The Takeover (30 page)

“He’s nowhere,” Mari said.

“He can’t be inside yet. He hasn’t had time.”

“Keep looking,” Cort said. “Pull all the locations you’ve been to near here.”

Mari nodded and pushed on, with me clinging to her mind, trying not to think the worst. One by one, the places she’d visited materialized before us, and I sent my thoughts through the fold in space, searching for Jace.

After a long while, Mari shook her head at me sorrowfully. “I’m sorry. Earlier when we got here, he was asking how I felt not knowing my father, if it bothered me that I wouldn’t ever meet him. I told him I’d always thought he was some nameless sperm donor, and I hadn’t ever thought about having a relationship with the guy. I didn’t know he was a Renegade who’d been killed until just a few months ago. Jace didn’t like my answer. I should have known he was upset.”

I remembered how Jace had leaned toward me in the hallway back at the Fortress, as if trying to drink in any knowledge of his father. He hadn’t bought my promise to keep the man alive. Of course his ability would have told him that “by any means possible” left too much to chance when dealing with a member of the Triad.

The garage door opened, and a van careened down the ramp and across the parking garage, screeching to a stop before us. Ritter jumped from the driver’s seat, and Ava from the other side. Her phone was in her hand, but my phone was no longer vibrating with her call.

“What happened?” Ritter barked.

“Jace is gone.” My voice sounded like broken glass crunching beneath my feet. I opened my mind to Ava and pushed my thoughts at Ritter, letting them see for themselves.

Ava’s mouth pursed so tightly she appeared to have aged decades. “Any trace of his location?” she asked Mari.

“No,” Mari whispered.

Ava was tapping on her phone. “Can’t find his signal. He must have deactivated his transmitter.”

Ritter leaned into the car and finished freeing me with a snip of wire cutters he pulled from an interior pocket. “Where’s Oliver? Isn’t he supposed to be with Jace?”

“Oliver!” Mari snorted.

“It wasn’t his fault.” Dimitri’s voice made us all look around. I hadn’t even noticed him after Mari and I began searching, but apparently he’d been looking for Oliver, who now leaned on him heavily. One of Oliver’s eyes was reddened and fast growing a bruise that stood out on his dark face like a spill of oil on concrete. His short, tightly curled hair had a heavy brush of gray on one side, as if he’d slid over the dusty floor. Given his expression, he’d probably done just that.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, and for once his arrogance wasn’t showing. “I didn’t see it coming.”

“He was knocked out behind that van.” Dimitri indicated the farthest van with a wave.

“You won’t find Jace,” Oliver said. “He had those devices in the car, the ones he and Cort took from the hospital where the Emporium was trying to hide Patrick.”

“The portable electric grid!” Mari said. “That explains how he could disappear like that.”

I knew it was my fault. “I didn’t see this coming at all. Jace seemed okay with everything.” I slammed the back doors of the van shut and started kicking the concrete pillar next to it—again and again until my booted foot ached. “Stupid . . . idiot . . . kid.” I wasn’t sure if I meant me or Jace.

Ritter put his hand on my arm, and I turned into him, burying my face in his shoulder. His hands ran through my hair, but for once they brought me no comfort.

“He’s an adult,” Ava said. “This is no one’s fault but his own. Short of locking him up, we couldn’t stop him.”

I pulled away from Ritter’s shoulder, my head feeling as if it weighed a hundred tons. “Whatever his feelings about Stefan, he shouldn’t have endangered the op!” I retorted, wishing that was the only reason I was angry. “We’ll have to abort and figure out how to get Jace back.” It all seemed too impossible. When I did catch up with him, I was going to kick him to the next state. Then I’d never let him out of my sight again.

“Maybe we don’t have to abort,” Ritter said.

I recoiled from him. “What?”

“Depends on how he explains his presence once he’s there.”

Against my will I repeated what Jace had said about telling Stefan he was looking for me and that Jace wanted to meet him. “It doesn’t matter how he spins it,” I concluded. “Stefan’s never going to let him go, and with Jace there, he can use us against each other. I won’t be able to do my job.”

