Page 105 of Golden Eagle

“Good guess.”

“Lanny. What the hell’s going on?”

He let out a breath and shoved to his feet. Unsteady, hands still shaking. “When I figure it out, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Delgado made a protesting sound, but took an extra step out of the way as Lanny walked out of the break room.

He ought to leave the precinct, he knew. Even though it left him grinding his teeth, there was nothing he could do for Trina right now – she was technically safe, in a physical sense. She didn’tneedhim.

Mate.Mine.Protect.

Instincts so much more powerful than he’d expected. He’d never felt this way before.

So he didn’t leave. Went instead toward his desk, where he’d at least be close by when she eventually got out of her interview.

His desk wasn’t empty.

Nikita and Sasha he almost expected; Nikita didn’t listen to anyone. But Will Scarlet and Much were a surprise.

As was the fact that Will spoke first, standing up and offering a flourishing bow that belonged to another century. “Apologies for barging in. We encountered Nikita and Sasha on the street, and–”

He cut off when Lanny glanced away from him, and toward Nik, and said, “What the fuck?”

Nik sighed. “They do make a good point about the Institute.”

“The…what?” The word hit him like a slap.

“The Institute created them, did they not?” Will asked. “It only makes sense–”

“Gustav is there,” Sasha said, grim-faced. “With them. Helping them.”

“Shit,” Lanny murmured, his panic over Trina receding in this face of this new, wholly different kind of panic. He felt very small, and rooted to the spot. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

~*~

She told the story twice. Once to Abbot, and then to the IAB agent – a smarmy jerk named Jennings – once he arrived, late, pressed, bearing more coffee, and looking at her with big-eyed seriousness, encouraging her to feel comfortable with him.

He chased me, I told him to back down,she said.He pursued me up a fire escape. Tried to jump on me. I fired.

Jennings frowned at her a lot. She knew it didn’t add up: she’d fired more shots than necessary to subdue him – to subdue a human. And there was no way of explaining the shot to the head, there just wasn’t…so she didn’t.

She gave her to-the-point, bare bones accounting, and then fell silent. Answered questions in monosyllables.

There was no coming back from this, she knew. She knew anyway, before Jennings closed-off expression told her as much.

After, she turned in her gun, but kept her badge. For now. Was released assigned with desk duty and told that IAB would be in contact about the nature of her investigation. She wouldn’t get her gun back until she’d been cleared; until it had been deemed a “good shoot.”

“Thank you,” she said, polite but flat, and left the interrogation room, headed toward the bullpen still in her bubble of trancelike calm.

A bubble that threatened to burst when she got to her desk and found the one person waiting for her too sweet to keep on the other side of her armor.

“Hi,” Sasha said, standing, offering a smile so sympathetic that her shield of numbness shivered, and cracked. Her eyes stung.

She took a few shuddering breaths. Tried desperately to hold on to her mask. “Hi.”

He took a step closer, hair sliding out from behind his ears as he tipped his head. “I’m sorry we weren’t there,” he said, low, just for her. So earnest.

“Why would you have been? I can take care of myself.”

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