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One should never trust asymphath, even when one was such a thing.
Re-forming up on the summit, he strode toward the fissure in the boulders and turned sideways, shuffling through the tight squeeze. As he emerged in the cave’s belly, he went over to his scorpion’s cage.
She was so perfectly constructed, her white segmented body tiny, yet with all of its component parts. To get her attention, he tapped on the side, and as she turned to him, her stinger flexed over her back.
Though he had not wanted to admit it, he had come to think of her as a daughter of a sort. He had raised her, nurtured her, cultivated her.
And now… he was going to have to kill her.
To save a man who was going to end up ruining his life.
THIRTY-SIX
IN THE END,Cathy could not stay down in the lab. For one, Daniel’s acute medical episode was a promise of what was waiting for her, and she found that disturbing. Though her cancer was a quiet invader at present, sneaking into crevices in her lymphatic system, in her organs, in her blood, soon enough it would become unavoidable in all its manifestations—and then she would be in a hospital bed, just like Daniel, all kinds of people trying to artificially re-create normal functioning with medicines and procedures that might or might not do the duty, for a short period of time.
But the other reason she had to leave was that being around Gus when he was doing what he did best was an exercise in masochism. Everything about him made her feel alive, from the way he took control of everything and everybody to how good he was with Lydia when it really counted.
Plus she still wanted to scream at him.
As she stepped off the elevator at her house level,she went right for her study. She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d eaten anything. She didn’t care. And she wasn’t sure about the drinking thing, either. Also didn’t care.
But as she sat down behind her desk, she was tired of the cramping. Was the process of miscarriage ever going to stop? As if she needed the reminder.
Sinking back into her chair, she measured the distance to her private bathroom, and felt like it was miles instead of feet—and though it made her a total diva, she really wanted to call someone to go into the medicine cabinet over the sink and get her the bottle of Advil in there. Maybe she’d make them bring her a sandwich, too, on the theory that the abdominal discomfort might be hunger pains?
It wasn’t hunger pains.
In any event, she stayed where she was to punish herself. As the torsion in her now-empty womb went into another round of tightening, she took it as a physical manifestation of her foolishness. To believe she could have been a mother? Ridiculous, and not because of the cancer. Just like she’d told Gus, she was not—
The beeping noise was subtle, but it was the kind of thing that might as well have been a grenade with the pin out, bouncing right onto her glass-topped desk.
Someone had entered the property. Or… something.
With a shaking hand, she triggered the release for her computer, and the unit appeared before her on its rotating base. Signing in, she was quick to access the security system—
And there it was, in the camera feed for the backyard: A lone figure was walking through the field, closing in on the rear terrace. Whoever it was processed slowly, and was solely focused on the mansion—
It was the man. Who had brought Gus back. The one with the robes.
Outside in the foyer, footfalls sounded in a rush.
“No!” she said as she burst up. “Wait!”
She was shouting as she ran out and down the hall. “Stop!”
The guards who had assembled and were checking their weapons turned to statues, like they were a postmodern exhibition commenting on the nature of war.
“We need him,” she said. “Subdue him if you have to, but donotkill him.”
Her head of security nodded curtly. “Yes, ma’am.”
From all around, a quiet whirring permeated the house as the window reinforcements came down over every square inch of glass, and at the same time, the men marched out the front door, fanning to the left and right in some kind of formation they had no doubt practiced in person as well as theory. Then the main entrance slammed shut and locked itself.
She rushed back to her study, and shoved her face to the screen.
Her guards moved in perfect sequence, guns double-handed and up in front, beams of light and red laser sights focusing on the solitary man.
Who merely halted and put his hands up.
