I didn’t cry. I hadn’t in years, and tonight was no exception.
People came and went from the building. The structure groaned and shed stone that sent them scramblingclear. One more stretcher came out, carrying someone alive. It was Givre, and Dagger was beside her. Every stretcher after that carried a body.
Henry left ahead of us to ready the estate. Lyra didn’t argue with him, which meant she’d asked him to go.
I tracked every person who emerged from the building after that, and none of them was Blackjack. The others had come out in pairs or with stretcher crews. He was still inside. He’d gone back in after he carried me out, and he hadn’t come out again.
Rescue crews rotated out. Stretcher teams passed me. I could account for every person on that hillside except him, and the longer the building groaned, the harder it got to sit there and do nothing about it.
Then a figure came out alone, and I knew who it was before I could see his face.
Blackjack’s shirt was torn across the shoulder where he’d lifted something too heavy. He stood at the edge of the rubble, with his shaking hands at his sides while the rest of him was locked solid, and that tremor was the only thing that told me he was human and not a machine running on orders.
He crossed to Lyra first, and she gripped his forearms when she stood to meet him. He put his palm over her hand for half a second before letting go and walking over to one of the SUVs. He opened the rear door, then returned to where I sat on the grass.
“Time to go,” he said, crouching in front of me. “We need to get Mercury home. I’ll carry you to the vehicle.”
“But I can’t leave them.”
“Everyone is out, Beacon. All of them.”
I nodded once, and he lifted me. I turned my face toward what was left of the Minerva Protocol’s headquarters. My guess was that, by tomorrow, the remaining walls would have crumbled. I’d have to return. There was something in that building that couldn’t be lost.
This was the closest I’d been to the man carrying me, not that it was the first time I noticed him.
Bishop Black had dark curly hair, hazel eyes, a jaw that belonged on a recruiting poster, and the kind of build that came from years of hard use, not a gym membership. He was covered in dust and blood, and he was still one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen.
He rested me on the bench seat with a gentleness that belied his powerful build.
My arm throbbed with every turn the SUV took once we were on the road.
The headquarters had been tucked into the hills above Lausanne on the northern shore of Lac Léman—Lake Geneva to the rest of the world.
The estate where my grandmother Polina and my aunt, Anna, lived was twenty minutes east along the shore. I’d grown up making the drive between the two, through the vineyards and small villages that lined the route. Tonight, the road that had always meant going home meant leaving the dead behind.
Lights were on in every window of the estate when Blackjack slowed to pull in, and I remembered Henry had gotten there first, no doubt to be the one to break the news to my grandmother and Anna.
I’d taken his steadfast bravery in the face of everything our family had endured over the years for granted. Now, I was thankful he and Lyra hadn’t been in there when the bombs detonated.
When we arrived at the estate, Blackjack parked near the front entrance, then came around to my side. He opened the door and reached in to gather me in his arms like I was a kid who hadn’t learned to walk yet. I’d argue and tell him I was fine on my own, except I wasn’t sure I would be.
Henry met us on the front steps with a cane. “I thought this might help for the time being.”
Blackjack set me on my feet, and Henry let me lean on him for as long as it took me to get to a chair. He and Blackjack spoke in quiet tones that I didn’t bother trying to overhear.
The only light in the foyer was from an antique lamp that was never off. When I got to my feet, Henry rushed over and guided me down the hall. Voices came from deeper in the house. I recognized most of them. They were making calls to the victims’ families, handling the logistics for the remains, and running the response that needed to happen tonight. I should help, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
Anna was at the foot of the stairs, her eyes swollen from crying.
“Oh, my girl.”
When she put her arms around me, I rested my face against her shoulder. “I’m here,” I said.
“Thank God,” she said, stroking my hair.
“It’s gone, Anna. The whole building is gone.” Hearing myself say it was different from knowing it. “Forge and Verdant and Cipher and?—”
“I know.” She leaned away and rested her hands on my cheeks. “That you are here is all that matters now.”
