Page 69 of Glass Rose
“So it’s join or die?” Min-Ji asks. “Not much of a choice.”
“It’s the only choice that matters now.” Alex adjusts his grip on the gun. “So, don’t be stupid.”
A burst of gunfire erupts from inside the warehouse, and Alex’s attention wavers for a split second.
Marcus dives forward, but Alex’s gun is faster. It discharges.
Once.
Twice.
Marcus stumbles, momentum carrying him forward two more steps before his knees buckle, his hands clutching at his chest where dark stains bloom across his shirt.
“No!” Min-Ji drops beside him as he collapses face-first onto the gravel, body convulsing.
Alex looks genuinely shocked, as if he didn’t mean to pull the trigger.
Min-Ji rolls Marcus over, her hands assessing the damage. “Missed the heart, but punctured lung, possible arterial damage. I don’t—I’m not a doctor.”
Marcus coughs, pink froth bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “Always the optimist.”
“Shut up.” She increases the pressure on the wound. “Just—shut up and breathe shallow.”
Alex approaches, gun still trained on him. “Stupid. So fucking stupid.”
Marcus’s hand comes up, cupping her face. “It’s?—”
“Tough son of a bitch.” Alex raises the gun and fires a single shot directly into Marcus’s heart.
Min-Ji kneels beside Marcus’s body, her hands still covering the wound that no longer matters. Her face is blank, expressionless in a way that terrifies me more than any display of grief.
Bile rises in my throat. How—He didn’t even hesitate.
“It was mercy,” Alex says. “He was dying anyway.”
“Mercy?” Min-Ji’s voice is ice. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
I risk a peek at her. “Min-Ji, we need to?—”
She rises slowly from Marcus’s side, the small handgun aimed at Alex. “You killed him.”
“Dr. Cho.” Alex doesn’t back down. “Be reasonable?—”
“That’s what I’m being.” Her voice is perfectly calm. “Reasonable. Logical. A bullet to the frontal lobe will cause instantaneous death. No suffering.”
“Put the gun down,” he says. “This isn’t you.”
“You don’t know me.” She tilts her head. “None of you ever did.”
I take a careful step backward, tugging Dr. Cho with me. She moves without taking her eyes, or her aim, off Alex.
“Check the cars,” she says. “Find keys. Quickly.”
I rush to the nearest SUV, opening it up. The interior light illuminates leather seats, a high-tech dashboard, and—thank fuck—keys still in the ignition. “Got them.”
I drop my backpack inside and glance back at them. Whatthe… At first, I think it’s a trick of the light, a shadow cast by the chaos still unfolding at the warehouse.
Then I see it again.
