Page 111 of A Touch of Treachery
I shook my head.“No, absolutely not.You didn’tdragme into anything.Where you go, I go.Simple as that.”
Now and for always.The words whispered through my mind, but I didn’t say them out loud.Safety first, sentiment later.
Despite the electricity I’d used to heal the worst of my wounds, my fight with the guards had taken its toll.My steps slowed down, and I found myself leaning on Charlotte more and more the farther we walked.By the time we reached the lab, Gabriel and Joan were already exploring the space.
Gabriel turned around in a slow circle and let out a low whistle.“Being a supervillain pays better than I imagined.Henrika’s got millions of dollars of equipment in here.”
Joan’s lips curled back in disgust.“Everything you would need to figure out the best and most painful ways to kill people.”
I thought about what Henrika had said about how long she had tried to heal people instead of hurt them.Some genuine regret had been threaded through her words, and it raised a painful truth.Despite all the awful things she’d done to me, I understood Henrika’s point of view far better than she’d realized.
How many times had I been sent to kill someone on Section’s orders when the General might have found another way, a more peaceful, diplomatic solution, if only he’d looked for it long and hard enough?And how many times had I carried out those orders without question because killing someone was the quickest and easiest thing to do?
My gaze flicked to Bryce’s body on the floor.In my own way, I had just as much blood on my hands as Henrika Hyde.
“What are we going to do with all this stuff?”Charlotte asked.
Joan frowned.“What do you mean?Now that Desmond is safe, we can finally call in a strike team.After they clear the facility, the Section techs will analyze everything like usual.”
Charlotte looked at me, and Joan glanced back and forth between the two of us.
“What’s going on?”she asked, her voice growing sharper and more suspicious with every word.“Why are the two of you looking at each other like that?”
“You tell her,” Charlotte said.
“Are you sure?”I asked.
She nodded.“Joan’s come this far with us.She deserves to know the truth.So does Gabriel.”
“Whattruth?”Joan snapped.
I faced her.“Charlotte and I found some vials of Redburn during the Tannenbaum mission.The mercenaries were going to use the explosives to blow up the castle.”
Joan’s eyes narrowed.“I reviewed all the after-action reports about the Tannenbaum mission.You didn’t turn any explosives over to Section.”
“No, we didn’t.”
All weapons, drugs, cash, and evidence, magical and otherwise, was supposed to be handed over to Section 47 to be analyzed, processed, and stored.Joan’s eyes narrowed a little more, but she didn’t ask why we had ignored protocol.She knew exactly what Section leaders did with the weapons agents recovered: studied them so the techs could create better, even deadlier versions of such weapons.
Joan’s gaze traced over the burns on my skin.A shadow passed over her face, and her pale aura dimmed.I knew she was thinking about Graham and how his body had been burned even worse than mine.
“Screw it,” Joan snarled, her voice vibrating with anger.“You’re the one who was tortured, so you decide what to do, Dez.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded, and the gleam of tears filled her eyes.“No one deserves to suffer like you and Graham did.Not even our enemies.”
Gabriel tilted his head to the side, as if he’d just learned something important about the liaison.
Beside me, Charlotte suddenly stiffened.I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong.
A clock showing fifteen minutes appeared on one of the monitors.It flashed red for several seconds—and then it started counting down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHARLOTTE
Everyone’seyeszippedoverto the clock.
