Page 122 of Lethal Game

“Rabies.”

Con’s mouth fell open. “Is that even possible?”

“He’s read my dissertation and has made certain assumptions. I mapped the virus’s code, so I know which changes would need to be made...” She tried to pin a confident expression on her face, but seeing him so bloody was doing something to her insides. Something painful and cold. “He says if I don’t do what he wants, you’re all dead.”

Con glanced Stalls’s body, then at his own leg. “We’re all dead anyway.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “That’s what I think too.” She was going to die, in a matter of weeks most likely. She wanted her life to count for something. Maybe this was it. Maybe she could save Con, Smoke, and River. Maybe she could take out Akbar with his own weapon.

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Don’t blame yourself. I kinda knew I’d die first.”

“What the fuck are you whispering?” Len asked, his gun pointed at Con’s head.

Sophia rolled her eyes and said to Con at a normal volume, “I really, really wanted to have sex with you.” Then she was on her feet and walking away.

“Not going to happen,” Len said with a disgusting sneer on his face. He put a hand on the back of her neck and pushed her faster.

She glanced over her shoulder to see Con staring after her, the confused, irritated expression on his face reassuringly familiar.

***

Rage and pain combinedand roiled inside Connor until he felt like he was going to explode.

“Sex?” Smoke asked.

“Don’t fucking go there, man,” Con said with a glare at his friend. “Don’t.”

Con glanced at their jailors. Two guys who held their weapons like they’d had some training.

Probably not enough though.

Stalls was dead and River was halfway there. Their jailors likely thought this was easy duty, standing guard over a bunch of bloodied and dead guys.

Con groaned and grabbed his leg like it really hurt, then whispered to Smoke. “Collarbone?”

“Not broken,” he whispered back.

She’d lied out loud to give them an advantage.Fucking A.

Con switched to Dari and said to their guards, “I have information about an American military attack.”

They looked at him, but didn’t move.

“I want to trade this information for my life.”

One of the two men came toward him. “What attack? This is a refugee camp.”

“The United States knows there’s a terrorist group with people here. They’re going to destroy the entire camp, then apologize later and say it was a mistake.”

The man came closer, his rifle pointed at a spot halfway between Smoke and Con.

Con lunged upward, putting his weight on his good leg, to grab the rifle and push it so it was pointed up and away from anyone.

At the same time, Smoke rolled and reached for the knife strapped to the terrorist’s leg, pulled it out, then threw it at the other guard.

He fell to the ground, the knife embedded in his eye.

Con wrestled the rifle away from the other one, then bashed him on the side of the head with the butt.

---