The Takeover (22 page)

A male newscaster appeared, his gray-sprinkled hair looking too smooth for the wreckage going on in the video. “We’ve had confirmation that some of our nation’s representatives have been hit,” he said. “There are at least two fatalities and as many as ten. Our reporter is now on the scene, and in a moment we’ll see if he has anything new to report. Providing he can get close enough without placing himself in danger.”

“It’s just awful to think that something like this can happen,” said the brunette.

“Unthinkable,” her male counterpart agreed.

Ritter hit the mute. “What they don’t know yet,” he said, “but Stella has confirmed, is that there were two other attacks outside different safe houses at the same time. Safe houses where the Secret Service were keeping two of the senators whose families we saved last night.”

“No!” I said, already guessing what had happened. No wonder Ritter was so angry.

He nodded. “Both men are dead, as are the two who went to the Capitol building after their meeting with the president. We saved their families, but the men have all been murdered.”

Mari groaned and jumped up from the couch, pacing with her hands clenched tightly at her sides. “All four senators? Dead?” Shock rolled off her as she forgot to block her thoughts. I braced myself against it, already reeling enough with the news. That poor little boy I’d held in my arms last night no longer had a father. Mrs. George, who’d fought her captors so forcefully that they’d broken her arm, had survived only to lose her husband.

All because of the Emporium.

“Several Secret Servicemen guarding them were also killed,” Ritter continued, “but the shots centered around those senators. The bombs inside the Capitol Building—there were two—were placed to affect the offices of all four so they’d be forced to evacuate. Of course, two men weren’t there, but we can assume all four have been under surveillance by the Emporium since their families were taken. Stella is sure they were the targets.”

Noah took out her phone. “Some members of my cell were there, protecting the senators. I need to check on them.” She walked away, putting the phone to her ear. I knew her agony. The last time something like this had happened, the New York cell had lost too many good people.

“My father is safe,” Patrick said quietly when Noah was gone, “but his vote is not. The men we believe will be appointed to take these senators’ places aren’t likely to trust us to protect them. They’ll vote with Ropte.”

“This is anarchy,” Cort declared.

“Exactly.” Patrick laid his head back on the couch. If anything, he looked paler than when Cort had been stitching him up.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jeane slither to the door, her gait so careful that she seemed nearly motionless. Before I could move, Ritter was there, his hand gripping her upper arm. She flinched.

“No need to be rough,” she purred. Her voice lowered slightly, as if she were speaking only for Ritter to hear. “Unless that’s the way you like it. It
can
be quite enjoyable that way.”

He shoved her in the direction of the couch. “If you don’t want to end up as a rotting mass of flesh locked in another dungeon, you’d better sit down and shut up.”

Jeane flounced to the couch, tossing her dark hair in that incessant way of hers. “I’m willing to help,” she said, sitting and pulling a bare foot up under her. “I only want to free Lew from the Emporium. When you look at it that way, we’re actually on the same side. Though I’m not sure how wise that is, seeing as it looks like you are definitely going to lose.” Her sultry laugh mocked us all.

“I said shut up!” Ritter glared at her. “I’m not asking again.” Jeane folded her arms and looked away from him. I was ready to send her back to Ropte, but we couldn’t do that, not now or ever.

Noah returned, a shimmer of relief in her eyes. “We’ve got two down. They’re at a hospital now and were pronounced dead, but they’ll be healing fast. Tenika wants me to go claim their bodies.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said. I was anxious for a fight, or lacking that, something else to do.

She shook her head. “You look about ready to drop. I have the documentation, and the Emporium doesn’t know they’re there. I’ll be perfectly safe with a new disguise.” Her eyes swung to Patrick. “I think you should all stay here and get a little rest. You’ve been up all night, and who knows what Ava will want you to do next.”

I wanted to point out that she’d also been up all night, but just that fast, all the night’s work and my session with Jeane felt like a weight pressing down on my entire body. I’d pushed myself to my limits, and hearing about the senators and imagining their families’ agony when they finally heard the news made it that much worse.

“I’ll go as backup,” Cort said to Noah. “I couldn’t sleep after watching that. But Noah’s right about the rest of you getting some rest. Make sure to increase your absorption rate too.”

“What about me?” Jeane asked.

Noah look at her coldly. “Oh, I have a place you can wait safe and sound.”

Jeane scowled. “I don’t know what it will take for you to trust me again.”

“Jeane,” I said, “we never trusted you.”

With Jeane locked up, Ritter and I left the wounded Keene and Patrick to Mari’s care and retired to our room, where I flopped on the bed fully dressed. Ritter lay next to me, his taut body meeting mine along my entire side. His expression was grim.

After five minutes, I sighed. “There’s no way I’m going to sleep. My mind won’t shut down. We have to think of a way to stop all these murders. Because you know they won’t end here.”

Ritter didn’t respond for several breaths and then, “The only thing I think we can do is attack their strongholds with everything we’ve got and with everything the president can give us.”

I studied the crown molding that decorated the ceiling around the chandelier. “It’ll take him too long to get approval, at least with the numbers we need, especially with Ropte and the others blocking him. Even if we manage to derail their movement enough to make a difference, it would be suicide.”

Everything I’d been planning was falling apart. I’d thought, once things were settled, about taking time off with Ritter. To explore what was between us. Maybe start that family he wanted so desperately to replace all that he’d lost. All we’d lost.

He rose up on one elbow, looking down on me, his eyes holes of darkness. “I know.” He brought his hand to stroke my cheek, trailing his fingers over my skin. “Once, it wouldn’t have made a difference to me. I’d have everyone already gathered at their doors. I’d be at the front, determined to kill enough of the Emporium to make a difference—to stop this madness. But my mind can’t seem to work out a successful scenario, and I don’t want . . .” His voice roughened. “I
can’t
lose you.”

