Nolan furrowed his brow. He glanced down at his chest. “Oh, a sniper,” he said, with an eerie calmness. “I should have seen that coming.”
“Agent Nolan has been thralled.” Grayson’s voice was louder, loud enough to be heard around the dry dock as he called, “Do not shoot him in front of the empath, do you copy?”
“Negative, Agent Grayson,” came an answer from somewhere in the rows of boats. “Our orders are to prioritize the Dead Man’s life over everything else, empaths included.”
The red dot was still on Nolan’s chest. Reece tried to get air into his lungs, phantom pain flaring along his sternum, across his ribs. Distantly he realized he was shaking.“Evan.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Reece,” Grayson said, never taking his eyes off Nolan.
Nolan laughed his crazed laugh. “Looks like it’s going to be a race then.”
It happened in slow motion.
Nolan aimed his gun at Grayson.
Grayson leaped toward Reece.
And as Grayson’s hand touched his, Reece’s knees gave out, darkness rushing him as he fell backward, seeing rows of boats and the distant ceiling above, feeling the cuff bite his wrist as gunshots echoed through the dry dock.
And then everything was black.
Chapter Thirty
Unforgivably shortsighted, to talk about extermination where there is still use to be extracted from the empaths. We’ve barely started to mine their potential.
—unsigned note at [redacted]
“Ouch.”
With a wince, Jamey lifted her head off dirt.Dirt?Oh. She’d fallen.
She rolled over to her back, sharp rocks jabbing at her ribs. A creek was babbling nearby while above her head, pine trees and naked branches stretched toward the dark sky and hazy milk clouds that hid the stars.
All she remembered was running east, away from the marina and city, away from people, then everything had been red. How far had she run with Cora’s empathy in her system?
She exhaled, her frozen breath ghostlike in the dark. Her face was uncomfortably sticky. Maybe she’d hit her head on the rocks?Because blood on your face from a head wound is better than the alternative explanation, she thought grimly, as she wiped roughly at her cheeks with her sleeve.
Fumbling awkwardly for her hip, she managed to extract her phone from her jeans pocket and turn it on. The call was answered on the first ring.
“Jamey!” Aisha Easterby was shocked enough Jamey could hear it through the haze. “Are you all right? We heard—”
“Send Grayson.”
“But—”
“Only Grayson to get me. It’s too dangerous for anyone else.I’mtoo dangerous.”
“Ican’t.” Easterby lowered her voice, quiet but strained. “Grayson’s out of commission. There was a confrontation, he got hurt, he needs more time.”
“I don’t think I have more time.” Something warm was trickling down Jamey’s cheek. She was going to pretend it was sweat. “Can Stone Solutions handle me?”
“We’ve got the resources to handle Grayson if he ever turns against us. But—”
“Send Stone Solutions, then.”
“Jamey—”
“The biggest and baddest you’ve got.”
