Sacrifice the Wicked (22 page)

The man he knew only as Jones—like Simon and the rest of the lost souls the Church took in, the name had been given—jerked a thumb down the hall. “Interrogation rooms. We’ve rounded up most of the resisting missionaries, but there’s a few still insisting we’ve got it wrong.” He shouldered his gun, tilting his head. “You were supposed to bring that woman hours ago. Where the hell were you?”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Trying to locate her sources,” he returned evenly.

The man frowned. “Sources? More rebels?”

Rebels. As if they’d earned the right to call themselves some kind of standing army.

For Christ’s sake.

Turning his back, Simon strode in the direction the operative indicated—although he didn’t need the help. He knew where the interrogation cells were.

Putting Parker in one didn’t promise a happy fucking ending.

He couldn’t run. Every alarm in his body screamed at him to haul ass, kill every last bastard in the room and shoot a few more for emphasis, but he couldn’t do that, either.

Everything depended on him.

Her life, anyway.

The rest was a lost cause.

His head hurt, but at least he was clean. More or less. He stepped into the elevator, hit the right button, and waited as the motor kicked in. The Mission elevators rode smoothly, and he was acutely aware of the security camera in the corner.

He schooled his features into something mildly impatient. Mostly indolent. The same mask that had gotten him through years of training in Sector Three.

Funny how Parker hadn’t responded as well to that mask as she had to the man he was inside.

His heart thumped hard.

He couldn’t be too late. They wouldn’t kill her this fast, they’d want her information first. See what she knew, who else she’d told.

Maybe, after all this was over—if they survived the day—she could forgive him the pain he’d caused her.

And maybe her cat was a magical tooth fairy.

His fists clenched as the elevator slowed. The doors opened, a subtle whoosh of compressed air, and two heads lifted on either side of the hall.

Two guns followed.

More operatives. More faceplates.

And a hall full of cells.

“Where’s the doc?” he asked, strolling out of the elevator as if he had every right to be there.

“Operation number,” barked one.

Simon didn’t bother moderating his sneer. Curling his fingers into his collar, he yanked the fabric far enough down to reveal the seal of St. Andrew imprinted in his skin. And beneath it, the bar code.

They’d both have similar.

Both guns lowered. “Some shit, huh?” the first man asked.

Simon couldn’t tell if he knew them. The helmet modulated the voice too much, and neither said anything to suggest they knew him.

How many men had Lauderdale hoarded away?

Christ, how many facilities besides Simon’s birthplace still functioned?

“Yup,” Simon drawled. “Some shit. Where’s Dr. Lauderdale? I’ve got a report for her.”

“Two doors on the left,” the second man said and tucked his gun behind him. “Don’t go sticking your nose anywhere else.”

Simon grinned. “No, thanks.”

He made it three steps, squarely between the two, when a scream—muffled, female, and ragged—ripped through the hall.

Neither of the men so much as twitched.

Parker.

“That’s three,” said the first man. “Pay up, John.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Simon didn’t think. Didn’t even hitch a breath as he reached out beside him. The man digging in his pants utility pocket strangled on a curse as Simon wrenched his gun around, hauled the man backward with the strap and fired a semiautomatic burst in a wide arc.

It almost drowned out Parker’s screaming.

The bullets slammed into the wall, tore plaster and paint into ribbons. Impacted the operative with rounds too big for armor to completely stop. He staggered back, blood flashing, smeared on the wall behind him.

Simon spun, wrenched the gun to his side. The second operative stumbled, struggling to disentangle himself from the strap, and met Simon’s fist with his faceplate.

The tempered plastic cracked.

So did Simon’s fist.

Swearing, teeth gritted as waves of pain radiated through his hand, Simon let the man drop to the ground. The gun collided with the man’s side.

Within seconds, the semiautomatic was pointed at the operative, and he scooted farther away, crab-walking awkwardly.

The gunfire would have triggered an alarm somewhere, must have gotten attention. The interrogation rooms weren’t soundproofed.

Prisoners listened to other prisoners scream. Sometimes, psychology did the rest.

