Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“Where the hell have you been?” Cora demanded as she pulled him into a hug.
“Port Angeles. The Olympic mountains. It’s a long story.” Reece reached for Alex next. “What the fuck happened here?”
They formed a tight huddle, arms around each other, their conversation half words and half emotions as they filled each other
in.
“I’m going to find Charles Stone and make his fate worse than Nichols’s,” Reece said darkly after Alex told him about the
kidnapping and the suite.
Not a lie. Alex could appreciate that, but he was still confused. “So you and Evan spent the night in the truck? During a
snowstorm? How’d y’all avoid frostbite?”
“Well.” Reece licked his lips. “We had, um, a—a blanket—of sorts—anyway, the point is, you two need to get out of here.”
“We are not leaving you and the others,” Cora said heatedly.
“I guarantee Evan is on his way, if not already here,” Reece said. “The others won’t know he’s the Dead Man, and they won’t
be prepared for his voice or that knockout touch. He’s going to be taking empaths down like dominoes.”
“Yeah,” said Alex. “Empaths like you.”
“No, I’ll be fine because—never mind,” Reece said hurriedly. “Jamey’s here too, and all of Stone Solutions’ response.”
“You’ve got insight into your detective sister,” Cora said. “What is the smartest play we can make here?”
Reece closed his eyes for a long moment, then said, “Scatter and escape. If I can get any of the others out too, I will, but
some of us need to stay free today so that we can rescue the ones who get caught. You both need to run.”
Not a lie. Alex met Cora’s eyes, which mirrored his own turmoil. It hurt like physical pain to think of abandoning the other
empaths to capture, but if it was their best chance, then it was their best chance.
“Okay.” Cora let out a long breath. “Okay. We’ll go. Be safe.”
The three of them hugged tightly, and then Reece was gone, running back down the hall toward the suites.
Alex and Cora went the opposite way. Alex kept his eyes peeled for the first exit sign as they backtracked through the food
court.
As he started to point to an internal staircase, he felt a spike of dismay from Cora just as he heard her voice. “Stop!”
Cora took off at a run, the wrong way, toward the closest stairs down into the stadium stands. Alex tried to catch her sleeve,
only to nearly slip on spilled soda. “Cora!”
He chased after her. Down in the stands a few sections over, a woman he vaguely recognized was stumbling backwards through
a lower row of seats as two thralls advanced on her. But as she levered herself over the back of a seat and jumped, a thrall
grabbed her ankle. She tumbled into the next row with her leg at an unnatural angle.
As the woman’s cry of pain reached his ears, anger poured off Cora so strongly Alex felt it against his skin like the wind. The two thralls dropped into balls, cowering between the seats. Alex finally placed the woman: one of the two people that Cora had wanted to spare at Polaris. “Who is she?”
“A doctor who was used to try to corrupt her empath boyfriend. He didn’t make it. She still has scars.” Cora met Alex’s eyes.
“She tried to help me at Polaris. Look at her, Alex. She’s not walking out of here on her own. The thralls will be back on
her if I leave.”
The woman was still crumped in the stands between rows, hands clutching her shin, her face gone very pale. Alex swore quietly.
“Evan and St. James are gonna get this place under control—”
“Not soon enough,” Cora said. “One of us needs to stay free. You go. Get the hell out of here.”
None of her words had been lies. Alex ran a hand over his face. “I’ll come for you,” he promised. “Wherever they take you,
I’ll find you and I’ll come for you, for all of you.”
“I know.” Cora stretched up and kissed his cheek like a sister. “Go,” she said again.
She started down the stairs into the stands, toward the other woman. Alex turned and sprinted back up the stairs. He reached
the exit he’d seen before and darted into that stairwell.
But as he did, his phone chimed. He yanked it out and glanced at the screen.
Gretel: I don’t know if the same man murdered both our parents, but Charles Stone murdered mine. He has all the power and a million
escape routes.
Gretel: But I still want justice. And I won’t let this go.
He read the rest of her texts, his eyes narrowing, then jammed his phone back in his pocket. He’d make one quick stop before he left, because Charles Stone might have power, but so did Alex.
“Evan!”
Grayson heard his name. Then his eyes found St. James, sprinting toward him through the upper-level club space. Her face was
streaked with red. “You all right—”
“It’s not mine,” she promised, wiping distractedly at the blood. “It’s ugly in here.” They pivoted in sync, matching each
other’s quick pace as they headed for the railing. “Where have you been?”
“We’re gonna need a lot more time than we have now for that story,” Grayson said as they leaned on the railing and scanned
the field. “Have you seen Reece in this mess?”
