Liquid Lies (42 page)

A bullet tore between them, exploding a stone into shards.

“No,” she agreed. “But I know someone who does.”

The gun slackened in his hand. He quickly corrected it, popped off another shot. “No, Gwen.”

“You don’t always know what’s best for me, what I’m capable of.”

Three hard, fast shots. His mouth was grim, his eyes hard.

“All the gunfire is focused here and to the west. If I stay low, circle around to the east, I can make it to the semi.”

“Turn to water,” he growled.

“Running’s faster at this distance. And I won’t be tired from changing the weapon.”

“No. Stay here. Stay covered.”

“We’re getting nowhere fast. Just give me the fucking gun.”

He breathed hard, shooting on every exhale.

“Now, Griffin!”

Though his hand slowly slid to his sidearm, he was shaking his head. “The safety’s on.”

He flung the gun at the exact moment another bullet streaked between them. It caught Griffin’s left forearm in a burst of flesh and blood. He didn’t even cry out, just cradled his arm to his chest.

“Griffin!”

“Don’t worry about me.” His clenched teeth gleamed white. “Just go.”

The whole thing suddenly became horrifying real. If she sat there and thought about it too much, she’d never get up. So she closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and pushed herself out from behind the rock.

She sprinted east, away from the fire.

At the same time, she got her first complete look at the scene. Every headlight in the caravan had been switched to bright. Ofarian
Mendacia
guards writhed on the ground, clutching legs or arms or both. A few took cover between the SUVs and the
Mendacia
van, and they showered the hills with rounds. So many more of the caravan’s guards than of Griffin’s crew…

The semi was a beacon in the darkness. She dug deep and hurtled over rocks and dirt. The truck stood fifty yards away. Then forty. Twenty.

A lone guard stood at the rear of the trailer, his attention on the firefight. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen him before, or had assumed they’d leave the semi unprotected. Precious cargo, of course. Couldn’t have the product without the labor.

She didn’t recognize the guard. It didn’t make raising her weapon to him any easier. She fumbled with the safety, figured out how to flick it off, then started toward the guard. Closer, closer. Her feet sent rocks skittering and the guard jumped.

His gun found her before his eyes.

Her first shot was lucky, one for the storybooks. Her finger pressed the trigger more out of reflex than with any sort of aim. No one had ever told her about a gun’s kickback. A giant dug his fingers into her shoulder and yanked her back about a foot.

The guard went down with a yelp, hands pressed to his thigh and blood flowing between his fingers. She hurried over to him, worried she’d struck the artery, but he was bleeding from just above the knee.

His eyes widened then narrowed. “You.”

She saw the calculation cross his face, the realization that she was corporate, not a soldier with combat skills. He stretched for his gun. She fired again, the bullet smashing a hole in the asphalt inches from his crotch.

“Jesus!” he screamed.

She kicked his gun into the gravel on the side of the road. “How do I open the doors?” He smirked up at her, and she knew he assumed she had no real fight in her. That her talents lay in typing and schmoozing. She leveled the gun right at his chest and hoped against hope that he’d never be able to see that she couldn’t ever shoot anyone like that. “You’re surrounded. The quicker we get what we came for, the quicker you can get help for that leg. The doors.”

He grimaced. His face was going pale. One hand left his bleeding thigh to unclick a set of keys from his belt.

“You’re letting them out?” he snarled. “Is that what this is about? You don’t want the
Mendacia
?”

The fact that he thought the Tedrans and the product two separate things set her blood afire.

She slammed the key into the padlock, wrenched the lock apart, and yanked on the door handle. The trailer door rattled and clanged as it rolled up.

She saw Reed’s boots first. Such a silly thing, but she’d know them anywhere, those beat-up workman’s boots with the fat laces and thick soles. The door kept rising, revealing him inch by inch. Powerful legs clad in dirty jeans. Expansive chest and strong shoulders covered by a black, long-sleeved shirt and an unzipped fleece jacket—what he’d been wearing the last time she’d seen him. Fists bound by neutralizer handcuffs. Sharp blue eyes staring down at her in quiet disbelief.