The operative glared through his cracked faceplate, sights leveled on Simon. “Who are you?” he demanded, a strange amalgam of real voice and fuzzy computer filter.

Simon smiled. Even through his pain, humor licked at the black edges of his rage. “I’m a missionary.”

The operative froze as the weapon’s cartridge hit the floor at his booted feet.

Simon knelt, retrieved the dead guy’s weapon.

“You can’t—”

“Let me repeat myself,” Simon cut in, and this time, there was nothing amused about it. He tucked the stock into his shoulder, stared at the man on the business end.

And felt nothing.

No sympathy. No shared past.

No mercy.

“I hunt people like you.”

“Please—!” Bullets splattered through the linoleum. Through his armor.

Simon dropped the weapon as he stepped over the twitching body. Metal met sticky floor, but he didn’t hear it. Didn’t care.

Dead was dead.

And as Parker’s screams filled the hall, his head—his worthless heart—he palmed the Colt from under his shirt and kicked open the door.

The observation room was dim, but the speakers feeding the events inside the deeper interrogation cell told him everything he needed to know.

Kayleigh’s arms folded on the counter beneath the wide glass window. Her face was hidden, but her shoulders shook soundlessly as Parker’s screams shifted to panting gasps for air.

“Who are your fellow conspirators?” a man demanded.

Parker sobbed for breath.

“This can all end.” The man in the window bent, laid a hand on her shoulder. “All you have to do is tell me who you worked with. Who’s your informant, Miss Adams? Who brought you the syringe?”

They had it already.

He should have been pissed. He should have felt something else, something more, but all he felt was elation. She was alive.

Her face tear-streaked, mottled red and white, Parker shook back her tangled hair. “Go to hell,” she said between clenched teeth, with the exhaustion—the strain—of someone who’d said it already.

Many times.

The man sighed.

Kayleigh muffled a sob as Parker’s scream crackled through the speakers once more, courtesy of the electrical prod applied to her side.

Simon sighted down his weapon’s barrel. “End it, Kayleigh.”

She shook her head.

“Kayleigh!”

When she stood, the chair flew backward. Clattered to the opposite bank of electronics so hard that it briefly drowned out the sobbing pleas in the window behind her. She clutched both hands to her chest, knuckles white. “I can’t! I can’t— This isn’t what I was told.”

Simon’s jaw hardened, points of pain in his back teeth. “Look at me.”

Fingers clenched, Kayleigh turned. Tears streaked down her cheeks, caught at her bloodless lips. Her eyes shimmered, impossibly fractured.

Hurting.

His grip on the gun firmed.

She wasn’t hurting nearly as bad as Parker.

“Do you get it now?” he demanded. “Do you see the truth?”

Her gaze dropped.

“Why do you make it so hard on yourself?” came the reasonable tones of the interrogator.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Kayleigh said, chin quivering. She looked at him. Back at the window as the man circled Parker, slumped forward in her chair. Kayleigh closed her eyes. “All I ever wanted to do was find the Eve sequence. Fix what my mother tried to.”

Disgust rose like a venomous tide. “Instead, you let yourself do your father’s dirty work.”

“It’s not dirty w—”

Simon took a step forward, murder in every screaming nerve.

Kayleigh paled, bone-white as she sank to the table’s edge. “Please,” she whispered. “He’s my father.”

“And blood is thicker than water, right?”

“Yes!” And then she jammed a hand against her mouth, shaking her head. “N-no, I just—”

He shook his head, sickened by the truth he read in her eyes. Just like her father’s. “I’m not your blood, Kayleigh. You come from
him
.” He lowered the gun, unclipped his comm, and keyed in a stroke. The list appeared. “Your inability to see the truth isn’t my problem. Right now, Parker is. So you have a choice.”

She met his eyes, flinched at what she saw there.

“Get out now, and start running. If you’re good, you’ll make it to the mid-lows before everything really goes to shit.”

She looked down at her clenched hands. “I can’t.”

“Then you stay here,” he said quietly, every syllable a violent promise. He threw the comm to the table in front of her. She flinched as it cracked against her reader. “And you suffer the consequences with the rest of them.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

T
he current tore through her side, electrical teeth shredding, ripping, tearing. Parker screamed until she didn’t have a voice left, words piling up in her head. Her throat.

