Lee finally looks up. “I’ve killed her.”
“What?” Naito takes a step toward his brother.
“I’ve killed her.” Lee’s gaze takes in the papers around him. “Paige. The Sight serum is fatal.”
TWENTY-TWO
I FEEL THE blood drain from my face. My skin becomes cold and prickly. “Paige is dead?”
Lee stares at the papers around him, shaking his head. “They’ve all died. Within six months. They just…we’ll just die. I didn’t know. I swear to God, if I had, I wouldn’t have injected her.”
“Wait, Lee.” I grab his shoulder as I crouch in front of him, shake it to make him meet my eyes. “Is Paige alive now?”
Tears pool in his eyes. “She’ll never forgive me for this.”
She’s still alive. I let out a breath, but my chest feels tight and achy. If Lee’s right about this, she won’t be alive for more than six months. Neither will he, but he seems more concerned about Paige than about himself.
“Where is she?” I ask.
He runs a hand through his jet-black hair. “With the Court fae. I wouldn’t let her come here with me.”
“And where are the Court fae?” Naito asks, kneeling beside us. His gun is still in his hand. His finger runs across the trigger guard as if he’s itching to fire the weapon.
“I’m supposed to meet them at the turnoff.”
I have no idea how far away that is, but it sounds way too close. We need to get out of here.
“You have the serum?” Naito asks.
His brother’s nostrils flare. He turns toward the desk, and as he reaches underneath it, I see a tiny glass vial that’s rolled there. He grips it in his fist, staring down at the milky liquid inside. Then he stands and yells as he slams the vial down on the desk. It shatters, spreading the serum and Lee’s blood across the desk’s surface.
Well, that’s one way to get rid of it.
“I told you our father is a heartless bastard,” Naito says, straightening.
I rise, too, and glare at Naito. Now is not the time for the I-told-you-so’s. His brother may be dying. My friend might be, too, my friend who never, ever should have become involved in the fae’s world. I don’t care if she’s chosen to be on the wrong side of the war, I’m not going to just let her die.
My gaze falls to the mess of papers at our feet, then to Lee’s tablet computer. I bend down to scoop it up, touch the screen to turn it back on. It’s filled with long paragraphs of text and a few diagrams and scientific equations that I don’t understand.
“Does this have all the serum research on it?” I ask Lee. He’s staring down at his bleeding hand, which is still flat on the top of the desk.
“Yes.”
“How do you know it’s fatal?” I ask him, sliding the tablet inside my sketchbook. The jaedric cover just barely cinches shut.
“Dad told me.”
I freeze. So does Naito.
“Dad’s here?” he asks Lee.
“I’m here.”
The gun goes off before I turn. It’s loud and sudden, and I stumble back even though the bullet didn’t hit me. It hit Naito.
“Naito!” I only make it a step before Nakano reaims at me.
“No,” he says tersely.
“He’s your son.” My breath is coming in short, angry intervals. Naito’s lying on the floor, his chest covered in blood. He’s still alive, still conscious, but he needs help. He needs…
Aren. Naito and I have been in here more than ten minutes, and Aren would have heard the gunshot. He would have rushed in despite Naito’s warning if he was able to.
If he was able to.
I feel rage building under my skin. I’m going to kill Naito’s father.
“You sent the text,” Nakano says. His voice is as cold as his eyes. He’s wearing camouflage, head to toe, and what’s left of his right arm is in a black sling. Kyol severed that arm when the vigilante aimed a gun at me before. He should have killed him, but Naito rushed to his side, trying to save his father. I know he regrets that now.
“You knew we were coming,” I say, trying to ignore the gun he has aimed at my chest.
“You put a period at the end of your message,” he says, and I don’t know if the disgust in his voice is because of that punctuation—a stupid, single period I don’t even remember typing—or if it’s because he has to talk to me, a human who colludes with fae. “I sent men to Georgia. And I kept a few here just in case.” He looks at Lee. “Can we use her?”
Use me? As in, make me give them information about the fae? I glance in Lee’s direction, careful to keep my expression neutral. If Lee says no, that I’m not useful, I’m almost certain Nakano will fire that weapon.
Lee is still staring down at his brother. Slowly, he looks up. He focuses on me.
“Yes,” he says.
“McKenzie!” Aren’s voice rings out from above.
I close my eyes as relief pours over me. Nakano’s men haven’t killed him. He’s okay. If he gets the hell out of here, he’ll stay that way.
“Take care of it,” Nakano snaps.
I hold my breath as Lee mechanically starts for the stairs, and pray I haven’t misjudged him. When he chooses to walk in front of Nakano, not behind him, I move, throwing myself to the left just as Lee knocks Nakano’s arm, redirecting the line of fire to the right.
The gun goes off, harmlessly hitting the back wall.
“McKenzie!”
Aren again. He’s on the stairs now. He grips the banister, sees Lee wrestling on the floor with his father, then his gaze locks on me.
“Naito’s hurt,” I call out, scurrying forward until I’m at Naito’s side. The bullet went all the way through him, and he’s losing so much blood.
“Tell Aren to go,” Naito manages to get out before he’s wracked by coughing. “The tech…”
I press my hands over Naito’s wound—it’s right in the center of his chest—then look over my shoulder at Aren. His edarratae are going ballistic, leaping over his skin in some kind of chaos, and he’s stumbling down the stairs more than walking down them.
Nakano’s gun goes off again, but Lee’s wrenched it out of his father’s hand. He rises to his feet, points the barrel at Nakano’s forehead. He doesn’t pull the trigger.
“You know what the demons did to your mother,” Nakano says, heaving air in and out of his lungs.
“That was twenty years ago.”
“They kill. They rape.” Nakano rises slowly to his knees. “It’s our God-given charge to eradicate them.”
Aren reaches the basement floor. He’s off-balance when he crosses it, but he makes it to my side.
“Can you heal him?” I ask, not knowing if he’s capable of it inside this compound or not.
Aren places his hands over Naito’s chest. The edarratae give no indication that he’s using his magic, but Naito gasps. Healing a wound that serious will hurt.
I rise and turn toward Lee. His aim is wavering. He’s still warring with himself, trying to decide if he’s going to murder his father. It has to be done—he’s ruined too many lives—but I can’t imagine what it would be like to kill the man who raised you.