“Ed broke his leg jumping out of a helicopter when he was in Air Force Pararescue. He had a long plate attached to his lower femur to stabilize it,” Trevor said. “This body is Ed’s. We’ve been set up.”
Somewhere along the catwalk on the far side of the warehouse, a man clapped his hands in applause.
Trevor and Alina pointed their weapons that way as Jake stepped forward to stand in the beam of late-day sunshine streaming in through one of the overhead skylights. Wade and two other men were with him. Judging by their size and the telltale red eyes, they were hybrids as well.
“So you finally fucking figured it out, huh, Trevor?” Jake sneered. “Took you long enough.”
Then the shooting started.
Trevor tried to stay with Alina, but as the four people up on the catwalk started blazing away at them with automatic rifles, that became impossible, and they both had to run for their lives. He turned and headed deeper into the warehouse, popping off an occasional shot at Jake and the others as they moved down the stairs from the second level. He hoped he could draw them away from his partner and give her time to get out of here.
“What happened, Jake?” he shouted as he ran, wanting to make sure they knew exactly where he was. “Ed catch you planting the bomb, or is there another reason you killed the man who covered your back for all those years?”
He didn’t really expect an answer, not in the middle of a firefight, but Jake surprised him by laughing. From the sound of it, the man wasn’t more than three or four rows away.
“He didn’t catch me,” Jake called out as he headed in Trevor’s direction “But I knew he was onto me. The stupid idiot confronted me after the bombing. I had no choice but to kill him.”
Trevor wasn’t naive. Jake wasn’t confessing out of the goodness of his heart. He and some of his hybrid buddies were probably trying to home in on Trevor’s voice right this second. Knowing that, it would likely have been smart to shut up. But Trevor had never professed to be that smart, not when it came to dealing with a traitor. He was pissed, and he wanted Jake dead.
“You didn’t simply kill Ed, you asshole,” Trevor growled as he kept moving, luring Jake, and hopefully the others, in a great big circle around the warehouse. “You put him in a tub of fucking acid.”
“There’s no reason to be like that, man,” Jake said. “It was nothing personal. Just business.”
“Business?” Trevor snapped, doubling back toward the place they’d found Ed’s body. “What the hell does that mean? Whose business?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jake asked, mirroring Trevor’s movements. “I’ve worked for Thomas Thorn from the day the DCO recruited me,” Jake admitted. “When he called and said it was time for John to die, I simply did what I was paid to do. Like I said. It was nothing personal. Just business.”
* * *
Alina dove for cover behind four yellow drums covered in flammable-liquid labels. It wasn’t the best place to hide. One spark, and it would all be over. But when you’re getting shot at by your psycho ex-teammate turned hybrid monster, you take what you can get.
She turned, expecting to see Trevor right behind her, and barely caught sight of him running in the other direction. Alina moved to follow, but another burst of automatic weapon fire near her feet drove her back even farther, making her scramble for better cover.
She heard Trevor shooting at Jake, then practically taunting the man, and she knew exactly what her partner was doing. The damn heroic idiot was trying to get Wade and all the others to chase after him so she could get away. She could understand why he would do something like that—she’d do the same. But he had to know that, with her background, there was no way in hell she was ever going to leave him—even if they weren’t already more than partners.
So she kept moving fast, avoiding the hail of gunshots coming at her from the catwalk above while trying to figure out where Trevor was at the same time. The moment she got a reprieve from the constant gunfire, she poked her head up to see where everyone was. As she expected, Wade and the other hybrids were coming down the stairs and splitting up to start searching the warehouse.
Seeing Wade up on the catwalk earlier had been bad enough, but realizing Jake, a guy she’d liked from the moment she’d met him, was involved in both Ed’s and John’s deaths was gut-wrenching. Knowing something about what it felt like to find out a team member had betrayed you, Alina didn’t have to guess what Trevor would be trying to do once he thought she was safe. He’d be looking for revenge, and he’d do anything to get it—even if it meant risking his own life.
Alina had to figure out a way to help him. She needed to get Wade and at least one of those other hybrids to come after her and not Trevor. That would give her partner his best chance to deal with Jake—then get them both out of here.
It wasn’t like she’d have to do anything special to get Wade to come after her. He hated her. Chasing her down would be fun for him.
Pulse racing at the insanity of what she was about to do, Alina hunkered down a little lower in her hiding place, trying to be as quiet as possible as she pulled her backup magazine out of her pocket and had it ready so she could reload quickly. When she had a chance to hit these guys, she needed to make it count. Because she wasn’t merely fighting a collection of cold-blooded killers. She was dealing with hybrids who were stronger, faster, and ten times harder to kill than a normal person.
Yup, it was insane. But she was doing it anyway.
“I guess you’re with Thorn now, too, huh, Wade?” she yelled as she moved out from behind the protection of the boxes she’d been hiding behind, firing a couple of shots in the general direction of the stealthy hybrids.
When Wade didn’t answer, she moved a little to the left, not even trying to be quiet, and poked him again. Not so much because she cared what he had to say, but simply so she could get his goat. Because that was one thing she always remembered about him…he hated losing at anything, even if it was just a bout of trash talking. He’d always wanted people to know he was the smartest person in the room and always had the answers.
“Did he buy you recently, or has he owned your balls all along? I know your loyalty has always been flexible.”
That must have gotten his attention, because she heard him growl from somewhere to her right. Crap, he was a lot closer to her than she’d thought. She immediately started backing up, hoping he and the other hybrids—if they were coming this way—would follow.
“I started working for him a few weeks before Turkey,” he admitted as he continued moving to the right. “As much as I disliked the four of you, I hadn’t been planning to betray you. But when a man comes to you and drops a briefcase full of money in your lap, it’s amazing how easy it is to change your plans. Thorn wanted the CIA out of the way so he could put sarin gas in the hands of certain rebel forces in Syria. You and your team had to go.”
“Why would Thorn want something like that?” Alina demanded, just to keep him talking.
