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“Blaine?” Lara said.

He shook his head. “Carly’s right. You’re worth more to us than six of them.”

She couldn’t help but smile back at the two of them. “Stop it, guys, you’re making me blush.”

“We mean it,” Carly said. She was as serious as Lara had ever seen her. “Blaine, me, everyone on this boat—we don’t know this Riley from Adam. He may or may not give a crap about Hart and the others. I don’t think we should risk it if it means risking you.”

“I can go,” Blaine said.

“Or me,” Carly said. She shrugged, then smiled mischievously. “He doesn’t know what you look like.”

“He knows what I sound like,” Lara said.

“Hey, who sounds like themselves over the radio?”

“She’s got a point,” Blaine said.

“Gee, thanks, Blaine,” Carly said. “I don’t know whether to be happy-happy that you’re backing me up or kind of pissed off you’re willing to risk my life if it means keeping boss lady here.”

“I, uh…” Blaine said, but wisely didn’t finish.

“Anyway,”
Carly said, turning back to Lara. “I’ll go. We can’t afford to lose you. Me, on the other hand…” She let it trail off with a shrug.

“Danny would kill me if I did that,” Lara said.

“Yeah, there’s
that
,” Carly smiled. “But he’ll get over it. I mean, look at all the single
and
available ladies on this tub. He’d probably forget about me within a week, that asshole.”

“No, he won’t,” Lara said. “Besides, this is why I get paid the big bucks, remember?”

Carly shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, but I don’t see any other way unless we want to turn around and leave, and our fuel reserves can’t afford that right now.”

She looked over at Blaine, as if to ask him,
“Right?”

He nodded back, even though she could see he didn’t want to.

Before Carly could argue, Lara pressed the microphone and said, “Riley.”

“I’m still here,” Riley answered.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“I assumed you and whoever is on the bridge with you needed time to debate the pros and cons of accepting my offer.”

“He can
definitely
see us,” Carly said, lowering her voice for some reason while turning to look out the windshield at the oil rig.

“He probably has lookouts on that big ass crane out there,” Blaine said. “I would.”

“Did you come to a decision?” Riley asked through the speakers.

“One hour,” Lara said.

“I’ll send a boat to come get you. One man. Unarmed. You’re free to bring your weapons.”

“One boat, with one man on it. If I see more than one at any time between now and when I return to the
Trident,
the yacht will turn around and leave with or without me onboard. My people will then execute Hart and the others and toss their bodies overboard so you can pick them up. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Riley said. Then, “Expect my man in one hour.”

Lara put the microphone back down on the dashboard. When she looked up, Blaine and Carly were staring at her.

“Tell me you weren’t serious,” Carly said. When Lara didn’t answer right away, she sighed. “God, I don’t whether to be impressed with the new and way more badass Lara, or hate you so much right now for taking this stupid risk.”

Lara smiled at her friend. “I love you, too.” Then, to both her and Blaine, “Now pay attention; this is how we’re going to do this…”

11

GABY

S
HE WOKE UP TO GUNFIRE
—or, at least, she thought it was gunfire. She couldn’t be entirely sure because of the sea of molasses swooshing
around inside her head that made every part of her body heavy and at the same time disjointed. How was that even possible? Maybe it had a little something to do with the constant pounding—

“There she is,” a voice said. “Good morning, sunshine.”

It only took half a second for her to recognize the voice :
Fucking Mason.

“Back to the land of the living,” Mason said. “Well, mostly anyway.”

“Fuck you,” she said. Or croaked. What mattered was that she got it out.

“Now where’d a pretty little thing like you learn to talk like that?”

She had opened her eyes to Mason’s face (
Squirrelly
, as Lara would say) hovering in front of her. He was crouched with his hands draped over his knees, but what she really noticed was the fresh black uniform he had on. The only thing missing was his name on the tag over his breast pocket; there was no cursive stenciling, just the word
Mason
written in what looked like permanent marker.

