed defense mechanism—if the chaos threatened her or those she loved, she felt nothing. Nothing more than anyone else would feel, locked in a closet as her husband fought for their lives. Terror. Frustration. Helplessness.
She didn’t want to cower here. She wanted to be at his side. But she knew that even if she had the energy to fight, if she showed her face outside this room, they’d stop what they were doing and refocus everything on getting to her—and her daughter.
Benicio had asked them to stay at headquarters. They’d given in at first. But Karl couldn’t rest and she couldn’t sleep and neither of them could shake the feeling that they were prisoners and that Benicio only wanted them there so she could be watched for fresh visions. Karl demanded new arrangements. Benicio had taken her aside and begged—
begged
—her to reconsider. She’d refused. Make it safe someplace else, she’d said. They’d be fine there. She’d have Karl, and Jeremy would be right next door. Only Jeremy wasn’t next door tonight and they weren’t safe and—The bedroom door opened with a click. Hope stiffened. It wasn’t locked? Why wasn’t it—?
Of course he hadn’t locked it. That would be like sticking up a sign saying “Hope is in here!”
She should have grabbed a weapon. Something, anything, so she wouldn’t be cowering there, waiting to be discovered. All she could do now was be still and silent.
Footsteps rounded the bed. They stopped at the closet. She clenched every muscle, ready to leap up, to attack. Another two steps. Going past? Was he really going to—?
The sliding door opened. The one
beside
her. Caught off guard, she staggered to her feet and stumbled, her back to the wall, hands raised. There stood a man with a gun, but seeing her, he turned the gun away.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’re not going to—”
He looked sharply to the left and aimed the gun at her again just as Karl shot into view.
“We aren’t going to hurt her,” the man said.
“Then lower that gun,” Karl growled.
“I will, just as soon as you step back, sir. I don’t want to hurt her, but my orders are to bring back the child. We have a doctor outside, ready to deliver the baby if anything goes wrong.”
“You son of a—”
“I do
not
want to hurt your wife. Please just step—”
A shot. Hope staggered with the blow, feeling it hit her, pain ripping through the back of her skull.
Back of her skull? No, that wasn’t possible. She was facing the … She looked at the man’s face. The shock on it as he stumbled out of the way. Out of Karl’s way. Karl pitching forward. Karl falling.
Another shot. Karl’s body jerking. Jerking as the bullet hit him. That was it. The only reaction. No flash of shared pain in her brain. No slamming fist of chaos.
Karl hit the floor. Hope leaped out, screaming, and dropped beside him. She saw the blood on the back of his skull. Saw the bullet hole. She saw it and she searched desperately for the faintest hint of chaos from him. One hint of pain. One hint of fear. One hint of anything. Anything.
But there was nothing.
Nothing.
I called Benicio to tell him about Giles’s new target as we left the plane. He told me that Hope and Karl were at their condo, which wasn’t surprising, given the hour. There were five bodyguards already there—two on sleep-shift next door—since Jeremy and Jaime were still in Dallas—and three in the condo itself. Benicio would get them all on duty hustling Hope back to headquarters.
“Karl isn’t going to like that,” I said. “He’ll want to take Hope and run. Protect her himself. Is Elena on her way back? Karl listens to Elena.”
“The jet just left Dallas. I’m going to try to persuade Karl, but if that fails, I’ll have Elena head straight to the condo.”
“I’ll go over and talk to him.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Across from me, Cassandra arched her brows.
“Yes, I know he doesn’t respect me the way he does Elena, but I might be able to talk to him. Worst case, we’ll hang out on his doorstep until Elena arrives.”
We split up. Adam stayed with me, and Cassandra and Aaron went back to headquarters.
The three Cabal-owned condos were part of a gated community, and our driver hadn’t brought the access ID, so he dropped us off a block away. To get in, we hopped a four-foot fence. Apparently, around here, they were only worried about trespassers with vans for robbing the places.
When we got to the house, Adam double-checked the number. The place was pitch black.
He rapped on the front door, then rang the bell. No voices answered. No footsteps either.
“Gone,” he murmured. “Karl must have been too tired to argue.”
“Damn. We’re never going to get a cab out here at this hour. Really wish someone had let us know
before
we got out of the car.”
A white SUV marked Security turned the corner. Adam and I ducked around the side of the condo as I called Benicio.
When I told him there was no sign of Hope and Karl, he sighed. “Too many pokers in the fire, and too many fires. They must have reported in to the security center. Let me check. Perhaps they’re still close enough to come back for you two.”
I hung up and we waited. When I heard buzzing, I looked down at the phone still in my hand, then at Adam.
“Not mine,” he said.
He edged toward the front of the condo with me right behind him. The security truck had disappeared. We could hear the sound better now. It wasn’t a phone vibrating—it was one ringing, set on an annoying buzz tone. We followed the noise to the front door, where we could hear it right on the other side.
I quickly texted Benicio. The phone stopped buzzing. Two seconds later, mine vibrated with Benicio’s incoming call.
“That was you,” I said. “Shit.”
I explained what we’d heard.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Benicio said. “I’ll try the guard again from another phone while I have you on the line.” A pause, then, “It’s connecting and …”
The phone inside the front door began buzzing again.
“We’re going in,” I said.
The front door was locked, and it wasn’t going to open with a credit card. Or an unlock spell. We hadn’t brought any tools, so we needed to pull out the big guns—Adam’s power. That meant finding another door to tackle: a burned-out front door might alert that security van on its next round.
Benicio had the floor plans on file from when the Cabal had bought the condo. He directed us around to the back, where the glass patio doors had been replaced by solid steel ones. I tried my unlock spell just in case, to save Adam from the energy drain if I could.