Words of blame. Names, places.

Anything. God,
everything
. Just to make it stop.

She clenched her teeth around them.

When it finally ended, an eternity later, she sobbed wildly, panting for air, twisting against her restraints. Everything hurt, her skin itched, as if it wanted to sizzle off her bones.

Sucking down oxygen, Parker let her head hang. Her hair covered her face, a tangled curtain to hide her tears.

She could do this.

As her body shook uncontrollably, Parker knew she couldn’t.

Danny. Her missionaries. Were they going through this?

Her interrogator shifted.

“Stop,” she pleaded raggedly. “Stop . . . You have— You have what you want. Why?”

“One little vial of goo isn’t enough,” the interrogator said. He crouched, pulled aside her hair with a gentle hand. Kindness filled his eyes; so sincere. So sympathetic. “Just give me some names, and this will all be over.”

Over, sure. Terminally over. And then this same torture would be inflicted on anyone she coughed up.

Names she desperately wanted to give.

A sob wrenched itself free. Fear clawed through her throat, seized her heart. As her gaze fell on that black prod, she shook her head. Over and over.

It was all she could do.

She screamed, hysterical even before the current touched her skin.

Thunder cracked; maybe it was her head. Her resolve. As her will crumbled, the current suddenly ceased. She sobbed, for breath and for the men and women she knew she couldn’t save.

Couldn’t even begin to know how.

“Please,” she croaked. It broke. “Please . . . no more. I’ll—” Her ears ringing, she raised her face.

Two men struggled in the small room. Simon.

Simon was here?

Her sob wrenched his head around. His eyes burned, wild and hopeless and filled with so much rage.

The interrogator lunged at him, tackled him hard into the wall. The prod came around—Parker screamed as it gouged into Simon’s side.

He jerked, cords standing out in his neck as his body writhed and twitched. A strangled, hoarse scream locked in his throat.

She stared, every muscle shaking.

He’d come back. For her?

For the serum?

It didn’t matter. He’d come back, and now that pain—all that agony and torture and horror—filled him.

She couldn’t stand to watch it. Tearing at her restraints, the chair rocking, all of it—the fear and anger and, oh, God, the love—came out of her in a shriek. “
Simon!
”

The interrogator’s head whipped around.

Simon wrenched to the side, fell toward the gun dropped from nerveless fingers. In seconds, the space of a breath, he whipped it around, teeth bared as he hissed out a painful breath through them.

“I’m here,” he gritted out.

The gunshot ricocheted through the small room. Loud enough to slam through her eardrums, to shred the last ounce of resolve she had left.

Parker flinched, sobbing wildly. She yanked at her wrists, unable to force her body still—the restraints tore at her flesh. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t sit still as the report faded into sudden, overwhelming silence.

But for her tears.

Warm, firm hands caught her cheeks, framed her face. “Parker. Parker, you’re okay.”

She opened her eyes. Met Simon’s raw, desperately searching gaze.

Thank you, God.

Her smile hurt. “Fancy . . . meeting you here.” She sucked in a shuddering breath as her vision turned black at the edges. “Mr. Wells.”

“Stay with me.” He pushed back her hair with trembling fingers. “Damn it, Parker, don’t you pass out on me.”

She winced faintly. “Not,” she mumbled, but knew she lied.

The void sucked at her consciousness—sweetly empty. Promising nothing but peace.

She wanted peace.

“Parker!”

Her restraints gave way, but she didn’t have it in her to hold herself up. She slumped forward, couldn’t even bring herself to brace for impact with the cold floor.

She fell into warmth instead. Simon’s arms banded around her, one hand speared through her hair, tucking her head against his chest.

His heart hammered beneath her ear. An ethereal beat, rapid and solid and
real
.

“Don’t do it,” he ordered roughly, his arms tightening. He sank to the floor, held her as she fought to remain aware.

She had to tell him.

He didn’t have to die.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, gut-wrenching intensity. His voice shook. Were they still in the cell?

Of course they were.

