Page 34 of Avenger of Sins

He reached for Gray again, found nothing again. He needed to think, but emptiness threatened to overwhelm him, send him into a spiral.

He’d lived most of his life alone and never felt incomplete. But Gray’s silence, absence, was a gaping chasm, and he teetered on the very edge, trying not to fall inside.

“If they don’t bring Gray back right now,” he said, trying to sound authoritative and failing miserably, “I’ll fucking kill you.”

She laughed in his face. “You can’t hurt me. My NHE might sleep as well, but I still have her power and her strength. So just hang tight—they’re on the way to secure you. I hope you like this room. You won’t be leaving it for some time to come.”

Oh hell no. He’d been through the whole government captive thing with Forsyth; he wasn’t about to go through it again. Panic receded, driven back by anger.

How dare they do this? Howdarethey try to keep Gray and him apart?

“Fuck you,” he told her.

Her smug smile was enraging. “Just relax. You and the two former test subjects are going to do your patriotic duty. Whether you like it or not.”

John bowed his head. What was Caleb going through right now? Were Night and Gray okay?

They were caught in Harlow’s web, just like he and Ryan had been all those years ago. Doomed to become lab animals, experimented on until they were of no more use. Only this time, there would be no release back into the outside world.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I tried to push at his thoughts, but I’ve got no strength left. Even with rest, it took me years to manipulate the doctors in the lab where I was held. Without drakul blood or possession…” He trailed off.

John only shook his head. “What did you think you were going to do when you came here?”

“Kill him, somehow. I don’t know.” Ryan shook his head, as if at his own folly. “I’m sorry. Once you came into contact with me, it was only a matter of time before SPECTR scooped me back up. And once you started to get your memories back…even withoutthe drakul, SPECTR was never going to let you go. You’re one of their dirty little secrets in the flesh.”

John leaned his head back against the wall. “Funny how we’re the dirty secrets, not the people who actually ran Operation Mephisto.”

“Yeah.” Ryan shifted slightly. “Listen…I am sorry I had to kill the empath. Pittman. That wasn’t justice.”

“No. No, it wasn’t.”

“Just know, he would have killed every one of us if Kaniyar had told him to. He hated you for what happened in Charleston, and he hated Caleb just as much.” Ryan paused. “You should know, he and his boss spent a lot of time brainstorming what to do if they think they need to destroy your vampire.”

It made sense—or at least, it had back when Caleb was first possessed. But Kaniyar hadn’t known just how hard a drakul was to kill at that point. Most of her brainstorming must have come after.

Could he blame her? Without Gray, they couldn’t have stopped Drugoy. With no other living vampires to take him on, Gray could cause untold havoc. He wouldn’t…but Kaniyar couldn’t take the risk of certainty.

“I’m not really surprised.” John scrubbed his face. “Goddess. I hope Caleb is okay.”

He wasn’t, though; John knew that. In this vulnerable state, could Caleb be killed? And if so, would Gray jump bodies, or die with him? Or be returned to the etheric plane like any other NHE?

Or would Harlow keep them in this state and run his experiments on Caleb? Torture him, like the kids at the Center had been tortured?

He wanted to scream with frustration and anger. Wanted to pound on the door until it gave way before him, run to save hislovers and Night. Anything but this promise of captivity followed by death.

“It can’t end like this,” he whispered.

“It won’t,” Ryan said.

John turned to him. Ryan looked like he needed a shower and about fourteen hours of sleep. Maybe even a hospital, given the blood under his nose, the ruby-red of his eyes. “You sound certain of that.”

“I’m spent. And probably in serious danger of frying my brain.” Ryan wiped at the blood beneath his nose; it flaked off and was replaced by a fresh trickle. “Harlow thinks I’m helpless, and at the moment, he’s right. But he doesn’t know about you.”

John frowned, nonplussed. “What about me?”

“That your powers are boosted. That you can exorcise without a circle, thanks to your…intimate relationship with the drakul.”

“How does that get us out of this room?”

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