Page 151 of Stop and Seek
“For god’s sake, Noah,” Max spat. “I’m on the other line withtwodifferent Cleaners.Two. You are so fucking lucky.”
Noah hadn’t locked the door. He just… forgot.
The knock came first, and then three others were in the house. All strangers. Not one of the teams he knew. One had blue gloves on before the door shut. Another carried a black bag, heavy enough to thud when they dropped it on the floor beside Jagger’s body.
“Shit,” said the guy with the gloves, crouching low. He poked at Jagger’s chest. Lifted the eye Noah hadn’t destroyed. “He’s still breathing.”
That couldn’t be right. Noah’s brain must not have caught up yet.
There was no way Jagger could’ve—
“Barely,” someone else added. “But yeah. Pulse is there.”
Noah’s stomach flipped. The back of his tongue went sour, like he’d just licked a battery.
How was that son of a bitchalive?
“Is he worth anything like this?” asked the woman with the bag. She was already unpacking a roll of gauze, a blood pressure cuff. Enough bandages to mummify someone whole.
“Depends.” One of the others looked to Noah. “How old are the tattoos?”
“At least six years,” Noah answered without thinking.
Automatic.
Nine years of keeping his mouth shut and obeying. Nine years of watching the Sterlings cut people into delicate portions.
The woman jotted something down on a pad she pulled from her jacket pocket. “Mature age. Clean lines. Good saturation. Smoker?”
Noah nodded.
“Blood type?” asked the guy with the gloves. “We’ve had some buyers come in saying AB made the meat taste better.”
Noah blinked again. “I don’t—”
“It’s fine,” the woman cut in. “We’ll test it.”
Noah couldn’t smell anything but iron. And sweat. And the sickly tang of bile, rising fast in his throat.
“Still breathing,” Glove Guy confirmed again, like he was trying to be helpful. “Not for long. But we can get him back to the closest facility.”
Noah forced himself to look. Jagger’s face was unrecognizable, bruises blooming under the blood, one eye socket swollen to twice the size of the other. But the chest rose. Shallow. Uneven.
Why couldn’t you just die? It would’ve been better that way.
They moved fast. Professional. A stretcher wheeled in. Oxygen mask already ready to go.
Jagger made a sound then—hollow and wet, like something broken trying to cry.
“Oh,” the woman murmured, pleased. “Lots of fight. The auctions will love him.”
Noah looked away so fast his neck cracked. His stomach twisted, clenched, but didn’t let go. There was nothing left in him to throw up.
He didn’t say a word as they rolled Jagger to the ambulance labelledEmergency Outreach. Just stared at the wall. Watched the shadows move. He should’ve checked. Should’vemade surethat bastard was dead.
Because even after everything…
No one—no one—deserved this.