Parker’s fingers tightened in his shirt.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Simon rasped, every word low and painful as it filtered through his chest, thrummed under her ear. She shuddered. “I thought if I could get to Mattie first, if I could get that serum first, everything would be fine. Then she died, and everything . . . everything changed. I didn’t count on
you
. I never counted on—”

His voice broke, his large hand tightening at the back of her head. Parker inhaled, took in his scent, the tang of blood and sweat.

The sterile fragrance of the Mission cell.

“If I could do it all over again,” he whispered against her hair, “I’d tell you everything from day one.
Fuck
the consequences.”

Her fingers opened over his chest. His heart. Bracing herself, she struggled to sit up. To raise her head from his shoulder and meet his eyes. They glistened, roiled in a sea of so many emotions that she couldn’t pick out just one.

With trembling fingers, she cupped his jaw. “You’re here.”

“Always,” he promised roughly, seizing her hand and drawing her fingers to his lips.

Something inside her chest turned over. Something stronger than she thought she could be.

She jerked her hand away. “Why the hell are you
here
? Simon, you’re—”

The observation room door slammed open.

Simon moved so fast, the world tilted in a blurry spiral. One minute, he’d held her upright—the next she found herself tucked behind him, pressed to his broad back as two men spilled into the room.

They froze at the sight of Simon’s gun pinned on them.

Parker’s eyes widened. “Simon, no!” She lunged around him, grabbed Simon’s arm to the side.

Bald head glistening with sweat, Alan Eckhart whistled a wavering, three-note tune—a questioning slide. He kept his hands up, a gun held in one and pointed to the ceiling. Unlike the operatives, he wasn’t dressed in Mission armor. His worn jeans and T-shirt had seen better days. “You scared the hell out of me, ma’am.” His eyes slid to Simon. Hardened. “Are you all right?”

He wasn’t asking Simon.

Simon’s arm twitched in Parker’s grasp. She held on tightly. “I’m fine,” she said, summoning every last ounce of calm she had left. She couldn’t lose it, not in front of them.

She wiped her face on her sleeve.

“Those fuckers,” the second man seethed. Seth Miles, lacking his fedora, his youthful face lined with anger. “Those motherfucking sons of—”

Parker’s smile was faint, but she managed. “Okay, Mr. Miles. That’ll do. What’s the status?”

Eckhart didn’t move, his gaze on Simon. “What’s with him?”

“He’s with—”
Me
? She caught herself. “With us.” Slowly, she let go of Simon’s arm, but she watched a muscle leap in his jaw.

“Are you sure?”

“She’s sure,” Simon growled. He hadn’t moved, but he didn’t step aside, either.

Miles looked at Eckhart. Then at her.

Parker swayed.

“Ma’am!”

“Touch her, and it’ll be the last thing you do.” Simon didn’t bother raising his voice. Instead, he curled an arm possessively around her waist, angled himself to support her without breaking eye contact with the older missionary.

That three-note tune fractured on a sudden snort. “All right,” Eckhart said and stepped aside. “There’s about twenty of us left.”

“Us?” Parker repeated, her stomach knotting. “Did they kill the others?”

“The
fuckers
.” Miles, anger evident in every syllable. Every breath.

Eckhart put a hand on his shoulder, but he met Parker’s eyes. No fear, no reticence. “Some killed in the fight. Silo, Williams, and Smith were murdered ahead of time. We got out with Stone’s help. The rest . . . um. Well, most don’t work for
you
, ma’am.”

“The fuckers,” Parker breathed. Because anger, because grim humor, beat the pain of betrayal. She’d known. She’d suspected long enough to get used to the idea, but no amount of speculation softened the reality.

She’d worked hard for the Mission. All of them. And only twenty remained?

At least she’d been right about Eckhart and Miles.

Simon’s grip tightened at her waist.

“Most of our agents are waiting in the cells,” he said as Parker shook her head. It wouldn’t clear, not completely.

Too much juice in those damned interrogation prods.

She clung to Simon’s side, her fingers tight in his shirt as she struggled to focus on the missionaries.

Miles bent at the Sector Three man’s side. Checked his pulse.

“Can we free them?” Simon demanded.

