Sacrifice the Wicked (18 page)
The Mission didn’t allow resignation.
He looked up, squinting against the clinging summer humidity and smiled as the city rose high above him. Layers upon layers of lights, of streets built on top of each other.
He didn’t mind this city so much.
“Jonas?”
“I’m going,” he sighed and pushed into the darkness. The alley swallowed them.
As the air thrummed with the constant flow of electricity, as lights flickered and the city thrust glittering fingers into the black sky, three gunshots echoed across the gravel alley.
The van stayed dark.
S
plat.
Parker stirred. Warmth filled her, a sweet lassitude clinging to her mind as she surfaced slowly from the deepest sleep she’d had in a long time.
Simon’s body tucked against her back. A hard arm folded over her ribs, securing her tightly against his chest. She sprawled back against him, her cheek pillowed on her folded arm, her legs tangled with his.
It’d been a long, long time since she’d woken up wrapped up in a man like this.
Smiling, she raised a hand to scratch at her itching shoulder.
Froze when her fingertips encountered something warm and wet.
Splat.
Parker sat up fast, every trace of sleep screaming out of her head. The daylight filtering around the pulled drapes lit the room to a muted glow, soft enough to allow for sleep but bright enough to pick out the dark stain smearing her fingertips.
Her stomach turned over.
Blood.
“Simon!”
He was already struggling to his elbows, not quite awake but moving, as if fine-tuned to his environment. To his name.
Her presence.
As bile welled in her throat, her shocked gaze lifted to his face. Blood dripped from his nose. Splattered to the comforter as he strained to push himself upright. “Son of a bitch,” he growled.
It came out thick. As if caught in phlegm. Grasping the sheet, he yanked it to his nose.
Icy sweat broke out across her shoulders.
Unabashedly naked, Simon hunched at the edge of the bed, his powerful shoulders rounded, sheet gathered against his nose. “Sorry. Not the way I’d planned to wake you up.”
Parker stared at his back. “It’s because of that faulty DNA, isn’t it?”
His head lowered. Crimson edged the material. Slowly, as she forced her stomach to settle, as she breathed in deeply and let it out in a slow, calming exhale, her limbs unfroze.
“I’m going to get you a towel,” she said, summoning every ounce of brisk practicality she could. She slid off the bed, balanced herself with a hand on his shoulder.
His skin seared her palm. Too hot.
“God, Simon—”
His shoulder pulled away; he didn’t look at her. “Just get me a towel,” he muttered.
Hurt needled at her.
So did relief.
Parker hurried to the bathroom, paused only long enough to retrieve her jeans. She found her bra tangled with her shirt, balled them together and stepped into the fragile sanctuary of the bathroom.
With shaking hands, she ran water over a hand towel and carefully, determinedly wiped the blood off her shoulder. She didn’t throw up.
Maybe she was getting a handle on this after all.
She dressed fast. Avoided looking at herself in the mirror, sure she’d see what she always did—a woman claiming to be the boss of soldiers, of men and woman who bled every day, shaking in her skin at the sight of it.
She was still standing. And right now, she was all Simon had.
Swiping a soft, lush blue towel from the rack affixed to the wall, Parker fled before she met her own eyes in the mirror.
Simon hadn’t moved. Head bowed, the sheet draped over his lap, he held the edge to his nose and didn’t even open his eyes as she pushed the towel into his hands. “Here.”
He caught her hand. The hem of the sheet slipped to his lap. “Parker.”
Blood coated his upper lip, patterned over his chin.
She winced. “Just—”
He didn’t let her finish. His grip tightened, but to her relief, he brought the towel back to his face. Held it there, his eyes searching hers over it. Fierce, intensity trapped in a yellow-green haze. “Mattie had a formula,” he said, but too thickly. As if through a long tunnel. “She called it the Eve sequence.”
Parker caught his shoulders as he swayed. Broke his grip without even trying. “Is that what you need?” His eyes closed. “Simon, what’s the Eve sequence?”
“Maybe nothing,” he muttered. “Maybe . . . it’s too late. She made . . . us. Made us like this.
Degeneration
.”
As his weight dragged at her, it was all she could do to guide his slow descent back to the mattress. He crumpled, his head missed the pillow, but at least he didn’t slump forward onto the floor. Heart racing, she tucked two fingers at his neck.
