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Zara wasn’t ready to concede. “It’s like you said about American women,” Zara said and coughed as her chest tightened. “We’re peppy.”
“And not too smart.” Cuckoo said, taking one stride toward her, which brought her nearer to the van. “Do you want to die? It’s such a shame he’s not here to see it.”
“Kill me,” Zara said, taking her weight away from the wall and squaring the pendant to make sure the camera was lined up. If she was going to die here, she wanted to make sure the Kindred knew who to make pay for her murder.
“Any final words?” Cuckoo said, pulling back the hammer of her gun.
It didn’t take too much thought for her to come up with a reply. “Two,” Zara said and raised her voice to call out as loud as she could in this echoing space. “Treason terminate!”
Cuckoo frowned at her seeming insanity, and Zara took the chance to dash the remaining few feet to the door, where she slipped around to the other side of the concrete wall. Less than a second later, the deafening blast of an explosion burst in her ears. She fell forward, despite being protected from the blast, the wound in her torso was sapping her energy.
Rolling to her back, she took her hand from the bloody mass of her shirt. The manor was so close, but there was no way she was going to make it there on foot, and she had no vehicle nearby. If Cuckoo was still alive, she was injured, so neither of them would be in a fit state to initiate another battle.
Still, Zara tried to stand and got up into a kind of staggering crouch to hurry as fast as she could to hide behind a stack of crates at the corner of the building. They might not be up for another battle, but Cuckoo had been armed, and she wouldn’t be pleased now that her product had been destroyed.
The building was burning in a brilliant fire, and as she collapsed, Zara saw smoke darken the sky. It was fitting, she thought as she closed her eyes. Game Time cursed them all and in succeeding to destroy the device that had stolen so many lives, it had claimed one last victim.
Her eyes were heavy and her body ached. There was no getting out of this one. She would die here alone, and all she could think about was Brodie. Would he go into mourning again? She couldn’t allow it. But she’d made no plans for her own demise, hadn’t added her final instructions to the script with the others.
Closing her eyes, the smell of burning debris and heavy smoke polluted the air. But she’d completed her mission, she wasn’t a failure, and she’d made a difference in the world.
She could have been lying on the dirty ground for a minute or a month. Her concept of time was lost with her consciousness. Sure that the sensation of his fingertips on her cheekbone was an illusion, she turned toward the touch, appreciating the dream while it lasted.
“Come on, baby, let me see those beautiful browns, open up.”
Swallowing the bitter taste from her mouth, Zara did her best to part her eyelids, and that was when she realized she wasn’t lying on the cold ground anymore. Her body was up, not all the way because her feet were still touching asphalt, but her upper body was on something warm, something solid, something familiar.
“Brodie,” she said, immediately recognizing her mistake. “Uh… Raven. I—”
“Open your eyes for me, baby,” he said, and she didn’t like the concern in his voice. He must have reached the same conclusion she had about her prognosis. “Atta girl.”
Sorrow welled up when she blinked and read the fear in his gaze. “I’m sorry, beau,” she whispered because suddenly she was, sorry for all the things they hadn’t done. Sorry that she’d come here alone. Sorry that she hadn’t agreed to his suggestion that they say to hell with everything and leave town.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, and for some reason, his anger was easier for her to absorb than confronting their pain.
Hot tears leaked from her eyes and ran quickly to her ears with others following in their tracks. “I love you. Please don’t close yourself off again,” she said. If she was on a clock, she didn’t want to waste time on an argument. Being practical, taking action, was something she did well, and she’d rather focus on that than saying goodbye. “I didn’t make plans. Put me beside Art. You won’t be able to explain this to the cops and—”
“Hush,” he said, stroking her hair away from her face with a flat palm. “You’re not going anywhere.”
His other arm was around her, but it was only when he pushed harder that she felt the crushing weight of pressure he was applying to her wound to try and stem the bleeding. “I feel numb.”
“You’re in shock,” he said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I love you.”
“You’ve said that already,” he said, and she took her hand to his face when he looked away. He seemed impatient, like he was waiting for something, and it wasn’t for her death. Her vision was too blurred to focus on specifics, she felt his mood in her heart, and the grief made her whimper.
He’d thought Art was going to be ok, and his uncle was dead a minute later. Brodie wasn’t great at accepting being out of control. But she didn’t have the wherewithal to decipher what was going on in his mind. Her body was getting heavier, and it was harder to keep her eyes open.
She heard a car before she loosened. Brodie stood, taking her dead weight with him in his arms. There was movement and sound, but she lost track of it all, and when she next heard his voice they were in a vehicle, in the back seat with her head in his lap and his heavy hand pushing on her injury.
“Wake up, Swallow! I didn’t tell you to sleep. Keep those big browns on me.”
But every time she opened her eyes, they closed again. “Where are…” she whispered. “Where are we going?”
“Base,” Brodie said, resting a hand on her forehead. “Thad’s there waiting to patch you up.”
“No,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Can’t… can’t open the gate. Art will—”
