Page 74 of Warrior Unraveled

“Because she’s a brilliant scientist,” Aiden said. “She was developing an Alzheimer’s drug, a vaccine in fact, that, had it been allowed to go to market, would have made mankind so vulnerable to the demons’ influence that they would have taken over the world within months. There would have been nothing we could do except stand by helplessly.”

“Oh.”

Hamish nodded. “Yeah. But luckily, we discovered Finlay’s plan and were able to stop him.”

“What happened?”

“Finlay kidnapped Leila and took her to meet with the demons,” Hamish continued.

“You forgot to mention that he first cut my Achilles tendon and locked me in a lead cell so I couldn’t follow him,” Pearce interrupted.

“Fuck,” Wes cursed, looking at Pearce. “Must’ve hurt.”

“Yeah, he sliced right through it with his dagger.” Then he shrugged. “Luckily we heal fast.”

“In any case,” Hamish said, “we found them just in time. Finlay was killed, by Zoltan actually, who’s now the Great One, the ruler of the demons. He never had any intention of holding up his end of the bargain.”

“So you guys saw Finlay die?” Wes asked.

Every member of the Baltimore compound nodded.

“He was dead as a doornail,” Aiden grunted. “Deservedly so.”

“And the body? What happened to it?” Wes asked.

“Where are you going with this?” Virginia interjected.

Wes looked at her, then back at Aiden. “What if he had something on him that could have fallen into the demon’s hands, like his cell phone?”

Pearce shook his head. “Sorry, impossible.”

“But—”

“We recovered Finlay’s cell phone after his death. Not a bad idea, but that’s a dead end.”

Wes sighed. “Hmm, then I don’t know either.” He heaved a couple of pancakes onto his plate and started eating.

For a few moments nobody spoke, and only the clatter of cutlery clinking against porcelain could be heard while everybody chowed down on their breakfast.

The sound of the door opening made Virginia look over her shoulder. Leila entered, and Virginia froze.

At the other end of the island, Wes let out a gasp. “Oh my God! Leila?”