Page 20 of Avenger of Sins

John winced and let his trouser leg fall back into place. Drakul fangs were built for damage, meant to pierce the thick hide many NHEs grew once possession set in. They bit and held on, blood grooves along the backs of their teeth speeding up the process of drinking their prey dry. Something as complicated and fragile as a human hand had no chance against that brutal power.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t leave Gray much of a choice, though.”

“Is that its name?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe, after everything we went through, that you’d work with a demon voluntarily.”

“It’s not the same. It would take too long to explain, but…it’s completely different. Caleb is fine; Gray would never hurt him, the way we were hurt.”

“As if our demons had any choice about that.” She looked away, then back to him. “Did we succeed? Is Lydell dead?”

Kaniyar hadn’t given him any parameters when he asked to talk to Jo, so he answered honestly. “Yes. She died en route to the hospital. Toxicology is pending, unless you want to tell us what Ryan used.”

“Does it matter? She’s still dead.”

He shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t. I was with her when it happened. Her death wasn’t pretty.”

“Good.”

He sat back, suddenly uncertain. He’d thought she’d feel like him, once Ryan’s influence was gone. “Do you really mean that? Ryan forced you—forcedus—to help him. To do terrible things. But he can’t get to you in here.”

Jo stared at him, and for a moment he could see the girl he’d once known in her haggard features. “Selina,” he said. Her name, her real name, which had been taken from her all those years ago.

“Selina is dead. SPECTR killed her.” Jo shifted in her bed, then winced. “Ryan did what he had to. Or what he thought he had to, anyway. But he didn’t need to for long. Once I saw the lives they had…” She met his gaze challengingly. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? How the people who did this to us skipped away to mansions and wealth, while our lives were left in shambles. They were monsters, and they were rewarded for it.”

A terrible suspicion settled into his gut. Had Ryan reprogrammed her mind permanently? Not on purpose, but he’d put the imprint of himself on them before. Was it happening again? Or had she genuinely changed her mind?

There was no way to know. He looked away first, a heavy blanket seeming to settle over him, bowing his shoulders. “I saw. But you can’t just take matters into your own hands.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “No one else was going to do anything about it.”

“You’re going to be charged with murder!”

“Good,” she said, with such vehemence he looked back at her in surprise. “SPECTR manipulated me. Ryan took over my mind. Now it’s my turn to act for myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to make sure everyone knows exactly what SPECTR did to us. Operation Mephisto will be exposed to theworld. Even if I spend the rest of my life in jail, even if they execute me, SPECTR won’t be able to cover it up any more.”

Could some good come from this? “I’ll be there to back you up with my testimony if you need it. And I hope Ryan will be, too.”

“Do you?”

“He’s—he was—he is my friend.” John swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “Even after what he did. I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want him to die.” He glanced in her direction. “Tell me what his next move is, and I swear to you, I’ll make sure to reach him before SPECTR. If I can just talk to him, convince him there’s another way, I can save him.”

She was silent for a long moment, then sighed. “After all this, you’re still a SPECTR lapdog, aren’t you? Ryan doesn’t want to be saved, Jonny. He wants to save others. He’s making sure scum like Lydell, and Foster, and Harlow can’t hurt anyone else.”

“There are other ways?—”

“Like what?” she cut him off. “Without Ryan, we’d still be ignorant. Oblivious to the truth of our own lives.”

How could he argue with that? Instead, he asked the question Kaniyar had instructed him to. “What about Agent Pittman? Where is he?”

For the first time, regret flickered over her features. “I…”

“He has a family who deserves to know,” John said, though he didn’t know if it was true. Or maybe he did, if Kaniyar counted as family.

Something seemed to go out of her. “He’s dead. We dumped his body in a swamp along the way. I’m not exactly sure where.”

Even though he hadn’t expected a different answer, his heart sank. He hadn’t known Pittman well, but the man had always been a steady presence at Kaniyar’s side. “He didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t do anything to us.”

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