Chapter 4

FOUR

XERO

I rise off my cot, only for Jynxson to grab my shoulders.

He shoves me back down. “What are you doing?”

“Going to interrogate that priest.” I push against him, but in my weakened state, he may as well be a boulder.

“Stay down,” he snarls. “We have people watching Reverend Thomas’s hospital room. Someone will seize him the moment he gets discharged.”

The door opens, and Isabel storms in, her eyes flashing. “I told you what would happen if you tried leaving.”

My glare drops to the syringe she’s wielding like a pistol. I clench my jaw, forcing myself to lie down. It isn’t like me to be so impulsive, but the situation with Amethyst is fucking with my mind. I don’t know why she attacked, if she’s having a psychotic break, or if she’s fallen into enemy hands. One thing is for certain: fighting Isabel head-on will set back my recovery.

“Fine,” I snarl. “Give me a laptop. Let me reach out to the operatives at Simon’s Memorial.”

Jynxson turns to Tyler, who reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a computer. I lie back, fix my gaze on Isabel, and force my features into a neutral mask.

I can disable Tyler and Camila in a few moves. If I fight dirty, I might be able to take Jynxson in my shitty condition, but Isabel is the most likely to hit me with a tranquilizer. Out of every operative in the room, she’s the most dangerous, and the most familiar with my moves.

Tyler approaches with the laptop, and I focus my attention on the screen. Isabel remains in place for several moments before leaving. My friends and family are already reeling from the loss of Port and Bowker. I won’t worsen their grief by acting out.

“Alright then.” I turn to Tyler. “I need someone tracking the movements of that truck. Where did it go after the EMP attack? Check the recruiter’s house and its surroundings to see if Amethyst went to that location downtown and put me in touch with the operatives you assigned to Reverend Thomas.”

Everyone in the room exhales a collective sigh and launches into action. My people at the hospital inform me that the reverend is being kept overnight with a concussion and an eyelid laceration.

Tyler set up my room at the infirmary as the headquarters of the investigation into what happened to Amethyst. It’s no coincidence that she went missing the day her family and two of our operatives were murdered. The truck is registered to a salvage yard north of Beaumont City, a common tactic criminals use to hide illegal activities.

We scour X-Cite Media’s website for any mention of Amethyst, but it’s still hyping up the production they made of Lizzie Bath’s murder.

The footage of Amethyst in the vicarage with Reverend Thomas shows her scared and confused. She tries to talk her way out of the locked room, but he attacks first.

When he grabs her throat and pins her to the wall, it takes every ounce of self-control not to throw aside the laptop and fight my way to his hospital bed. When she injures his eye and clubs him over the head with one of his cameras, my heart soars.

Camila grabs my hand. “You taught her well. Wherever she’s gone, she’ll survive.”

My chest squeezes. “But what about her mental state?”

“I can set up a camera in Dr. Saint’s cell. You can interrogate the psychiatrist over video chat.”

“Do it,” I rasp.

She kisses me on the cheek and leaves the room.

“Xero,” Jynxson says.

“What?”

“Did Amethyst start that fire?”

I lock gazes with my oldest friend. Most men find me intimidating, but not Jynxson. We’ve known each other since we were both ten at the underground facility, then we were roommates at the Moirai Academy.

Jynxson had been on my team during the graduation run, and joined the Moirai with one of my tokens, yet he was one of the first to defect once I started my small resistance group.Despite the length of our friendship, he wouldn’t understand what I have with my little ghost.

“Did she or didn’t she start that fire?” he asks again, his voice hardening.

“No,” I say. “Not on purpose.”

His eyes narrow. “Then by accident?”

Common sense plus eight years of training as an assassin says I shouldn’t protect a woman who tried to kill me in a house fire, but Amethyst has gotten under my skin. I know her well enough to understand there’s more to her actions than petty revenge or even a psychotic episode.

“Xero?” Jynxson asks.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Our standoff continues for several tense seconds, with his features hardening with disbelief. Of all people, Jynxson knows I would never be bested by an untrained civilian.

“If you’re protecting her?—”

“Amethyst might be the key to finding not just my father but all the children he’s grooming to become assassins,” I say. “And she’s out there somewhere, frightened, alone, or maybe in the clutches of X-Cite Media. The last thing she needs is to be hunted by assassins.”

Jynxson stares into his phone and frowns. “All evidence points to Amethyst killing Nocturne because he was connected to X-Cite Media and her mother because she’s Dolly.”

“It’s looking that way,” I mutter.

“Why would she take out our best lead to find Delta?”

I shift on the cot, my lips tightening. “You haven’t met Melonie Greaves. She’s aggravating. Amethyst might have finally snapped.”

“And the EMP blast?” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t add up.”

He’s right, but I refuse to believe Amethyst disabled all the electric systems just to murder her mother.

Jynxson scowls and is about to say something else when Tyler interrupts. “This is a long shot, but the same truck with a different registration entered Mannez Airport.”

My head snaps up. “Is it still there?”

“It was towed three hours ago,” he mutters. “It might be a coincidence or another criminal group, but I’m checking the airport’s security feed.”

With a nod, I turn my attention back to the video of Amethyst fighting off Reverend Thomas.

“Why, little ghost?” I whisper under my breath.

“Found her!” Tyler yells.

“Show me.”

An alert pops up on my laptop, and I double-click a video containing footage from the private jet airport ramp. A white truck pulls in, and a blond man emerges from the front passenger side. Jynxson and I lean closer as Amethyst slips out, clad in a black leather corset and short skirt.

I grind my teeth. Since when did she have male friends?

My blood boils as she links arms with the blond and saunters toward the jet’s steps as if she didn’t just try to burn me alive before committing a string of murders. The driver’s side door opens, letting out an athletic-looking dark-haired man, who walks to the back of the truck.

All my attention is on the man with Amethyst, who wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss as they approach the steps of the jet.

Then the footage skips to take off.

“Is it spliced?” I hiss.

“Very badly,” Jynxson mutters.

“Let me see if any other cameras caught another angle,” Tyler says.

I forward the clip to Tyler’s assistant with a request to look up all flights from Mannez Airport, and she messages back with:

Xero. I was investigating the cause of the fire and checked the browser history of your office computer. I saw the first few seconds and scrubbed forward, wanting to find out who filmed you and Amethyst together, and I found something that might explain the cause of the fire.

A second later, she sends a link to a video of Amethyst running through the cemetery. Recognizing it as the clip her mother played the day she barreled into 13 Parisii Drive like a disgruntled banshee, I skip forward.

What happens after the cloaked figure chloroforms Amethyst sends me throwing the laptop across the room.