Prologue
Austin
As soon as the back door to the SUV slammed shut, Cade took a step back and sent a jerk of his chin to Dune, who was behind the wheel.
If I clenched my jaw any harder, I was afraid I was gonna crack some teeth.
But I held it all in. Kept the rage tucked deep inside, which was something I had gotten good at.
The tires kicked up dust, and soon, the eerie red glow of the taillights became lost in the storm.
Those three kids were going to the hospital. With any luck, they’d be reunited with their families in the next few hours. It wouldn’t erase what happened to them— nothing could erase that— but at least they could begin to heal. I was glad we’d gotten there when we had. I hated to think what just another hour would have led to.
“It’s over,” Cade said in that gruff, unemotional voice of his.
It was over, in a sense. But on the grander scale, it wasn’t. It never was… never would be. Not for those kids we saved. Not for the parents of the ones we were too late to save. Not for the millions of kids and people still trapped out there.
As I met Cade’s stormy eyes, still trying my hardest to hold in my anger, I knew he understood on a level not just anyone would get. This wasn’t simply a job for people like us. It wasa necessity. It was redemption. It was life. Each of us had a different reason why we were here, why we tortured ourselves like this, but in the end, we were basically the same. We were fucked up, some of us even dead inside, and this was our reason to keep going.
“It feels like things are escalating,” I said to Cade.
Jameson grunted in agreement at my back.
The Sons of the Holy Fire.
The group we’d been trying to end for years. So far, we’d only managed to carve out smaller cells and shut them down. It felt like picking scales off of a dragon. In other words, we hadn’t gotten anywhere.
“There’s no way they’ve figured us out,” Cade said, answering the unasked question that went along with my statement.
I had to believe Reed and his secret project weren’t on the verge of being exposed. Without this team…
“We’ve been hitting them hard lately,” Roland not-so-helpfully pointed out, effectively pulling me out of my thoughts. “They’ve probably caught on to the fact that we’re out here.”
He had a point. We hadn’t exactly been subtle lately when it came to taking out these cells. We tended to make sure there wasn’t a single sick fuck left to tell the tale of what happened. That might have said more than an actual witness, though.
Sometimes you had to kick the hornet’s nest to shake shit up. It was my thought that if we rattled the organization enough, they might slip up, and we could take them out for good.
“Yeah, but I just figured with us using Agent Priestley’s team for cleanup and shit, they’d figure it was that division taking them out,” I said. “Thatisone of the reasons it was put together, right?”
“That was what we were led to believe,” Cade said. “The whole reason Reed wanted to work with Agent Priestley’s team and help them out.”
We were supposed to have the same goal.
“If no one is supposed to know they exist, then how would this bad FBI guy suspect that it’s Agent Ford Priestley and his team that’s been going after them?” Jameson asked. I turned to face him just in time to see his mouth frown with uncertainty. “And remember, we collectively agreed not to involve the FBI team in any of those cases.”
He was right. After we’d gotten Milo back when someone high up in the FBI who ran The Sons of the Holy Fire had him kidnapped, we had agreed not to bring in Agent Ford Priestley and his off-the-book team on any of those cases. We hadn’t found who this guy was, which meant that we didn’t know who to trust. We sure as hell weren’t taking chances.
We were at a loss, but this was not the time to talk about it.
“Let’s bury the bodies and light it up,” Roland said, looking ready to get this night over with.
***
Hours later, I was back at the office, resting on one of the beds we had in a backroom. My bed, as I had claimed it, though this room didn’t often get used by the rest of the team. I was the only one that took advantage of the fact that it was here on a near-daily basis.
Some liked to say I lived here… and I wouldn’t agree with them, though I couldn’t deny that I had nothing to back up an argument.
My hair was still damp from the shower, and though I’d scrubbed twice, the smell of smoke still lingered on my skin.
