J Ward - Crave

She checked her watch. Listened hard.

Dread squeezed into the tight confines of her hideout with her, taking up more space than she did, blowing up that image of Isaac as a stranger until it was all she could see.

Silence.

More silence.

Which was promptly filled by a raucous paranoia in her head.

Oh, God… what if all this was a trap? What if Isaac had been sent for the sole purpose of enticing her father to determine how far he would go to expose the agency?

Except that she’d been the one who suggested it.

Or had he only wanted her to believe that?

His profile had said he’d needed moral imperative, though-unless that was a lie? And thus made him the perfect infiltrator? What if this was only a play to get her father to come forward with the dossiers… before they murdered him?

And yet Isaac had put her in here to protect her.

Except she hadn’t recognized him when he had-

Dear Lord, the Life Alert-the light had been off, hadn’t it. When he’d dangled it in front of her in the kitchen this morning, the light she’d seen before had been off. What did that mean? And come to think of it, the time lag had struck her as bizarre-between when he’d apparently turned himself in until now.

She had to get out of here. Get help.

Grier shuffled around and squeezed behind the stacked components of the security system’s nerve center. The hidden staircase that ran down the middle of the house had been part of its original construction, and built because suspicion and mistrust of the British had still been brewing in 1810, some thirty years after the Revolution.

Turned out the house’s tricks had uses in the present.

The glow of the security system provided enough illumination for her to find the dust-covered flashlight that hung on a nail at the head of the secret stairs. Clicking on the beam, she padded down the ancient, hand-carved steps, leaving prints behind in the dust. As she went, cobwebs clung to her hair and her shoulders were scraped by the rough mortar between the bricks.

When she got to the first floor, she paused. Naturally, she couldn’t hear a damn thing because of the sturdy, thick walls, but her father had added an iron vent that looked like just another part of the HVAC system. Actually, however, it served as a covert surveillance post.

Grier went up a step and bent to the side to get her eyes in line, bracing herself on a pair of bricks that stuck out more than the others.

As she squinted, her vision penetrated the slats and focused on the front hall. If she arched a little more and craned her neck, she could see down toward the kitchen-

Grier dropped the flashlight and clamped her hands over her mouth.

To keep from screaming.

After Isaac made sure Grier was safely out of the way, he padded out into her bedroom and gave a listen. When the lack of footsteps, scrambling, or gunshots gave him no information, he continued out into the hall. Another pause. Should he use the back stairs? The front ones?

Front. More likely that an infiltration would occur from the rear garden. More cover that way.

Shit, he hoped it was Jim Heron, but he didn’t think the guy would just bust in. And Grier’s father could disarm the system-he’d already proved that. So he obviously hadn’t let whoever it was inside.

Goddamn it, if it was Matthias’s boy, why hadn’t the arrival been announced through the Life Alert? Then again, Isaac wouldn’t have let them inside, and they no doubt knew that: Matthias may have demanded that Grier and her father stick around, but Isaac wasn’t about to get himself killed in front of them.

She’d never recover from that.

Please, God, he thought. Let her stay where she was.

Back-flatting it against the wall, he went down the stairs, leading with his gun. Sounds… where were all the sounds? There was literally nothing moving in the house, and considering that Grier’s father had been pacing like a caged lion, the all-quiet was not encouraging.

As soon as the wall broke away and the free-standing banister started, he pulled another swing-and-drop, and deliberately landed hard as a rock on the Oriental in the front hall.

Sometimes noise was a good directive, giving your opponent a target to come running for.

And what do you know. The boom of Isaac’s feet hitting the floor drew their visitor out: From down in the kitchen, a man dressed in black stepped into full view.

Matthias’s second in command.

And he had Grier’s dad up as a human shield.

“Want to trade?” the guy said grimly.

The gun to Childe’s head was a nasty-looking autoloader with a silencer. So not a surprise. It was identical to the one in Isaac’s own palm.

Moving slowly, Isaac bent down and put his weapon to the floor. Then he kicked it away. “Let him go. Come and take me.”

Childe’s eyes went wide, but he held tight. Thank fuck.

Isaac turned to the wall, put his hands up on the plaster, and spread his ankles in a classic apprehension pose. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “I’m ready to go.”

The second in command cracked a smile. “Check you out, all compliant and shit. Brings a tear to the eye.”

With a slash, the operative lights-outed Grier’s father with the butt of the gun, the elder Childe dropping to the ground like a bag of sand. Then it was saunter city as the second in command strolled toward Isaac, that gun trained on him and unwavering.

Just like the man’s oddly matte, black eyes.

“Let’s do this,” Isaac said.

“Where’s your other gun. I know you’ve got one.”

“Come and get it.”

“You really want to fuck with me?”

Isaac reached in and took out his other weapon. “Where do you want it?”

“Loaded question. On the floor and give it a kick.”

As Isaac bent down, so did the other man. And it wasn’t until they’d both righted themselves that Isaac realized his first gun, the one with the silencer, had been picked up by a black-gloved hand.

“So yeah,” the second in command drawled, “Matthias has enjoyed the little convos you two have been having and he wants me to keep you in holding until he gets here.” The shark-eyed bastard drew up close. “But here’s the thing, Isaac. There are larger issues at play and this is one situation that your boss is not in charge of.”

What was with the “your boss” thing, Isaac wondered.

And then he frowned as he realized that the guy’s arm, the one that had been broken just a day and a half ago, seemed to be fully healed.

And that grin was wrong… there was something wrong about that grin, too.

“Things are taking a different course,” the second in command said. “Surprise.”

With that, he put Isaac’s gun muzzle to his own chin and pulled the trigger, blowing his head clean off.

Jim came out of his coma with the nape of his neck on fire. He had no clue how long he’d been out, but Ad had clearly moved him back to the bed: The softness under his head was definitely a pillow and not the cold, hard tile by the shower.

As he sat up in the darkness, he was shocked: He felt curiously strong, miraculously steady. It was as if whatever state he had been in for… well, hours, assuming he was reading the clock right… had rebooted him inside and out.

Which was all good news.

The tightness at the tippy top of his spine, however, was anything but: Isaac.

Isaac was in trouble.

Swinging his legs off the bed and bolting upright, he felt no dizziness, no nausea, no aches or pains. Except for the ants at the base of his skull, he was not just ready to go, but roaring.

“Adrian!” he called out as he went to his duffel and yanked out a pair of jeans.