When my unlock spell didn’t work, Adam spread his hands on the steel, closed his eyes, and concentrated until sweat popped along his forehead. Then another pop, this one from the door, then it crumbled in a shower of metallic dust.
We stepped inside. Back when this had been a patio, I’m sure the door opened into the kitchen or living room. But while Benicio left the exterior alone—to conform with the condo board regulations—he’d had the inside gutted and redone. The back door now opened into a small vestibule with mats and shoes. A code was required to get through the next steel door. Luckily, Benicio had given us that.
Inside, it was completely dark. From the outside, it had looked as if the blinds were drawn. In here, I could see that the blinds were only a cover—the windows had roll-down metal shades, too.
I lit a light ball. It failed the first time. My fault—as hard as I was trying to play it cool, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t
focus. I tried again and just as the last words left my mouth, I tripped. Adam caught me. The light ball sparked to life and I looked down to see an arm stretched across my path. It was attached to a guy in a suit. One of the security officers. Shot in the head.
To the left was another body: another Cabal guard. Right beside him was the corpse of a young woman dressed in black. One of the attackers.
I cast a sensing spell and picked up signs of life over our heads. I motioned to Adam that someone was up there, and we crept toward the stairs. As we stepped into the hall, I saw that the door to the front controlled-entry room was open. Propped open by the body of the third guard, the one whose phone we’d heard. There was a pizza box on the floor beside him. Ambushed by pizza delivery guys? I couldn’t believe Cabal security would be that easily fooled. There must be more to it.
I hurried for the stairs. Adam caught the back of my shirt, slowing me down. I nodded and paused at the bottom, listening. Then I looked up to see the body of another attacker draped over the railing, his eyes open, head wrenched back at an impossible angle.
“Broken neck,” Adam whispered. “Karl’s work. Good.”
I nodded. We climbed to the top of the stairs to find another black-outfitted attacker, neck broken, on his back in the hall. The master bedroom was right across the hall from the stairs. We stopped and listened, but there was no sign of anyone up here. I cast my spell again.
The pulse of life seemed to come from another room, farther down. When we reached the door. I peered through, but could see only darkness. Adam motioned for me to ready a spell. Then, on the count of three, he kicked the door wide open. We swung in, my light ball ahead of us.
The room was empty.
There was blood on the carpet. As I walked to it, I heard a whimper and whirled. No one was there. I shone my light ball around. I glanced from the bed to the closet to another door, presumably to an en-suite bathroom. All decent hiding spots if you’d been wounded. But not so good that your kidnappers would somehow fail to find you.
I strained for another sound.
“Help,” a voice whispered. I tracked it to the bed. “Please.”
Adam motioned for me to cover him. I readied a knockback as he made his way toward the bed, fingers glowing. Then he lunged. No one lunged back, and Adam dropped from sight on the other side of the bed.
I ran over to see him pinning a man to the floor.
“They left me,” the man whispered. “They just left me.”
He hadn’t even lifted his hands to ward Adam off. There was a gun right on the floor beside him, but he made no move to get it.
I noticed that his legs and arms were askew, awkward, and as Adam backed off, the man lifted his head to follow us. Nothing else moved. Just his head.
“Neck’s broken,” Adam whispered. “Karl snapped it and threw him in here.”
“They left me,” the man whimpered. “They knew I was here. They came in and they saw me. Then they just walked away.”
“Where are Hope and Karl?” I asked.
He only stared at me.
“Your targets,” I said. “Did they take them?”
“They left me.” He met my gaze. “They just left me.”
“He’s in shock,” Adam said. “We’ll get him to headquarters and they can question him.”
We headed to the hall. Through the partly open master bedroom door, I caught a glimpse of a foot.
I raced in and dropped beside the body of a dark-haired, barefooted man clad only in sweatpants. Lying in a pool of blood. With two bullet wounds in his back. More blood glistening in his dark hair. His face was turned to the side, eyes closed.
Karl.
I bent beside him and swallowed hard. I flashed on him at headquarters, holding Hope, so worried about her, always worried about her. I remembered his expression. Lost. He’d looked lost. A man who always knew exactly what he wanted and exactly how to get it, faced with the knowledge that the woman he loved was hurting and there was nothing he could do about it. That she was in danger, and there was nothing he could do except stay by her side and fight for her.
He’d done everything he could. Gave everything he could. And still it wasn’t enough, because it was never enough, could never be enough.
It took me a minute to realize Adam was beside me, touching Karl’s neck.
“He’s been shot in the head,” I murmured. “He’s not going to be—”
Adam took my hand and pressed my fingers to Karl’s neck. Warm skin. Faint pulse. Oh God, there was a—
I leaped to my feet. “We need a medic. Fast.”
Karl was alive. Barely. The medics carried him out to a van. We went with him. I presume a second van took the paralyzed guy. Didn’t ask. Didn’t care.
The medic warned us that he didn’t expect Karl to survive the trip. The head wound was actually only a bullet graze. It was the shots through his back that had done the damage. The medic couldn’t tell exactly how much damage, only that his heart hadn’t stopped. Not yet.
It didn’t stop on the trip, which was surprising, considering how long it seemed to take. When we got there, the medics hurried Karl into the hospital ward, where a surgeon and her team waited.
I overheard the surgeon tell Benicio that it was a miracle Karl had lived this long and maybe they should just keep him comfortable and try to revive him long enough to say good-bye to his Pack. Benicio told her to get Karl into that operating room and make sure he lived long enough to say hello to his daughter. A tall order. One I don’t think even Benicio believed could happen, but his tone was the incentive the surgeon needed.