Avenged (Altered #2)(62)

It had to be Mr. Sinclair.

The last she’d heard of him, he’d run from Glory and none of them knew where he was. He must have connected with Jack and Luke.

Kitty’s breathing came in gasps as she reached out to them. “What are you doing?” she gasped.

“I apologize, Miss Laughton. But we’ll be taking that suitcase, please.”

“The suitcase?” What did he want with the suitcase? “I thought you had the drug. Gave it to the Army.”

“I didn’t have this much, nor the instructions to make more.” Parker motioned to Jack, who swept forward, wresting the case from Luke’s hands. “So, yes. The suitcase.”

“Why?”

“This research shouldn’t be a pawn in a war. This is much larger than one political regime against another. This.” He took the suitcase from Jack and patted it. “This is about evolution.”

Evolution. She didn’t like the sound of that. “That research needs to be destroyed.”

“You’d only slow the inevitable, Miss Laughton. Once something is created, one cannot simply un-create it. It is not the human way. There is no stopping this. This is Pandora’s box. This, my dear, is unavoidable.” He bowed slightly at the waist, while Jack turned and walked from her, as if he wasn’t even afraid.

No. They couldn’t do that. She hadn’t saved that research from Fields to have it stolen by them.

She closed her eyes. After a deep breath, she stretched, covering Jack and Sinclair. She ordered them to do what the others were doing. Stop.

Jack obeyed, but Sinclair continued on. When he realized Jack wasn’t following, he turned, placed his fingers on his temples, and white light exploded in her head.

She cried out, falling to the ground, and everyone she’d been holding could move. Her vision cleared as gunfire erupted in the yard. Bodies fell, including two guards, while some of the guards staggered, bleeding. A bullet hit the ground next to her, and rock spit up, striking her face.

She covered her ears as more shots rang out…and Nick fell to the ground. Her chest tightened, squeezing the air from her as if she’d been the one hit.

Ringing exploded in her head. It might be the gunfire, but it sounded like the world grinding to a halt.

They were going to kill them all.

Forcing her gaze from Nick, still writhing on the ground, she tapped her head and reached out to the guards. Stop Fields. Stop Fields. Stop Fields.

She refused to let herself look away. As the contingency of guards slowly turned toward Fields, his eyes widened. He took two steps back. He shoved the guard closest to him away, and the man tumbled to the ground. But he didn’t have time to protect himself from the rest.

Shots rang, and Fields’s body jerked. As he fell in an awkward heap, Kitty expected to feel something. Relief, maybe, or even closure. Instead, she looked on his still body with what felt suspiciously like sadness. Not for him, exactly. For the people whose lives were irreparably different because of him.

Stopping him hadn’t changed any of that.

The guards shook their heads, disoriented, as two more helicopters swept over the ridge and circled to land. As they surfaced from her demand, the men lowered their guns to their sides. Around her, they processed what had happened, what they’d done.

She didn’t care. She was running to Nick.

She skidded on her knees beside him. Seth already knelt on the other side, putting pressure on Nick’s thigh. Nick’s head shook from side to side.

“What happened?”

“He volleyed the first wave of gunfire. The second caught him…” His mouth thinned. “And Blue.”

Kitty glanced to the left, where Blue had removed her jacket and was pressing it to her hand. Her wound didn’t seem life threatening, but that wasn’t the case for Nick.

Beneath Seth’s hand, Nick’s blood dripped out between his fingers. Seth’s thoughts were grim. “I need a tourniquet, Kitty. Put your hands here. Quickly.”

She crawled next to Seth, replacing his hands with hers. Pushing down. The warmth of his blood seeped under her fingers, gagging her, filling her with terror. “Hurry.”

He nodded, ripping his sleeve from his shirt, shredding the fabric. The good thing about Seth? He moved faster than most people. He made a strip of material, wove it under Nick’s thigh, and pulled it tight. He shredded the remainder of the material. “Use this. Press against the wound. As much pressure as you can.”

She did as he asked. Nick mumbled, thrashing from side to side, his hands reaching for his leg.

“Nick.” Her voice shook. “Stay still. Please stay still.”

His eyes opened, briefly, but they were hazed with pain. “Kitty?”

“You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Around them, more military soldiers arrived, Martins’s back-ups, Kitty suspected. Beneath her fingers, warm blood still seeped from Nick’s gunshot wound. It was slowing, though, wasn’t it? Surely it was. As she doubled up the pressure, Seth waved his arm, calling for a medic.

“Kitty?” Nick’s voice was weak. “Kitty, you did it.”

When she looked down into his pain-filled eyes, he looked pale. His lips were blue. He smiled up at her, reaching for her face. He pressed his palm into her cheek. She could barely murmur, “What did I do?”