Page 79 of Shadow Blind

At least the bastards were contained. Osmium was the densest metal available. Not even his little prodigies could chew their way through it. Plus, the sheer weight of the tank, several tons at least, would prevent theft. Nobody was getting that sucker out of the lab. He’d had to use a lighter metal for Kuznetsov’s carrying case—but then his microscopic soldiers hadn’t needed to be contained for long during the testing period. Just long enough to drop them in the well.

“I need to get some sleep.” He stretched. “My brain isn’t functioning at full capacity. Once I’ve had some sleep, I’ll reassess the situation.”

If he had to scrap this iteration of the weapon and move on, they’d be looking at years of more work and millions more dollars.

He scrubbed his palms down his face, feeling the stubble of five days of frenetic activity against his palms. Sleep wasn’t the only item on the agenda, so was a shower and a shave. “Get the fail-safe ready, but don’t implement it yet.”

“As you will.” Lovett didn’t sound happy with the decision.

“What of the cadavers from Karaveht?” Clark asked, his mind shifting to other complications.

“Still no evidence of nanobot activation in their samples,” Lovett replied.

“Thank God for that,” Clark muttered beneath his breath.

If the nanobots reactivated in the samples, or the cadavers, they’d be looking at a disaster. Sure, the room was off limits and password protected, and they were monitoring the samples remotely, but hell, all it would take was one person breaking protocol to infect everyone on site.

It hadn’t occurred to him that the kill switch would quit working, or the bots could get out of control. If it wasn’t crucial that the samples and cadavers be under constant observation, he’d incinerate everything as he’d done with most of the bodies they’d recovered from Karaveht. The few he’d kept for testing were currently frozen in the morgue on the lowest level of the Nantz building, as were the tissue, blood, and brain samples they’d pulled from the bodies they’d collected.

He frowned as Lovett went to work preparing the hydrofluoric fail-safe. It wouldn’t hurt to dose the ashes of his test subjects from Karaveht with acid, too, make sure the bots couldn’t reactivate amid the charred ashes of their hosts. It would mean digging up the pit they’d buried the ashes in, but better to err on the side of caution.

He picked up his phone as he rose to his feet. Still nothing from Kuznetsov. He’d left multiple messages telling the Russian to call. They could hardly proceed with the sale of NNB26 now, not with the weapon in such an uncertain state.

Kuznetsov wouldn’t like the postponement of the sale. But there was nothing he could do about it.

Day 15

Denali, Alaska

“Mary, these cinnamon sticky buns are dangerous.” Beth Winters, one of the clones’ wives, refilled Demi’s wine glass from the bottle on the coffee table and sat back down on the couch on the other side of Kait. “Zane’s obsessed with them and he’s usually not a pastry kind of guy.”

Beth was an elegant blonde with the most unusual violet eyes, the kind of eyes Demi had always thought were myth rather than reality.

“Rawls will swear to his last breath that he doesn’t like Mary’s sticky buns better than mine.” A smile softened Faith's deep blue eyes as she brushed a strand of dark hair back. “But we both know he’s lying.”

“I doubt that, honey.” Mary’s smile carried a hint of raunchiness, signaling what was to come. “He’s never been privy to my sticky bun.”

A beat of silence fell before raucous laughter filled the room and comparisons to sticky buns and other sexual innuendos took flight.

The bookstore felt like it was bursting with women, although there were only seven in attendance; she, Kait, and Beth sharing the comfy couch, two on the loveseat on the other side of the coffee table, and one in each of the armchairs that flanked the couch. The bookstore’s sitting area was arranged to facilitate conversation, and the chatter hadn’t stopped since she’d followed Kait into the store.

The owner of the Book Nook, a petite redhead with hazel eyes, round glasses, and a mop of curly red hair, had opened her store at 7:00 p.m. to host the book brigade. Mary brought an assortment of pastries. Everyone brought a bottle or two of their favorite wine. The conversation and laughter flowed smoothly. So did the wine. The atmosphere was vibrant and joyful.

She shouldn’t have come.

While Kait’s posse had welcomed her with warmth and generosity, including her in their conversations and laughter, Demi felt like she was sleepwalking. Her body might sit on this couch beside Kait, but her spirit was drifting, grieving, mourning an unbearable loss.

She thought she’d prepared herself to let Aiden go. She hadn’t. Not even close.

It made no sense why it hurt so much to cut ties with a man who was barely in her life. Why each breath without him felt dipped in flames. The world suddenly felt empty and leaden. His deployments had been bad, but this…this was even worse. Why? She’d spent far more time without him than with him. She’d gotten used to the loneliness when he was gone. But this didn’t feel the same. It was deeper, darker, emptier.

Permanent.

She’d heard people compare losing someone they loved to losing an appendage—the severing of an arm or a leg. But that wasn’t what it felt like to her. Not with her parents, or Donnie, or even Aiden. Instead, it felt like a never-ending hollowness inside her, an emptiness so deep and vast she felt like she was drowning.

From experience, she knew that the emptiness would eventually fill in, become less deep, less wide, more bearable. But for now, there was only pain and barrenness.

Another burst of laughter swept the room. She fought to focus on the present, on the women, the conversation, and her surroundings. Books were everywhere. Colorful or somber covers were in every corner of the room—stacked on bookshelves, on tables, even perched in the built-in nooks climbing the rustic walls.

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