“You know it?” Viktor says.
“I keyed the depot transfers that run parallel to it. Same panhandle road for forty miles. What’s it doing?”
“Trade-line,” says Viktor, not giving more.
She turns the page a few degrees toward herself without being asked, reads it. “If the trade’s moving through there, it’s threading between our supply runs. That’s not luck—whoever set it picked a corridor that already had legitimate traffic to hide inside.”
“That’s worth having,” Viktor says.
“I can pull the parallel timings.” She takes the empty chair at Caleb’s end as she says it, drawing the page closer, already working—folded into the meeting now as though a seat had always been waiting. Nobody questions it. What she’s offering is useful.
The conversation moves on around her. Ysabelle comes back to the buyers—to the type of individual who might create a market.
“We can’t tell you what it feeds,” she says. “Only that it appears to be specific. The victims we’ve discovered have been…unique.”
“Unique in what way?” asks Iris.
“In a multitude of ways,” says Ysabelle. “Humans with rare blood types. Shifters. Magic-bloods. Witches.” She splays her hands. “It’s impossible to determine who the targets are. Which has made it impossible to determine how to protect them.”
Viktor’s brow is furrowed. “I can see why you need help with this. It’s big.”
“So we can rely on our assistance?” Ysabelle asks.
“Absolutely,” Caleb responds before Viktor can. The other man doesn’t object.
“It’s why the Collective exists, Lady Faine,” he says.
“We are grateful.” Ysabelle stands. The room stands. I stay seated.
“We’ll need to gather again once we’ve pulled more information,” Viktor says. He walks the Nocturne delegation toward the far door, the last of it finishing in the corridor, past my hearing. Leora Sky pauses at the threshold long enough tosay something low to Caleb that puts a line between his brows, then she’s gone too.
I stay in my chair.
The room clears. The corridor maps are still on the table, ink lines running across territory. I think about a system designed to sell living creatures for their blood, and a person in this outpost who belongs to that system. I come up with an image, and the face attached to it doesn’t have sky-blue eyes and features like a porcelain doll. There’s no way she’d have a hand in that.
“Fuck it,” I mutter as I stand. I’m letting my feelings get involved, and that’s something I’ve never allowed myself to do.
The case got larger tonight. Whatever’s being fed out there is bigger than the job I’m working. But if I get it wrong, I could be damning every life being fed into that pipeline.
If it’s her, she needs to answer for it.
And I don’t know why, but I pray that it isn’t.
Chapter 6
Grace
The supply room off the ops wing has three shelves of first aid stock, two rolling carts, and a door that swings inward. I’ve restocked it four times since I started helping out around the compound. Nobody else comes in here unless they’re bleeding.
Today I’m counting saline packs, because last week’s requisition manifest has a discrepancy, and right now wading through stock is just the sort of mindless task I need.
I work from the top shelf down. Saline, gauze rolls, tensor bandages. I keep the count in my head—which is probably a mistake, because right now my head is full of other things.
Serenity. The meet at the depot. Finding some way to survive this whole mess.
What the hell am I going to do?
I’m on the second shelf when the door opens.