“Yeah, it’s a rental,” Mason said when he saw where her eyes were lingering. “Unfortunately, proper uniform distribution’s taken a bit of a hit recently. Can’t blame them, what with Mercer’s goons running around out there.”

The
crack!
of a rifle shot echoed in the background. She tried to figure out where it had come from, but it faded too quickly, replaced by the same pervading silence of a dead world that was all too familiar to her.

“Speaking of the devils,” Mason said, tilting his head a bit. “They’ve been at it all morning. Showed up as soon as the sun poked over the city. I guess all that action from yesterday drew them here. What’s that saying? Like moths to the flame? Making a real mess out there, too.”

They?
she thought, but couldn’t push the word out this time.

Why was she so tired? She wasn’t in pain. Not really, even though her throat felt as if she had a rubber band around it, constricting airflow. She reached up and massaged the area where the creature had grabbed her last night, but it didn’t seem to help. She had to use both hands, because her wrists were bound together with plastic zip ties. Her legs were similarly restrained at the ankles. How long had she been like this? Tied up and sitting on the floor against a wall? Probably the entire night.

“I know how you feel,” Mason said. “The first time I met one of those things, I almost shat my pants. They still give me the willies.”

He shivered, but she couldn’t be certain if that was involuntary or for her benefit.

She stared at the man. Mason was short, and while not physically disgusting, he wasn’t exactly attractive, either. He had dark eyes and short dark hair, and although he had cleaned himself up since he was Danny’s and her prisoner, it hadn’t done anything to improve his looks. But why should it? The man was a piece of shit and nothing would change that—

“Oh, come on,” Mason said. He was eyeing her closely. “Cut me some slack. I’m just a guy trying to get by is all.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” she said, forcing the words out with some effort.

“But does that make me a bad guy?”

“Yeah, it does.”

He glanced to his right. She followed his gaze over to a bundle lying on the floor. She sat up straighter at the sight of Nate. He was swaddled in camping gear with only his head sticking out of the thick fabric. He looked sound asleep, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his chest rising and falling underneath the sleeping bag.

It took her a few seconds to realize they were back at the Gallant First Bank where she, Danny, and Nate had stayed previously. They were in one of the back rooms—the manager’s—with the familiar big oak desk still pushed off to one corner, giving them plenty of space. Except for herself and Nate, only Mason was inside with them. The door to her right was open, which was the only reason there was enough natural light for her to see not just Mason but Nate, since both offices were windowless. She thought she could hear voices drifting from the bank lobby outside, but she didn’t quite have the strength to focus on that part of the world.

“So tell me, sweetheart, would a piece of shit save his life?” Mason asked.

She gave him a disbelieving look. “You?”

“Yes, me. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes.”

He grunted. “They wanted to ‘play’”—he did air quotes—“with your boyfriend last night while they were waiting for him to show up. But I convinced them if having two of you as insurance was good, three’s even better. Took some convincing, but they bought it.”

She glared at him, trying to decide if she could believe this traitor to the human race. He looked back at her, a small smile playing across his lips. Mason was scum, and the idea that he would actually go to bat for Nate seemed absurd.

“I liked him,” Mason said, as if he could read the doubt on her face—and maybe he could since she wasn’t doing very much to hide it or her dislike for the man. “Most of the time, anyway. He was nicer to me when you and the Ranger weren’t around. Mostly when you weren’t around. I dunno, but maybe he didn’t want you to think he was weak.” He shrugged. “He was decent enough to me; I never had to ask him for a drink or some food. So when he wakes up, tell him I paid back my debt.”

“You’re lying.”

“Honest to God.”

She stared at him. “I don’t believe you.”

He sighed, as if he were disappointed with her. “Whatever. Just tell him. He knows the truth.”

She looked over at Nate again. If Mason was lying, he was doing a very good job of selling it, because the Nate she knew would absolutely do what Mason was saying, even for someone with Mason’s very questionable history. Nate had hardened noticeably since that first meeting in Louisiana, but maybe that was just an act for her benefit because deep down, even after everything he had been through, Nate was still the most decent man she knew.