“He saved my life.” When Grayson glanced at her, she added, “They’re not beyond hope, Evan. We can’t give up on him—on any
of them.”
Grayson’s gaze went back to the field. “How many are there?” he said instead of trying to voice his own thoughts.
“Stone Solutions is here with tranqs,” St. James said. “I think they’ve gotten four of the empaths.”
“I took down two on the field and four more on the way up here,” Grayson said.
“We had ten pacifists,” St. James said. “So maybe that’s all of them—”
She cut herself off with a gasp, but Grayson had seen it too: Aisha Easterby in the stands, almost at the opposite end zone,
running from thralls.
Grayson didn’t hesitate; he hurdled himself over the railing and landed in the stands below. He shook off the impact as St.
James landed next to him, and the two of them sprinted forward.
Dozens of yards ahead, Aisha had fallen between the seats, the thralls on top of her. Grayson put on a burst of speed, but it wasn’t gonna be enough—
Cora Falcon suddenly came racing in ahead of them. The thralls toppled into the stands, curling into balls as Cora reached
Aisha, and he and St. James were too late—
But Cora was kneeling at Aisha’s side. The women were exchanging words Grayson couldn’t hear, and Cora wasn’t reaching for
Aisha’s face or her hands but was pulling her own fleece over her head and handing it to Aisha, pointing at her leg.
“Are you kidding me with this Harley Quinn shit,” he heard St. James pant, whatever the hell that meant.
As the two of them came up on Cora and Aisha, it was Aisha who said, “Wait.” She held up her hands as Cora watched Grayson and St. James warily. “Wait,” Aisha said again. “She’s not hurting me.”
“You need to talk to your friend here. She’s way too trusting,” Cora said, her eyes on Grayson and St. James.
But Aisha shook her head. “I’m not your hostage. I know I’m not.”
Cora glanced at her, then back at Grayson and St. James. “Her leg is broken,” she said to St. James. “She needs a doctor.”
“I am a doctor,” Aisha said.
“You’re not setting your own tibia,” Cora said dryly, reminding Grayson she’d worked at the veterans’ hospital once upon a
time.
Two sections over, Diesel and Liam were hurrying their way. “Is Alex here too?” St. James asked Cora.
Cora blinked innocently back at her. “Why would he be?”
“Answering a question with a question,” St. James said. “That’s exactly how Reece dodges his own lies when he doesn’t want
me to see him twitch.”
“Can we just get this over with?” Cora got to her feet, gaze going to Grayson. “I surrender. It’s not a lie this time.”
She held out her bare hand.
“Evan,” Aisha said as Diesel and Liam joined them.
Grayson took Cora’s hand. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and she pitched forward. Grayson caught her before she hit the ground.
“That’s eleven,” he said, hoisting the unconscious Cora into a bridal carry. “We’re missing Alex and Reece.”
Liam had knelt next to Aisha. Diesel held out his arms toward Grayson. “We’ll take care of Cora,” he said. “You two go find
your brothers.”
Reece flattened himself to the wall as two uniformed guards sprinted past. He had been trying to let his empathy lead him
to other empaths, but he didn’t know the feel of them like he knew Alex and Cora, and the sheer amount of emotion ricocheting
through the stadium made it difficult to get a reading on anyone.
The feel of the stadium was starting to shift, however, from a dominating sense of panic to the crashing aftermath, which
might mean the other empaths weren’t in control anymore. Reece ducked into a staircase and climbed. If he could get up to
the summit level, he might be able to get a good view of what was happening—
As he stepped onto a landing, however, he came face-to-face with a new set of guards, in new armor: empath glove material
from head to toe, blocking Reece’s every sense.
He froze.
“This is the one he wants,” said one of the guards.
“The one who wants—” Reece started.
But he’d already been surrounded.
“Search together or split up?” Grayson asked as he and St. James reached the top of their section.
“I think we have to split up,” St. James said grimly. “We need to find Reece and Alex fast, because if Stone Solutions gets there before us, we may never see them again. I’ll go left.”
She disappeared as Grayson turned right. St. James wasn’t wrong—maybe Alex and Reece had a hell of a body count between them,
but someone had helped Nichols kidnap Grayson and had been planning to send more empaths Nichols’s way. Maybe Grayson could
talk Marist around to better holding conditions for the ten pacifists who’d somehow been caught in this mess, but if Stone
Solutions was first to either Alex or Reece, they’d be tranquilized and locked away who the hell knew where before St. James
or Grayson could so much as protest. And maybe Grayson couldn’t care about that, but St. James sure as hell did.
Grayson ducked into a stairwell and leaned against the landing wall, closing his eyes to think. Alex was going to be reading