He was literally an angel appearing out of the dark. And like something heavenly or otherworldly, she didn’t quite believe he was standing there before her. Her chest went tight with the sight of him. Her head spun.

Reed jumped off the truck, a lion leaping from its trap, sprung by the mouse. Though his hands were bound, he landed easily. Straightening, they stared at each other. Less than two days apart and it felt like two years. It had been eons since they’d touched, since she’d heard his voice.

A surge of emotion cascaded over her. As powerful as the moment when they’d lunged for each other in the lake house’s bathroom. As unrelenting as ocean waves.

She didn’t see the same on his face. Just a hard, impenetrable expression and heart-rending wariness. God, what he must think of her.

“Reed, about the Plant…”

Gunfire popped all around. Reed impatiently rattled his handcuffs as he peered over her shoulder. “No time for that. Unlock me.”

She trapped the gun between her knees and, with shaking hands, paged through the keys to find the one for his cuffs.

“We came for the Tedrans.” She glanced up at him. He was beautiful and scary, all coiled with purpose and calculation, like that moment in the alley when she’d first seen him. “And I came for you.”

The cuffs fell to the pavement with a clatter. His eyes flickered to his watch on her wrist and he went still.

They faced each other, physically unfettered but a sea of unspoken words swimming between them.

The gunfire rose and rose. Reed shook his head, focus replacing emotion. “Secure the caravan?” he said. “That’s the idea?”

“Yeah. Disable the guards and it’s ours.” She jerked her chin to the hilly roadside. “Griffin’s up there, wounded. We only have nine total.” She remembered Zoe with a pang. “Maybe eight.”

Reed scratched the heavy stubble on his cheek. “They’ve got eighteen.”

Of course he’d have paid attention to that. “They’re down a few, but we’re not aiming to kill.”

He seemed a little disappointed at that. “Got it. Weapons?”

She loosed the one between her knees and held it out. “This one has
nelicoda
bullets.” Then pointed to the one in the gravel. “That one doesn’t.”

He looked at her funny for a moment. He still didn’t know
nelicoda
’s purpose. Another obstacle between them. A big one.

He checked the bullet chambers of each gun and swore. Sidling to the edge of the semi-trailer, he ventured one lightning-quick peek around the corner.

“Don’t move from this spot until I call for you.”

And then he was gone. Again.

The gunfire escalated. She heard Reed shouting for Griffin, and Griffin answering. Against the truck, she squeezed shut her eyes, imagining them both safe.

With a sickening lurch of her heart, she thought of what Griffin had insinuated back in the diner. What she’d feared even as she’d spilled everything to Reed. Her Primary didn’t just know about Secondaries now. He was a part of them. Among them.

Her next battle would be to save his life.

“Gwen.”

She whirled. Xavier had come down from the trailer. She never thought she’d be so happy to see his artful good looks and mistrustful eyes. Despite what was going on at her back, she smiled, because his eyes were no longer mistrustful.

He couldn’t speak for several long moments. “You came for us.”

“I promised you I would.”

All the Tedrans inside pressed to the front of the trailer, quiet in their fear of what lay outside. The little green lights of their neutralizers glowed like sickly fireflies.

Xavier lifted his hands. “These handcuffs are new since I escaped. We didn’t know…if we’d have tried to go through with Nora’s plan, it wouldn’t have worked.”

Without thinking, Gwen touched his arm. When he didn’t recoil, she gave him a reassuring squeeze.

A lithe figure in loose, pale clothing stepped to the edge of the trailer bed. Chin lifted, Nora looked down her nose at Gwen, as if they were back in the lake house and she still had the right.

Gwen looked her former captor right in the eye and pointed to the hilltop. “Genesai is up there. Waiting to take you home. All of you.”

“The fighting? What’s going on?” Xavier asked.

She thought back to their conversation on the terrace steps, where she’d confronted him about buying into Nora’s my-way-or-the-highway bullshit.

She looked up at him sadly. “I’m as much a pariah to my people as you are. But I’m going to change that.”

“You
think
you’ll change,” Nora spit. “But you won’t.”

The gunfire abruptly stopped.

“Gwen!” Reed’s voice cut through the night.