She turned back to the collaborator. “Why would they listen to you?”

“You mean because I’m just another sack of meat to them?”

“Not the ‘sack’ I was thinking of.”

He chuckled. “Good one. But to answer your question, it’s because I’m
not
. Just ‘another sack of meat,’ I mean.”

“I never believed you were anyone important before, and I still don’t now.”

“The other guys in uniform couldn’t care less about what happens to me. But I’m talking about the
real
bosses here. How did you think they found you in the first place? Because Nate was right. They were tracking you—just not in the way you think.”

“How?”

“I’m connected to them. Well, one of them.”

“‘Them?’”

“
Them,
” he said, as if she should know—and Gaby guessed that she did. There wasn’t a lot of
thems
out there right now. There was only one
them
that mattered.

He’s talking about the ghouls.

The blue eyes…

“They have a way of getting into your head and sticking,” Mason said. “They’ve been in my head since the early days of what you call The Purge. After my demotion post-Louisiana debacle, I thought they had cut me loose. Turns out it really is true what they say: Once you go black you can never, ever go back.”

She watched his face closely, waiting for him to keep going, but he didn’t. Mason seemed to drift off as if all the talk about “them” had gotten him thinking about something else. Something that might not be entirely…pleasant.

When he returned his eyes to her, his mouth turned upward into a forced smile, and he might have been about to say something else—maybe even give her more information on how “they” had used him to track her and Danny all the way from Starch to Gallant—but before he could say a word, the very clear
pop-pop-pop
of automatic gunfire echoed from outside the bank’s walls. There was something that sounded like return volley before silence took over again.

“What’s happening out there?” she asked.

“Told you, Mercer’s men,” Mason said. “Turns out there’s not that many of them. A few hundred, give or take. But man, they’re kicking up one hell of a ruckus.”

“A few hundred?” Gaby asked, remembering all those soldiers outside of Larkin when they were captured. It had seemed like more than just “a few hundred” back then. “How do you know there’s only a few hundred of them?”

“They got ahold of one of his regulators. The blue eyes, I mean.” He tapped his temple. “Got into his head. He didn’t have to tell them anything after that.” He went quiet for a moment and looked almost…what? Thoughtful? Frightened? “They know everything that poor bastard knew, and as it happens, everything he’s ever going to know.”

“He’s dead…”

“Dead, not dead. Either way, death is a release.”

“So why don’t you ‘release’ yourself from them? End it now. That way you won’t have to worry about them”—she tapped her own temple with the back of her knuckles—“back in there anymore.”

He chortled. “I would, but I like this thing called living too much. What, you thought I was a believer or something? I’m just trying to stay alive here, sweetheart.”

She gritted her teeth, wanting badly to tell him to stop calling her
sweetheart
, but she managed to restrain herself. Showing him an emotional outburst would just give him something else to use against her, and the man already had too much ammunition as it was.

“They’re like cockroaches, showing up wherever you least expect them,” Mason said, taking a moment to listen to the
pop-pop-pop
from outside the building.

Gaby had to fight back the smile. Cockroaches would be exactly how she would describe Mason and his collaborator friends, and it was ironic to hear him referring to someone else as that.

“They’re not here to rescue you, in case you were wondering,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she said.

“Maybe you’re smarter than you look, then. Brains and beauty, huh?”

She ignored his comment and said, “Where’s Danny?”

“He’s around.”

“Where is he?”

“Around,” Mason said before standing up.

She watched him and saw him grimacing as he stood up on slightly unsteady legs. Gaby took a lot of satisfaction in knowing that she had done that—gave him a lingering pain he wasn’t going to get rid of anytime soon.

“No one’s going anywhere,” he said. “We’re all going to camp out here until nightfall.”

“Maybe you won’t have a choice.”