I reached up and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly. I hadn’t been at this war anywhere near as long as he had but long enough that my family had been severely affected. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to have a future with this man who stole my breath and made me lose myself in his touch.

Releasing my hold on his hand, I brought my fingers to his face. I traced the slight drop at the corner of his left eye, a genetic fluke that his Unbounded genes wouldn’t be programmed to fix. I pushed up through his hair, parted on the left side, and followed the strands to where the ends hung down to skim a mole on his right cheek. He pushed into my hand, closing his eyes briefly until my fingers rested on his cheek. He’d shaved before the op, but already a thick layer of beard shadowed his face, almost long enough to be soft.

“We could go away,” I said when his eyes opened.

Leave, I meant. Abandon the fight and hide out for as long as we could. Let others continue the battle without us until they simply couldn’t fight anymore.

He gave me the slightest smile. “Is that what you want?”

His black eyes said he’d give me anything, but choosing safety would ultimately result in his self-loathing. He was a protector, a man who didn’t give up, a man who’d spent centuries fighting for mortals who hadn’t known he existed, a true guardian of humanity. Taking him away before the battle was won would be changing who he was. He might be willing to give up that calling for me, but I wouldn’t let him. I loved who he was now.

I let my fingers glide along his bottom lip. “We’re staying.” There were still my brothers and niece and nephew. We had to find a way to protect their future.

Even if it meant we wouldn’t be there to share it.

“I love you,” Ritter whispered. “With everything that I am.”

“I know.” I didn’t have to say how I felt about him because I opened my mind and there it was. He was a part of me, it was that simple. And that complicated. Because I desperately didn’t want to lose him either.

He caught my finger in his mouth, and his tongue felt rough as it slid over my skin. I pulled my finger and him down to my mouth, and he started kissing me. There was no slow preparation as passion and energy spiked through us. Our weapons and clothes hit the ground in record time. For the moment, we would forget the bleakness of our future, the sacrifice we would be required to give.

A sacrifice that might not be enough.

Even those thoughts drained away as Ritter lowered himself over me. There was nothing but the fire in our blood, the movement of his mouth on mine. The touch of his hand. The feel of his body moving against mine. There was no room for anything but this moment and our love.

It wasn’t until later when I dozed that I had the idea, the one that might change everything.

I AWOKE TO FIND RITTER
glaring at his phone like he wanted to smash it. “Ava wants us back in San Diego.”

Reality swooped in. I glanced at the curtained window to gauge the angle of the light. There was enough change to see that maybe an hour had passed while I’d been sleeping. “I wonder what took her so long.”

“She and Dimitri were still en route to San Diego, but she’s back and waiting for Dimitri now. For all of us.”

“When does she want us?”

“An hour ago.”

I took my leg off his. “Well, then, let’s not keep her waiting.” Because my idea had been percolating in my head. It wasn’t all there, but maybe with the rest of us talking about it, we could even out our odds with the Emporium a little.

“We have to wait for Cort anyway. He’s not going to leave Noah until she secures her people.”

“I thought I saw a little silent exchange going on between you two. Eye raising and all that.”

Ritter chuckled. “No way were we about to let Noah go alone. She’s a wildly talented singer, but she’s the worst fighter I’ve ever seen.”

“Since we’ve trained with Oliver, that’s saying a lot.”

“He’s not so bad. He’s actually growing on me.”

We showered, pulled on jeans and T-shirts, and went to alert the others. Patrick was asleep on one of the couches, but Mari and Keene were seated together talking quietly. They looked up as we came in but didn’t move away from each other.

“Any word from Noah and Cort?” Ritter asked.

“They finally got the sign-off on the bodies,” Keene said. “They’re transporting them to the safe house where we took the families, and Mari will shift there to bring them back once they’ve arrived. By the way, the New York Renegade passed the families off to Secret Service because there doesn’t seem to be any reason to keep them now that the senators won’t be able to vote.”

I hadn’t thought of the Georges and the other families not being targets anymore. It was the only positive thing that had come from the past two days.

“They’re taking them to government safe houses.” The slight mocking tone of Keene’s voice told us how much he trusted those. “But they should be safe enough.”

Mari scooted forward and clasped her hands together. “So what are we going to do now? Any brilliant ideas?”

“Well,” Ritter and I said together.

I turned, looking at him in surprise. He laughed, and I realized that my idea might not have been solely my own since we’d been sharing more than our bodies. I might have borrowed a strategy or two from his mind. Or he’d supplied it. Okay, it might be more his idea than mine.

“We have some ideas,” I clarified. “But a lot depends on you.”

“What do I have to do?” Mari asked.

Ritter shook his head. “We need to talk to Ava about it first.”

After Mari shifted to the safe house in DC to bring back Noah and Cort, Keene helped her shift us back to San Diego, where Stella had shut off the electric grid to allow us through. Noah stayed behind with Patrick, who wasn’t ready to go anywhere yet, but should be soon enough.

At the San Diego Fortress, everyone was still waiting for Dimitri to arrive from Kansas, but Ava and Ritter shut themselves up in the conference room with Stella anyway. Cort marched Jeane off to the holding room, and Keene and Mari disappeared somewhere together. I’d no sooner dropped my bag on the floor of my room when Jace knocked on the door, his surface thoughts screaming his worry.

“Come in,” I called.

The door opened. “Got a minute?”

“Of course.” I went to him and hugged him tightly.

“What’s that for?”

“For being safe.” I wondered if I could find a relatively safe role for him in the inevitable battle that would play out with the Emporium. But then what about Mari? Cort? Chris? I couldn’t personally assure everyone’s safety. Especially not the one man I wanted to live more than anyone.