“Okay, I’ll come out of the bushes and pretend I’m trying to reason with Kira woman to woman. Then we’ll hit her.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “We should have a signal. When I say “give up,” that will be the sign to attack her.”
“Yeah, except that we’re going to make a little change. I’ll do it.”
“No,” she answered at once. “They’ll see me as less of a threat.”
He was silent for a moment, and she knew even without reading his mind that he hated her putting herself in danger again.
When he finally nodded, she went on, “And we keep our focus on her, no matter what they do. I mean, even if the attack seems to come from Mickey.”
She turned and pulled Jake to her, holding tight for a few emotion-charged moments. Then she eased away, stood up and strode out of the bushes.
The other couple saw her almost immediately, and she put her hands in the air like they were holding a gun on her.
“Don’t hurt me,” she called out. “I want to talk to Kira.”
The other woman jutted out her jaw. “Why?”
“Can’t we speak woman to woman?”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He’s hurt.”
Kira shrugged. “What a shame.”
“Why are you doing this to us?”
Kira kept her gaze steady. “Because as long as you’re alive, you’re a threat.”
“If you kill us, it won’t solve your problem. We came to Houma because Dr. Douglas Solomon had a clinic here where he was doing experiments–we assume on fertilized human eggs.”
“Why?” Kira demanded.
“He was trying to create children with superintelligence. That’s where we came from.”
“He was trying to make telepaths?”
“No. Like I said, he was trying to create superintelligent children. When it didn’t work, his backer shut down the project.”
“How do you know all that?” Kira shot back.
“We’ve been doing research. But the point is, he was getting his subjects by running a fertility clinic, and there were hundreds of children involved. Are you going to kill all of them?”
“Hundreds?” Mickey gasped.
“Be quiet,” Kira ordered.
“You can’t kill them all.”
“You’re wrong.”
Mickey had a sick look on his face, and Rachel figured he hadn’t signed up for mass murder.
“Just let us go. We’ll leave the country, if that’s what it takes to satisfy you.”
Kira’s eyes narrowed, and Rachel knew that an attack was coming.
She might have shouted aloud, but there wasn’t time. Instead she called to Jake inside her head.Incoming.