His eyes, though closed, crinkled into a weary smile. “Not dead yet,” he murmured from behind the cloth.
Where did this come from? A nosebleed? His fever?
How could this be genetic? What did it mean?
Damn it, why hadn’t she paid more attention in her science studies?
“Simon,” she said urgently. She knelt over him, pushed his hair back from his forehead. “You’re sick, Simon, we have to get you to a doctor.” And she needed to get home.
To hell with the odds.
“S’okay.” He wouldn’t open his eyes. “Just need rest. Got a headache.”
Another headache?
Parker bit her bottom lip.
Maybe he’d sleep some more. His skin looked sallow, yellow-tinted under his darker coloring. Although sweaty, hot to the touch, he seemed to breathe all right—not counting the constant swallowing he had to maintain to keep the blood from drowning him.
The mere thought sent chills up her spine.
“You need that syringe, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t stop herself from pulling the blankets up higher, tucked them around his broad chest.
“Rest.”
He cracked open a bleary eye. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
There was the Simon she knew. “Count on it.”
His eyebrows knotted. “Afraid of that.”
But maybe he trusted her anyway, because his eye closed again, and he said nothing else.
Parker eased off the bed as quietly as she could and dragged shaking hands down her thighs. As if she could scrape away the memory of his blood.
Of his skin, hot against her palms. Smooth and ridged and—
She shuddered.
Degeneration, he’d said. Breakdown. Was every Salem Project subject suffering this? Every witch Lauderdale created?
The horror of it bottled in her chest, locked behind an iron cage of anger.
Simon couldn’t go like that. While he slept, she’d get a bead on current events. Figure out how to get in touch with her agents.
Figure out which agents to trust.
Was he right? Were half her operatives turned already?
Were her team leads dead? Worse?
Parker hated not knowing. She was the Mission director. They were her responsibility. And with Simon’s comm, she’d be able to contact someone, anyone. Jonas?
With his help, she could get back home. Slip any electronic surveillance, collect the syringe in her safe and get back here before Simon even woke.
She bent, picked up Simon’s jeans as silently as she could, and padded out of the bedroom. Unclipping his comm, she draped his pants over the back of a chair and flipped it open with a flick of her thumb. The screen warmed up quickly.
And with it, a list. A familiar list.
She scrolled through it, first in curiosity. Then, the clean anger of righteous indignation flipped. Fury licked at her.
Name after name. The previous five she knew well enough to recognize on sight—victims to Operation Domino. Each checked off like a shopping list.
“What the hell is this?” she whispered, but she knew.
The list scrolled on.
J. Fisher.
One of hers. A missionary, assigned to Eckhart’s team. Partnered with Agent Miles in the mid-lows. She’d never met him, but she knew her roster.
Found dead yesterday.
P. Adams.
Simon had already warned her about that one. But as she scrolled through the plain text list, fear seized her heart. Fear, and fury.
A. Williams.
D. Smith.
Missionaries, both of them. One topside, a new analyst from the orphanage training. Drew Smith had just finished training before Peterson was exposed. He was a fine man, a good agent. She’d handpicked him herself.
Her knuckles whitened.
Pain shot through her chest, a vise squeezing the breath from her lungs.
J. Stone
.
Were her people nothing more than expendable pawns in Lauderdale’s sick game?
A. Silo.
Her eyes burned. Her throat ached with it, but she gritted her teeth. Forced back the knot of anger before it exploded from her chest in a scream of rage.
That wouldn’t do anything.
Except expose precisely what she’d turned her back on.
Her best tech, up to his neck in classified information, and Silo, one of her few friends in the Mission. She’d gone to the same orphanage with her. Now she appeared on a hit list. With her.
Because of her.
She flipped open the screen, dialed Jonas’s frequency with shaking fingers.
The line thrummed, that toneless note that told her he wasn’t picking up. She disconnected, tried once more.
Nothing.
Parker lowered the comm, eyes leveled sightlessly on the empty fireplace beside her. Her mind worked, burned through plan after plan until the only thing she
could
do became clear.
She’d known about her chances. Simon—to his credit at least a little—had made it clear. She’d accepted it. Accepted it only inasmuch as she intended to tear the roof down around Lauderdale’s smug head.
