Chapter 26

Special Agent Fallon Baxter

There he stands before the gathered members of Paradise, his identity obscured beneath the folds of the blood-red hood on his head—hiding like the coward he is.

We've just endured close to an hour of community news and reviews, enough to bore my socks off if I was wearing any.

The so-called supreme leader has taken center stage once again, rambling on and on about the benefits of his kingdom.

"He usually doesn't go on like this," Sloan whispers and I nod because I had figured he was putting on an extra special show just for me.

"Tonight"—he shouts with the conviction of a madman—"we stand at the precipice of our collective destiny, united in our journey toward transcendence. This recommitment ceremony symbolizes not just a renewal of our vows to our shared vision, but it acts as a sacred pledge, reaffirming the fact we're discarding the world around us that fought so hard to confine us." A howl of approval erupts from the crowd. "Tonight we pioneer our way to a new realm, where our spirits will fly unbound and our collective potential will be unlimited."

A new realm? Spirits unbound? For sure I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.

A thought comes back to me. Something that left me unsettled the other night at the diner—he said not to spook the killer or he might just want to kill everyone around.

"Oh no," I moan as my mind dips into the darkest territory yet. It makes sense why he'd want to set up Malcolm and Patty if things went south. And I'm guessing that someway, somehow, the deceased figured out exactly who the man in red was. They needed to be eliminated. But now the feds are here. I'm here.

And like the coward before me said once, he always has a plan B.

I squeeze my eyes tight before glancing over at the silver basin behind him. Busted the mob, confiscated enough cyanide to kill the entire state.

That would give him access to take care of the job.

I try to shake the thought of out my head but can't.

"Tonight marks the event horizon of our rebirth." His voice bellows into the darkness and a chill rides down my spine as he says those words echoed from the diner. "Tonight we fly into the darkness as beacons of light, forging a future into eternity."

I glance to Sloan and she shakes her head my way.

"Isn't he great?" She giggles as she says it.

"So great," I mutter.

It'll be great if we make it out alive.

"Tonight as we drink from the chalice together," he continues, "we'll transcend the mundane world as we leave it behind for good. Our unity, our faith?—"

The wailing sound of sirens cuts through the night as the sound of an entire army of cars screeches onto the grounds.

"Come partake," he shouts, waving the crowd toward the table. "Don't let them trample on our unity."

The crowd quickly migrates in his direction just as a set of footfalls speed their way over from my right and I look to see a dark figure barreling this way, brandishing a gun in his hand.

"FBI, nobody move," the shadowed figure thunders and it sounds like Stone.

Malcolm lifts an arm to his right. "Code red," he shouts. "Code red!"

Half the crowd disperses and I bolt for the table where some of the men and women already have a cup in their hands and are reaching for the unholy bowl of doom.

I flip the table without hesitating and watch as the liquid spills from the silver bowl, shining like a sanguine mirror in the moonlight.

I'm snatched violently from behind as the crook of an arm lands tight against my neck. Reflexively, my hands want to pluck him off of me so I can catch my next breath, but I pluck off his hood instead. I twist my head just enough until his eyes latch onto mine.

There he is, Robby Reed, my childhood friend staring back at me with a mixture of horror and something this side of pleasure. It would figure he'd get a rise out of this somehow.

The house to my left erupts in a wall of flames and I look that way in time to see a few men discarding red gasoline cans before taking off into the night.

"Freeze." Jack Stone bounces in front of us and a dark laugh rumbles through Rob's chest.

"You think you're a hero?" he growls the words out. "If I'm dying tonight, so is she."

In seconds, the area is swarmed with what looks to be every member of the force in the state of Colorado. Guns drawn at screaming people, the house behind us roaring out its own brand of protest.

"Say goodbye to your buddy, Fallon," Rob pants hard in my ear. "It's time for us to fly."

The muscles in his arm cinch, and without putting too much thought into it, I wrap my left leg around his as if it were a pole and land us both to the ground.

He spikes his elbow into my ear in an attempt to pin me down, but I lift my knees to my chest and roll him onto his back as if it were a pro wrestling move.

Jack lands on him, and soon enough he's got Rob's arms cuffed behind his back.

"All for what?" I kick him hard in the ribs. "Power? Money? They cut you in on the take, didn't they?"

"I'm sorry, Fallon," he grunts. "I didn't mean to drag you into this—I didn't want to drag any of you into this."

"Of course not," I say. "If anything went south, you were going to pin it all on your new friends, Malcolm and Patty. Why didn't you just shut them down?"

"I wanted to, but something in me wanted this." He looks up. "Everything I ever thought I wanted was here—money, power, women, and control."

I shake my head. "And instead of arresting them, you made a cash grab, among other things."

A dull laugh rides through him. "You always were the smartest Baxter of the bunch," he grunts and winces.

My heart rattles unnaturally. "Where is she?" I pant as I scan the grounds. "Where is Erin?"

A thin smile rides on Rob's face and I fall to the ground next to him, turn him over onto his back, and shake him.

"Where the hell is my sister?" I riot in his face.

"She goes by Angel." His eyes cinch shut as his chest expands. "She's in the basement."

I glance back at the house just as the flames reach the sky, engulfing the structure completely.