Page 130 of Make Them Cry
I lean over, press my forehead to hers.
“I swear to you, baby. I’m ending this.”
Hours later,I’m dressed in all black—combat boots, dark jeans, a hoodie. No weapons. Just a mic in my collar and a transmitter in my back pocket.
The wind off the pier is biting. Cold salt air whips through the rusted beams of the old warehouse Helena picked as our meeting point. Of course she picked it. Of course she wants me isolated.
My earpiece crackles. “Mic check,” Rae says. “We’re live.”
“Copy that.”
“Signal’s clean. We’ve got you from three vantage points. Arrow’s on overwatch.”
I keep walking, slowly, hands visible. The gravel crunches beneath my boots.
“Eyes on her,” Knight murmurs. “Ten o’clock. Red coat.”
I turn and there she is—Helena, in a blood-red trench coat, black gloves, sleek bun. She looks like the devil’s attorney.
“Gage,” she says smoothly. “Didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“I’m tired of running,” I lie. “You win.”
“Do I?” Her eyes glint. “Even after last night?”
My jaw tightens. “You think I don’t know that was you?”
“I think you don’t have proof.”
She’s close now. Close enough to shoot me. But I don’t move.
“I have something better,” I say. “I have a clean conscience.”
She laughs. “Well, that won’t help you in prison.”
She reaches into her coat.
My heart kicks. “Rae?—?”
“Hold,” she says calmly. “It’s not a gun.”
Helena pulls out a USB drive.
“This is your out,” she says. “I’ll scrub your name. Make it disappear. All you have to do is walk away.”
“What’s on it?”
“Everything tying me to Cathedral. To Regent,” she says. “Except I made it look like you wrote it.”
The sickest part is—shesmileswhen she says it.
“I’d rather burn with the truth than live with your lies,” I say flatly.
Then I turn away, just slightly—enough to trigger the signal.
“She’s burned,” Rae says. “Go.”
The flashbang goes off behind me in a white-hot burst. Helena shrieks, disoriented, just as Ranger and Sawyer come in from behind, pinning her to the ground. She fights like a cornered animal.
