I frown. “By the scientists?”
“They were meh, but I learned a lot about myself. Still, they needed to die. Watching them burn was very fulfilling.” Her satisfied smile is terrifying.
“So, what is your goal here?”
She ponders my words before answering. “Since you are going to die anyway, I can tell you. I’m…waiting.”
Waiting?
“For the doc to die. I wish she croaked already, but man, that bitch is a pain in the ass. I might just blow up that hospital.” She taps her lips with one of her long claws. “Anyway, when she does, I will take her place, or maybe just keep fucking with them. Seeing them suffer is quite entertaining. Still deciding.”
She is insane!
“We’ll see soon enough. Since they are coming to free you. They’ll be too late, though.” She grabs a tablet from the table and taps away on it. “Those trackers on them, Subject Three had a great idea. I can see now where they are at all times.” She hums happily. “Follow the crumbs, little flies, and come to me.”
“No!” I push the knife away from my face and try to stand up, but the two men shove me back down.
She grabs another red candy and takes a hard bite from it, eyes sparkling with excitement. The brotherhood is heading for a trap. I need to warn them. My mind starts working at a hundred miles per hour. Nine tricked them again, she made herself visible on purpose. She is shifting the power to her side, putting them on the back foot by luring them into her domain. Thishotel is her little kingdom carved out for herself in the middle of Chicago.
“I didn’t expect you, though.” She stands up and closes the distance between us. The red blade disappears from my face as she wraps her hand around my neck—her claws cut into my skin—and pulls me up, tightening the grip. I start to gasp as it gets harder to breathe. My hand is trying to loosen her grasp, scratching at her skin, but it’s too hard when I’m fighting for air. My other hand grabs one of the men's jackets, pulling at it. My head turns dizzy, and my legs feel weak. So many things are overlapping and crushing down on me: the last moments with Ezra, Oliver’s worried face, the pet shelter in flames, all the smiling faces of the people I love, Pink. I can’t faint, I need to focus. I need to get out of here. Noodle suddenly slides out of the hoodie and sinks his sharp teeth into her hand.
“Ahhh!” she screams, loosening her grip.
Then, everything turns dark. Nine releases me, and I fall hard to the floor.
“What the fuck is happening?” she hisses.
I cough, moving my fingers toward my aching throat as my other hand wraps around the red metal blade. I got it!
twelve
EZRA
“Are you all in position?” I hear Raphael’s voice in the earpiece—don’t like it. I don’t kill in groups.
“Yeah, standing by.” I hear Gabriel. I grunt as the rest of the team gives a similar reply—almost all of them.
“Fuck no. I’m not having a fucking ball here!” Ramiel hisses.
“Monkey-jumping your way up a building doesn’t sound so bad,” Raphael taunts him. He’s waiting with Hunter near one of the back doors on the north side of the hotel.
Ramiel is climbing up the building next door using his parkour skills. The fucker didn’t mute his mic, and I’ve been listening to every grunt and groan he’s uttered for the past few minutes. He needs to reach the top and jump onto the hotel roof next. He has only thirty seconds to lower a jammer inside the hotel skylight before Nine’s mega-advanced security system detects him. The jammer will disable the system for thirty minutes, Bluetooth peripherals, and any kind of wireless communication—scrambling the frequencies so that Nine won’t be able to communicate with her men.
“Why don’t you do it, dickface!” Ramiel hisses. “This fucking building is covered in pigeon shit. I need five.”
“Use a pair of your old, pretty gloves,” Bezaliel scoffs from his street position.
We are all here thanks to the connection I made between the poisoner’s comment about Nine smelling like artificial strawberries and my memory of Red Vines boxes piled up in a storage room at the facility. As soon as I told him, Ramiel looked for large purchases made in the last few months. Serena confirmed some of the buyers’ identities until Ramiel was left with a bunch of suspicious names. After a cross-reference to law enforcement databases, they narrowed it down to ten people. The team went to check the addresses where the purchases were dropped off, prioritizing places in sparsely populated areas, secluded, abandoned industrial buildings—Dare took care of hacking into the records departments for Chicago, real estate sites, that sort of thing.
After I left Sully at Michael’s, only two locations still needed to be checked: a mall under construction—which was halted two months ago—in West Garfield, and this abandoned hotel in Englewood. There are only two other businesses nearby, both open during the day, with a closing time well before sunset.
This is Nine’s hideout. The air around it reeks with her heinousness. Her stench. The Marge is an ancient hotel, which was supposed to be torn down and rebuilt since the last two floors are not in use because of an underlying structural failure. Six months ago Nine forced the owner to sell. The whole building should be evacuated or better yet crumble on top of her.
“I counted thirty-three bodies inside the hotel,” Uriel lets us know, from his vantage point in the warehouse in front of the hotel. He’s using thermal scopes to detect invisible infrared radiation—body heat.
“Thirty-three? Mendez talked about fifty.” Rague grunts next to me, sounding disappointed by the lower number. He’s huffing and puffing, eager to start the fight, and groaning about the tunnel’s narrow space. I don’t mind them at all. I’ve been using them since I moved to Chicago, even slept here a few times. They are handy and easy to move through—after learning which ones are still navigable. I even left little signs on the walls that help me remember which area of the city each tunnel corresponds to—since the signal comes and goes down here.
“Piece of cake, then,” Oliver states sarcastically, patting his husband’s arm. I can feel his glaring gaze making a hole in my head, and decide to ignore it.