I waited for Ritter to tell me I was right, that we had to abandon the plan and focus on retrieving Jace, but he only looked shaken as he dragged his gaze from mine to Ava. “If Stefan buys it,” he told her, “it should work. Maybe it’ll even be better than just sending in Erin and Keene and Mari—we can never have too much backup. There’s no doubt that Jace will play his part perfectly, since it’s mostly true.”

“No!” I punched his arm hard enough to hurt my hand, but Ritter didn’t flinch as his head snapped in my direction. “His Deathliness just doesn’t want me there without a combat Unbounded!” I accused. “He never did. He’s
glad
Jace did this. But we can’t just carry on the op as if nothing has happened.” As if my brother didn’t matter. “We have to get Jace out of Stefan’s reach, or I won’t be able to do anything against the Triad.”

When Ritter spoke, he used a hard tone he rarely used with me anymore—not since we fell in love and got married. “Are you saying you won’t do the op? Because there is no one else.” He closed the step between us and put his hands on my upper arms near my shoulders. “If you want to help your brother, you have to go through with the plan. If you want to take over the Triad, we have to act now. There’s no other way except the frontal assault we all decided was suicide. You were willing to have Jace participate in that. How is this any worse?” He shook me once, but gently, almost a caress.

“Fine!” I pulled away from him, knowing he was right but furious at him anyway because there was no one else to be angry at.

Except Jace, who wasn’t here. And myself.

Ritter nodded and turned to Keene and Mari, who watched us with dismayed expressions. “It’s time for you two to leave. You have everything you need?”

“We each have a couple bags,” Keene said. “To make it look like we’re planning to stay awhile—not that they’d let us leave anyway. The bags are still upstairs.”

“Cort and I will get them.” Ritter motioned to Cort.

Cort looked relieved, and I knew that was exactly why Ritter had asked. It never got any easier saying goodbye, and this way Keene and Cort’s farewell would be shorter.

Ava waited until Ritter and Cort left before saying to Keene and Mari, “When you get there, try to find a way to contact us. Post that last signal phrase we gave you if you see him.”

“Jace will know enough to pretend not to recognize you,” Dimitri added. He had a hand on Mari’s arm, helping her regain her strength, and I was glad since she looked drained again.

I didn’t share his confidence, not after what Jace had done.

Ava moved to my side, her arm slipping around me. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, and you know it.”

“I’d bet each of our people against any three of theirs,” Ava said. “Jace is no exception.”

Ritter and Cort returned with the bags, transferring them to Mari and Keene. Without any signal between them, Mari and Keene nodded at us and shifted, vanishing from sight. They would appear in another safe house and from there make their way to Emporium headquarters.

I hoped I would see them again.

Ritter looked at Cort. “Are you and Stella ready to record Jeane’s thoughts?”

I was still furious at him but also relieved at his suggestion. Working on Jeane’s mind would keep Cort and me from thinking too much, at least tonight, about what we’d lost.

For the next two hours, I studied Jeane’s mind and passed the patterns to Stella, who recorded them on a computer so she and Cort could decipher them. Jeane wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t try to null me again or keep me out.

Afterward, I wandered upstairs to the room I shared with Ritter. He was already there, and for a few torturously long minutes, we didn’t talk except to discuss what we would take with us on the op the next morning. Ritter would bring all his usual accouterments and also my guns and knives and the new sword so he could pass them to me when Mari and I shifted him inside.

I couldn’t carry any obvious weapons, but since my ultimate cover was that I’d fooled Jeane into thinking she was capturing me, going in with no weapons at all would seem out of place. So I planned to take weapons built into jewelry and hair accessories, things Jeane might overlook. Their people would find them, I was betting, but at least I’d appear to be a real combat Unbounded. If I managed to get something past their security, so much the better.

Finishing my short list, I dropped to the couch and stared blankly at the wall. Ritter left his weapons and sat next to me. “Jace isn’t so different from you, you know. Remember how you took off to confront Delia alone in Morocco?”

