Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

The bindings on my wrists and ankles held. I couldn’t get up, couldn’t see, didn’t know where I was.

“What the hell’s wrong with her?”

I knew the voice, but I didn’t care. I was on a hardwood floor, not a sweat-soaked mattress, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t naked, and I wasn’t in the closet at the old train station, but I didn’t fucking care. Nothing mattered except getting loose.

“Let me go!” I hit a wall with my right shoulder, aware of shuffling feet and whispering clothing. I felt them nearby, closing in. My stomach turned inside out. Bile scorched the back of my throat. I tried to use the wall as leverage to sit up but had lost all sense of balance.

“Stone, calm down!”

Tears dampened the fabric across my eyes. Unspent sobs hitched my breath in my lungs and closed my throat. I gasped and choked, repeating my plea for release. The blindfold was removed, and I blinked against the sudden light. Snapped my teeth at the hand still close to my face.

“Christ,” the hand’s owner said. “Is she nuts?”

“Get these damned things off me,” I snarled, yanking my wrists and ankles apart. Metal sliced flesh. Blood slicked my skin. The brain fog remained, settling in a little deeper. I couldn’t seem to think, just react.

“Ty, unlock the cuffs.”

“Kis—”

“Do it. Stone, we’re going to uncuff you, but you need to calm down.”

Something in Kismet’s voice cut through my haze of terror. I stopped thrashing and closed my eyes, coiled like a spring, certain of attack. I felt hands on my ankles, and then the cuffs were gone. The warmth of a body moved closer to mine; it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep still. The instant the cuffs were off my wrists, I lurched forward. Scurried along the wall until I felt nothing but empty air around me.

“Settle down,” Kismet ordered.

I pressed against the wall, eyes still shut, just trying to calm my racing heart and stop the unwanted tears. Adrenaline shook my hands and pumped blood through my throbbing wrists and ankles. My head still felt swimmy, like I’d just downed four beers. No one came near me. No one spoke.

“She gonna be okay?”

“I think so, Milo,” Kismet said. “Stone?”

I looked up, letting my vision bring the room into focus. Empty office, glass-plate window that overlooked one of the production lines. Three people with me, familiar faces matched to familiar voices—Kismet, Tybalt, and Milo, the third and youngest member of her Triad. I glared at all of them.

“Don’t ever cuff me like that,” I said.

Kismet crouched in front of me, still two lengths away. “I’m sorry.” Genuine concern sparkled in her green eyes, barely overtaking annoyance. At least, I thought so. My swimmy head could be misinterpreting.

“What did you dose me with?” I asked, surprised by the slight slur to my words.

“Sodium pentothal. Although if your concussion recovery is any indication, it’ll be out of your system pretty fast.”

Good. I despised the loose-lipped feeling of being drugged. “How’s Felix?”

“Angry.”

“And sporting a wicked black eye,” Milo added with a funny hitch in his voice. And cold fury boiling behind his eyes.

I looked past him at Tybalt, who gazed at me like a predator sizing up a meal. Waiting for me to attempt an escape. Well, he’d have to wait a bit for that. Brain fuzzies were bad for concentration. Not to mention balance.

“We need to have a chat, Stone,” Kismet said.

“No, we don’t.”

She blinked. Had I really said that out loud? People called sodium pentothal a truth serum, and that was sure as hell what she was getting from me. I needed to do a lot of things, but sitting down for a Hunter/Handler chat wasn’t on the list.

“Where’re the gremlins?” I asked.

“We made them an offer,” she said. “A new, larger factory down by the Black River docks, as well as a tractor-trailer full of baked goods, in exchange for immediate vacancy of this location.”

Terrific . “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter now, although one of them said that this belongs to you.” She stood up and pulled a flash drive from her pocket. “Made me promise that you’d see it before he agreed to the move. So, you see it?” She held it up between forefinger and thumb, then dropped it. Before I could reach out, she smashed her boot heel down and crushed it.

“Dammit, Kismet!” My heart sank. “Do you know what was on that?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Hadn’t expected that one. “How?”

Tybalt tossed something on the floor near Kismet’s feet. It hit with a gentle clank, no larger than a quarter with a slim wire the length of my pinkie. My addled mind took a moment to identify it.

“Holy shit,” I said, understanding sinking in. “You bugged Wyatt’s room.”

“And your apartment,” Kismet said. I wanted to rage at her; instead, I felt exceedingly stupid. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, Stone, and neither do the other Handlers. Since yesterday morning, you’ve been acting like an out-of-control rogue. Not reporting in, not keeping us in the loop, and then I find out you’re going after our bosses.”

“They gave the order—”

“It doesn’t matter! We get the hard orders, Stone; that’s our job. And it’s their job to make the hard decisions and hand those orders down to us, so we can pass them along to you. Rufus is my friend, and I don’t want to see him die any more than you do, but he knew the risks.”

I shook my head. The fog was starting to lift. “It’s not just about the Owlkin slaughter anymore, Kismet. The shit I keep digging up points to something a hell of a lot scarier than annihilating one Clan. Something fucking huge is about to go down.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, scornful and sad. “You’re seeing conspiracies where they don’t exist. I know you want payback for what the brass did to you, I understand that—”

“Jesus, will someone please send out a memo! It’s not about me.” I sat up a little straighter while maintaining a relaxed position. No sense in alerting them to the fact that their drug was wearing off. “Maybe at first, yes, I wanted to find out who the brass was so I could shove my foot up their collective asses.” I shocked myself with the disclosure—something I hadn’t wanted to admit out loud. That I had started this new mission with a very selfish goal in mind, disguised as good intentions toward not only Rufus but also the last three surviving Coni.

Now I wanted to sandblast that smug look off Kismet’s face. “Not anymore, though,” I said. “After everything I’ve seen and heard today, I’m convinced the Owlkins were targeted for execution. I was just a convenient excuse to go in and do it.”

“Where’s your proof?” When I didn’t answer, she snorted. “Didn’t think so.”

“I need to get out of here. I have to find Aurora and Joseph. I promised Phin I’d protect them.”

“Yeah. Speaking of Phineas,” Tybalt said, taking a step closer. “If he suspects the Clans are being targeted, shouldn’t he be out there doing something about it?”

“He is.” Of that, I had no doubt. All of my doubts related to not knowing what he was up to or where he was. Part of me wanted to think he’d allowed Belle’s friends to take Aurora and Joseph, but Belle’s words told me otherwise. She had taken them by force because she didn’t think they were safe with me. She was doing everything in her power to protect her fellow Clans-people.

“Where is he?” Tybalt asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

I shrugged and made a show of gazing around the room, eyes a little too wide. One door to the work area outside, one door to the hallway. One glass window. Not ideal exits. No weapons or furniture of any kind lying around. They were good.