“Jamey?” Diesel blinked. “As in Detective St. James? She’s here?”
“She wanted to back me up.” Aisha gritted her teeth. “God, I hope she’s okay—”
Her words became a choked gasp of horror as Higgins suddenly appeared, stumbling into the glass wall like a bird smashing a windshield. He was covered in blood, his lab coat torn and stained.
Jamey hadn’t done that.
“Higgins?” Aisha said hoarsely. “What the fuck?”
Higgins drew his head back. And then he smashed it into the glass, headbutting it so hard cracks splintered out across the cell.
“Jesus Christ,” Diesel whispered.
Aisha swallowed. Some of the blood dripping off Higgins was his own, cuts visible on his neck and face. He drew his head back again, aiming for the glass, and she cringed, screwing her eyes shut. There was only one thing she could think of that would make a person attack themselves like that—
“Dr. Higgins,” a new voice said, a tenor that was accented in a Texas drawl like Grayson’s. “You’re killing yourself too fast.”
Aisha’s eyes popped open.
A young man was leaning against the glass wall, and he didn’t just sound like Grayson, he looked just like a shorter version of him, the same blond-brown hair and defined jawline. Aisha had seen a picture of him, long ago.
She felt the color drain out of her face. It couldn’t be. But there was no mistaking Alex Grayson for anyone else.
“This facility has killed a lot of empaths and you’ve been an eager participant,” Alex said to Higgins. “So I’m going to need you to draw your death out. Get creative with how you make yourself suffer.”
“Yes, sir,” Higgins said, and his tone waseager.
He scrambled off down the hall, out of their sight. On the bed across from her, Diesel was watching, expression like he was caught in a fever nightmare. Aisha took deep breaths through her nose as Alex approached the glass.
“You’re not empaths,” he said, in that Texas drawl, casual as if they were meeting at a party somewhere. “Who are you?”
“I’m a bouncer,” said Diesel. “At an empath-themed club.”
“Not the answer I was expecting,” Alex said, eyebrows up. “But truthful. Interesting.”
“Get the sense I shouldn’t lie to you,” Diesel said. “You give me that feeling, you know? Like when you see a scorpion or a black widow, the feeling that sayssize is irrelevant, do not fuck with this thing.”
“Smart,” Alex said. “You’re also trying to distract me and draw my attention so maybe I won’t hurt anyone else. It won’t work, but it’s brave and chivalrous of you to try.”
Aisha tried to swallow again around her dry throat. “He also used to be a marine,” she said, nodding at Diesel. “I’m a doctor. But I do work for Stone Solutions.”
“Also truthful,” Alex said, nodding. “Two truth-tellers in here, I appreciate that.”
“I’m not stupid enough to lie to a corrupted empath.” She couldn’t seem to stop the trembling in her voice, but then, he’d already be well aware of her fear. “I know who you are. You’re Alex Grayson. And you’re supposed to be dead.”
His gaze swept over her, his eyes the same hazel as Grayson’s behind the glasses. “The only way you’d know who I am is if you’re involved in some morally questionable shit through Stone Solutions. But that’s fine,” he said calmly. “A lot of people like you are dying today. What’s one more—”
“Not them,” another voice cut in.
Aisha’s gaze went to the end of the glass cell. Cora was standing there, dressed in a blue Polaris jumpsuit, her eyes on Alex.
Diesel was staring at Cora in bewilderment. “Cora?” he said, in full recognition, sounding shocked through the sedative. “The hospital said you’d left. Are you okay?”
The veterans’ hospital, Aisha realized. Had Diesel been Cora’s therapy patient, once upon a time?
Alex tilted his head at Cora. “The doctor works for Stone Solutions.”
Cora looked at Diesel, then Aisha. Their eyes met for a split second, then Cora was looking back at Alex. “They both go free.”