“Only if we get to the main computers,” Parker said before Eckhart could. “We need a plan.”

“We need to get you out,” Simon countered.

She stiffened. He didn’t let her go. “I’m not—”

“He’s right.” Eckhart wiped his arm across his forehead, his weary gaze calm as it met hers. Held. “Ma’am, we’ve got no love for Sector Three. If we can keep you out of their hands, anything else we do is gravy.”

“I agree,” Miles added, rising. His jaw, much less square than Simon’s but edged, set. “Those bastards can’t have our director.”

Her eyes burned.

“You just get her out,” Eckhart said over her, his gaze flicking to Simon. “Long as she gets safe, there’s a chance the rest of the city’ll hear about this.”

She expected Simon to argue. To throw out a plan, demand obedience.

Instead, his hand tight at her waist, he looked at her.

His expression softened.

“Consider it done,” he said quietly. Implacable as hell.

“Good.” Eckhart glanced up, then jerked a thumb back through the viewing room door. “Because we have maybe two minutes before the distraction team makes a mess.”

Parker disengaged from Simon’s hold, forcing her knees to lock. The world dipped, but she braced one hand against Simon’s arm. “What distraction team?”

“They locked up a handful of the analysts together,” he explained.

“Foster came up with the idea,” Miles added. “They’re down in the server room wiring things to overcharge.”

Simple, but effective. Parker hesitated.

Despite Simon’s glower, Eckhart reached over and touched her arm. His grizzled features softened. “They know the risks, ma’am. We all do. Let us help you out.”

Parker stared at him.

Simon shifted. Stepped away, his gaze on the door.

As if he were giving the missionaries time. As a unit.

A team.

Miles folded his arms awkwardly over his chest, rocking back on his heels. “You helped us when we needed you most, ma’am,” he said. More than a little sheepishly. “After Peterson.”

“You kept us running smooth and you knew when to look the other way.” Eckhart touched his forehead, a kind of salute. “None of us saw this coming. But we’re damn well going to see it end.”

“We’re going to need you, ma’am.”

Simon looked back over his shoulder. “The elevator’s coming. Six people inside.”

Parker studied the mid-low missionaries. She didn’t have to try too hard to remember their files. Good men, fine agents.

Extraordinary people.

She nodded. Once. “All right. Both of you have Jonas’s frequency, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s your link to the outside.” She took a step, wobbled as her muscles cramped.

Miles caught her arm. “We gotcha.”

Yes. They really did.

“L
et’s move it.”

Simon glowered at the small group, his gaze settling on the grip Miles had on Parker’s arm. But he didn’t say anything.

She needed the help. More, she needed to understand that her people—the good people—respected her.

Always had.

That much he’d never doubted.

Behind him, the elevator light blinked. He didn’t know what was coming, only knew six shapes filled that shaft. Given the ruckus, he’d bet armed soldiers.

Miles led Parker out first. She followed, but her face lifted as she passed Simon. Grim, worried.

He touched her cheek gently. “I’m right behind you.”

Eckhart studied him as Parker hurried down the hall, Miles protecting her flank. “Go,” he ordered.

“I can—”

“Just fucking go, Wells,” Eckhart ordered dryly.

Simon did. The agent followed.

All of them knew the layout of the cells. They moved as fast as Parker could, and when her legs gave out for the third time, Simon holstered his weapon and scooped her into his arms.

“I can walk,” she snapped.

“No, you can’t,” Simon replied. The fury locked behind his thin veneer of calm trickled out through each word.

Parker stilled.

“Let me do this,” he added, striving for something less violent and only partially succeeding.

“Time.” Eckhart touched his shoulder; a warning tap. “In three . . . two . . .”

Simon braced himself.

On cue, the walls shook as something detonated somewhere in the quad. Plaster crumbled from the ceiling, floated like snow through the hall.

Whatever silent alarms he’d triggered earlier, they erupted into full-blown sirens. Alarms triggered throughout the complex. Warnings flared.

They ran like hell.

Parker clung to his shoulders, her face white, hair dusted with plaster. His muscles burned, but he followed Miles’s lead to the far end of the hall.