But he hadn’t told her about her people. Jonas, Silo, Williams—agents she trusted. Who trusted
her
. He’d hidden her away from the real battle, hoping . . . what? That she’d forget about the missionaries?
That she’d never find the list of people she knew—knew without a shadow of a doubt—were still hers. There was no mistaking it.
She’d always known he was a double agent, but he’d been sitting on a hit list of Parker’s best and never so much as breathed a word.
Setting her jaw, Parker forced her shoulders to straighten. Locked her knees, spine rigid, and blew out a hard breath. She knew what she had to do.
She couldn’t take the time to feel sick about it.
Grimly, Parker scraped her forearm across her face, then jumped as the comm pulsed in her hand.
Her grip tightened. Her heart rate spiked, and as adrenaline flooded her system, Parker didn’t even look at the number. The comm clicked softly as she accepted the call.
“Wells, where are you?”
Black rage licked at the last fringes of her fraying control as Kayleigh Lauderdale’s voice snapped through the unit.
“You haven’t reported in.” Her voice hardened. “You need to come in, Simon. I don’t like the implications of this—”
“Hello, Dr. Lauderdale.”
Silence filled the line. Tense, weighty. Then, quietly, “Director Adams. I understand there’s a warrant for your arrest.”
Parker chuckled. The sound grated, even through her own ears. “You’d know.” Ice replaced grim humor as she added, “So your father has finally tipped his hand, hasn’t he?”
“Director, you need to come in—”
Parker’s fingers spasmed against the case. “Don’t you start with me. You’ve been killing my people, you
bitch.
”
Kayleigh’s voice rose an octave. “It’s not murder, they’re subjects.”
“
They’re mine.
” Parker raised the comm, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper. “You made a mistake, Doctor.”
“I’ve made a lot.” The raw honesty of the reply kicked Parker in the chest.
Her fingers tightened. “I have something you want.”
The doctor gasped. “What? What did you do to Simon?”
The outright concern in her voice nearly sent Parker to her knees in hysterical laughter. She bit it back, clenching her teeth. “You mean that
subject
degenerating in the other room? Does he mean something to you, Kayleigh?”
The doctor swore, hard and low across the feed.
Parker looked up at the ceiling, blinking as guilt swamped her. Bloody, sharp. Made of jagged knives. “I’m told you’re looking for a serum. Something that’ll glue all these
subjects
back together.”
More silence. But she knew Kayleigh was listening; she had the girl by the throat with this performance.
God, she wished it were only a performance.
Was Jonas dead already? Was she too late to help the others?
“If you ever want it, you’ll make sure my people are alive,” Parker said, and the edge leaked out of her. Left her feeling drained, her voice dull. “I’ll come to you.”
“How—”
“Jonas Stone,” she said tightly. “Amy Silo. Anderson Williams, Drew Smith.” One by one, she listed missionaries by memory. Men and women she grasped at random; whose names felt right on this list. “Alan Eckhart, Seth Miles, Elizabeth Foster, Peter Neely—” Fuck this. “
Every single one of my agents.
I want them freed, Doctor. Unharmed. If you don’t, I’ll destroy the serum.”
“Wait! Those aren’t—”
Wordlessly, Parker shut the comm.
The room spun.
Simon sighed from the doorway. “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
P
arker’s head jerked in his direction, but the damage was done. As Simon clung to the door frame, the world shifted out from under him, and he only knew it was too late.
Nothing he said would undo the pain he read underneath her twisted anger.
He let out a quiet, steadying breath. “I told you not to do anything stupid.”
She blanched. Her features white, she dropped the comm as if it burned a brand into her palm. “I didn’t think using your comm qualified.” The excuse barely managed the volume of a whisper.
Simon braced himself, struggled to make sense of the room as it swayed in rotating spin cycle around him. The fact he was still naked didn’t bother him.
Not half as much as it obviously bothered her.
Her gaze jerked up, cheeks red. Eyes wild. “What was the plan, Mr. Wells?”
He managed a smile, thin as it was. “Back to Mr. Wells, huh?”
“Don’t you dare. Not now, not after
that
.” Every word sliced through the air. Frozen, honed to a razored edge and flung at him with admirable precision.
He couldn’t let her see how much he bled.