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“My neck is getting stiff,” Lena says, her gaze darting to Quinn, then around the room.
“I’m not removing this syringe.” I tighten my grip.
Footsteps come closer, and I glimpse Sadie standing above us. “Avery, agents are here.”
Her warning can mean two things: release Lena, or do it quickly.
“How’s Carson?”
Quinn answers me. “Still alive.”
Still alive. For now. And if he doesn’t die, he still might suffer detrimental aftereffects. I steady my grip.
Lena’s eyes widen. “Detective,” she stresses. “You can’t allow this. Heroes don’t murder. You couldn’t pull the trigger, just like you can’t let the woman you love become a murderer.”
My gaze flicks to Quinn. He wears a hard frown—that disheartened expression that I’ll ne
ver stop seeing if I do this.
I grit my teeth, fury and malice scorching my blood. “She’ll walk. She’s too immersed in the system. And if not…she has outside sources. Connections. Fuck—this will never be over.”
Quinn lowers his weapon. “Do it, then,” he tells me. “Make it over.”
As quickly as realization washes over Lena, she springs for Quinn’s gun. I push the plunger down, filling her vein with the same poison she infected all those women with—that she infected me with.
And a little something extra.
Trifecta laced with a heavy dose of Strychnine—a deadly concoction that ensures the recipient won’t live long enough to take their next breath. It shuts down the nervous system, allowing an overdose of the drug to take full effect.
As I push the rest of the drug into her bloodstream, her eyes flutter closed, tears wetting her dark lashes. I pull the syringe free and run my thumb under her eye, clearing away the mascara-streaked tear track. Then I roll her to the floor, pressing close to her ear. “Quinn is the hero—not me. I’m the villain you helped create.” I kiss her cheek. A goodbye kiss to send her to hell. “I’ll see you there soon enough.”
As I move away, I find Sadie’s eyes. She recognizes the effects as Lena convulses, struggling to breathe air into her lungs. When she succeeds, sucking vomit into her airway, I do feel a twinge of remorse. If only because it’s a painful death.
Lena was right. All it takes is time and duress to mold a person into a monster. Before, I couldn’t even touch my captor’s corpse. And now…I’ve stopped a heart from ever beating again. She also said she’s been able to evade detection because no one will believe a woman is capable of such evil.
Well, I’m counting on it.
The thunder of footfalls sounds from outside the room. Quinn grabs my arm and pulls me to him, pressing my face against his chest. His heartbeat is loud and strong, drowning out the shouts and commotion that fall around us.
I stay there, wrapped in his embrace, until the Feds take me into custody.
20
Demons
Quinn
Twelve hours of debriefing. That’s what the Feds like to call their interrogations. Every tactic was used. The first five hours, I sat in a room by myself, staring into a video camera. Then Agent Proctor took a crack at me. I told my story.
Avery was taken to a separate room with Agent Rollins to be interrogated alone.
At the five-hour mark, Sadie was brought in, using a tactic to play partners against each other. We told our story together. The agent could scour our asses with a metal bristle brush, and he’d still get nothing.
I discovered a recording of Agent Lena Bell’s voice was a questionable match to the voice recorded during an operation. I have all the files and findings to back it up. I did the comparison test myself. Once I made the discovery, I reported it to my captain.
When Agent Bonds and I discovered Detective Carson had been assaulted during his detail duty, and Doctor Johnson was missing from the crime lab, Doctor Paulson was called in to attend to the detective while Agent Bonds made a report to Agent Rollins.
Bonds sent an mpeg of the lab surveillance to Agent Rollins, citing Agent Bell as a possible witness to Detective Carson’s assault. With Agent Bell MIA since the previous day, and one of their own in possible danger, the FBI conducted a search for the missing agent, using a tracking device of Doctor Johnson’s.
