Ronan shrugged. “She stopped screaming.”
They climbed up the decorative rocks to the brick walkway that led to several stores and restaurants. In the late afternoon, the coffee shop to the right was busy, and most of the patrons watched them with wide eyes.
Adare nodded at the crowd and kept on walking. “We need to get out of here.”
Ronan hustled up to his side. “Can you run?”
“Yep.” He might be a little dizzy, but he’d get to the helicopter. They’d hidden it in the forest, far from the meeting place. “We have to go by that Bobbi’s apartment. The Kurjans have obviously gotten to her.” It was probably too late, but for Grace’s peace of mind, he needed to check.
Ronan ducked his head and loped into a jog. “We’ll go by there, but it’s a waste of time.” He was quiet, his speed increasing. “The Kurjans were in the sun.”
“I know,” Adare said, keeping pace and running toward the sun. The sheer magnitude of that fact was too much to comprehend right now. The Kurjans had somehow modified themselves so they could venture out in the day—which altered things considerably. In the Kurjans’ favor.
Everything had just changed. Again.
Ronan’s phone buzzed, and he drew it from his pocket, halting in a parking lot for a movie theatre. Water dripped from the device, but he pressed the button anyway.
Adare stopped and scouted the area for threats.
“Hello.” Ronan put the phone on speaker.
“Ronan? It’s Emma. I just received an email from Faith saying she’s stuck in Adare’s lair and that Grace is gone.”
Everything inside Adare froze and then heated. “Gone?”
* * * *
Her hands were tied, but Grace managed to lever herself up and look into the back of the SUV where Benny lay on his side, blood pouring from a wound in his neck. Half of his hair was burned off, and his jeans still smoldered. He wasn’t moving. “What did you do?” She fell back to her seat, her heart aching and fear making her legs shake.
Bobbi shrugged next to her, holding a gun pointed at her ribs, while Brian the Kurjan drove. “We blew him up. He wasn’t expecting a missile.”
Grace gagged. She could even smell the burned flesh. “I don’t understand. Any of this. Who are you?”
Bobbi flicked snow off her shoulders. “I’m Yvonne, the chosen one.”
What? Grace rolled her eyes and tried to loosen the old-fashioned rope scraping against her skin. “Seriously? Give me a break.” She ignored the blonde and looked at the driver, who apparently held the actual power. “We really dated, right?”
Brian nodded. “Sure did. Just long enough to determine you didn’t know what a Key was or where the others were. Then I was going to take you in.”
She remembered the purple eyes she’d seen when she was attacked. Her voice shook. “You put me in a coma, asshole,” she spat.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” He smiled, his face a garish exaggeration of the Brian she thought she’d known.
She swallowed, looking outside, where the snowstorm kept most people off the streets. Hopefully Faith had gotten word out somehow. What where they going to do to her? She couldn’t stop talking. “Are you somehow special? In being able to tolerate the sun?” She’d been told that was impossible. She had to somehow warn everyone.
“No,” Brian said. “Thanks to Yvonne.”
Yvonne winked at her. “It took years. I expanded on research the Kurjans have been conducting for a century, but I finally came up with a virus.”
Another fucking virus? “This one makes it so Kurjans can go into the sun?”
“Yes. I had to actually conduct genetic manipulation that you wouldn’t understand. My virus is the delivery mechanism.” Her hand remained steady on the weapon.
“How old are you?” Grace burst out.
“Thirty-two,” Yvonne said, waving the gun. “I graduated from high school at twelve and college for the first time at fourteen. I knew I was the chosen one long before that.”
The chick had been watching too many sci-fi movies. “This is probably the biggest scientific breakthrough for any species, well, ever.” Grace edged toward the door, but if she jumped out, she’d leave Benny at their mercy. He needed help.
