Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
She glanced at the other two. L.W. had a gun already out, and he was withdrawing a dagger from his chest holster. Next to him, Shuli had both hands at his hips, resting on the butts of the pair of autoloaders belted around his waist.
“What’s the addy,” Rhamp prompted. “And you’re absolutely not coming with us, so we can fuck around here and argue about common sense, or we can get to work—which was why you called us.”
Cursing under her breath, she muttered, “It’s on Twenty-third and Lincoln. The redbrick, seven-story apartment building. I smelled the thing as I was leaving, like the slayer was in the basement? You’ll see the open staircase as soon as you go into the lobby.”
“What the hell were you doing over there?” her brother asked.
Lyric did her level best to keep her voice, well, level. “Visiting a friend.”
“What friend.” That frown got even deeper. “Are you seeing somebody?”
Linking her arms over her chest, she narrowed her eyes at her twin. “None of your business.”
“It sure as hell is when you call me for help with a fucking slayer.”
Next to her brother, L.W. arched a brow. Shuli, on the other hand, looked away sharply like he didn’t want anything to do with the heat.
“Go home,” Rhamp gritted. “And don’t talk to the dads about this. Maybe you got the scent wrong. There’s so many humans in this part of town, we don’t find them here.”
“I know what I smelled.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Rhamp was muttering to himself as he closed his eyes and dematerialized. As L.W. took off as well, she reached out and snagged Shuli’s arm.
“Hey, did you mean to call me about forty-five minutes ago?”
There wasn’t even a pause. The guy shook his head and stepped back. “Butt dial. Sorry.”
* * *
Qhuinn went back to the Brotherhood’s training center an hour after he’d had First Meal out at his in-laws’ house with Blay. His partner on the schedule for the night was Rhage, and the pair of them re-formed on the plowed lane that dropped down to the steel doors of the facility’s parking garage. As they descended, they lifted a wave at the security cameras set into the concrete side wall.
Off to the right, there was a much smaller steel entry for pedestrians, and the instant they were in range, the dead bolts were sprung—thank you, V. After that, they were in a narrow cement hallway that was a mini version of the center’s interior main artery. As always, cameras lined the ceiling, and so did little pinholes that could be triggered to release a flush of neurotoxins.
Qhuinn wasn’t a pussy, but he was always glad when he got out of the murder-tube.
“You okay, my brother?” Rhage asked from the rear.
“Oh, yeah, just fine.” Considering he was still going to fucking lose his mind between what almost happened to the younger Lyric, and what was definitely happening to the elder Lyric.
They came up to the second door and waited for the thunk! sound of the bolt being thrown. And waited. And… waited.
Qhuinn looked up to the camera over the entry and waved his hand.
As a waft of grape floated over his shoulder, he glanced behind himself. Rhage had put a Tootsie Pop in his mouth and was in the process of tucking the wadded purple wrapper into his leathers.
“You’re not okay,” the brother said around the lollipop. “You know, my Mary always maintains that talking helps—”
“Why aren’t they opening this for us?” Qhuinn glanced up at the perfectly spaced pattern of holes directly above their heads. “It shouldn’t take this long.”
Had communications been cut? A power outage at Four Toys—and then the emergency generators didn’t come on? Was something wrong—
What if someone tripped and fell on the button that discharged the neurotoxin? What if—
He reached forward and pumped the handle. Got nowhere. Shifted his weight back and forth, raised his arm, and peeled back the leather sleeve of his fighting jacket—except, come on, he didn’t have a watch to look at.
Back with the stupid fucking holes—
“Oh, my God,” Rhage said, pointing at him with his lollipop. “You’ve got that thing, don’t you.”
An overactive adrenal system? Yeah, sure. Who didn’t after all these decades in the war—
“Trypophobia.”
Qhuinn refocused on the brother. “What.”
“Fear of holes.” Rhage nodded up at the ceiling. “I mean, you know that there is no way V or any of his people would trigger any of the defensive systems on us. But you keep looking up there like you’re expecting something bad to happen, and you do it every time I’ve been in here with you. Like all the way back to the install—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He trained his stare resolutely on the steel door.
This lasted a nanosecond and his peepers were back at the pinholes.
“Don’t feel bad,” Rhage remarked. “I got arachibutyrophobia.”