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exterminating people. That wasn’t what we were told. We
thought we were hunting down dangerous creatures,
protecting innocents. For the most part, we were.
Rampaging males, mostly. Until she was put on a detail
that was supposed to be about tracking a rabid female.
The female wasn’t rabid, she was defending her children.
Dee Tenorio
Tempting the Enemy
We didn’t know that until after she was dead. The kids
were taken into a research compound—”
“You mean a dissection lab.”
Kennison didn’t argue the correction. “Kelly started
questioning every case. Every death. I didn’t believe what
she said she found. Didn’t want to admit I was part of
something like that. But she couldn’t go on pretending,
couldn’t keep looking away from what she knew was
wrong. She died freeing those kids. It cost her everything
to wash the blood off her hands. That was when I knew
she was right. So I got out, started my life over here,
where I figured I’d be out of it. Problem was, everywhere
I looked, I’d see people I owed. People hiding, because
people like me were hunting them down. People she gave
her life to help.” Kennison’s haggard face tightened and
Pale finally saw the regret etched there. “When they
started the new program, they contacted me. Thought I’d
be willing to put my experience to work.”
“And were you?”
Kennison met his challenge gravely. “You’re still
here, aren’t you?”
Pale grudgingly accepted that.
“The policies are out of my control, but there’s
enough blood on my hands to last ten lifetimes. All I can
guarantee you is that the names on the program lists here
aren’t what led the Woodsman to his kills. Nothing I’ve
compiled for them would lead to anyone except maybe
the Easter Bunny.”
No, Jorgensen had made his own list. “That’s not
good enough. For all you know, someone else is doing the
same thing, guessing what those women can do based on
the cases they get assigned.”
274
275
“I can’t change them all, Rysen,” Kennison snapped.
“This is bigger than just me.”
“How much bigger?”
Kennison shook his head. “I don’t know. No one
knows. That’s not the point. What I’m trying to tell you is
that if we actually find her—”
“She’s there,” he ground out as evenly as he could.
And still alive. As surely as he was.
“Then you need to get your mate and disappear. You
want her safe, you get her off the grid. I can keep her out
of the files, but it’s only a matter of time for the rest of
them.”
“How much time?”
“There’s no way to say. But I wouldn’t think long.
Sibile
have
been
tracked
for
years.
There’s
a
comprehensive system already in place, an identification
list, figuring out which of them are the most dangerous.”
A grunt. “They have no idea.”
Kennison agreed. “No, they don’t. But that’s never
stopped them before.”
Pale digested that, already putting it in the back of
his mind for later. The human government was about to
start a war they couldn’t win. His focus was the war he
had to win. Kennison fell silent, thankfully, and Pale tried
to concentrate on what Jade had been trying to tell him
when they were sitting at his desk.
The bodies were placed.
The skin in the desk.
The picture, the message on the back.
Placed.
“He wants us to find him.” To know who he was, if
not what he was. “He wants everyone to know what he’s
done.”
Dee Tenorio
Tempting the Enemy
“Why?” Kennison asked. “He’s gotten away with it
this far. There was nothing to lead us to him.”
Pale shook his head, unable to explain. A failed
Rouge. A failed scarlet. Jorgensen wanted the Order to
see what happened to those they threw away. He’d
learned the Sibile law too well—what they fear, they
revere. Jorgensen would be feared by those who’d
rejected him. Or he’d kill them all.
Five more minutes, baby. Hold him off for five more
minutes.
Even as he thought it, a beam of white light, so
bright it could be daylight, burst through the trees ahead,
blazing up into the sky. A rippling ring of energy came at
them in a wave that set the whole helicopter out of kilter.
Alarms beeped and the pilot swore, trying to right them,
spinning
the
entire
chopper
twice
and
dipping
dangerously close to the trees before regaining control.
All the while, Pale smiled. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]