Vengeful (Villains #2)(64)

Dominic slammed the tablet down on the table. “I gave my flesh and blood and bones to this country. I gave everything I had to this country. I almost died for this country. And I didn’t get any special powers out of it. I wish I had—instead, I got a body full of scrap parts, and a lot of pain, but I’m still here, still doing what I can, because I want to keep people safe. Now, if you don’t want to hire me, that’s your choice. But have the balls to make up a better reason than this . . . sir.”

Dominic sat back, breathless, hoping the outburst had been enough to convince the other man.

The silence stretched out. And then, at last, Stell nodded and said, “We’ll be in touch.”

Dismissed, Dom rose from his chair and left. He went into the men’s room across the hall, and into the safety of a stall, before vomiting up everything in his stomach.





III





THREE WEEKS AGO


EON


BARA smacked his palm on the table and got up.

“Hate to eat and run,” he said, “but I’ve got a mission.”

“No way,” said Holtz, “they cleared you for fieldwork?” He turned on Rios. “What gives? I’ve been petitioning for weeks to get on Containment.”

Bara smoothed his uniform. “It’s because I’m such an asset.”

Rios snorted. “It’s because you’re totally useless here.”

Bara put a hand to his heart, as if wounded, then shot back, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You don’t do fieldwork.”

She met his gaze, her gray eyes flat. “Someone has to make sure the monsters don’t get out.”

Dom was surprised. He’d been there for two years, and witnessed a handful of attempts—an EO managed to put a hole in one of the fiberglass walls, another tore free from restraints during a routine med check—but he’d never heard of an actual escape.

“Has an EO ever gotten out?”

Rios’s mouth twitched at the corner. “People don’t get out of EON, Rusher. Not once we put them here.”

People. Rios was one of the only soldiers who referred to the EOs that way.

“Who’re you hunting?” asked Holtz, who’d clearly resigned himself to living vicariously.

“Some crazy housewife,” said Bara. “Burns holes in shit. Found her husband’s secret apartment, at the Heights.”

Holtz—who had had many girlfriends—shook his head. “Never underestimate an angry woman.”

“Never underestimate a woman,” amended Rios.

Bara shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. Place your bets. Poke your fun. But when she’s rotting in a cell, you’re all buying me drinks.”

MEANWHILE, IN MERIT . . .

JUNE closed her eyes and listened to the rain beat against her black umbrella.

She wished she were in a field somewhere, arms spread wide to catch the thunder, instead of standing on the curb outside the sleek urban high-rise.

She’d been waiting for nigh on ten minutes before someone finally came through the revolving doors, and just her luck, he was all paunch in an ill-fitting suit, complete with five-o’clock shadow and a comb-over.

June sighed. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, she supposed. She started toward the building, brushing past the man at the corner. The barest touch—the kind that goes unnoticed amid the jostle and drip of a rainy day—and she had all she needed. He was on his way and she was on hers. She didn’t bother changing, not until she reached the Heights’ front doors.

An older man sat behind a concierge desk in the lobby. “Forget something, Mr. Gosterly?”

June made a short, gruff sound and muttered, “Always.”

The elevator doors opened, and by the time they closed behind her, the reflection in the polished metal was hers again. Well, not hers. But the one she’d started with that morning. Peasant skirt and a leather jacket rolled to the elbows, a sly smile and hair that fell in loose brown curls. She’d picked it off the subway like a girl shopping the racks. It was one of her favorites.

As the elevator rose, she pulled out her cell and texted Syd.

For a long moment, nothing. And then three dots appeared beside the girl’s name, to show that she was typing.

June watched, restless for an answer.

When it came to Sydney, she’d never been good at waiting.





IV





THREE YEARS AGO


CAPITAL CITY


IT had taken an entire year for June to find them again, and when she did, it was entirely by accident. Almost as if it were fate.

The trouble was, June didn’t believe in fate. At least, she didn’t want to believe in it, because fate meant everything happened for a reason, and there were too many things she wished never had. Besides, it was hard to believe in a higher power or a grand design when you killed people for a living.

But then fate—or luck, or whatever it was—went and handed her Sydney.

A year of looking for the man in black, with no luck, and then, fifteen hundred miles from Dresden, where they’d first crossed paths, June cut through a park on the way to a job and saw the blond girl again.

A year—but it was impossibly, undeniably her. She had been—and seemed to still be—at that age where changes happened overnight. Bodies grew inches, curves—but the girl looked the same. Exactly the same. Same blond bob and ice blue eyes, same narrow build, same giant black dog waiting like a shadow at her side.