She scrambled for the key to Xavier’s cuffs and pointed to the wounded Ofarian guard on the ground. “Bring him,” she told Xavier, then dashed out onto the battlefield, not thinking to check if it was safe, trusting Reed implicitly.

The Ofarian guards had been herded up against one of the SUVs. The barrier of the skewed
Mendacia
truck kept them packed tightly together. Most clutched their wounded parts, moaning. Some sat with hands behind their heads, glaring. Xavier added the one Gwen had shot to the pile, then backed away fast, watching the scene with wide eyes.

A pile of confiscated weapons and radios lay in the roadside ditch. Other Ofarians—Gwen’s Ofarians—surrounded the captives. Seven of their original nine. She didn’t see Zoe. But David was there, and Griffin, pressing his wounded arm to his side. He needed to get to a doctor, but the Ofarian ones were all back in San Francisco. The Plant had had doctors, but they weren’t among the captured guards or sitting with the Tedrans in the semi.

Gwen smelled a hunt to come.

Reed stood before them all, legs spread, hand clutching the one gun she guessed hadn’t run out of bullets. He glanced her way, the mask she recognized as belonging to the Retriever firmly in place.

A surge of elation flowed through her, making her light as air. All the desperation and isolation and fury she’d felt in Nora’s captivity—and the uselessness she’d despaired over while trapped in her father’s manor—all seemed so very far away. Victory was within her reach. They just needed to get to the lake.

She nodded at Reed, so very, very grateful for everything he’d done. All that he’d sacrificed. But he just tightened his lips and returned his attention to his targets.

And she realized, with a suddenness that sent her reeling, that she
had
used him. Why else would she have asked for his help in the first place, if she hadn’t wanted his strength, his abilities?

“What now?” Griffin asked behind her.

Inventory, she thought. She headed for the
Mendacia
van.

She never actually got there.

One of the caravan guards grabbed her as she passed. He was fast, too fast even for Griffin and Reed. The guard rolled to his feet, smashing her body against his chest, a knife point pricking the skin just below her ear.

Reed’s gun swept around, but it was too late.

“Stay where you are,” snapped the guard. “We don’t want you. Just her.”

There was something familiar about his voice. She didn’t have time to think on it, however, because he whistled and the rear doors of the
Mendacia
van opened.

Her father stepped out.

THIRTY-NINE

“Gwen.”
Keep her calm
, Reed thought. She needed her head to
get out of this, and she had one of the best minds he knew.
“Gwen
.
”

Her eyes finally found his, but she still clawed at the arm of the guy holding a knife to her throat, panic twitching through her body.

“That’s it,” Reed told her, nice and easy. “Keep looking at me. Keep it together.”

She didn’t let go of the asshole’s arm, but the longer she looked at Reed, the easier and steadier her breathing became.

Jesus, what she’d done tonight…She’d escaped from Nora, gone back to San Francisco, been reunited with her people, and then risked her life to go against them and do what she believed was right. He’d never doubted her conviction, just his role in her plan, especially since she’d kept him locked in the Plant.

And what had been the first thing she’d done when Griffin and his team teetered on the brink of defeat? She’d come to Reed looking for help. Is that all he was good for to her?

Yet she was wearing his watch.

“Dad,” Gwen begged the man who’d emerged from the van. “Dad, you don’t have to do this.”

An eerie quiet fell over the scene. Every Ofarian—those captured, those holding guns—watched Gwen’s father in expectation. Reed got the feeling that in any other situation, they might have bowed. Even Griffin looked doubtful. Fearful.

Strange, but the Chairman looked incredibly young, late forties at best. He took a few steps toward his daughter, hands in his pockets, the corners of his eyes drawn down in distress. “I did listen to you, Gwennie. And now I’m doing what’s best for our people. That will always be my priority. As it should be yours.” The look he gave the soldier holding Gwen was filled with regret and heartache. “You were right, Jonah.”

The soldier said something in that strange, rolling language Gwen had used back in the lake house bedroom, the one that reminded Reed of water tripping over stones. The soldier’s body and face shivered, shifting between illusion and reality, the way Gwen’s had done that night when she’d revealed everything. The soldier disappeared; in his place stood a middle-aged man in sleek trousers and a pricey sweater.