Hot Contract (21 page)

She dropped the shoe with a little moue of
distaste. “Come out, come out,” she called.

Keegan closed his eyes, trying not to look at
Jen, trying to stay calm. He could make it to the Project and find
help. Less than a mile there. A quick five minute run. Everything
wound up in less than half an hour. If he could only stay calm.

“They’re around here somewhere,” said Kimo.
He pushed Jen hard enough to make her stumble. “Shoot her. He’ll
come running.”

Jen gave him a dark look. “Dalfrey is an
employee. He won’t sacrifice himself for me.”

“You didn’t see them together,” said Kimo.
“He’s hot for her. He’ll come, you’ll see.”

A raft of scudding black clouds darkened the
temple courtyard. The entrance was little more than ten feet away.
If they stayed back, close to the wall, and hugged the shadows,
odds were good they could get through before Kate’s security found
them. Keegan got his shoulder under Deacon's arm.

Deacon sagged, his face strained with the
effort of holding himself together. “You’ve got to get her away,
man. Kuipo will kill her.”

“Kate isn’t stupid. She knows she needs a
bargaining chip.”

“She isn’t stupid, she’s fucking crazy. Get
Jen away from her.”

“I think a kneecap,” Kate said. “Then her
hand.”

“Aunt Kate,” Jen brushed her hair back,
“Please. Don’t do this.”

Kate brushed at her caftan and pulled her
gun. Light flashed off the long silver barrel of an old-fashioned
Colt with bullets big enough to rip Jen's legs and hands off.
Keegan was abruptly sick to his stomach, terrified that Kate would
shoot and Jen would die of shock and blood loss before anyone
thought to get her to a hospital.

“No!” he shouted, falling out of his hiding
place, down on his knees, anything to get that gun pointed at him
and away from Jen. “Don’t hurt her.”

Jen’s head snapped around, her emotions
unguarded. For an incandescent second, joy lit her eyes.

Kimo laughed, bouncing up and down on his
heels. “Am I good or what?”

Jen walked past Kimo like he wasn’t there.
She’d told Keegan that she couldn’t cry, but water stood in her
eyes like drowning pools.

She looked down at him from a distance of
less than a foot, and said, “Let him go. He means nothing to you or
any of us.”

Kate stopped a body length away. There was a
splint on her wrist and two of her fingers were taped down, but she
had no problems handling her gun.

“Tell Mr. O’Malley to come out,” she told
Keegan.

Deacon stumbled into the open.
“Jenny-fleur...” he said. “Mrs. Kualani.”

Jen shivered, hands chafing at her arms.
“I’ll bargain for Deacon as well.”

Kate tapped the gun on her cheek, eyes
twinkling. “In case it’s escaped you, my dear, you have no
leverage.”

“I can help you. Of my own free will. I’m
smart, and I know what I’m doing. I can destroy the Project so it
never comes back. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Just...let them
go.”

“You mean none of it,” said Kate. “Step out
of the way.”

“You have me!” screamed Jen, spinning around.
“Isn’t that enough?”

“Three hostages?” Kate’s face lit up,
flickering through a wide range of insanity. “You’re right. It is
harder to control three. Therefore we shall have two.”

She swung her gun out, pointed at Deacon, and
blew his face off.

The air froze. Even Kimo flinched back.

“Omigod!” Jen broke the silence.
“Deacon—”

Keegan launched off his knees and caught her
in a full body hug. “Don’t look!”

“He could be alive!”

“No,” said Keegan. “He’s not. He’s fucking
dead. Stay calm and whatever you do—don’t antagonize her.”

Katherine Stalling-Kualani eyed him with
interest. “You care for my niece. How very odd.” She looked down at
her gun and back at Kimo. “This is dirty,” she said, throwing it at
him. “Bring me another.”

****

No one held a Stalling against their will,
and Kate was a Stalling right down to her toenails. She didn’t care
for the lives or needs of anyone other than herself. Jen had more
than a little of that herself. They bred for it.

Keegan held her hand locked in his, his heat
welcome warmth when she was so very cold. Maybe he wanted her where
he could watch her; afraid she’d follow in her aunt’s bloody
footsteps—for the first time, she understood Tris. How many times
could he look back on his mother’s death without wondering if
madness was hardwired into his genes?

We’re cannibals, all of us, glutted on
blood.

