People stampeded around her, fighting their way to the nearest exit. Too caught up in the young boy’s horrific death before her, Layla did not register the swarm of new bodies approaching her until it was too late.
“Do not move!” several police officers shouted.
Layla dropped her hands and turned to face them. They pointed their guns at her and beyond where she was standing. Just a few feet away, Sterling stood, startled. He lifted his hands in defense, and Layla watched as Elise and Jamie skidded to a halt behind the officers.
Elise glanced up at the stage where Mayor Arendale descended with Karine trailing behind him. “Sir! Please, this is not—”
“What kind of monster are you?” Karine demanded. She moved closer to the officers, who held their guns steady on Layla and Sterling.
Elise blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?” She swiped at a piece of dirt that clung to her face and gasped when an officer turned his gun on her.
Karine pressed on, her expression cold and unfeeling. “You heard me. Choosing to work with this criminal reaper?” She jerked her chin toward Layla, whose own body had gone rigid with anger. “Attacking innocent humans together? Was this whole thing your plan?”
Elise was shocked. “What? No. This is you.You’rethe one who—”
“We found your letters to the esteemed Doctor Gray, by the way. Did you know she was arrested in Switzerland for medicalmalpractice? And you want to work with her for what reason? To continue such treatments here in the States?” Karine gestured to where a crack in the ground had opened up and where countless bodies lay just beneath the surface of the dirt. A few appeared less human than the rest, like beasts among the dead. “Are these monsters your creation as well?”
The scent of death had become particularly overbearing now. Layla wrinkled her nose more and more with each shift of the wind. Whatever the explosion had unearthed had been dead for a long time. And now they stood at the center of it all.
“You all need to leave immediately, or we will use force.” The police officers’ voices rang out around the street, closing in on the nervous crowd gathered before them.
“The premises are not safe at the moment. Frankly, I’m starting to get a little frustrated with how you are treating former colleagues,” Sterling said strongly.
While Layla knew he had grown used to managing authority as a Saint member, she did not understand how he still stood so defiantly in the face of a man who had pulled his gun on him. Sure, the Saints had worked with police officers—or rather worked to fill in the gaps police officers left—but that clearly did not make these officers of the law any softer toward them.
The closest officer scowled at Sterling. “Because you are aformercolleague. We no longer work with the Saints. You mean nothing to me now. None of you do,” he snarled. The man reached for his gun, but before he could fully draw it, another explosion shook theground and everything around them.
Layla ducked with the rest of the crowd. Several moments of weighted panic passed as smoke filled the air and ash rained down. Layla looked back up and saw that the building’s windows had been blown out and fires raged on every floor. In the courtyard, people cried out as they watched their homes burn.
Layla straightened, her eyes darting around the holes that continued to open in the courtyard. Bones surfaced in the dirt. Rotting caskets and burial decorations littered the ground, revealing a mass grave of long-dead humans.
The police officers looked on in horror. They lowered their guns and fell silent while the crowd began to scream again.
Jamie touched Layla’s arm and signaled to Sterling and Elise. While the rest of the audience grappled with the atrocities exposed before them, she followed her companions out of the destruction.
19
Back at Jamie’s apartment, they found the place ransacked. Jamie pulled his gun the moment Sterling noticed the busted front door, and the two men entered the apartment first, guns cocking as a full scene unfolded in Jamie’s living room.
Several rogue reapers stood around the room, each one more menacing than the last. Layla stepped in front of Elise, who continued to peer over her shoulder at the reapers.
One of them held Hendricks, stroking the bristling cat’s fur. Jamie pointed his gun at him and snarled, “What the hell are you doing in my home?”
The rogue jerked his head to one of his buddies, who came forward with a small vial. A tiny pink bow was wrapped around it, and Elise gasped behind Layla at the sight. “This was delivered to me late last night. We have seen that Karine is working with the mayor, and now you…are challenging them. We only want to know if we needto discuss new boundaries.”
Layla narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “I thought rogues worked alone. Why are you together?”
“We no longer know who to trust. There has been word that a new poison is spreading and that something is hunting in Harlem. Collective confusion has brought us together. Your friend Celie has only confirmed the chaos.”
Annoyance pricked at Layla. However, there was no time to wonder about Celie’s loyalty when some of the most unpredictable reapers sat before her. “Karine is not on our side. She acts on her own. I would not trust anything that came from her, and that certainly did.” Layla gestured to the vial.
The largest reaper stood, towering over Layla as he walked by with his companions. “Your actions reflect on all reapers; try not to get us involved again.”
Even minutes after they left, the room still seemed to reel from their presence. Jamie hugged his cat to his chest and murmured sweet words to him while everyone else stared at one another in shock.
“Well, that was a disaster,” Jamie said flatly. He frowned at the floor, where blood and dirt had been tracked all over in Elise’s and Sterling’s wake. Layla hung back in the kitchen, where her skin buzzed with adrenaline and her body tried to heal her wounds as quickly as possible. Minor scrapes turned to scars on her face, and the biggest cut from the evolved reaper began to close slowly but surely on her stomach. Still, the damage burned, and it did not helpthat the venom in her system ached for more blood.
Jamie shook his head and sighed. “I don’t think the four of us should handle anything ever again.”