I brought my gaze back from the nothingness to glare at him. “This is
so
different. Jace doesn’t have a snake in his head. He wasn’t in danger of killing us all if he stayed.”

“We only defeated Delia because we were all together. We’ll do that again with the Triad.” He tried to take my hand, but I yanked it away. “Erin, I know you’re not mad at me,” he tried again.

“You’re right. I’m furious,” I growled. At him and all the Renegades for not fixing the Emporium problem years ago. For waiting until Jace and I were born to finally set it right. For putting my brother’s life in danger. “We don’t have any idea what’s really going to happen tomorrow. We should be rescuing Jace tonight.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

“We go in. We get a presidential order to search the place. We negotiate. I don’t know!”

“What about taking over the Triad?”

A sob escaped my throat. “I don’t care about the Triad!”

Faster than I could ward him off, Ritter grabbed my hands and pulled me to him. “Stop, Erin. Please. You’re right that we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We can’t change what Jace has done, so shouldn’t we be making the most of tonight?” His voice spoke of deserted beaches and lazy nights with no thought of the Emporium. Of children’s laughter.

“Let. Me. Go.”

“No.”

In the next instant, we were kissing and tearing our clothes off. There was no time for words. I wanted this man of mine, who made me so furious and happy and right with the world, even when it was falling apart.

Yes, I was going to hold a grudge at his stubbornness, and because of my own guilt at letting Jace leave, but I was also going to say my goodbyes. Just in case. Our lovemaking was different this time, more urgent, more passionate. I could only pray that wasn’t a sign of something horrible looming in our future.

It wasn’t until much later when I awoke in the middle of the night, half crushed by Ritter’s weight, that I realized I hadn’t channeled Stella’s ability today—or Patrick’s—to make sure my body allowed the nanites to do their job at preventing ovulation. In fact, my body had probably ejected the nanites altogether. After tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter. One way or the other.

THE NEXT MORNING, JEANE AND
I were our way to Emporium headquarters in a taxi driven by a disguised Cort. Jeane called Ropte, examining her nails with apparent disinterest as Ropte questioned her about leaving his house yesterday. He shut up all too quickly when she told him she was with me and where she was heading. After trying to talk her into taking me to his house instead, he told her he’d see her soon and hung up.

Jeane’s brow furrowed. “He’s never offered to send a helicopter for me. And that was before I said you had a message from the Renegades. Apparently, David is very interested in you.”

The idea worried me more than I wanted to admit. “Are you sure you didn’t tell him about my ability?”

She gave me a flat stare. “I think I’d remember.”

Cort dropped us in front of the Emporium building, and Jeane preened in the mirrored surfaces of the double glass doors as we waited to be let inside. Despite my lack of sleep, I looked rested, thanks to my increased absorption. Jeane looked stunning, even for an Unbounded, and I wondered if she’d taken such care of her appearance because of Lew or if she still had some other plan involving Stefan Carrington.

My hands were zip-tied in front of me, and Jeane carried a gun, which she was serious enough about keeping on me that if I’d really been a captive, I might have had a problem getting away.

I felt a momentary panic and an urge to flee. I hadn’t told Ritter I loved him after our fight, not even after our night together. When I’d awakened, he’d been downstairs discussing last-minute details with Ava and Dimitri, and all I’d done was scowl at him and everyone else. I hadn’t hugged him goodbye, and he hadn’t pushed me. His Deathliness knew me too well.

I regretted all of it now, especially the shuttered look in his eyes.

One of the doors opened, not by a secretary but by four guards armed with multiple guns and swords in back sheaths. One of them I recognized: Jonny Carrington, Stefan’s son and my supposed half brother. I’d had two run-ins with Jonny, and I liked him despite his blind loyalty and the fact that he’d once shot Ritter. He had a lesser variation of the combat ability that allowed him to move faster than even Ritter, but without the other advantages. Because of his forced Change at eighteen, ten years ago, his projected life span was only four hundred years, something he was privately bitter about. Even so, he was always grinning, and today was no exception.