Page 6 of Capitol Matters

The bound duo started bawling and blathering a chorus of “please, no” and promising not to run to the authorities the first chance they got.

Worry crept in. This situation was slipping quickly out of hand. Avery’s dig about my divided loyalty did not sit well with me. The other men turned my way, watching to see how much further I would take my protest. Outnumbered as I was, I could only say so much, but surely they would hear reason.

No one would hear anything, though, if the cleaners continued their pitchy pleas for mercy. Their peteringwails strained my nerves until I snapped a gruff command.

“Zip it!”

Magic accompanied the words, closing their mouths so abruptly their teeth clicked together. I looked away, but not before the woman’s expression of betrayal twisted a knife in my gut.

“I hope you have something in mind,” Vinton told Avery.

The conjurer beamed. “You want explosives? I’ve got twenty.”

He clapped his hands then spread them, producing a large black ball with a lit fuse. It hissed and spewed smoke, burning rapidly down toward detonation. In a blink, it vanished. Avery stepped over to Donovan next, patting his shoulders as a bulky black vest materialized on his chest. Bricks of C4 were strapped across the front, connected to a digital screen ticking quickly through numbers.

Avery held a remote, which he raised dramatically before pressing his thumb against the single button.

My heart stuttered as the vest disappeared, and I realized how differently the gag could have ended.

“Hey! Fucking cool it, man!” I shouted, sending out a wave of force that knocked Avery off his feet. He tumbled backward onto the pile of broken computer parts, then sat there, his chest heaving with laughter.

“You’re a sick fuck, Avery,” I grumbled, then glanced at Donovan, checking for injury despite knowing I would find none. My brother echoed my concern, patting his torso before looking to where Avery laysprawled on the floor.

Vinton watched the conjurer, as well, impassive. “Do it,” he said at last.

“Don’tdo it!” Thoughts churned through my mind, alongside the awareness that too much pushback would put a target onmyforehead. Like Donovan pointed out, I wasn’t relocating to the Capitol. I still had to live with these psychopaths.

“What’s Grimm gonna say?” I blurted, appealing directly to Vinton. Our boss’s approval was always his biggest concern and might be the opinion needed to sway him. “He sent you here to make a little mess, and you’re going to leave it as a hole in the ground?”

Vinton didn’t react, pretending I hadn’t spoken.

I turned pleading eyes on Ripley, who let out a low grumble.

“I’ll be in the car.” He was already halfway out of the room. After only a few steps, the only thing visible of him was the beam of his flashlight, rapidly fading.

Donovan remained my last hope of an ally. Despite his earlier assurance that he’d been managing his newfound villainy with ease, I wasn’t convinced. He was awkward and unsure, not to mention the new punchline of Avery’s practical jokes, but he wasn’t malicious or cruel. I knew he didn’t want to kill a couple of innocent bystanders. He wasn’t that far gone.

My pointed stare in his direction went unanswered until I prompted him.

“Donnie?”

He saw me, then, suddenly aware as though pulled from a trance. His lips parted, taking too long to formthe reply I least wanted to hear.

“Whatever Vinton says.”

His words punched the breath out of me. I scanned the lab, my gaze settling on the cleaners straining against their bonds.

In my experience, people died one of two ways. They either fought for every breath till their last or embraced their end with unnerving calm. The second type bothered me most. It showed a strength of will that was a shame to snuff out. Here we had one of each. The man stared stonily at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused and expression resigned. The woman, however, howled behind her sealed lips, stringing tears and snot as she writhed on the floor.

She’d been doomed even before recognizing me. This wasn’t my fault. It would have happened whether I’d crashed this party or stayed at home. But at least if I’d stayed behind, I wouldn’t have had to watch. Quite the going away present for my last night with the gang.

Avery rose from the pile of clutter, conjuring an old school, ticking bomb, wires and all. It looked straight out of a cartoon: red tubes taped together with a countdown clock on top. I couldn’t read the time remaining on the analog dial, and I didn’t want to.

He passed by the cleaners, dropping the explosive in the man’s lap and giving him a pat on the head.

“Better hurry,” Avery told the rest of us as he skipped past. “I have no idea what the blast radius of that thing is.”

Yawning, I rolled upthe Porsche’s window before stepping out into the Capitol parking garage. Last night’s downward trend continued after we left DiaLogix Labs. Returning to the motel found Maggie missing and put me back in the car for the next several hours, driving around while Ripley alternated between stony silence and occasional reminders of “I told you so” or “you hadonejob” from the passenger seat.

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