Too late for regrets. Her aunt would
misinterpret any sign of caring as weakness. Kate gestured her
bodyguards to herd them toward the temple. Jen wobbled beside
Keegan, her knees going every which way, and slipped in a puddle of
blood. She lurched, desperate not to fall into what remained of
Deacon. Kimo watched her with a gloating smirk. From the look in
his eyes, he’d kill Keegan just to tweak her. Safety was an
illusion, and Keegan obviously knew it because not once had he
looked away from their captors.

“You’ve got to keep moving,” he breathed.
“You become a target the minute you stop.”

Jen stared up the steeply pitched stairs.
“I’ll make it.”

Their eyes met for the first time since he’d
stumbled out of hiding, and her breath caught. With their roles
reversed, she would have done the same thing. Fear sickened her.
She couldn’t let this man die. She walked across the platform as
slowly as possible while Kate’s security faded away, leaving Jen,
Keegan, and her aunt alone in the gathering darkness.

Fading sunlight slanted across the temple.
Makena’s blood was gone, sucked away by the dry stone blocks. A
head popped over the retaining wall. Her cousin, Dave. He had to be
standing on the ledge just inside the drop. Noises came from down
in the crevasse.

Kate stalked to the center of the platform,
and threw her arms wide. Her caftan blew out behind her and snapped
in the wind coming out of the vent.

“Can you feel Her presence, love?”

“Please, Aunt Kate—there's a fifty-fifty
chance that something will go wrong. You’ll only hurt yourself
without triggering any kind of eruption.”

“I have faith," Kate laughed. “Things will
work out.”

Jen looked down in the crevasse. The Aina
were all lined up single file up against the wall and someone had
built a snowman on the ledge. It had timers instead of eyes and
fuses for hair, but it was still recognizable as Frosty.

Kate followed her look and crossed to where
she could see down into the opening. “What have you done?” she
screamed. “You think a snowman in Her temple is funny?”

Dave vaulted the wall, a grin on his face. He
was a big man, muscular and black-haired like all the Kualanis.
“C’mon, Auntie. Chill. The guys were bored. It’s a visual
blooper.”

A thin white line formed between Kate’s
brows. “Take it down.”

Dave was still smiling, still laughing,
unaware of the danger he was in. Kate pulled her gun and waved it,
from the glitter in her eyes, ready to explode.

“But it took almost an hour,” he said. “We’d
have to take off the fuses.”

“Then do so.”

“Auntie...”

“You question me?”

Dave held his hands out at shoulder level.
“It’ll work. What’s the big deal?”

Kate shot him in the belly. “Take it down.
Now.”

Nobody moved.

“Oh, man...” Dave stared down at the blood
gushing out between his fingers. “You shot me!” He dropped to his
knees and threw up.

Kate fluffed her hair. “Does anyone else have
a question?” She was doing something with her lips, but it bore
only a superficial resemblance to a smile. “No questions? Good.
Then the sooner you dismantle the snowman, the sooner we can
accomplish what needs to be done, and we can all go home.”

Dave hunched over in a puddle of blood and
vomit, bleeding and crying.

Kate glanced his way and shot him again.

Jen felt like she’d been dipped in ice. She
wasn’t under any illusions. She and Keegan had been warehoused so
the minute the Aina needed a bone, all fingers would point to
them.

Dave’s men worked fast and scared, taking the
head from the snowman before they flattened the lump back into
manageable slabs. They didn’t talk or laugh. One of them couldn’t
stop crying. The others kept sneaking looks back at Dave, like they
couldn’t believe he was really dead.

Keegan turned and put his arms around Jen,
holding her like she was fragile. Blood spread out under her
cousin, dark and hard to see in the fading light. The rocks were so
dry, it wouldn’t last long.

“Once they start on the fuses, I’m going to
create a diversion,” he said almost soundlessly. “There’s a
backpack on the wall. Orange nylon, it’s a radio. Grab it and run
like hell.”

“No,” she breathed.

“They’re going to kill you,” he gritted
out.

“They’re going to kill you, too.”

A barrage of shots rang out from the
courtyard where Kate’s security surrounded the temple. The sound of
moving, of feet pounding, rose up the steps and exploded into a
blur of motion as Corlis vaulted the edge of the platform, running
low and flat out. Fallon followed screaming—what Jen didn’t know,
because she couldn’t hear. All she could do was watch in horror as
her aunt swung to shoot at their only chance of rescue.

Corlis rolled to a stop, came up on one knee
and sighted down her gun barrel, watching Kate with ice pale eyes.
“It’s over. We took out your security. Drop your weapon.”

Kate kept her eyes locked on Corlis in a
deadly standoff. “You! You shot me, put the police on me, and
interfered! For that you must die!”

Fallon shoved Dave’s body out of the way.
“Nobody move!” he shouted.

“Her punishing hand,” snarled Kate.

Fallon cut her off. “People are predictable.
You say A, they say B—”

“You desecrate Her sacred space!” shrieked
Kate, her voice rising into a piercing crescendo.

“And sometimes C,” he continued, ignoring
her.

Keegan looked through Kate like she wasn’t
there, a trick Jen wanted for herself. “How did you know?”

Fallon watched the Aina trapped down in the
fissure. “You want to die, boy? Then c’mon up here. They brought
Kate in,” he told Keegan, “then let her go. So we used Plan B.” He
gave Jen a wicked grin, teeth flashing. “We called StallingCo
Security.”

One of the Aina scrambled over the wall and
launched himself at Fallon.

Fallon sidestepped, swung his weapon up and
hit the man on the downswing. “Get your ass back over that wall and
stay there.”

Madness slid through Kate’s eyes.
“Contagion!” she screamed. The big silver gun wobbled all over the
place. “You infect my people with self-doubt.”

Kimo lurched up the stairs, blood caked down
the side of his face. “Get away!” he shouted. “You’ll ruin
everything.”

Corlis swung to cover him. Nobody saw Kate
laugh, except for Jen.

She shoved away from Keegan. “Aunt Kate?”

“Liss! Get over here.” Keegan grabbed Jen’s
flying skirt and pulled.

Jen hit Kate at an angle. The older woman
stumbled to her knees and her heavily embroidered gown slid through
Jen's grip like water.

Jen rolled on her back, kicking at Keegan.
"Stop her!"

“I’m trying to keep you safe!”

Kate staggered toward the stairs. Chaos
exploded across the platform as the Aina erupted out of the crevice
after her.

“Stop her! She’s going to destroy the
Project! Hundreds of people will die! You have to stop her—”

Corlis threw Jen a long look. “You’re too
valuable—”

“Your girl's freaked,” shouted Fallon. “Keep
her down.”

“I’m not hysterical—you’re not listening!
Kate’s insane—” No matter how many times she laid out the
information, they weren’t going to listen. Their job was to protect
her. Jen shivered, feeling the cold ooze up through her still-damp
dress.

Keegan held on to her, his eyes conflicted.
How long before his brother's needs overrode hers? He had to keep
her safe. As her bodyguard, his hands were tied.

A gun skittered past him. He grabbed for it
at the last second and turned to push Jen into the cover of the
retaining wall. “Stay here,” he growled. “Don't move.”

Jen caught his hand. His eyes met
hers—hurting and desperate, like every bone in his body was being
broken, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Then he was gone, and
she was alone in an alcove formed where the wall ran into a pile of
tumbled blocks.

Across the way, Jen saw Kate pause on the top
step to the temple, arms out wide like she was about to give a
benediction. Percy wasn’t going to make it in time. Once Kate
hooked up with the remnants of her security team, she’d light
Frosty and whatever Terri had predicted would come to pass.

Jen hesitated, heart up in her throat. If she
died trying to stop Kate, Keegan’s brother also died. And if she
didn’t? She peeked out across the platform. On the far side of the
temple Keegan knelt next to his sister, both of them squeezing off
rounds like they had an unlimited supply of ammo. The Aina were
pinned down in the crevasse and nobody was paying attention to
her.

Jen got to her feet. “Aunt Kate!”

Kate turned. “Yes, dear?”

“Percy will help,” she said, grabbing at the
billowing folds of the jeweled caftan. “Turn yourself in. It
doesn’t have to be this way.”

“You want to lock me away!”

“I want to help you!”

Kate turned away. “You already said
that.”

Jen tried to pull her back. Kate stumbled,
her flailing hand reaching out to lock on Jen’s wrist. They fell,
bouncing and screaming down the black stone steps. Bruised and
sore, Jen sat up slowly. She was so tired, deflating now, as if the
air had been let from her lungs. She kept her eyes on Kate, but
Kate didn’t move.